The Book of Galatians offers us a powerful lesson that should resonate with the state of America today. In Galations, Paul addresses a community that had strayed from the core message of faith in Christ, adding human traditions and external requirements that undermined the freedom and unity found in their newly established church.

America today reflects this drift, adding policy upon policy and regulations upon laws, until we have lost sight of our first principles. The Christian principles our nation was founded upon. Paul’s corrective approach was a return to those first principles of freedom in Christ, and that is precisely what we need now in America.

The United States stands at a crossroads. Our governance and political landscape reflect a dramatic drift from the foundation upon which this country was built. The Declaration of Independence boldly declares that all men are endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These rights belong to individuals, are given by God, and not a gift from the state. The Constitution was designed to protect these liberties, not to replace them with promises from government and not replace our Creator with the government.

But modern progressivism, or socialism, influenced and evidenced by our growing reliance on state intervention, is adding a growing list of state-guaranteed rights such as healthcare, education, childcare, minimum wage all of which undermine the very freedoms we were meant to protect.

We must return to the simple constitutional republic the Framers designed, putting individual liberty over collective demands and honoring limited government instead of mob rule. The Framers did not create a pure democracy, they created a constitutional republic. Authority, as John Adams explained, is not left to the will of the majority but is bound by the rule of law. This guarantees that the rights of individuals are not subject to the whims of the crowd. The Declaration’s affirmation that individual rights come from The Creator underscores that these rights are not human concessions. They are inherent, and they must be preserved.

This understanding resonates in Paul’s message to the Galatians, where he insists that the Gospel sets us free. The Framers likewise meant for the federal government to be a limited institution, setting us free and protecting liberty instead of dictating outcomes; trusting individuals, families, and communities to make their own faithful decisions.

Over time, however, we have gone down a path of greater state control, following the Galatians’ poor example by adding policy upon policy, and law upon law, until we lose the simplicity of faithful freedom. Modern progressives view universal healthcare, free education, subsidized childcare, and minimum wage legislation as moral obligations enforced by government and funded by the collective. These bureaucratic policy choices undermine financial independence and diminish the role of a faithful community and civic institutions. This expansion reflects a growing reliance on state intervention a path toward a socialist regime where high taxes enable extensive redistribution – not only of wealth, but of services – at the expense of opportunity and independence.

As in Galatians, adding conditions, policies and regulations erodes unity and dilutes the purity of the original freedom message. This growing state dependency, fostered by government programs, fuels political polarization and weakens self-reliance, a key principle upon which this country was founded.

This Government expansion (some say explosion) also signals a dramatic shift in the range of policy options considered acceptable. This is what’s called the Overton Window shift. The Framers’ view kept the federal government small and limited its role to preserving liberty. Now the policy window includes extensive state intervention and control, reflecting a growing view that collective needs come before individual rights. This disregards the principle that our freedoms come from our Creator and not from the state.

This Overton window shift paves the way toward pure democratic socialism, a form of majority rule that disregards the rights of individuals. The Framers constructed a constitutional republic with checks and balances; the Electoral College, the Senate, and the Bill of Rights; precisely to avoid this danger. Modern calls for direct democratic measures undermine those safeguards and enable the majority to dictate policy, often at the expense of those who wish to live free from government interference.

This is evident in disputes over voting, minimum wage legislation, or regulations on protest activity, where the majority’s view prevails over the rights of individuals. The result is a further erosion of the constitutional republic’s purpose, which is to protect individuals from the tyranny of the majority, not to enable the majority to impose its will.

To reclaim the country’s foundation, we must return to first principles; honoring individual God given liberty as the highest priority, retaining a limited government, and preserving the constitution as the supreme guide for policy. This means turning away from state-guaranteed entitlements and trusting God’s people, families, and communities to care for their own. As Paul encouraged the Galatians to stand firm in their freedom, we must do the same today.

The United States was designed as a constitutional republic to protect the rights of individuals, not to serve as a vehicle for collective demands or a tool for mob rule. The Galatians’ departure from Paul’s teachings offers a powerful warning; adding policy upon policy dilutes the purity of the “gospel of freedom” much as the Galatians addition of Jewish rules diluted the purity of Pauls Gospel of Christ. We must learn from Paul’s message. We must return to the simple republic that the Framers intended; a country where the individual stands free, as God intended, and the government merely serves as a guardian of those freedoms, not the master.

Originally published on Substack: https://kevinjmccabe.substack.com/p/is-america-still-free