Boston-based Bishop Gayle Harris sees it this way: "As I exercise my citizenship within this country, I do so in the belief that history has given to this nation a unique opportunity to explore and interpret what it is to be free as people. Liberty is not just the ability to live in the pursuit of happiness; it carries the mandate to strive for the same with and for others. None of us can be truly free, nor be grounded in liberty, if all are not. The power of freedom demands its extension ... Freedom demands the best for us and the best from us." (please see full commentary below).

As the nation begins this year's observance of Independence Day, the Episcopal News Service asked clergy now serving three historic congregations to offer their perspectives on current dimensions of freedom, ministry and national affairs. Offering comment are:

• The Rev. Timothy B. Safford, rector of the 309-year-old Christ Church, Philadelphia;
• The Rev. Stephen T. Ayres, vicar of Boston's 281-year-old Old North Church;
• The Rt. Rev. Gayle E. Harris, bishop suffragan of Diocese of Massachusetts;
• The Very Rev. Mary L. Douglas, associate rector of the 289-year-old Bruton Parish Church, Williamsburg, Virginia.

Not far from Bruton Parish, the Episcopal Church traces its national roots to 1607 in the Jamestown Colony, where Episcopalians are planning the 2007 celebration of the 400th anniversary of the church's ministry in this country.

The Jamestown ministry followed the first Anglican service in the New World, for which Sir Francis Drake and his Golden Hinde shipmates gathered in prayer on the shore of San Francisco Bay near the Golden Gate, a few days after landing there on June 21, 1579. The prayers were led by Anglican clergyman Francis Fletcher, the ship's chaplain, and the rites went down in history as the first Protestant service in North America -- held not in New England but in territory that is today California.

- - -

-- From the Rev. Timothy B. Safford, 19th rector, Christ Church, Philadelphia

(For more on the history of Christ Church, where worshippers included Benjamin Franklin and Martha and George Washington, visit http://www.christchurchphila.org/. Located near Philadelphia's Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence was adopted July 4, 1776, Christ Church was the site of the 1789 Constitutional Convention of the Episcopal Church and the seat of its first Presiding Bishop, William White.)  

In our Prayer Book, July 4 is a major feast, reminding us that this is not simply a secular holiday, but primarily a religious one. It is also a peculiarly American holy day, as it has no precedent or reference to Europe or the Holy Land. It is our very own, and we should celebrate it mightily, I'd say with resources right behind what we put in Easter, Christmas and Pentecost.

Most Episcopalians don't know what happened in Christ Church Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. The rector, the Rev. Jacob Duche, proposed to the vestry a resolution stating that no longer would the King, nor his family, be prayed for in divine worship. The resolution passed unanimously, and then Duche took the church's prayer book and altered it with his quill pen, crossing out the name of King George, and writing in its place, "the people of these United States."

Not only was it an act of treason that led to Duche's arrest by the British, it was the beginning of the Episcopal Church in America. It was the nascent church in America's Declaration of Independence from the crown and the Bishop of London. It was Pentecost again, in a different place, yet a birth of a church nonetheless.

The Rev. William White, who would be the architect of the polity of the Episcopal Church a decade later, who would be our first substantial Presiding Bishop for three decades (all the while remaining rector of Christ Church), was Duche's assistant minister on that fateful July 4.  No doubt he was behind the first Collects for the Fourth of July, still in our Prayer Book. In 1785, the first convention of the emerging Episcopal Church passed a resolution, "That the said form of prayer be used in this Church, on the fourth of July, for ever."

That prayer reads, in part, "Lord God Almighty, in whose name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us..., grant that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace," reminds us of our duty to beseech God's direction in the affairs of our nation. On July 4, we must remember from whence our liberty comes -- not from government, but from Christ. And on the 4th of July we remember that Christ's liberty demands we order our society to God's justice and peace.

So we have a great service at Christ Church in Philadelphia on July 4 -- not so much a patriotic service, but one of celebrating and beseeching God's providence.

And, we remember Jacob Duche, William White, that brave vestry, and the seven signers of the Declaration of Independence who are buried in our midst, and we give thanks for their vision, faith and courage.

And we pray to get some of that vision, faith and courage for our selves. How we need it!

- - -

-- From the Rev. Steven T. Ayres, vicar, Old North Church, Boston

(For more on the history of Old North Church -- where two lanterns hung in the steeple on April 18, 1775, sent Paul Revere on his famous midnight ride to Lexington and Concord to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock that British troops were arriving by sea -- visit http://www.oldnorth.com/.)

The enduring fame of Old North Church as a symbol of freedom derives from a fleeting moment on April 18, 1775. On that night at the behest of Paul Revere, the church sexton, Robert Newman, climbed the steeple and briefly hung the two lanterns, touching off the War for Independence. Eighty-five years later, on the eve of the Civil War, poet and abolitionist Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized that event in the poem, "Paul Revere's Ride."

Each year, the Old North Church welcomes about 600,000 visitors who come to learn about the birth of freedom. We stress the risks taken by Revere, Newman and their compatriots to win our freedom. We remind people of the connection Longfellow made between freeing ourselves from external oppression and freeing ourselves from internal oppression.

As vicar, I speak with thousands of visitors from every corner of the nation and every political perspective. I am impressed by the breadth of our love of freedom, but I am concerned by the lack of depth in our patriotism. We need to know much more about our history and about the history of peoples around the world. We need to be more willing, as were our founders, to sacrifice individual interests for the sake of the community.

The Old North Church continues to make history. The church windows are being restored to their colonial appearance, funded in part by a matching grant from the federal Save America's Treasures program. The federal grant, announced in May of 2003, generated significant debate as the Bush Administration reversed a policy prohibiting preservation grants to active religious institutions. Some, fearing the erosion of the separation of church and state, threatened legal action, but discovered on closer examination that the Old North would not make a good test case. The grant was actually made to the Old North Foundation, a secular non-profit affiliated with the church. The church is part of the Boston National Historic Park and opens its doors free of charge to about 600,000 visitors annually.

-  -  -

-- From the Rt. Rev. Gayle E. Harris, bishop suffragan, Diocese of Massachusetts

(Bishop Harris, who shares in oversight of Old North Church in her capacity as a bishop and as a member of the board of directors of the Old North Foundation, will celebrate a Eucharist in Old North Church at 11 a.m. on Sunday, July 25, for delegates to the Democratic National Convention.)

I define and know freedom through my identity as a child of God. As a creature created in God's own image, I am free because of the realization of my being the object of God's love and liberating forgiveness, along with the rest of humanity. All are my sisters and brothers by the loving and creating power of God. Embracing life in that context, I am free from any narrow sense of loyalty that would prevent me from embracing the world as God's arena for justice.

As a person of faith and in the ministry of bishop, the freedom I enjoy and hold dear calls me to engage the world which is constantly challenged by political and economic forces that oppress and exploit creation. Freedom is to be deployed as an instrument of God's justice, which is not bounded by notions of fairness. Justice contains, and is empowered by, compassion and mercy. As Psalm 85:10 states, in God "mercy and truth have met together, justice and peace have kissed each other."

As I exercise my citizenship within this country, I do so in the belief that history has given to this nation a unique opportunity to explore and interpret what it is to be free as people. Liberty is not just the ability to live in the pursuit of happiness; it carries the mandate to strive for the same with and for others. None of us can be truly free, nor be grounded in liberty, if all are not.

The power of freedom demands its extension.

And with freedom comes the responsibility for our actions and policies individually, corporately and on the international scene. Too often, and especially in recent events, we have not only squandered the good will of other nations, but also we have mortgaged our future by primarily using power to advance our self interests. Freedom demands the best for us and the best from us.

-  -  -

-- From the Very Rev. Mary L. Douglas, associate rector, Bruton Parish Church, Williamsburg, Virginia

(For more on the history of Bruton Parish -- where members of the Virginia House of Burgesses, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, worshipped when the legislature was in session -- visit http://www.brutonparish.org/. Located in Colonial Williamsburg, Bruton Parish Church is also distinguished by its close ties through history to the nearby College of William and Mary.)

Bruton Parish Church's mission statement speaks of "walking through history into the future with Christ." Living as we do in the midst of Colonial Williamsburg's historic area, we field questions about the church's involvement in the issues of the Revolution, questions that are posed daily by visitors to church guides and clergy. We live with the past in unique ways: our people and guests are called to worship daily with the ringing of the "Virginia Liberty Bell," cast by the same foundry as the bell that hangs in Independence Hall; the men who endorsed the Virginia Bill of Rights, which served as a model for the first 10 amendments to our Constitution, were members of the House of Burgesses and worshiped in the same building we use today; the Governor's Box still holds a canopied chair, facing across the aisle to the Rector's Box and high pulpit; the person behind us in the grocery checkout line often wears eighteenth-century clothes.

Our task as witnesses for Christ in this sometimes-confusing context involves attention to tradition, and translation of traditional understandings for the world we live in today and build for tomorrow. Freedom and peace are words with deep roots, both in Holy Scripture and in the memory that walks the streets of Williamsburg. Our American ideal of individual freedom, grand as it is, merely derives from the ancient truth that perfect freedom can be found only in the service of God; and we serve God most effectively not as individuals, but in community.

One of the challenges before us, both as Americans and as Anglicans, is to find the balance between our "inalienable right" to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and our responsibility to love our neighbors in the Church and in the world as devotedly as we love ourselves. In that balance, God willing, we may find that we truly do God's work on earth and find perfect freedom for others and ourselves.