A Godless
Constitution?
By Paul Viggiano
July 4, 2013 the Los Angeles Times ran
a full page ad (though nowhere on the page indicates it to be an ad)
encouraging the people of the United States to “Celebrate Our Godless
Constitution.” The ad frames six founding
fathers accompanied by dubious, out of context, quotations designed to
enlighten the reader to the general disdain these fathers had when it came to
God’s unwanted intrusion into the political affairs of men. The ad was sponsored by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
This splash of tabloid revisionist
history would be humorous if it didn’t seem to be effectively dismantling the
fabric of American culture. Whatever one
thinks this country is, or should be, the notion that the founders and their
predecessors did not view America as a Christian enterprise requires a tower of
suspended disbelief.
An immense volume of photos, along with an
exhaustive textual record of the holocaust was secured to the end that people
would not doubt that the event occurred (though in one generation there are
many who do just that), we have even greater assurance and evidence that our
founders understood the disastrous consequences of a nation that appealed to
anyone less than the “Supreme Judge of the world” to justify their political
transactions, to wit, our founding documents and the very buildings where our
political leaders engage in their deliberations.
E.g. Moses, holding the Ten Commandments,
is the central figure atop the building where the U.S. Supreme Court meets; The
Ten Commandments are also found in the Supreme Court courtroom; Bible verses
are etched in stone in virtually every federal building and Monument in our
nation’s capital. James Madison stated
that “We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the
capacity of mankind…to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of
God.”
Patrick Henry said “It cannot be emphasized
too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by
religionists but by Christians, not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.” Since 1777, every session of
congress has opened with prayer by a preacher subsidized with tax dollars. 52 of the 55 founders of the Constitution
were members in good standing of orthodox Christian churches.
The Mayflower Compact opens with the words
“In the name of God, Amen” followed by “Having undertaken, for the glorie of
God, and the advancement of the Christian faith and honour of our king &
country, a voyage to plan the first colonie in the Northerne parts of
Virginia.”
The introductory paragraph of The
Declaration of Independence appeals to the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s
God.” Jefferson found it fitting, and
within the boundaries of his views of politics to indicate that “men…are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” He justified his intentions by “appealing to
the Supreme Judge of the world.”
It is certainly true that the establishment
clauses of the First Amendment indicate that “Congress will make no law
respecting an establishment of religion.”
And to this I say ‘Amen,’ for no clear thinking person would desire a
state run church. But the separation of
church and state, at least according to the founders, was quite different than
the separation of God and state.
It was clear to Lincoln in the Gettysburg
Address that “this nation [was] under God,” as well as in his Emancipation
Proclamation where he appeals to “the gracious favor of Almighty God.” I am halted now merely by space and not
further content of the founders recognition of a country’s need for the
ultimate and transcendent authority found in the God of the Holy
Scriptures.
The Freedom
From Religion Foundation boasts in their appeal to reason as they seek to
beguile us toward the notion of a godless constitution and the liberty
thereof. Perhaps we would do well to
ponder the godless political systems of the 20th century under Sung,
Minh, Pot, Lenin, Stalin, Mao et al. The
only liberty the tens of millions of innocent found under these godless systems
was liberation from their own lives. That
doesn’t sound reasonable to me.
