Words matter. Definitions matter. Christians, of all people, should understand how much words and definitions, especially today, are being used to either affirm or deny reality, and even shape our view of reality.

George Orwell, of course, understood the power of words. In fact, he so masterfully captured the notion in his novel 1984, that today the intentional misuse of words is named after him: “Orwellian.” Think of abortion, for example: Is “abortion” an issue of “reproductive rights” or is it the “taking of an innocent life”?

Not every new use of words is intentional malpractice, of course. Words often change over time as our culture changes. Sometimes words will change because the culture has changed. Sometimes culture changes because words have changed.

Either way, imagine how much a word or a phrase might have changed over 250 years.

The word “happiness,” for example, is part of the most memorable line in the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Anyone who understands just how much the word “happiness” has changed, can also understand why the American experiment seems to be coming apart at the seams these days.

Dictionary.com offers a common definition of “happiness”: “pleasure; contentment; joy.”

In an age where radical individual autonomy and disordered passions are combined with nearly unlimited technological and financial resources, an unalienable right to pursue whatever make us “happy” in that sense is basically a downward spiral into the moral abyss.  What’s there to stop us from intoxicating ourselves into mindless distractions, eliminating consequences of our behavior – like unborn babies – that interfere with our freedom, or even ending our own lives when we think we can no longer be happy?

But what if I told you the founding fathers had a different definition of happiness? That’s the case Carli Conklin makes in her new book, The Pursuit of Happiness in the Founding Era: An Intellectual History.

In the eighteenth century, happiness “refer[red] to man’s ability to know the law of nature,” Conklin says, “and … to choose to pursue a life of virtue or, in other words, a life lived in harmony with those natural law principles.”

This is exactly what Chuck Colson said back in 2010:

Our founding fathers understood the pursuit of happiness to mean the pursuit of a virtuous life. Happiness comes from a life well-lived, a life rooted in truth that orders our desires and pleasure. That is what every man and woman has an inalienable right to pursue.

Over at Public Discourse, Justin Dwyer adds an important point on the pursuit of happiness and The Declaration of Independence: that both are incomprehensible outside of the Declaration’s theological framework.

“Yes,” Dwyer says, “Jefferson and some of the principal Founders . . . held unorthodox religious beliefs. Nonetheless, all of these men publicly and privately affirmed a shared natural theology: that there is a Creator who has imbued the world with discernible natural laws, physical and moral, and who governs the affairs of men with his sustaining and intervening providence.”

I know this is intellectual heavy lifting for a day set aside for parades, cookouts, and fireworks. But the concept of true happiness is crucial not only for our nation, but also for the body of Christ.

In that same 2010 commentary, Chuck lamented a Barna survey that revealed “more than half of evangelicals agreed with the statement: ‘The purpose of life is enjoyment and personal fulfillment.’”

“Come on!” Chuck said. “If the last 50 years taught us anything, it’s that consumerism and . . . the pursuit of unbridled pleasure . . . do not lead to happiness, but instead to personal and societal misery… The goal is not pleasure; it is righteous living, decency, honor, doing good—in short, living a virtuous life.”

Amen. And Happy 4th of July.