Politics and the Pulpit

When it comes to politics and the Church, we must hold fast to the “regulative principle” as understood by the New Testament. This is the foundation of Christian Liberty, because only the Bible can bind another person’s conscience. If what the preacher says doesn’t flow out of the biblical text, he has no right to impose it on other people, and it has no place in the pulpit. This is a very fundamental mark of a healthy and sound church, and it can function as a basic criterion to distinguish a church, as a true charitable institution, from a political pressure group that masquerades as such in order to take advantage of tax benefits.

How this idea of a limitation on what may be addressed from the pulpit has been expressed within the Reformed tradition can be readily seen in such documents as The Westminster Confession of Faith. That attempt at summarizing what Scripture itself teaches states in Chapter XX, “Of Christian Liberty, and Liberty of Conscience,” paragraph ii:

“God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in anything, contrary to his Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship. So that, to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commands, out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience: and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also.”

In other words, according to the Confession, it isn’t enough that a position doesn’t contradict Scripture; the teaching must itself be Scriptural, that is, based on Scripture. The Church doesn’t have the authority to dictate to the people of God what the Scripture itself doesn’t teach. The Church is limited in her proclamation to what “is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture.” (The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter I, “Of the Holy Scripture,” paragraph vi.) We must only “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.” (Jude 3)

James Henley Thornwell put it this way in his article entitled “Argument Against Church-Boards:” “The power of the Church is purely ministerial and declarative. She is only to hold forth the doctrine, enforce the laws, and execute the government which Christ has given her. She is to add nothing of her own to, and to subtract nothing from, what her Lord has established. Discretionary power she does not possess.” [James Henley Thornwell, “Argument Against Church-Boards,” The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell, D.D., LL.D., Volume IV — Ecclesiastical (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1974, 1875), p. 163]

The Confession cites several passages of Scripture in support under XX, ii. The New Testament supporting passages underscore that more than the Sunday morning worship service is in view. All of life is religious, lived in the presence of God, carried out as worship, and the Church can never impose rules and regulations or ideas about God and things that do not flow from biblical texts.

Two passages that are cited stand out very clearly in this regard: Matthew 15 and Colossians 2. Looking at them in their broader context, they are not about whether or not we should only sing the Scottish Metrical Psalms, a cappella, in formal worship, or whether or not we should observe the traditional Church calendar and celebrate such things as the birth of Christ, but about the limitation that God places on well-intentioned, wise and learned, seemingly Spirit-filled, Christians in telling the rest of the Church how to live and believe.

“ . . . You invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’

“Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated? But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man.” (Matthew 15:6-9, 17-20)

“ . . . No one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.

“If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, ‘Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!’ (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)-in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.” (Colossians 2:16-23)

Sadly, churches contend earnestly for so much that is not based on the explanation and application of Scripture. We contend over whether or not Christians may consume alcohol as a beverage . . . smoke, use sugar, eat high fat food, go to sporting events, and go to movies, own televisions; listen to Rock music, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Most of these things find some legitimacy in Scripture for individual believers to consider as a possibility of how they ought to live, but the Church cannot command such conduct, because that would go beyond the bounds of biblical revelation.

But politics is the real bone of contention in many congregations . . . most White Evangelicals are Republicans, while most Black Evangelicals are Democrats, each party attempting to seduce the Church to its own ends. Let a White Evangelical find out that you’re a Democrat, and they see you as either unsaved or terribly benighted. Let a Black Evangelical discover that you’re a Republican, and they reject you as a money grubbing racist.

It is because of the regulative principle that I have refused permission for the Christian Coalition to put out their literature in our church or school. Here is a case in point.

Back in 1996, there were two men in the runoff for our U. S. Representative: Francis Thompson and John Cooksey. The Christian Coalition’s “Voters’ Guide” subtly favored Dr. Cooksey. This was very odd. Dr. Cooksey, a physician who had never held elective office before, was not completely committed to the pro-life cause. Whereas, Francis Thompson was one hundred percent pro-life and had a voting record of well over ten years in the Louisiana legislature to prove it. Furthermore, State Senator Thompson was an Evangelical, an active deacon in a Presbyterian Church in America congregation.

So why did the Christian Coalition word the “Voters’ Guide” to favor Dr. Cooksey over Senator Thompson? There was only one reason: he was a Republican, and Senator Thompson was a Democrat.

The biblical issues involved needed addressing, but only within the parameters of biblical revelation, so, the Sunday before the election, I mentioned this to our congregation and told them that a godly person could vote for either candidate or may choose not to vote at all. One could vote to strengthen the more pro-life party by voting for the less pro-life candidate or one could vote for the more pro-life candidate in the less pro-life party. Furthermore, I stated that there are many factors that enter into a person’s decision for whom to vote and that while the pro-life issue is extremely important, it is legitimate to vote not based on a single issue. The point of my message was that God alone is Lord of the conscience and that the Church has no authority to tell somebody what is right or wrong apart from biblical truth. We cannot sit in judgment of how other people choose to exercise the democratic franchise in our Republic.

Another point I made was that politics is often a deceptive business and that believers need to be careful about organizations such as the Christian Coalition. Political organizations, be they Christian in name or not, are about motivating people to work hard for a candidate and to turn out and vote. One way they often do this is to simplify complex issues to the point of distortion.

I have never used the pulpit to tell anyone how to vote; although, some years ago, I did say that it was a sin to vote for David Duke — boy howdy! Did I catch flak for that! But I did get one very loud “Amen” from the wife of the state chairman of the Democratic Party. Ours is an odd church, having had both the Republican candidate for state Attorney General and the state chairman of the Democratic Party in it. What do you do in that situation? Stick to Bible exposition.

My position is very different from the actual case in many churches. Some time back in the fall of 2002, I preached to a local African-American congregation. A short time before I got into the pulpit, a Democratic elected official came and spoke from the lectern — it was the Sunday before the upcoming Saturday primary — I can’t remember his exact words; he may have said “opponents” or “enemies” instead of “The other side.” I was on the platform, concentrating on staring at my shoes, praying that my lily-white, Republican deacon, who chauffeured me to the church, wouldn’t stand up and say something. When the speaker finished, I glanced up and saw that there wasn’t a white face in the congregation — my deacon was beet-red! Anyhow, he said: “Now, you all need to remember that we must vote this coming Saturday. We got a call from our President this past week — President Clinton reminded us how important it is that our people turn out this Saturday. The other side is counting on it raining and us staying away from the polls. If it rains, put on a raincoat and vote. You only need to remember one thing: vote Democrat.”

Now, it isn’t usually that crass in other quarters, but the message is fundamentally the same, because politics is about power, and power generally comes through coalitions built on compromises.

I attended the Religious Roundtable in Dallas, Texas back in 1980. While Baptist Deacon Jimmy Carter had been invited, he didn’t show up, of course — this was a massive pep rally for Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party under the cloak of a revival meeting. There were a handful of African-Americans there and members of the press — I stood in line behind Bill Moyers to get a hot dog — he’s been dogging the Religious Right ever since. Black, Los Angeles Baptist, E. V. Hill, gave the best speech of the whole bunch — better than Reagan, better than Pat Robertson, and a whole lot better than the bevy of White Baptist preachers who spoke, salting and peppering right wing politics with Bible verses.

But we cannot go beyond Scripture from the pulpit, telling people how to believe or how to live, just as we are not free to impose on others words of knowledge, words of wisdom, interpretation of tongues, etc. We are limited to the Spirit anointed exposition and application of Scripture, because the whole corpus of the Christian Faith has been once for all deposited with the Church in the form of Holy Scripture.

The McCain-Rice Dilemma

I find these rumors of a McCain/Rice ticket very disturbing. During her tenure as Secretary of State she has shown horrible judgement in dealing with terrorists.Rice has gone far to appease terror at every step. She has ignored both US and Israeli law by calling for Israel to divide Jerusalem, She has compared terrorist leaders to Martin Luther King. Its not surprising that one of the US’s most vehement condemnations of Hamas occurred when Condi was on an airplane away from microphones.

Senator McCain is seen as someone who is pro-Israel and anti-terror. In order to establish himself as the candidate who will be best at defending the free world, he should be campaigning against Condoleezza Rice’s policies. He Shouldn’t by any means have her as a running mate:

Slow Suicide on Israeli Security: McCain Must Spell Out Differences with Bush/Rice Approach

Joel Himelfarb

While American political aficionados are fixating on everything from Bill Clinton’s tantrums on his wife’s behalf to Barack Obama’s appearance on The View, a volatile political/military situation has been building in Israel. That nation finds itself under mounting political siege from rogue regimes in Iran and Syria and their terrorist surrogates, who are becoming increasingly brazen in their violence. On Friday, a Hamas sniper based in Gaza tried to assassinate Israeli Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, who was visiting the Israeli side of the border – where Israeli civilians have had their lives turned upside down by terrorist rocket and mortar attacks since Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza three years ago.The sniper missed Dichter, while hitting a senior aide to the minister with a bullet in the neck. (He is hospitalized in fair condition).The attack occurred as Dichter was briefing a group of Jewish and Christian visitors from Toronto.

Israel has refrained from launching the sort of large-scale military operation necessary to stop the terrorist fire from Gaza – at least partially in response to pressure for “restraint” from the United States. With President Bush getting ready to visit Israel next month as part of his quixotic campaign to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement before he leaves office, his administration is pressuring to take a softer approach to the terrorist threat from the West Bank as well. Last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice got Israel to remove security checkpoints that have proven critical to Israel’s ability to prevent mass-casualty attacks from the West Bank terrorists.

All of this could have large implications for the likely Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, who needs to begin to publicly distance himself from the Bush/Rice approach toward Israel. This is particularly true with regard to placing pressure on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s weak Left-of-center Israeli government to make security concessions that will weaken Israel’s ability to prevent Palestinian terrorists from attacking it. If Israel experiences an upsurge in attacks, you can bet that Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton will try to sound like superhawks in arguing that the Jewish State has the right to defend itself. (All the better to camouflage their own McGovernite national-security views.) You can be absolutely certain that in such circumstances, Clinton and Obama will do everything possible to link McCain with the most questionable parts of the Bush State Department’s Middle East policy.

Given the short attention span of the American electorate, which less than two years ago voted to make Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House and Harry Reid Senate majority leader, the Arizona senator cannot take for granted that the voters will see through the phoniness and political spin. After all, such tactics have proven effective time and again in getting Democrats elected president in modern times. In 1960, John F. Kennedy (attacking Vice President Richard Nixon over a dubious “missile gap”), in 1976, Jimmy Carter (attacking President Ford from the right for being insufficiently tough on Communist human-rights violations in places like Poland) and Bill Clinton in 1992 (suggesting the first President Bush wasn’t tough enough on Communist China) all made use of these kinds of attacks on Republican administrations. All of these lines of attack were false and misleading to one degree or another – and all of them worked.

If McCain fails to spell out his differences with a badly flawed Bush/Rice approach, he’ll give the Democrats a golden opportunity to link him with a policy debacle in the making. McCain needs to start explaining now why this approach is wrong and what he would do differently. A good place to start would be to make it clear that he would not pressure Israel into questionable concessions that could jeopardize its security – like Rice’s successful effort last week to pressure Defense Minister Ehud Barak to get rid of security checkpoints that have helped dramatically reduce the ability of suicide bombers to infiltrate into Israel.

At one level, this is pathetic. Ehud Barak, the most decorated soldier in Israeli history, was a disaster as prime minister from 1999-2001. Israel’s chaotic unilateral withdrawal from Southern Lebanon, ceding its northern border to the terrorist Hezbollah, was his doing. In July 2000, Barak at Camp David offered to withdraw virtually to the 1949 Armistice Line. Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat rejected the offer and went to war in September 2000. When Israelis went to the polls less than five months later, they had had enough, tossing Barak out of office and giving Likud opposition leader Ariel Sharon a 25-point landslide victory.

Following his humiliation by the voters, Barak went into the private sector and became a spectacularly wealthy man. Last year, he defeated Labor Party leader Amir Peretz in a primary to become head of the party once again. With his victory, Barak replaced Peretz as defense minister in the coalition government headed by Olmert.

Upon returning to government service, Barak has tried to reinvent himself as someone who could be counted upon to act decisively against terrorism. Last month, he appeared before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, pointing out how critical the West Bank security checkpoints are to the security of his country.

“Each removal of any roadblock is tantamount to gambling with Israelis’ lives,” Barak said. “No roadblock was positioned where it was without a very cogent reason. No roadblock is without clear security value. Each roadblock is there only because it’s necessitated by indisputable security contingencies.”

Nothing changed during the two-week period between Barak’s testimony and Rice’s visit to Israel on Monday, when Barak, responding to pressure from Washington and the Left wing of his own party, announced the removal of 50 of the roadblocks. As the Jerusalem Post pointed out the following day, it didn’t take long for the new approach to start showing results – bad ones. Within hours of the removal of one of the barriers, known as the Rimonim barricade, there was a terrorist attempt nearby to stab an Israeli; this time the terrorist was shot by a would-be victim.

Desperation efforts to risk Israeli civilians’ security in order to help the sclerotic Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas fight Hamas don’t work. Five years ago, Israel removed the same Rimonim barrier, but had to put it back up after several Israelis were murdered by terrorists. For the Israel Defense Force and many civilians living on the Israeli side of the Green Line, the feeling is that roadblocks removed by Barak “have triggered a time-bomb,” the Post noted. “The only question remaining is whose lives will be lost as a result.”

To the extent that this is the product of purely domestic Israeli political considerations, that’s something for Israelis to decide – not Americans. The problem here is that Bush and Rice are effectively weighing in on behalf of the Israeli Left by pressuring Israel to do this. If John McCain does not make clear that he opposes such foolishness, then he is making a potentially catastrophic mistake.

Joel Himelfarb is an editorial writer for The Washington Times. The views expressed here are his own.

Terrorism as Jihad

This truly is a time for prayer. With so much naive speculation about how the government of the United States should have made some preemptive move to stop this, we need to remember that such acts by suicidal terrorists cannot easily be prevented, not even by revoking the Bill of Rights. Though such things as tighter airport security may surely help, even extremely regimented states such as the former Soviet Union and China have not been able to prevent all air hijackings. This fact should give us pause, and move us prayerfully to seek sober and wise responses. Terrorists may be insane, but they are anything but stupid. How essential it is, then, that we buckle down to the discipline of the chessboard, rather than let emotion lead us to make the kind of foolish moves that they are calculatedly seeking to provoke.

Guerilla forces, particularly those that do not share a central command, are very effective in waging war against civilized nations by means of acts of terrorism. When those guerilla groups are influenced by demonic religious ideas and are willing not only to die but to kill thousands of innocent people in carrying out jihad because they have been taught that this will bring them to a carnal paradise with beautiful houris, we face a formidable foe indeed.

People raised in powerful, affluent nations, especially in times of peace, do not comprehend terrorism, but terrorism is often the only means that an occupied, oppressed people, lacking sophisticated matériel, has to use against a militarily powerful, occupying force. History is replete with examples of the psychological effectiveness of terrorism.

The Sicarii were ancient zealots who engaged in random assassinations of Roman citizens and their collaborators in the streets and markets of Roman occupied Palestina. The assassin carried a short dagger, called a sicarius, which was hidden until the moment to strike. These unpredictable acts were not ultimately effective in driving out the Romans, but they did succeed in provoking a Roman response that galvanized a massive uprising on the part of the occupied people.

The purpose of the terrorist is not always simply to cause the superior force to lose its will to control the less powerful group; it is to provoke the superior force into acts that provoke, in turn, a wider and more intense rage on the part of the less powerful group against the superior force. In other words, terrorist acts are often done to provoke their enemies to act in such a way that the terrorists’ own people are moved from complacency to radical involvement in their cause. We must pray that the decision makers of the United States do not fall into that trap.

Among many Arab peoples in the Middle East, Israel is generally perceived either as a satellite of the United States, or the United States is viewed as being under substantial control of “Zionists.” Because of their perception, the violence that has intensified in the wake of Ariel Sharon’s campaign and subsequent election has profound ramifications for the United States.

To many morally conservative Muslims, the United States is viewed as the chief purveyor of global decadence through our entertainment industry—we are the “Great Satan.” The Industrialized World’s thirst for oil is seen as a major cause of exploitation of native populations, and U. S. oil interests are seen as a major reason why oppressive tyrants are still in power in certain countries of the Middle East. Mindless rage leads people to believe that terrorist acts are morally justified as the only effective way to wage jihad against what they view as the enemies of God.

Now is not a time for self-righteous, mindless rage, in turn, against an easily identifiable scapegoat: all Arab peoples; it is a time for soul searching and a humble seeking of divine wisdom. Those who were behind these horrific acts of terror must be effectively punished. We must pray for the President of the United States to act with great wisdom. He must refrain from acts of vengeance that simply satisfy a pressing, political need; he needs to take action that is effective in bringing the perpetrators to justice.

People Like Me

The thing that frightens me the most about the Nazi Era is that it involved people like me.  It isn’t the concentration camp victims that I’m talking about; it’s the Nazis themselves.

We don’t like to think of ourselves that way; we like to imagine that the insanity of the Third Reich was an aberration, an odd exception in human history.  Because the Nazis did monstrous things, we tend to think of them all as monsters and distance them from the rest of humankind.  But they were people like me.

By and large, they loved their children; they worked hard, were brave and patriotic.  Many went to church.  The society that gave birth to Nazism was not a medieval throwback.  No country was more scientifically advanced; no people better educated.  They were patrons of the arts.  The German Protestant Church was the most liberal church in Europe.  That’s what frightens me:  the people that did these barbaric things were not barbarians.  They were cultured and enlightened.  They were people like me.

What’s so frightening about that is that it can happen again, that in spite of multiplied Holocaust Memorials, in spite of people crying, “Never Again,” it can happen again.  Indeed, it probably will happen again.  That’s the lesson of history.  Our species is notorious for singling out scapegoats to purge from our ranks, whether it’s the Jews of Warsaw, the Palestinians of Hebron, or the Muslims of Sarajevo.  It can always be justified by the mesmerizing demagogue.

I am a descendant of slaveholders.  As far as I can tell from my family history, they were decent, loving people.  How did such people justify so brutal an institution as slavery?  I do not know.  I only know that I, too, am capable of blindly rationalizing great evil.  What amazes me about history is not all the bad things that bad people did; it’s the bad things that good people did, people like me.

That’s why I fear Nazism—because it’s not so far away.  It’s always lurking, not just out there, but inside me, too.  To believe that those who are different from me are less than human is not a thought that is foreign to our species.  It is a thought that embraced in desperate times leads to death camps and ovens.  It is a thought that can be embraced by people like me.

Christianity and the American Constitution

Until well into my life-time, the overwhelming majority of Americans believed that the United States was a Christian nation. In believing that, they did not desire the persecution of other religions, nor did they want to see people forced to become Christians, nor did they believe that one Christian denomination should be favored at the expense of others. They rejected the concept of one Christian denomination functioning as an established national Church, as the Churches of England and Scotland still do today in Great Britain.

But Americans overwhelmingly believed that Christian ideas and principles should receive favorable treatment and that its understanding of Moral Law should undergird the laws of the United States and the individual states. When other people’s religious practices came into conflict with Moral Law, Moral Law, not the practices of other religions, was always supreme. People were free to believe as they saw fit, but they could not practice their beliefs when those practices ran contrary to morality; they had to live by the Christian based laws of the United States. This can readily be seen through the decisions of the United States Supreme Court. As one example of how this has been worked out, one may note Davis v. Beason, cited below, where Mormons were forbidden to practice polygamy, an early tenet of their faith, because it was contrary to Moral Law as understood by historic Christianity.

Two parts of the Constitution are often cited as evidence against this historic understanding of the role of Christianity in American public life:

“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” The Constitution of the United States of America, Article 6

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The Constitution of the United States of America, The Bill of Rights, Amendment I

Yet this same Constitution reflects a Christian understanding of morality:

“If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.” The Constitution of the United States of America, Article 1, Section 7

The Historical Understanding of Christianity and the Constitution

“Probably at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the First Amendment to it . . . the general if not the universal sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state so far as was not incompatible with the private religious rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship. An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation . . . .The real object of the amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance, Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government.” [Justice Joseph Story (who served on the Supreme Court from 1811-1845), Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 2 Vol. 2:593-95, 2nd Ed. Boston: Little Brown (1905)],

Justice Story’s understanding reflects the thinking of the framers of the Constitution, who expressed unbridled faith in God in the Declaration of Independence:

“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 entitles them . . .

“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 . . .

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” (emphases mine.)

Such an understanding of the foundation of the American law was still reflected in the decisions of the United States Supreme Court just over one hundred years ago. Justice Josiah Brewer wrote on February 29, 1892, “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.” Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U.S. 457-458, 465-471, 36 L ed 226. (1892).]

A distinctively Christian view of the law is also reflected in Davis v. Beason, 133 U.S. 333 (1890):

“Bigamy and polygamy are crimes by the laws of all civilized and Christian countries. They are crimes by the laws of the United States, and they are crimes by the laws of Idaho . . . It was never intended or supposed that the (First) amendment could be invoked as a protection against legislation for the punishment of acts inimical to the peace, good order, and morals of society. With man’s relations to his Maker and the obligations he may think they impose, and the manner in which an expression shall be made by him of his belief on those subjects, no interference can be permitted, provided always the laws of society, designed to secure its peace and prosperity, and the morals of its people, are not interfered with. However free the exercise of religion may [133 U.S. 333, 343] be, it must be subordinate to the criminal laws of the country, passed with reference to actions regarded by general consent as properly the subjects of punitive legislation. There have been sects which denied as a part of their religious tenets that there should be any marriage tie, and advocated promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, as prompted by the passions of its members. And history discloses the fact that the necessity of human sacrifices, on special occasions, has been a tenet of many sects. Should a sect of either of these kinds ever find its way into this country, swift punishment would follow the carrying into effect of its doctrines, and no heed would be given to the pretense that, as religious beliefs, their supporters could be protected in their exercise by the constitution of the United States. Probably never before in the history of this country has it been seriously contended that the whole punitive power of the government for acts, recognized by the general consent of the Christian world in modern times as proper matters for prohibitory legislation, must be suspended in order that the tenets of a religious sect encouraging crime may be carried out without hindrance.” (emphasis mine.)

The Constitution and Blue Laws

What does the reference to Sunday in Article I, Section 7 above [“If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) . . .”] constitute? It reflects the thinking that underlies what are commonly called “Blue Laws” and demonstrates that the framers of the Constitution did not have a non-theistic, abstract concept of law. The federal courts, in striking down state laws about Sunday, have done so recognizing that these laws reflect a commitment to a Christian understanding of the Ten Commandments: “The parentage of these laws is the Fourth Commandment; and they serve and satisfy the religious predispositions of our Christian communities.” (The Supreme Court’s 1961 ruling on four separate cases, challenging Sunday closing laws: McGowan v. Maryland;Two Guys from Harrison-Allentown v. McGinley; Braunfeld v. Brown; Gallagher v. Crown Kosher Supermarket) Article I, Section 7 demonstrates that the Moral Law of God, as understood by the followers of the Christian faith, is the foundation of our Civil Laws.

Religious Tests

While the framers of the Constitution were absolutely opposed to a national, established Church, they understood that in order for people’s words to be believed in court, they had to believe in God and future rewards and punishments in the world to come. At the time of the ratification of the federal constitution, most states had constitutionally defined, basic sets of beliefs that were necessary to be held by those who took oaths or held office. These were not seen to be in violation of the national constitution. As but one example, a person may note Article I of the Constitution of Pennsylvania, written in its original form by Benjamin Franklin and others:

“Religious Freedom
“Section 3. All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences; no man can of right be compelled to attend, erect or support any place of worship or to maintain any ministry against his consent; no human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience, and no preference shall ever be given by law to any religious establishments or modes of worship.

“Religion
“Section 4. No person who acknowledges the being of a God and a future state of rewards and punishments shall, on account of his religious sentiments, be disqualified to hold any office or place of trust or profit under this Commonwealth.” (emphasis mine.)

In early America the very understanding of the word “oath” meant that the person taking it believed in God.

“Oath: A solemn affirmation or declaration, made with an appeal to God for the truth of what is affirmed. The appeal to God in an oath, implies that the person imprecates his vengeance and renounces his favor if the declaration is false, or if the declaration is a promise, the person invokes the vengeance of God if he should fail to fulfill it. A false oath is called perjury.” Webster’s Dictionary (1828)

This understanding is reflected in how “Article 6” was explained in the ratifying conventions. For example, one may consider the words of James Iredell at North Carolina’s ratifying convention:

Wednesday, July 30, 1788

‘According to the modern definition of an oath, it is considered a “solemn appeal to the Supreme Being, for the truth of what is said, by a person who believes in the existence of a Supreme Being and in a future state of rewards and punishments, according to that form which will bind his conscience most.” It was long held that no oath could be administered but upon the New Testament, except to a Jew, who was allowed to swear upon the Old. According to this notion, none but Jews and Christians could take an oath; and heathens were altogether excluded. At length, by the operation of principles of toleration, these narrow notions were done away. Men at length considered that there were many virtuous men in the world who had not had an opportunity of being instructed either in the Old or New Testament, who yet very sincerely believed in a Supreme Being, and in a future state of rewards and punishments . . . (Mr. Iredell describes a British court case involving a man from India who was neither a Christian nor a Jew and then concluded.) It appeared that, according to the tenets of this religion, its members believed in a Supreme Being, and in a future state of rewards and punishments. It was accordingly held by the judges, upon great consideration, that the oath ought to be received; they considering that it was probable those of that religion were equally bound in conscience by an oath according to their form of swearing, as they themselves were by one of theirs; and that it would be a reproach to the justice of the country, if a man, merely because he was of a different religion from their own, should be denied redress of an injury he had sustained. Ever since this great case, it has been universally considered that, in administering an oath, it is only necessary to inquire if the person who is to take it, believes in a Supreme Being, and in a future state of rewards and punishments. If he does, the oath is to be administered according to that form which it is supposed will bind his conscience most. It is, however, necessary that such a belief should be entertained, because otherwise there would be nothing to bind his conscience that could be relied on; since there are many cases where the terror of punishment in this world for perjury could not be dreaded. [Elliot, Jonathan, ed. The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution as Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia in 1787. . . . 5 vols. 2d ed. 1888. Reprint. New York: Burt Franklin, n.d., Volume 5, Amendment I (Religion), Document 52.]

The Establishment Clause

Thomas Jefferson’s 1802 letter to a group of Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut states that the purpose of the First Amendment was to build “a wall of separation between church and state.”

Yet what President Jefferson meant by this wall is patently obvious from the weight of historical evidence cited above: namely, that this did not mean that there could be no point of contact between church and state. Civil governments have all kinds of laws that churches must obey: building codes, fire safety codes and zoning ordinances. None of these violate the liberty of churches to worship God according to their own liberty of conscience. Furthermore, there are times when the members of ecclesiastical bodies are simply unable to decide issues without submitting to the judgment of civil courts. A prime example of this would be contentions over the ownership of the church’s property.

Thomas Jefferson’s phrase in 1802 must be understood in light of what he said in his “Second Inaugural Address,” in 1805:

“In matters of religion I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the General Government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it, but have left them, as the Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of the church or state authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies.”

Christian people are free to influence legislation that is in keeping with the moral principles of Christianity, and Christian parents are duty bound to see to it that their children are educated in light of Christian principles and morality. A godless educational system is a dreadful curse to American society, the very idea of which would have been abjured by the founders of our nation.

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-7.)