Faith, freedom: This is the weekend to remember how interconnected they really are here

Easter Sunday. It is a time for renewal of faith, a belief in miracles and spending time thinking about new beginnings and possibilities.

And while we join for worship, share dinner with family and friends and hunt for eggs, there is another connection that should be foremost in our minds and hearts -- one we often forget.

Hundreds of years ago, a little band of Pilgrims left England in search of a place where they could worship without the threat of retribution from a monarchy that believed that there was only one true faith.

They created the fledgling colonies to build a new path, a new life.

Then, later, those settlers decided to create a new country of their own -- an assemblage of settlements united under one system of government, yet guaranteeing the rights of the individual.

They wanted to make sure that those who lived there had the freedom to believe and to worship as they pleased. Yet, they also created a system of government that proudly professed the Christian values they thought were integral to their lives and their new world.

God and faith were as much a hallmark of their beginning as the principles of government they created.

For years, there has been a battle in the U.S. about what those founding fathers meant when they guaranteed a freedom of religion. Some say it was to take church out of the government, while others say that those who drew up those first agreements always planned to have their faith a part of the country they were creating.

But no matter how you stand on that, this kind of weekend should make you think, not just about faith, but about freedom, too.

In a world that has been politically correctly whitewashed, there is the danger of forgetting the principles for which we stand and which are an intimate part of the pledge we make as citizens of this nation.

We have always stood for faith and Christian ideals, and while we do not persecute those who choose to believe differently, we are still a nation based on faith, Christian faith.

So as we mark this holy day, we should remember that it is freedom that allows us to worship our way.

And we should also never forget that protecting that right to believe means remembering where we came from and making sure we know where we are going.

Freedom and faith have always been connected here. It is up to us to make sure we do not lose our way.

Happy Easter to you and your families.

Published in Editorials on April 3, 2010 11:16 PM