All Men are Created Equal
Copied from the sermon notes of Pastor Don Elmore
November 28, 2021
Scripture Reading: Joshua 24:15
When the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, it was a call for the right of statehood rather than individual liberties. Many scores of years later many Americans began reading the affirmation that “all men are created equal” in different ways than the framers intended. When the Continental Congress adopted the historic text drafted by Thomas Jefferson, they did not intend it to mean individual equality. Rather, what they declared was that American colonists, as a people, had the same rights to self-government as other nations. Because they possessed this fundamental right, they could establish new governments within each of the states and collectively assume their “separate and equal station” with other nations. It was only in the decades after the American Revolutionary War that the phrase acquired its compelling reputation as a statement of individual equality.