Thursday, August 30, 2007
Nation built upon Judeo-Christian foundation
From the RoundTable blog
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Tom Taylor
Taylor lives in Roanoke.
The current debate in the letters and opinion pages as to whether America is a "Christian country" and whether Judeo-Christian principles should influence our government cannot be conducted in an historical vacuum.
I believe history shows we do indeed owe our liberties and democracy to a Judeo-Christian heritage; and America is going down a dangerous road when we sacrifice it for the sake of multiculturalism and tolerance.
We're told the ideas for our democracy came from ancient Athens and Rome and "the Enlightenment." But when Thomas Jefferson declared our inalienable right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, he did not appeal to Plato, Seneca or Voltaire.
He argued from the Judeo-Christian worldview that mankind is endowed with liberty by no less than the Creator God. If America's founders had not held the biblical view of the world and mankind, they could never have even comprehended such an idea. Jefferson never backed away from it. In later years, he wrote: "Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that their liberties are a gift from God?"
When the U.S. Constitution was being hammered out in 1787, the delegates did indeed look to the ancient democracies as well as the European nations of the Enlightenment. But Benjamin Franklin said in his famous speech of June 28: "We have gone back to ancient history for models of government and examined the different forms of those republics which, having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution, now no longer exist. And we have viewed modern states all round Europe, but find none of their constitutions suitable."
The convention was in danger of breaking up due to friction between the smaller and larger states over methods of representation. Franklin then went on to recommend that the assembled delegates pray each morning to "the Father of Lights" to "illuminate our understanding" and "implore the assistance of Heaven and its blessings on our deliberations." As a result, the convention held together, cemented by a commonly held belief in the God of creation without whom, as Franklin said, no empire could rise. It's safe to say, without the unifying biblical beliefs of the delegates, America would not have the brilliant document we inherited from those incredible men. There's another concept from our Judeo-Christian heritage that is absolutely essential for our democracy to succeed: the idea that all citizens, from greatest to least, are equal under the rule of law.
Beginning with the Magna Carta about 800 years ago, Englishmen began to reason from the biblical worldview that since the law originated with God, then it was higher in authority than any man; and all men must be equal under it.
Since the king was inferior to God, then he was under the rule of law just as much as the stable hand. This concept could never have come about without the Judeo-Christian influence on English thinkers of that and following periods. It was inevitable, like a fresh-blowing wind, that would eventually result in liberty and representative government.
In 1829 the famous American jurist Joseph Story affirmed that heritage distinctly when he wrote, "There has never been a period in which Common Law did not recognize Christianity as laying at its foundation."
Then there's the simple fact that when the Judeo-Christian influence is strong in a society, it produces a fair number of generally honest and virtuous people. This too is necessary for the survival of our democracy. As Benjamin Franklin said, "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." And President John Adams said in 1798, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
It's important to note everyone in America is, and should be, free to follow any religion he or she chooses. But when educators banish long-standing Christian observances from their institutions, when federal judges order the Ten Commandments removed from schools and courtrooms, and when each such destructive act is cheered by the liberal media, they may think they are being compassionate and tolerant.
But there is nothing compassionate in destroying the heritage that gave us the most free, stable and happy nation in the world today.
