Pastor Jason McKnight: Sustaining our Freedoms in One Easy Step
Os Guinness writes in A Free People’s Suicide that there are three phases of freedom in a country: The winning of freedom , the ordering of it, and the sustaining of it.
As we approach July 4, 2026, we are ready to celebrate the first phase: Winning Freedom. That Declaration of Independence is a marvelous document of universal truth in soaring rhetoric. It’s also a detailed account of the “abuses and usurpations” of liberty that the colonists were subjected to.
They won their freedom—in their hearts and minds in July 1776, and on the battlefield by Yorktown 1781. Now, to the second phase, the ordering of freedom. There are a thousand ways for tyranny to rear its ugly head in a nation. The Founders knew they needed to set up a governing system for these United States that would enhance freedom within their borders: The US Constitution (1787) and Bill of Rights (1789) are the Founders’ efforts to bring an order that would enhance the freedom of the people.
Government’s role is clearly limited, individuals are clearly the prime focus. I’d say they did a pretty good job of designing and enacting limited government to be a servant of the public good, enhancing the God-given rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, among all the others.
I say “pretty good job” because the US Constitution has stood for almost a quarter of a millennium, and held through various troubles, including a Civil War. That’s a durable skeleton, framed from how the world really works. It allowed for the repudiation of slavery—the amendment process allowed for the undoing of the several blind spots in the initial version (most famously, the census that counted slaves as just 3/5s of a person).
That it took 80 years into the new nation to undo slavery will always grieve our hearts. Moreover the terrible treatment of Black citizens for the century following the Civil War also grieves us. These are not the fault of the Constitution, but of the hardness of our hearts. As Solzhenitsyn rightly noted, the line dividing good from evil goes through every heart.
The fact is that for over 200 years this Constitution has led to the strongest economy, the greatest military power, the most freedom enjoyed by the most people, rectifying some severe wrongs, the greatest upward mobility. This country really is a beacon for the world, a land of opportunity. That’s not a bad record of “ordering of freedom”.
Finally, how do we sustain freedom? Os Guiness argues that virtue is the only way for a people to continue in freedom for long. Virtue is an inner training to do good and right. An inner prompting to adhere to a higher standard. An inner drive to lead a life of truth, beauty and goodness.
The Seven Virtues, in a classical sense, are temperance, justice, prudence, fortitude, faith, hope, charity. None of these can be coerced or imposed from the outside; they are internally motivated if truly lived.
Only a virtuous people can truly be free. Why? Because to live in society together, each person must be governed by a universal set of standards. Either murder is allowed or not. Either integrity is the ideal or deception is OK. We all have to agree.
Virtue engenders internally motivated adherence to a shared set of values, such that external laws, regulation & coercion are minimized. Virtue allows for supermarkets: display the products, fill your shopping cart, and do not shoplift. Virtue allows for front lawns & front porches, not front walled yards; travel in many former Soviet bloc countries, and you have walls lining the streets with gates into your own safe yard. Virtue allows for honor systems throughout our culture.
To live with limited government means we have to govern ourselves. Self-regulation versus government regulation. To sustain freedom requires a virtuous population. The Virtues must be trained and taught, for we are not born with them (quite the opposite).
How best to impart them? Well, here is the rationale for strong Christian faith widely practiced. The virtues find their best expression in the person and character of Jesus Christ. There was no more virtuous human in history. And Christianity is self-consciously a way of life that imitates its founder: “be like Christ” “grow in Christlikeness” “entrust yourself to Christ not just for eternity but for every situation” “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.”
Jesus is the most free person ever, because he lived the most virtuous character. In fact, he also lived “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.” This list is called the Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22), and it’s even better than the Seven Virtues. Who wouldn’t love to live in a home, community, and nation where these nine attributes are shared widely and practiced willingly?
Freedom. Virtue. Faith. Hand-in-hand. Guiness calls it the “golden triangle of freedom”—freedom requires virtue; Virtue requires faith; Faith requires freedom. And on and on this golden triangle turns.
As we give thanks for the 250 years of Freedom, let us recall Virtue’s role in sustaining that freedom, and let us long for the renewal of the Faith that engenders the virtue we need to enjoy the freedoms we have. As James Madison said, “Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as the abuses of power.”
