By Jeff Larson – The Back Pew
“Just after the American Revolution, when liberty had been secured, an unreasonable revolt against even the shadow of government raised its ugly head. Resistance to authority, which for the necessary purpose of breaking away from a corrupt and abusive form of government, had now been taken to the extreme.
“One of the sad characteristics of this period was an irresponsible press. Thomas Jefferson said of the press during this time: ‘Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into a polluted vehicle,’ which is to say that even if the truth were told in some newspapers the people would doubt the reporting because it was coming from what many deemed to be a ‘polluted source’ – a source characterized by bias and lies.
“You see, we’ve been here before. I suggest the fundamental error of that period was very much the same as ours today. We have confused liberty with licentiousness. The true nature of freedom is not that we can do anything we want to do, but that we are liberated from within to do what God wants us to do.”
-Rev. Mark Creech, in Back on the Course of True Liberty
