Thursday, October 10, 2013

Down the rabbit hole of government and the Bible

Today, as the government officials enter their 5,000 day of shutdown -- or it seems -- I thought I would go to the Bible and see what it says about politics, thus making this blog about the two things people say one shouldn't discuss. Thought I would live dangerously, though there are no snakes or knives in this one. By the way, I stabbed myself with a butter knife this week, causing blood to flow. Didn't know I was vulnerable to butter knife attacks, but I digress.

Anyhoo, off we go down the rabbit hole.

Psalm 33:12 reads, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chose as his heritage.

Jesus said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me."

Peter wrote, "Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor."

Paul wrote, "But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,..."

And Luke told us, "But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men."

In perhaps the first visage of democracy, the writer of Psalm 109 told us, "May his days be few; may another take his office!"

There are others, but you get the drift. Personally, I like the one Paul wrote, but feel free to search yourself.

The question becomes, I reckon, are we still a nation under God?

From David Greenberg, a writer for Slate.com, we read, "Poor Alfred Goodwin! So torrential was the flood of condemnation that followed his opinion—which held that it's unconstitutional for public schools to require students to recite "under God" as part of the Pledge of Allegiance—that the beleaguered appellate-court judge suspended his own ruling until the whole 9th Circuit Court has a chance to review the case.

Not one major political figure summoned the courage to rebut the spurious claims that America's founders wished to make God a part of public life. It's an old shibboleth of those who want to inject religion into public life that they're honoring the spirit of the nation's founders. In fact, the founders opposed the institutionalization of religion. They kept the Constitution free of references to God. The document mentions religion only to guarantee that godly belief would never be used as a qualification for holding office—a departure from many existing state constitutions. That the founders made erecting a church-state wall their first priority when they added the Bill of Rights to the Constitution reveals the importance they placed on maintaining what Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore have called a "godless Constitution." When Benjamin Franklin proposed during the Constitutional Convention that the founders begin each day of their labors with a prayer to God for guidance, his suggestion was defeated."

Other than the fact I had to look up shibboleth, I couldn't possibly disagree more, but certainly all are worthy of public discourse, unless of course, you disagree with the other side.

That side, represented by the writings of J.B. Williams, include this:

On May 2, 1778, George Washington charged his soldiers at Valley Forge that "To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian." In a speech on May 12, 1779, he claimed that what children needed to learn "above all" was the "religion of Jesus Christ," and that to learn this would make them "greater and happier than they already are." On June 8, 1783, he reminded the nation that "without a humble imitation" of "the Divine Author of our blessed religion" we "can never hope to be a happy nation", as he resigned his post as Commander-in-Chief. Washington's own adopted daughter declared of Washington that you might as well question his patriotism as to question his Christianity.

James Madison trained for ministry with the Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon, and Madison's writings are replete with declarations of his faith in God and in Christ. In his letter to Attorney General Bradford, Madison laments that public officials are not bold enough about their Christian faith in public and that public officials should be "fervent advocates in the cause of Christ." Madison did allude to a "wall of separation," but contemporary writers frequently omit Madison’s own definition of that "wall", which according to Madison, was only to prevent Congress from passing a national law to establish a national religion.
 
I could go on with the debate, but I'll stop here except to say that the Bible also says, "Only fools say in their hearts, "There is no God. They are corrupt, and their actions are evil; not one of them does good."
 
Government shut down? When was the last time it worked?
 

No comments: