America turns 250. Have we forgotten what made her free?

As America celebrates her 250th birthday, citizens across our nation will gather beneath fireworks, wave flags, and remember the extraordinary events that gave birth to the United States. Two and a half centuries after the signing of our Declaration of Independence, we still enjoy freedoms that millions of people around the world only dream about.

This national milestone deserves more than a casual acknowledgement. Gratitude, reflection, and an honest appraisal of the principles that made America exceptional are in order.

Celebrating America's Christian heritage does not require blind assertions that all the Founders and our earliest citizens were orthodox Christians. History does not support such claims, though the modern insistence that the majority were deists is demonstrably false. Fifty-two of the 55 signers of the Declaration of Independence were Protestants, along with roughly 75% of the population.

Despite their rejection of a state church, the Founders possessed a deep conviction that Christianity was the necessary garden from which freedom would flourish. The men who established our nation overwhelmingly believed that a Christian foundation would protect broad religious liberty for minority groups.

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