There is only one way to out of this moral crisis, and it’s by returning to the concept of a unitary right as an objective divine standard in which all society must conform. The question we are confronted with today is not “what should we do?” Rather it is, “Do we have the moral courage to do it?”

During the 2020 campaign candidate Joe Biden famously stumbled over the Declaration of Independence saying “We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women are created…by the…you know…you know the thing…”

Apparently, Mr. Biden didn’t know the thing. More disturbingly, a large swath of the American public don’t “know the thing” either.

The thing that Mr. Biden was referring to was, of course, the endowment of rights bestowed on men by their Creator including, but not limited to, Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

This section of the Declaration is one of the most famous and frequently quoted portions of the historic document. Yet, there is something in this text that has escaped the attention of almost everyone except perhaps a few knowledgeable political philosophers and historians.

So, as it turns out, hardly anyone actually “knows the thing.”

As the fourth century church father, Basil the Great, pointed out in De Spiritu Sancto, every phrase, every word, and every syllable is important when trying to understand a text. To take his argument one step further we can say that every letter is important.

Oliver O’Donovan reminds us of Edward Gibbon’s somewhat exaggerated claim that Christianity was once divided over a single letter. That history is repeating itself only this time with a different letter from the English alphabet. Not since the Christological debates of the fourth century has one letter had so much power to change the course of human events. In the fourth century it was the Greek iota that split the church. In our time it is the letter “s” at the end of the word rights.

While the split is largely between academicians at this point, my concern is for the practical and ethical outworking of O’Donovan’s perspective as he interacts and takes issue with the work of Nicholas Wolterstorff. This essay is meant to be an accurate summary and application of O’Donovan’s position which I take to be persuasive.

The Declaration speaks of rights as a plural and inherent concept grounded in the individual person. The ancients, however, nearly always spoke of right in the singular. Translators have often missed this and translated Hebrew and Greek texts in the plural instead of the singular when the equivalent word for right is carried over into English as it is in Proverbs 8:8-9 and Jeremiah 5:28. The shift begins in the twelfth century and gradually morphs until it reaches its apex in the revolutionary literature of the eighteenth century such as the American Declaration of Independence.

Since the idea of rights conceived in the Declaration are inherent in each person then the practical result is a multiplicity of human rights that can be expanded indefinitely. There are now potentially as many rights as there are people. This conception makes rights synonymous with justice.

The problem arises when these rights must be enforced and defended by using the apparatus of the state. This is precisely where the woke western world finds itself at present, and all political, economic, and linguistic means are being used to coerce people, cultures, and entire states to comply. The message is simple: comply or be canceled. This is no small matter when armies are currently being mobilized to cancel countries that refuse to conform.

This is a seismic shift from the ancient concept of a unitary right as an objective divine standard embedded in the cosmos. In this way of thinking, as John Carlson explains, justice is the measure of society’s realization of this divine order established by God. Moreover, this unitary right cannot be severed from righteousness itself. In the Bible, human rights are always conferred by God in the context of the covenant community. Hence, the right that we have is to cultivate virtue and conform to the divine standard. Whatever does not conform to the divine standard cannot be a right. It can only be wrong.

In the end, these are two different conceptual histories of justice. As O’Donovan warned, “The moment will come when different readings of the world cash out in different practical determinations.” There is much at stake as we can already see in the western world.

Ironically, many conservatives in America nostalgically think that all we need to do is return to the principles of our founding documents to save our country. Until, and unless, we are willing and able to part with the single letter that is causing all the mischief we are still going to be faced with such things as LBGTQ+ rights, drag queen hour at elementary schools, the grooming of young school children, and the mutilation of a 5-year old’s genitalia.

There is only one way to out of this moral crisis, and it’s by returning to the concept of a unitary right as an objective divine standard in which all society must conform. The question we are confronted with today is not “what should we do?” Rather it is, “Do we have the moral courage to do it?”

Earlier this year Governor DeSantis and the Florida legislature were applauded by some, and attacked by many, when they banned classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for children ages 5-9. I commend the governor and the legislature for protecting kindergarteners through third-graders, but what about fourth, fifth, and sixth graders, and so on. This is essentially putting a band-aid on a cancer. Or to put it another way, it’s treating the symptom not the cause.

The cause is the single letter “s.” And as Jesus said about eyes and hands that cause you to sin, “It is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.”

As for that mischievous letter “s,” it’s past time to pluck it out, and cut it off.

Jim Fitzgerald is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and a missionary in the Middle East and North Africa.