Dependent Independence

Old Glory at the Washington Monument
Michael A. Meyer (1985)

          Last night, as I was perusing the musings of fellow Tweeps, I came across a 2011 CBS News survey tweeted by CARA, a social science research center affiliated with my alma mater, Georgetown University. The survey asked American adults: “Do you happen to fly the American flag on special days like the Fourth of July or Flag Day?” To my surprise, the results suggest a connection between religious affiliation and flying the flag. Of those responding “yes,” 71% were Catholic, 66% were Mainline Protestant (whatever that means), 64% were Evangelical Christians (apparently they’re not Mainline Protestants), 61% were other religions, and 55% expressed no religious affiliation. The connection escaped me, so I moved on to other tweets. But by the dawn’s early light, it hit me. The connection between religious affiliation and flying the flag stems from the fact that the United States is founded on dependent independence.

          “So Mike,” you ask, “what’s dependent independence?” Well, in establishing the Thirteen Colonies as independent states by severing ties with the British crown, the Founding Fathers didn’t expect that we would or could go it alone. There’s a reason why the Declaration of Independence invokes God four times:

• Declaring that the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” entitle us to assume our separate and equal station among the powers of the earth;
• Establishing the self-evident truths “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness;”
• “[A]ppealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions;” and
• Firmly relying “on the protection of divine Providence.”

The Founding Fathers realized that our independence would always be dependent on God.

          Generally speaking, the Founding Fathers were educated men steeped in the classics. As such, they would have been well-versed in the sciences, philosophy and theology. They would have been familiar with Plato’s argument that humans can attain transcendent reality by using our reason to detach ourselves from the material world and to develop our ability to focus on transcendent “forms.” The Founding Fathers also would have known how Saint Augustine tempered that philosophical mouthful by arguing that while we can attain unity with transcendent reality (i.e., God), we cannot attain unity with God alone – we need God’s help. The key for Saint Augustine is humilitas – humility. “Augustine recognized, through his own experience, that it wasn’t what he did that brought him to union with God, but rather, it was what God was doing in his life.”[1] Union with transcendent reality, with self-evident truth, with God, comes from self-emptying, from the admission of need, from a declaration of dependence.

          So what’s the link between religious affiliation and flying the flag? Well, those with religious beliefs generally accept that that we’re created by a transcendent God, which means that all that we have and all that we need is provided to us by our Creator. In short, we humbly accept that we can’t go it alone; we need God. We need God for food; we need God for shelter; and yes, we even need God for “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” So when we fly the flag, we humbly acknowledge that our independence is a gift from God and that we cannot achieve or maintain that independence without “the protection of divine Providence.” By flying the flag we acknowledge, as the Founding Fathers did, that the only independence worth fighting for is dependent independence.

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[1] Anthony Ciorra, The History of Christian Spirituality (Now You Know Media, 2012) at disk 1, track 26.