(RNS) “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.”

So says our nation’s Declaration of Independence, which we celebrate this year, and every year, on July 4. Yet in our argumentative culture, otherwise reasonable people are unwilling to see traces of the Christian faith in our nation’s founding documents.

Personally, I don’t see what’s so threatening.

No thoughtful person would dismiss the influence of Enlightenment thinkers — Voltaire, Locke, Rousseau and others — on our founders, nor would anyone argue that the document was not influenced by George Mason’s earlier Virginia Declaration of Rights.

So why would anyone try to deny the presence and significance of Christian influences on our nation’s founding document?

The very insertion of the phrase “endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights” places a theologically charged notion at the very core of the document. It is not insignificant that the words — which do not appear in the Virginia Declaration — were deliberately inserted in Thomas Jefferson’s draft.

Some might say “Creator” was just a meaningless deistic phrase, a euphemism much like the hand of “Providence” whose influence was described by religious and irreligious colonists alike.

But it is not insignificant that humans are described as created beings and that the Creator is named as the source of our unalienable rights.

The fact that these words flowed from the pen of Jefferson himself is especially interesting, adding yet another layer of complexity to a man whose writings refuse oversimplification — especially on the issue of religion in public life.

Jefferson’s oft-quoted and misunderstood phrase regarding the “wall of separation” between church and state is obsessively used by those who would refuse a place for religion in public life. Yet his willingness to refer to our rights as originating in a “Creator” inserts a religious impulse into our understanding of the role and limitations of the state.

In short, our rights flow not from the state, but from the Creator.

So where did these ideas come from? It’s not unreasonable to theorize that their presence in the American Revolution, and even in Enlightenment thought, originated in the biblical story of creation.

In the Garden of Eden story from Genesis, we find:

— The origin of life: “The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

— The origin of freedom: “And the Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”

— The pursuit of happiness: Basic necessities were provided for, and there was neither death nor harm in the garden. Social needs were met through a spouse and the promise of children. Humanity was held in the highest esteem by God and given dominion over all the earth. Humanity was morally pure and innocent, and gifted with work and purposeful physical and mental activity.

The ideas of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were not new to the American Revolution, nor to the Enlightenment; they are as old as the ancient Hebrew Scriptures.

Later, they were advanced by Jesus, who said “I am come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.” You will know the truth, he said, “and the truth will set you free.”

Life, freedom and the pursuit of an abundant life — these notions originated in theology, for these human rights were believed to originate in God, the Creator who endowed all humans with these extraordinary basic rights.

To acknowledge that there are religious ideological roots in our founding documents should threaten nobody, for they simply state there is a Creator who endows human rights. The religion of the Creator is not identified, for the creator is owned by no single religion.

(Dick Staub is the author of “The Culturally Savvy Christian” and the host of The Kindlings Muse (http://www.thekindlings.com). His blog can be read at http://www.dickstaub.com)