by Kirk Walden, Advancement Specialist

At the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the wise Ben Franklin reportedly told his colleagues as he penned his signature, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

The men who adopted the Declaration on July 4, 1776 and would later sign it were to be sure, a diverse bunch, certainly in faith. They were Catholic, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Episcopalians; there were even Biblical Unitarians (not to be confused with today’s universalists) such as John Adams, who would later become president of the American Bible Society.

These signers likely had great discussions regarding faith in their moments away from Independence Hall; but when it came to forming a new nation, they were united.

Franklin’s reported words were a reminder that while the signers had differences regarding what type of government they thought best for the fledgling nation, and even differences in how (or whether) they worshipped, it was vital that they stick together for the sake of a new confederation of states.

For if they lost their independence by not “hanging together,” all would surely be hanged for treason.

While we in the pregnancy help community are not forming a country, and at least at this moment it doesn’t look like we will be jailed or hanged for our beliefs (which, we remember, is all too common for some of our brothers and sisters in other countries), there are parallels between we and our founders.

We face giant, well-funded opposition in the abortion industry, political leaders and the media. Our founders faced the most powerful nation on earth.

We started as a rag-tag bunch when we consider our beginnings and those first meetings in homes and around kitchen tables, many years ago. Our founders could not even fund their own military properly.

And the most striking parallel? We are a diverse bunch. We are wealthy and blue collar, we are educated and we are getting an education every day in the school of hard knocks, we are Catholic and we are Protestant, we are young and we are, shall we say, seasoned.

But as a community, we hang together. We’re not always perfect, but neither were our founding fathers. They had their moments of division, but they came back and united once again. So do we.

As we remember this Independence Day, we remember our founders who hung together. As we go forward in the revolution for life, we will hang together as well.