Posted by
The Guardian on Monday, December 25, 2006 7:08:31 PM
Prepared For Your Entertainment!
There are an infinite amount of issues to tackle. All of them crying for attention for solutions. In the course of our discourses, we argue, complain, expose, refute, explain, and give answers for each issue, and the next day we do it all over again just like we did the day before. For some, it certainly makes for a good paycheck at the end of the week, but that is not the reason behind all the rhetoric. Our heart cries out for a change for truth, justice, and righteousness, and there is no holding back that cry. We have got to right the wrong!
But that is where everything seems to get all botched up these days: What is right, and what is wrong? There is a line that is being drawn, of right and wrong, in the sands of our society with equal force from both sides of the aisle, and in the name of decency, or in the name of goodness, or of tradition, or of common sense . . etc. one side cries to the other, "Listen to me!" Then suddenly, all the issues seem to become allusive, and no individuals seem to be able to get a good handle on an issue anymore. Not in the way their minds conceive to anyway.
Hauled away like a suspect in handcuffs, each issue, in its turn, is dragged into our courts for judgement for its practice in the public arena on its innocence and/or guilt. "What is the verdict?" is the question on every mind as they all hold their breathe. And yet, with all our discourse and with all our human justice, America grows deeper and deeper into division, falling apart at the seams, spiraling down into a pit of decadence.
Something is wrong here with this picture. Something is just not adding up right, and nobody is doing the home work to find out what's wrong and why. I think there is something more at stake here then just the issues that we endlessly try to bandage, and of which, continue to bleed more and more.
- The issues are not the issue!
There is only one issue in this country, and all the other issues revolve around this one.
- Then what is that one issue?
JESUS CHRIST !
I am not trying to get religious here, honestly. I am just sticking to the facts. I will show why He is our government lawfully and historically, as unpopular as that may sound. Jesus is the elephant in the middle of this room we call America. He, directly and indirectly, surfaces in every issue in every home, community, city, county, and state of the union.
How true is all this?
For those on the right, it is readily excepted that America was born a Christian nation, and that Christian principles have ruled it. The issues that have faced this nation have been argued, for the most part, from that Christian perspective by those on the right. Since Everson vs. Board of Education; 1947, when the United States Supreme Court constructed (or legislated) a wall of separation between Church and State, those on the left have increasingly and successfully argued against a right for the existence of the Christian faith and its principles in many areas of American society.
Are the left right?
Does our faith and the principles of our faith have no right to an existence here in America? Is its practice meant to be absent from the government or from the public place? Was America truly "born" a Christian nation? In spite of all the evidence showing that the early colonies and our founding fathers and there contemporaries have lived and practiced in terms of the Christian faith, this country, including the right, continues to drift farther and farther away from it. Do we have a leg to stand on? If we do, what is it and why aren't we? All of these questions must be answered completely and acted upon before those on the right can even move one iota of a smidgen in a positive direction. Until then, America will continue to drift down spirally into the pit of decadence. So, which of the above questions should be addressed first? Lets look at where we are first.
The battle at hand is that of any battle that has ever taken place: to rule! Presently, there is a very simple idea behind the fighting of our battle: if the Christian right can hold their ground on an issue, then truly Jesus Christ will be acknowledged as ruler on that ground that is being held, and the principles of the Christian faith will "rule" (supposedly). Now if they do not hold their ground on an issue, then truly He is not being acknowledged as ruler, and the principles of our faith will not be upheld to rule on that ground (not of any cognizant awareness anyway). Such is the battle we wage from day to day from in our homes all the way up to the White House, but that explanation is strictly on the "surface". This simple idea of a majority rule gives an "opinion" why Jesus might be at the center of every issue, but there is nothing "legally concrete" there to hold that idea true.
The simple idea above reveals a format that we tend to follow, but, again, that format is superficial and unreliable if there is no legal substance to establish the practice of our faith in an issue. To make the point, we are looking for something that makes our faith a legal practice in government and public. For well over a century now, the Conservative Right have battled according to that simple idea, and their rule has well grown diminished in America along with the country's moral character. So, we need to answer the first and foremost important question before us today to help unravel this mess we are locked into, "Is there any legal precedent that establishes America as truly a Christian nation ?" If there is then we have something legally concrete that holds both sides of the aisle to that practice. But I don't get it, why has this question been so invisible for so long? It has never been officially addressed. There have been many devious ways that that question has been completely circumvented around while our nation has slowly but surely turned into a secular humanist governed society, but the question still remains to be addressed today. UNBELIEVEABLE!
To get to the point: yes, there is a legal precedent which reveals that America truly is a Christian nation! BUT . . . Christian politicians, Christian judges, Christian lawyers, Christian historians, and the full spectrum of Christian Church leadership not only ignore this question, but worse they ignore the answer when it is revealed to them. I note here first that this precedent does not come from the many documents that reveal the practice of our founding fathers in their Christian faith. As important as that is and as important as that is needed, that is not concrete legal precedent for practicing the Christian faith in our society's government. The answer to that question is found in the first paragraph of The Declaration of Independence.
This document, The Declaration of Independence (my abbr. DOI), is officially a legal document for precedent in establishing, defining, and interpreting American law. "The Declaration has been repeatedly cited by U.S. Supreme Court as part of the fundamental law of the United States of America [at least 10 cases]. The United States Code Annotated includes the Declaration of Independence under the heading "The Organic Laws of the United States of America" . ."(Barton; The Myth of Separation; WallBuilder Press: 1991, pg.218)
It is hard for me to believe that there are so many people who either do not know the DOI's status or they refuse to acknowledge it. I can only surmise that there has been some form of calculated preconditioning over the past 100 yrs+ that has filtered this document into the subconscious mind of the people that it is "inconsequential" and "obsolete". That preconditioned filtering is a lie! So in the first paragraph of the DOI, we find our founding fathers wrote:
- When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Let me restate some of that for you. The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitled us to assume among the powers (nations) of the earth to become a separate and equal station (nation). Our founding fathers found it necessary to make that statement right up front in the first paragraph: because they were governed by this natural law philosophy. For two hundred years, the colonies had lived by this ideology causing them to grow and mature into an upright and well cultured society. Britain was threatening to extract this ideology's right to be used to govern the people, thus the lines were drawn and the battle commenced. The colonist won the battle and in turn so did their faith: "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" ruled the land!
What is this idea that was so important centuries ago? Well, the idea was around long before their day, but there was one man by the name of William Blackstone who back in the late 1760's explained in detail what natural law consisted of. In Blackstone's book, Commentaries on the Laws of England; volume one, Chapter two, we find the title 'laws in general'. It is there where you will find in great detail what natural law is all about. The founding fathers quoted often from Blackstone. In fact, what our founding fathers wrote in the second paragraph of the DOI (what we today like to quote from most) arose out of natural law philosophy.
What is this idea that was so important centuries ago? The colonist believed that their were two types of law that were "absolute": The laws in the physical universe (in both organic and inorganic substances) along with the principle of good and evil are one set of absolute laws; The holy scriptures of the bible (also referred to as the Laws of Revelation) were the other set of absolute laws. It was believed that these two sets of absolute laws were established by the Creator, and thus all of those laws are His divine will. When men gathered together to make laws that would govern the people, it was within the confines of these two types of absolute laws that they were to reason in order to establish a law. If a law was to be made that was in disagreement with either the laws of nature or the laws of revelation it was considered to be against God's will, and therefore no law at all.
Now you now what the true America is. Now you know what a true American is and what he/she believed. Now you truly know who you are (in respect to your American citizenship). More importantly, now you see where the true battle should take place: the legal precedent in the first paragraph of the DOI. That is how the one real issue in this land is Jesus Christ. The colonist lived by this biblically based governing philosophy which goes back all the way to the days of Justinian the Great (527-565). The documented words that we have of the colonist bare the use of these ideals in every area of their lives in every day life from the highest office to the lowest shame. But it was the founding fathers declaration of the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God in the DOI that gave us our legal precedent for defining and interpreting America. My favorite quote that I enjoy reading most is by Samuel Adams (I like his beer too) which truly expresses the hope and the focus of the DOI. On August 2, 1776 when the DOI was being signed, he stated, "We have this day restored the Sovereign to whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven, and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His kingdom come." (Barton; The Myth of Separation; WallBuilder Press: 1991, pg.98)
Today; status of true America: elimination complete; Next step; The future status of America: total annihilation. I am not joking when I write this. The wicked work like gravity day and night to bring us to our destruction. So where does the mighty "United States Constitution" (my abbr. USC) and the Bill of Rights stand in all this? I am glad you asked, and I will continure to answer from David Barton's perspective.
Did you know that the Preamble begins with "We the people of the United States, in order to make a more perfect union . . ." The question to be asked here is this, To make a more perfect union then what ? The answer: a more perfect union then what has been established through the DOI. The United States Constitution is only a "continuation" of the Declaration of Independence. The USC does not replace the DOI in any shape of form! If you take notice, there is nothing religious written in the USC because the religious aspect was established in the DOI. THUS/ THEREFORE/ CONSEQUENTLY, the USC was to be INTERPRETED according to The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God.
That is where America lost her way: when she strayed from her Christ given right on how to interpret the United States Constitution. The true foundation of America is the Declaration of Independence, and the cornerstone of that foundation is those eight words "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God". But where and how does the United States Constitution fit in? The USC is more or less a type of format and construction to run a business.
The format or rules a business uses to run its operations does not define what type of business it is. A shoe manufacturer, a car manufacturer, and a chocolate manufacture can all use the same type of format to run their businesses. In such a case, I could not interpret the car manufacturer to be a chocolate manufacture just because I see they are operating in each of their businesses the same work format. Nor could the shoe manufacturer define and interpret itself to people to be a car manufacturer because it has the same format of operations in their plant as the car manufacturer. No the shoe people have a charter that says , we are shoe people; the car people have a charter that says, we are car people; and the Sweet Chocolate people have a charter that says, we are chocolate people. The format of operations does not interpret anything of what or who the company is.
The United States Constitution nor the Bill of Rights has anything to do with defining or interpreting who we are ! Only . . . Only . . . Only the DOI can define and give interpretation of who and what America is! That is our charter. It gives us an eternal, absolute, and infallible standard in which to justly govern a people. The DOI and the USC belong hand in hand as they were at the start. If . . . If . . . If only one could separate the two and replace the DOI with the USC, then the foundation of America could be destroyed and one could do and say as he pleased. Oh' wait! Someone has already did that.
Our simple method for battle (majority rule) is wrong, and there is a simple reason why. There are no more absolutes. The natural law philosophy that the colonist lived by for two hundred years was in simple terms: a set of absolute standards. Our founding fathers set up those absolutes as a standard in every aspect of American life to keep and guard us as an American Christian society. Over time, these absolutes have been eliminated. Without these Christian absolutes, we are forced to rely upon using secular humanist reasoning with a majority vote as a standard to establish, define, and interpret law. Truly this is the formula that has brought our nation down into the pit of decadence.
- The Psalmist has said, If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? (Ps.11:3)
The righteous can do nothing when they have no absolute standard to stand on. The course of our nation over the past century reveals quite clearly that the wicked propagate and flurish under such governing. America is certainly nearing an end.
But of course, I have an answer for the Psalmist question:
The prophet Jeremiah was called forth to declare the same message. In his day, the Kingdom of Judah was about as equivalent in decedence as America is today. The message he declared is recorded in the first part of the verse:
Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.(Jeremiah 6:16a)
Their old paths and ways are found in the LORD through the Law from Moses. Our old paths and our good ways are found in Christ through the DOI from the founding fathers. Unfortunately, over the years, I have found the responses of those of the Christian faith to be the same as those in Judah in the days of Jeremiah, Their reply was as such,
But they said, We will not walk therein. (Jeremiah 6:16b; emphasis mine)
Where do you stand? In what direction are your toes pointing?