When King John met the Nobles at Runnymead and was forced into signing the Magna Carta it was not the birth of our liberties as Americans but it was the beginning of a process. This is the process where the lesser creatures of the world tried to push back the absolute power of the head honcho. It has been a process of hope. It has known its greatest expression where the gospel has been preached.
(2 Corinthians 3:17 KJV) Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
Sure the nobles were also honchos. The neighborhood peasant did not suddenly get the right to vote. But it was a beginning. As you follow the history of England you see small steps, each one moving individual liberty incrementally forward and forcing the elites to retreat.
The American experiment was a tremendous step forward in the battle. The concept of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” was based in the Christian concept of all being sinners and needing God’s grace. It said that even kings are sinners. It was the kind of revolutionary thought that would have gotten the signers executed if the king could have gotten hold of them.
As Americans we have a total lack of understanding of the inbred belief in a class system that has existed through history and still exists in much of the world. Even the people on the bottom have had an inner belief that some people were just born superior, not because of ability but because of blood. You see it in the caste system of Hinduism. You see it in the ideas of nobility and royalty in Europe. You see it in the Japanese idea that the Emperor is divine. It is the root of racism. But then Paul took the idea of sin and grace and penned these words.
(Colossians 3:11 KJV) Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.
(Galatians 3:28 KJV) There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
Even before that we have the words of Genesis putting the death to gender superiority.
(Genesis 1:27 KJV) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
(Genesis 5:2 KJV) Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
These are revolutionary ideas that have grown out of the teachings of the Bible. It is not about democracy or monarchy. It is about individual standing before God. It is about all being sinners. It is about all needing redemption. It is about each man and woman being created in the image of God. It is about applying that understanding.
Humanity has come a long way, but...
homo unius libri