Minister Farrakhan was the featured speaker at a rally in the “cradle of liberty,” Philadelphia, on July 4th, 1996. For the past 66 years, this date has taken on a dual importance in the study of our history here in the Western Hemisphere. The American colonists declared their independence from Britain on July 4, 1776, and God, Himself, declared our independence on July 4, 1930.

At first glance, it appears that the Muslims are observing a religious holiday on that day, while the general population is observing a secular holiday. Not so!

Independence Day has simply followed the path of distortion taken by Christmas, which was projected as a celebration of the birth of Jesus, only to have the starring role usurped by a nonexistent Dutch figure named “Knickerbocker” (St. Nick), and Easter, which began as a commemoration of Jesus’ crucifixion and wound up being a promotional gimmick for the Easter Bunny.

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The colonists’ chief claim to independence was that it was a God-given right. Thomas Jefferson, the chief architect of the Declaration of Independence, insisted that freedom was a status declared by “Nature and Nature’s God.”

It was, in fact, while diligently studying the Bible that Jefferson concluded that freedom was the natural state of human beings, but that there were always unscrupulous persons who saw their way clear to profit off the subjugation of the masses of people. He began to recognize principal characters in the Bible–and especially Jesus–as divinely missioned liberators. He also recognized similarities in the types of societies and governments which each liberator had to challenge.

The thing that caused Jefferson to initiate this intensive study of imperial domination in a religious framework was that he noticed that all the rulers and governments in northern Europe, from which they were fleeing, were called, and claimed to be, “Christian.” When he embarked on a course of study of Jesus’ life and works, he concluded that Jesus was crucified for opposing the same system of rulership which were now calling themselves “Christian.”

According to his own writings, Jefferson did not seek answers in “the Old Testament Bible of the Jews,” nor in the works of Paul. He concentrated on the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The truths which he uncovered in these four books, he described in a letter to John Adams as being “as easily distinguished as diamonds in a dung-hill.”

He diligently cut and pasted these scriptures, side by side, from Greek, Latin, French and English Bibles. The resultant work, called “The Jefferson Bible,” was kept secret and not made public until 1902. The original is in the National Museum of Natural History, and in 1904, Congress directed the Government Printing Office to print 9,000 copies for their use: 3,000 for the Senators and 6,000 for the Representatives.

Based on his study of Jesus’ life, as portrayed by the Four Gospels, Jefferson wrote in a letter to a friend named Charles Thomson in 1816, “I am a real Christian.”

(Reprinted from The Final Call Volume 15, Number 25—July 16, 2003.)