by Rus Walton
Our very political superstructures stand upon the critical bedrock of cherished biblical principles.
At the point in God's good time when the Constitutional Convention had completed its work...
The lady sidled up to old Ben Franklin.
"Well, Dr. Franklin. What have you given us?"
"You have a republic, madame. If you can keep it."
There had been other governments before that had gone by that description - that word, "republic."
But those were different. Different in origin. Different in nature. Different in structure. The best of that past was incorporated into this new and true republic. The rest - the evil, the excess - was rejected.
So this new creation stood unique. A system of self-government. By the consent of the governed. And with union.
A constitutional republic with individual liberty, elected representatives and limited government. A government with its powers nailed down; fastened and confined to the proper defense oe the individual - to his pursuits of life, liberty, property and happiness, those inalienable rights endowed by the Creator.
A republic in which the power to govern was checked and balanced by devices designed to stop the tyrant in his tracks.
The sons of liberty joined to erect four fences around their government, so it could not get out of hand or out of bounds: The Executive, the Legislative, the Judicial, and the Individual. Each was to be a check, or a balance, on the other.
After God the individual came first. Only by his consent could government govern - and then, only to protect
his life, liberty and property. Not just his, but all men - equally.
And so the founding fathers created a republic.
A democracy? Where half plus one can squash the rest? Where a fanatical majority can deprive the individual of his rights, his life, his property? Not for these men.
They knew democracy with its excesses, its leveling-down process, its inherent seeds of destruction. They knew Plato's warning that unrestricted democracy must result in a dictatorship.
The very essence of democracy rests in the absolute sovereignty of the majority. Our founding fathers could never accept such tyranny. They recognized only one rightful sovereign over men and nations - not the state, not the majority.
"Each religion has a form of government, and Christianity astonished the world by establishing self-government...the foundation stone of the United States of America."(1)
But our founding fathers realized the impossibility of maintaining freedom unless those who are "at liberty" are able to exercise self-restraint.
And they gave to this government just enough power to serve. Just enough and no more.
And even then, with all the checks and balances and fences of that constitutional document, it was not until the Bill of Rights was tacked on that the states consented to the union and ratified the federation.
Our very political superstructures stand upon the critical bedrock of cherished biblical principles.
At the point in God's good time when the Constitutional Convention had completed its work...
The lady sidled up to old Ben Franklin.
"Well, Dr. Franklin. What have you given us?"
"You have a republic, madame. If you can keep it."
There had been other governments before that had gone by that description - that word, "republic."
But those were different. Different in origin. Different in nature. Different in structure. The best of that past was incorporated into this new and true republic. The rest - the evil, the excess - was rejected.
So this new creation stood unique. A system of self-government. By the consent of the governed. And with union.
A constitutional republic with individual liberty, elected representatives and limited government. A government with its powers nailed down; fastened and confined to the proper defense oe the individual - to his pursuits of life, liberty, property and happiness, those inalienable rights endowed by the Creator.
A republic in which the power to govern was checked and balanced by devices designed to stop the tyrant in his tracks.
The sons of liberty joined to erect four fences around their government, so it could not get out of hand or out of bounds: The Executive, the Legislative, the Judicial, and the Individual. Each was to be a check, or a balance, on the other.
After God the individual came first. Only by his consent could government govern - and then, only to protect
his life, liberty and property. Not just his, but all men - equally.
The New Nation: A republic, not a democracy.
And so the founding fathers created a republic.
A democracy? Where half plus one can squash the rest? Where a fanatical majority can deprive the individual of his rights, his life, his property? Not for these men.
They knew democracy with its excesses, its leveling-down process, its inherent seeds of destruction. They knew Plato's warning that unrestricted democracy must result in a dictatorship.
The very essence of democracy rests in the absolute sovereignty of the majority. Our founding fathers could never accept such tyranny. They recognized only one rightful sovereign over men and nations - not the state, not the majority.
"Each religion has a form of government, and Christianity astonished the world by establishing self-government...the foundation stone of the United States of America."(1)
But our founding fathers realized the impossibility of maintaining freedom unless those who are "at liberty" are able to exercise self-restraint.
And they gave to this government just enough power to serve. Just enough and no more.
And even then, with all the checks and balances and fences of that constitutional document, it was not until the Bill of Rights was tacked on that the states consented to the union and ratified the federation.
A New Ideal: Freedom of Religion, Not from Religion.
Christ died - and rose - to make men free. All men, all nations.
Through Christ we are freed from the wages and the death of sin. Eternal freedom.
Free from the ravages of appetite. Internal freedom. If we choose to be.
Free from the savagery of demagogues and kings. External freedom. If we choose to be.
Just as Christ brought us internal freedom (and a rebirth into a new life through Him) so He brought us a new direction for our external freedom (and a new purpose for our civil government).
If Christ would die for men, where did Ceasar get off forcing men to live - and die - for him?
There! There was the spark, the flame, the beacon light of the American idea. The power of the great American republic. The sense of the Constitution of these United States.
"The concept of a secular state was virtually non-existent in 1776 as well as in 187, when the Constitution was written, and no less so when the Bill of Rights was adopted. To read the Constitution as the charter for a secular state is to mesread history, and to misread it radically. The Constitution was designed to perpetuate a Christian order." (2)
Why then is there, in the main, an absence of any reference to Christianity in the Constitution?
Because the framers of the Constitution did not believe that this was an area of jurisdiction for the federal government. It would not have occurred to them to attempt to re-establish that which the colonists had fought against, namely, religious control and establishment by the central government.
"The freedom of the first amendment from federal interference is not from religion but for religion in the constituent states." (3)
Separation of church and state? Absolutely!
Divorcement of God from government? Not so!
The American system is the political expression of Christian ideas...a nation foundes upon the rock of rekigion and rooted in the love of man.
In 1851, when Daniel Webster was reviewing the history of "this Great American family." he reaffirmed the need and role of God in Government: "Let the religious element in man's nature be neglected, let him be influenced by no higher motives than low self-interest, and subjected to no stronger restraint than the limits of civil authority, and he becomes the creature of selfish passion or blind fanaticism. On the other hand, the cultivation of the religious sentiment represses licentiousness...inspires respect for law and order, and gives strength to the whole social fabric, at the same time that it conducts the human soul upward to the author of its being."
More than one hundred years after Webster, Charles Malik, one-time ambassador to the United Nations from Lebanon, put it this way:
"The good (in the United States) would never have come into being without the blessing and the power of Jesus Christ...I know how embarrassing this matter is to politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen and cynics: but, whatever these honored men think, the irrefutable truth is that the soul of America is at its best and highest, Christian."
Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of The Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian...This s a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation...we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth...These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.
SUPREME COURT DECISION, 1892
CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY V. UNITED STATES
(1) Verna M. Hall, Christian History of the Constitution
(2) R. J. Rushdoony, The Nature of the American System
(3) Ibid
God bless,
JohnnyD
No comments:
Post a Comment