The Source of Our Rights

In various countries with totalitarian leadership, the founders’ embalmed bodies are displayed under glass for people to venerate. That’s true of Vladimir Lenin in the Soviet Union, Mao Zedong in Communist China, Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il in North Korea, and Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam. If you go to our nation’s capital, you will not see an embalmed body of George Washington or any other founder under glass. What you will see displayed under glass is our founding document — the Declaration of Independence. This document expresses the American creed and the source of our rights.

According to the Declaration of Independence, our freedom and equality are based on “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.” That reverence for nature’s God is the basis of true equality and the “unalienable rights” our founders were concerned about. As John Adams said, we are all “made by the same God.” According to a recent survey, only 63% of Americans today hold that view.

Societies that believe their rights come from the government, not from God, place no limits on what the government can do. If our rights are granted by the government rather than by our Creator, the government can take them away. A society that does not recognize that all human beings, including government officials, are sinful ends up granting those sinful leaders the absolute power of tyrants.

Our founders realized that humans are fallible and corruptible, but according to a recent survey, only 48% of Americans today agree that all humans are fallible or sinful. Failure to believe in a Creator who created us and is the source of our rights, not the government, leads to the loss of those rights and the freedom that goes with them.

As America celebrates 250 years of existence, we need to return to faith in a Creator. We need to understand that all humans are sinners and that we can only be redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Since God is the source of our rights, not the government, the government cannot take them away. We must continue to have the freedom to worship God and the desire to do so. That may not be a popular view in American society today, but it is what our nation was founded on. Moreover, it is the only thing that can keep our country free and prosperous for another 250 years.

— Roland Earnst © 2026