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“But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
John 3:21
Reflect
Freedom is a wonderful, universal thing. Every person — in fact, every creature — yearns to be free. And the lack of freedom — oppression — tends to eventually yield universal results. Oppressed people will eventually push back, often violently.
In this country, we just celebrated our famed “pushback” on the 4th of July. That day formalized what had already started — a revolution by the American colonies against the British crown. But the fighting wasn’t really the start of the struggle. Part of the colonists’ yearning for freedom was fueled by what they had heard in the pews of their churches. The First Great Awakening had already taught many colonists to think seriously about conscience, liberty and authority, and many Revolutionary-era pastors later gave strong rhetorical support for independence from their pulpits. The British came to call such clergy “the black-robed regiment,” a phrase that reflected how seriously they viewed the influence of ministers upon the American cause.
After the Revolution, the Church continued to thrive in the newly formed United States of America. While there was no formal national denomination, there was a strong embracing of religion, and in particular, Christianity. Even the Church of England’s descendant in this country — the Episcopal Church — moved forward without penalty from the government or the people. The American Revolution was not sinless, and the new nation was far from perfect. But Christianity remained woven into the moral imagination of the country.
Contrast this with the French Revolution, the beginning of which is celebrated today on Bastille Day. In 1789, an angry mob stormed the Bastille, a fortress and prison that had become a powerful symbol of royal authority, and the event helped spur a revolution that lasted for 10 years. While the French were clearly influenced by elements of the American Revolution, which had ended just a few years before, they did not share the same religious foundation. Instead of grounding liberty in the teachings of Scripture, revolutionary France increasingly tried to push Christianity out of public life. Many clergy were pressured to renounce their vows or submit to the revolutionary state, and revolutionary leaders eventually instituted the state religion of “The Cult of Reason,” which was later followed by “The Cult of the Supreme Being.”
The result was literally a bloody mess. More than 16,000 people were executed during the French Reign of Terror, and at least another 10,000 died in prison or without trial. While the Tree of Liberty was a symbol of the American Revolution, for many people the item most closely associated with the French Revolution is the guillotine. In the absence of God, even noble words like liberty, equality and fraternity can be twisted into something dark. The French did not simply replace one despot with freedom. For a season, they replaced one despot with something that was, in many ways, worse.
OK, so this is a lot of depressing history. How does it apply to us today? For the first time in Gallup’s polling history, fewer than half of American adults belong to a church, synagogue or mosque, and regular religious engagement remains at historically low levels. The principles of God aren’t having a deep effect on our culture, so we’re creeping ever closer to a society where godly values — or even common decency — are not practiced or appreciated. It’s up to us — each of us individually and together — to start moving that needle back in the other direction.
Today you will likely see the evidence of the encroaching darkness. We see it in anger that explodes over nothing. We see it in cruelty that passes for entertainment. We see it in language that degrades instead of heals. We see it in violence, dishonesty, contempt and the casual celebration of whatever God calls sin. The list is too long, and the list of solutions is very short. It is simply the love of Christ.
In John 3:19, Jesus tells us, “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” But two verses later, Jesus gives us the antidote: “But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
Today, give thanks to the Lord for the freedom He has given you, and for the deeper freedom that comes through faith in Christ. Also, ask Him for opportunities to be His light in a dark world. If each of us carries that light daily, eventually we will see the love of God once again begin to penetrate our world more fully.
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Reflection copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt.
Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
