God and Government  part 2

by Tyler Young

  It is ironic many regard strongly held Christian views in public office as a threat to the nation, even appealing to the Founding Fathers for support for this view, when our nation’s founders believed religious—and particularly Christian—conviction to be crucial to national preservation and prosperity. Some states even required those holding public office to profess faith in Christ, and no one challenged such a requirement to be a state establishment of religion in violation of the Constitution.

  In recent years, the United States Supreme Court has declared in its rulings that longstanding public expressions of faith are unconstitutional, creating in the public mind the notion that the Constitution requires the government to be absolutely religiously neutral. But this is clearly a perversion of the Constitution and a rejection of all prior legal precedent. Unlike the modern justices who have imposed their anti-Christian, secular ideology on the nation, early Supreme Court rulings unabashedly endorsed “general Christianity.” In Holy Trinity Church v. United States (1892), the court said, “No purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or national; because this is a religious people...this is a Christian nation.” In 1846, the Supreme Court of South Carolina stated,

In the Courts over which we preside, we daily acknowledge Christianity as the most solemn part of our administration....Christianity—general Christianity—is, and always has been, a part of the common law: not Christianity founded on any particular religious tenets; not Christianity with an established church...but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men.

What of public office holders and prominent public figures expressing faith and appealing to “Christianity” as an integral part of the nation and even its government? The very “father of the Constitution,” James Madison, said, “We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.” John Quincy Adams said, “The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.” Patrick Henry declared, “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. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.” And Consider Noah Webster’s conviction that “when you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers, just men who will rule in the fear of God.”

The immensely popular President George Washington, one of our nation’s greatest leaders and a man whom no one regarded to be a threat to the country, unashamedly professed his faith in Jesus Christ, publicly praying,

Bless O Lord the whole race of mankind, and let the world be filled with the knowledge of Thee and Thy Son, Jesus Christ. Almighty and eternal Lord God, the great Creator of heaven and earth, and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; look down from heaven in pity and compassion upon me Thy servant, who humbly prostrate myself before Thee.

Today, such professions would send the media into a panic. But Washington also said, “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible,” and that “To the distinguished character of a Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of a Christian.” Could he have imagined the day would come when anyone maintaining anything akin to these convictions would be considered unfit for office, a danger to the nation? We would do well today to take heed to these words from Washington’s famous Farewell Address:

Of all dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for prosperity, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts and justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.