Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

This is prob­a­bly the most famous line in the United States Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence, listed under those “unalien­able rights”.

Every time I hear those words, I cringe, because what I know as real life, real lib­erty, and real hap­pi­ness is not what those writ­ers thought of when writ­ing this doc­u­ment. They thought:

• Life = phys­i­cal existence
• Lib­erty = social/political freedom
• Hap­pi­ness = accu­mu­la­tion of wealth

If they knew Jesus well, they would have defined it some­thing like:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are cre­ated equal, that they are endowed, by their Cre­ator, with cer­tain unalien­able Rights, that among these are Life in Christ, Lib­erty from the works of the devil, (namely sin, ill­ness and death) and the pur­suit of Hap­pi­ness found only in union with and in Him.