IS THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS A RIGHT?

Millions of people think so, and occupy their lives with little else. Many Americans would try and make it a question of patriotism, and base their argument on the well-known phrase in the Declaration of Independence, primarily drafted by Thomas Jefferson, himself a non Christian and a Bible mutilator: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible

“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.”

But a look at American society today shows what these supposed "ideals" have produced.  A. W. Tozer wrote these comments in an article titled “The Modern Cry: I Have A Right To Be Happy.”

"A selfish desire for happiness is as sinful as any other selfish desire because its root is in the flesh which can never have any standing before God!

People are coming more and more to excuse every sort of wrongdoing on the grounds that they are “just trying to secure a little happiness!” That is the hedonistic philosophy of old Grecian days misunderstood and applied to everyday living in the twentieth century.

It destroys all nobility of character and makes milk-sops of all who consciously or unconsciously adopt it; but it has become quite the popular creed of the masses.

Now I submit that the whole hectic scramble after happiness is an evil as certainly as is the scramble after money or fame or success. It springs out of a vast misunderstanding of ourselves and of our true moral state.

The man who really knows himself can never believe in his right to be happy. A little glimpse of his own heart will disillusion him immediately so that he is more likely to turn on himself and own God’s sentence against him to be just.

The doctrine of man’s inalienable right to happiness is anti-God and anti-Christ, and its wide acceptance by society tells us a lot about that same society. No man should desire to be happy who is not at the same time holy. Seeking fully to know and do the will of God, he leaves to Christ the matter of how happy he should be!"

Tozer, A. W., Renewed Day By Day, Christian Publications, Camp Hill, PA., 1980, reading for September 21