Episode Clips
Three clips from Episode 60 — share, embed, or watch below.
The Power of Freedom
“They heard you can build something here, you can be something here. That does not happen in nations without promise.”
Celebrating Freedom's Fragile Legacy
“Everybody celebrating this week, celebrate with your whole chest, not blindly, not ignorantly, but with the knowledge that freedom is rare.”
Reclaiming Frederick Douglass
“I am reclaiming Frederick Douglass today.”
Quote Card
Episode Blog
250 Years and Still Fighting Over God: Faith, Freedom, and the Soul of America at 250
America turns 250 this year. And the argument we keep having — over who gets to celebrate, over what the founding meant, over whether the promise was ever real — is not new. It is older than the republic itself.
Frederick Douglass stood before an audience in Rochester, New York on July 5, 1852 and made the most demanding argument for American ideals that anyone has ever put into words. He did not say the founding documents were lies. He said America needed to live up to them. He called the Constitution a “glorious liberty document.” He was a man who had been enslaved — and his primary argument was that the American ideal was real, that it demanded fulfillment, and that those who wrote it were accountable to every word.
I am reclaiming Frederick Douglass today. The people who invoke him now are often making the opposite argument. They use him to say America is broken at its foundation. That is not what he said.
People still risk their lives to get to this country. They cross deserts and board overcrowded boats and leave everyone they know because they heard something — that you can build something here, that you can be something here. That does not happen in nations without promise. That promise is still real at 250.
Celebrate with your whole chest. Not blindly. Not as if the country has never gotten it wrong. But with the full knowledge of what freedom costs and how rare it actually is. Most people who have ever lived on this earth never had what you are holding this week.
That is worth understanding. And it is worth defending.
Watch the full episode at marclittleshow.com.
Pastor Marc Little is a pastor, attorney, and political commentator. He hosts The Marc Little Show — Faith, Law and Politics — and serves as chairman of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE). His book, The Prodigal Republican: Faith and Politics, is available through WestBow Press.