Last night I attended a judicial forum at Calvary Chapel Bible Fellowship in Temecula, and it turned out to be a very interesting event. The attendees, based on their questions, and the responses by the folks on the stage, reminded me that most Americans have a basic handle on what’s going on, and a faint idea of what the Constitution calls for in order for us to maintain our American System, but they are lost in the details. They know something needs to be done, but they don’t know how to do it. They realize things are wrong, but they aren’t sure exactly how it is that these things are so wrong, or how they got so wrong in the first place.
From a Christian perspective, Americans recognize that if we are not a Godly people, freedom will elude us. The Founding Fathers created this country to be a Christian Nation, not in a manner of a theocracy, but with its foundation anchored in a Christian culture that is only capable of standing as long as that Christian culture remains intact.
The forces of statism wish to fundamentally transform America into some kind of big government glob of collectivism. In the new utopia, the homogenous mass of people would be ardent supporters of their government, and worshipers of a wiser-than-God ruling elite. The followers of such a system are accepting of socialism, or fascism, or whatever they are striving for, but support it by another name, without realizing they are gladly raising the red flag of socialism themselves. The ruling elite of this new utopia realize that in order to achieve their goals of an ever-expansive government model, they must eliminate God. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.” Take away the virtue, which is fueled by the Christian nature of our country, and American liberty can finally be defeated, and the new socialist statist utopia can finally fly its flag over the White House.
To accomplish their aim, the forces of the liberal left, progressivism if you must, have targeted Christianity from the very beginning, veiling the attacks as “for the common good” and “fairness.” First, they worked to remove Christianity from the public eye, and then replace it with humanistic thinking. They removed prayer from schools, and inserted into the schools concepts such as the Theory of Evolution (without allowing any opposing ideas, such as Creationism, to be allowed in the arena of debate). And now, after indoctrinating a few generations with their collectivist agenda, they have turned directly against The Church with little opposition from their well-trained dupes. The problem is, few congregations are willing to stand against the threat of being silenced, and few pastors are willing to speak up because they fear they may lose tithers, or their non-profit status.
I must ask, “For how many pieces of silver are you willing to turn your back on the teachings of Jesus Christ for?”
In some cases, denominations have been infiltrated, have altered their biblical teachings to include the lessons provided by worldly sources. Some of these “religions” have turned away from teaching about the consequences of sin, have embraced worldly concepts, and have even gone so far as to have homosexual church leaders and pastors. That is not to say that all is lost. A few churches have decided to stand against the judicial attacks against Christ that include, but are not limited to, a recent Supreme Court ruling regarding marriage.
At the forum I attended last night at the Calvary Chapel Bible Fellowship in Temecula, among the most common questions was, “How did the courts get so much power?” That is a question I will address in a subsequent article, but to understand that power, first, we have to understand how the liberal left collectivist statists have hijacked the foundational premise of the American System in the first place, thus, changing the whole basis of the argument. . . which has put us into a position of reacting to their attacks, and doing so under their terms without us even realizing that they changed the rules while we weren’t looking.
We have first been lulled into believing that the Constitutional duty of the federal government is to be the ultimate protector of our rights, and in turn, guarantee our rights. In doing so, we have also allowed the federal government, and the courts, more specifically, to define our rights, and make rulings that directly influence our rights.
When the Bill of Rights was originally written, the amendments were specifically directed (except in a few cases in the legal amendments) at the federal government, not telling the federal government to guarantee our rights, but instead telling the federal government “hands off” our rights. The States, after all, have original authority over all issues, and therefore if the federal government does not have the expressly enumerated authority over something, and the States are not prohibited, the issue belongs to the States – a concept articulated in the Tenth Amendment. Therefore, our rights are a local issue, not one that should be addressed by the federal government. We are the owners of our own rights, and it is our responsibility to preserve them through our own actions, and local governance.
The twist in the whole argument, however, arises when we realize what the Supreme Court used to validate their ruling on marriage, that basically decided the States were not allowed to reject gay marriage. The clause from the Constitution used by the five of nine unelected justices to support their ruling regarding marriage comes from the Fourteenth Amendment. The clause is known as the Equal Protection Clause. In its most basic definition, the Equal Protection Clause says that States must treat everyone equally under the law, and it is assumed that the job to enforce this clause belongs to the federal government. The notion of treating everyone equal under the law, or “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” was not a new concept when that clause was written by Ohio member of the House of Representatives, John Bingham. Much of the language was borrowed from Article IV. of the existing U.S. Constitution.
The reasoning behind Bingham’s Equal Protection Clause was to ensure the States, more specifically the Southern States, that the statists in The North believed had misbehaved when they seceded, and must be forced to act in a manner prescribed by the federal government if they were going to be allowed back into the union, not infringe on the rights of the newly emancipated slaves. There were still elements in the Democrat Party in the Southern States bent on doing whatever it took to deny Blacks their rights, and so Bingham believed that the Constitution must go against the original intent of the Founding Fathers, and make the federal government the enforcer of rights through a concept that has become known as the “Incorporation of the Bill of Rights to the States.” The Congress, when they approved the proposal of the Fourteenth Amendment, rejected Bingham’s statist ideas, as did the States, when they ratified the amendment. The U.S. Congress and State legislatures and/or convention delegates supported the idea that the States must treat everyone equally based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude, but they did not support the concept that the clause extended to all other definitions that the government may concoct, nor did they support that the clause makes the federal government the guarantor of rights by incorporating the Bill of Rights to the States. The federal courts, however, picked up the baton, and through various court rulings have incorporated the Bill of Rights to the States, anyway, despite the original intentions of Congress, or the debates during State ratification. Our generation has accepted the concept of the federal government being the guarantor of our rights as being constitutional because we have been taught that the courts are the final arbiters of the U.S. Constitution, and that if it wasn’t for the federal government, the untrustworthy States would get nothing right, accomplish nothing, and betray our rights as often as they can. In short, the statists have succeeded in convincing the voting public that the federal government is our champion in the battle to protect our freedoms, when in reality, it is the very entity from which oppression is destined to emerge if we don’t prevent the further expansion of the central government.
Even though the concepts of the federal government being the final arbiter of the Constitution through the courts, and being the guarantor of our rights, are not constitutional, that is where we stand at this juncture in history. The Rule of Law has been shifted from its original definition, to one that is defined by the whims and preferences of a humanistic political and judicial class. We have been taught, and our entire system is anchored in, the idea that the federal courts are the ultimate deciders over the definition of our rights, and the federal government is the final enforcer of all issues regarding “Constitutional Rights.” So, because of the reality of our present position, we must work within those definitions, as unlawful as they may be. To do so, we must also understand that there is something else we can use that may be an important tool in us being able to work back towards where the definitions are supposed to be. Culture drives politics, so it is our task to begin regaining a foothold over the culture. In other words, we need a revival. To reach that revival we must recognize that a Judeo-Christian majority still exists in the United States, and that our Judeo-Christian roots inserted by the Founding Fathers at the founding of this country are intertwined in the foundation of liberty throughout the American System. That pillar, the very basic idea that served as the starting point behind the Magna Carta, the English Declaration of Rights in 1689, the Declaration of Independence, and the United States Constitution, is the belief that we not only have rights, but that those rights are not supposed to be defined, or given, by the characters that inhabit the upper realm of government or the justice system, and that none of those critters in government are above the law, or can force their will that stands in opposition to the rule of law upon us.
John Locke called the concept “Natural Law.” In the first two paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence, we are told that our rights are entitled to us by the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” the existence of our rights are “self-evident,” “unalienable,” and we are “endowed by [our] Creator” with those rights. In the simplest terms, our rights are God-given. We all, as human beings, enjoy equality in the Eyes of God, and therefore we are all created equal. Government is simply in existence because the services offered by a government are necessary to “secure these rights.” The presence of law enforcement, and emergency services, which are administered by local government, allows us to entertain our rights, and to do so without the worry that those rights might be betrayed by an element in society determined to swindle our property rights away from us through burglary, or take away other rights through violence.
However, government in its self can be detrimental to our rights, so it must be limited so that it is only there to protect our rights through its local services, or through common defense (should our rights be at risk due to invasion by foreign forces, or illegal encroachment across the national border). As Thomas Jefferson so wisely observed, “The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”
In order to ensure that the government does not become that criminal element, and do what it can to compromise our rights, we must remember that our rights are God-given. If our rights are God-given, that means that they are not to be given, or taken away, by government. It also means that if our rights are God-given, then they must also be God-defined.
The problem we are experiencing with the federal courts acting as the final arbiters of the Constitution is that they are defining what are rights, and what are not rights, and they are doing so based on a platform that is hostile to our Judeo-Christian foundation. Therefore, if they can convince an obedient society that a lifestyle or behavior is a “civil right,” then they can use their misplaced definition of the Fourteenth Amendment to enable them to force their will upon the people. This is what they have done in the case of marriage. Homosexuality is being defined as a “Constitutional Right,” and more specifically, as a “Civil Right.” But does that fit the definition of what a right is, as prescribed by the Declaration of Independence?
If a right is God-given, it must be God-defined, which means in order to be a right, it must be something that God would sanction. So I simply ask, “Would God sanction gay marriage?” What about killing children in the womb? Would God sanction abortion? Would God sanction that Health Care is a right, rather than a responsibility of an individual? Would God consider Birth Control a right, therefore requiring government to force health insurance to pay for birth control methods? Would God sanction the idea that homosexuals can demand that Christians do as the gay community demands, be it baking a cake, or recognizing their ungodly marriage, or be punished by the full force of law that would require a person to renounce their beliefs as prescribed by their Faith in Jesus Christ?
As for the enumeration of our rights in the United States Constitution, notice that the Bill of Rights begins with religious freedom, the most important of all of our rights (aside from Life). The English Colonists first came to the New World seeking to escape religious persecution. Our nation has prospered because we have recognized the Judeo-Christian foundation of our society. Once a society loses its moral compass, and denies the moral standard its Judeo-Christian foundation provides, the rest of our rights are soon to follow. By removing our right to religious freedom, it will not be long before the rest of our rights collapse, as well. This is why, through the onslaught of homosexuality, the religious foundation of our nation is under assault. Statism knows that once The Church is rendered ineffective, control over society through governmental means will follow with ease.
In short, they know that “When we abandon the Rule of Law, and embrace the Rule of Man, it isn’t long before we began dancing around a golden calf.”