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The idea advanced by Martin Luther that any man could communicate directly with his Creator on equal access basis with any other man without the intercession of the church, an institution which had sanctified the medieval secular hierarchy over men, was indispensable to the Declaration of Independence.

What a bunch of manure. There is some serious self-importance that gets promulgated in the protestant ranks.

"The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; it is right [to do so].... There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man."

-- G.K. Chesterton (a Roman Catholic)

Let me put it this way for you: the medieval church sanctified and apologized for a governing system we call feudalism which puts God on top and the King or the Pope (they battled incessantly for the honor) as a divinely ordained and therefore unchallengeable, then the nobility and finally the peasantry.

Under this arrangement there was no communication between man and God except by way of intercession of the church. Until the divine right of kings was shattered there was no hope of an expression of all men being created equal. That medieval epistemology could not be shattered so long as the will of God was exclusively determined by the clergy and the secular authority was not only endorsed but sanctified by the clergy.

The 95 thesis began the process of unraveling all of that and initiated a re-knitting, new understanding of the relationship between man and God, man and sovereign and man and man which ultimately led to a new epistemology so eloquently and economically described in the Declaration of Independence.

One only needs to compare North America to South America to see the fruits of Protestantism versus Catholicism, once it spread to the New World. It’s not a theoretical exercise, the experiment was already performed and we can all see the results.

The idea advanced by Martin Luther that any man could communicate directly with his Creator on equal access basis with any other man without the intercession of the church, an institution which had sanctified the medieval secular hierarchy over men, was indispensable to the Declaration of Independence.

It's exactly what Scripture teaches.

We have ONE mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ.

We can come BOLDLY into His presence because of that.

God did not send Jesus to die for us so that we could be bound by yet another religious system that puts men under MORE bondage than the last one.

Jesus told people to follow HIM. Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden. Jesus personally makes the invitation to individuals to come to Him themselves.