by: Thomas Lee Abshier, ND
Thom Hartmann (“progressive” radio talk show host) argues that we are not a Christian Nation and that the Founders would not have supported Judge Roy Moore’s placing of a 10 Commandments monument in a government building. http://www.opednews.com/hartmann1103_Moore.htm
The Founders Confront Judge Moore
by Thom Hartmann
OpEdNews.Com
(Excerpt)
Judge Moore, the “Ten Commandments Judge” in Alabama, says the controversy he and Fox news have stirred up is about religion. But it’s not about religion. It’s about power — a power that seeks, ultimately, to replace democracy.
Hartman claims that The Founders clearly divided power into four categories: military, religious, wealth/corporate, and political. The interaction of these types of power produced the three historic types of tyranny – warlord kings; theocratic popes; and wealthy feudal lords or monopolistic corporations like the East India Company.
Every past tyrannical government in the history of civilization, our Founders realized, had oppressed its citizens because it had combined political power with one or more of the other three categories. This, they believed, was the fatal flaw of past forms of governance, and they were determined to isolate political power from each and all of the other three to prevent America from repeating the mistakes of previous nations.
Thus, political power would only be held by “We the People,” and never again shared with
Rebuttal of Hartmann’s Thesis
by Margo Diann Abshier, ND
6/5/2005
Hartman’s basic thesis is in error. The issues of government combining with military, corporation/wealth and religion, were not the primary forces the Founders considered in framing the Constitution and our form of Government.
Rather, the Founders realized that every past tyrannical government in the history of civilization had oppressed its citizens because kings had consolidated within themselves
From the time of the Magna Carta, the citizens declared that the king received the power to govern from the governed peoples themselves. British Common Law was thus modified by the Magna
This movement began to influence national politics world wide, but especially in Europe. With the advent of the printing press and the availability of the Bible in the language of the common man, he was able to read the scriptures for
The “early comers” to America based their early forms of
The Proper Inclusion of Religion in Government:
by Thomas Lee Abshier, ND
5/30/2005
Summary of the points made by Thom Hartman:
Hartmann believes the Founders crafted elements of the Constitution based on a concern that government would slide toward tyranny if allowed to combine with the military, corporate/wealth, or religious power centers. He cites the authority to declare war being given to Congress, instead of the President, as an example of this commitment to separate the power centers.
His thesis is weakly supported with regard to the power center of the corporation, since this entity is not included within any of the founding documents. However, they do consider the issue of appropriations and tariffs. So, in a peripheral way the Founders address the issue of wealth.
Hartmann mentions the Founders’ concern for the formation of a tyranny by corporate and military influence on government. But, those issues are peripheral to Hartmann’s real issue. He uses the Founders’ purported concern about tyranny to justify his hypothesis that they placed strong Constitutional injunctions against religion influencing government. Hartmann believes the Founders intended to create a Secular Democracy and intended to prevent any involvement of religion (Christianity) in the government. Hartmann validates this opinion by giving examples of Founders who were not believed to be Christians and did not intend to form a Christian nation. And in this effort he quotes Jefferson’s famous letter about resisting tyranny.
· Thomas Jefferson, Just before the election of 1800, to his physician friend, Benjamin Rush: “DEAR SIR, – … I promised you a letter on Christianity, which I have not forgotten, I do not know that it would reconcile the genus irritabile vatum [the angry poets] who are all in arms against me. Their hostility is on too interesting ground to be softened.
“The delusion …on the clause of the Constitution, which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity through the United States; and as every sect believes its own form the true one, every one perhaps hoped for his own, but especially the Episcopalians and Congregationalists.
“The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, and they [the preachers] believe that any portion of power confided to me [such as his being elected President], will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough too in their opinion.”
NOTE: Hartmann pretends this letter was written as a general condemnation of all religious influence on government. But, the letter itself identifies the context and issue of concern, the attempt by the Congregationalists and Episcopalians (specific denominations) to get special influence with him and hence over the government. His statement was entirely consistent with the First Amendment commitment to NOT establish a Federal religion (i.e. Christian denomination).
Hartmann then extended his thesis of the Founders’ desire to strongly separate religion and government to imply that the Founders intended to prevent all expressions of religious symbol or speech in government buildings and government funded functions. Therefore, using these assumptions of the Founders’ intent he concludes that the Founders would condemn Judge Roy Moore’s placement of the 10 Commandments in the Georgia State Supreme Court Rotunda. In effect, Hartmann believes this principle of separating powers justifies the recent judicial activism to ban all influence or expression of religion in courthouses, schools, and other public places.
Hartmann appears oblivious to the adornments on the edifices of Government in Washington, the art work, statues and the carvings in the Capital and Supreme Court buildings that bear the engravings of the Ten Commandments and depict the faith of the Founders and the early colonists.
Hartmann’s declaration that the Founders held a strong concern about power-center separation is interesting, and it may be true, but it cannot be well validated by the founding documents. Nevertheless, the concept of “power center separation” has the appearance of an important concept to consider in the framing of a nation’s constitution and bears further examination. For this purpose the following essay has been written, to see if the potential for religious tyranny would become a serious threat by a national acknowledgment of Christianity as the moral foundation of our culture?
Commentary on Separating Religion and Government to Prevent the Tyranny of a Theocracy
The prevention of a theocratic tyranny is important for the preservation of freedom. But, it appears that the actual agenda of the anti-Christian forces represented by the ACLU, elite intellectuals, and media personalities such as Thom Hartmann, is to completely remove the influence of Christianity from our culture. Their expressed goals are removing corruption, fraud, waste, discrimination, and other evils perpetrated on the populace by institutions, corporations, and government. But, the pattern of initiatives they pursue paints the picture of a different purpose. They write vitriolic and outraged characterizations of violations. They accuse of wrongdoing that stir visceral repulsion of the Christian Right. But, upon examination of the vilified persons and the circumstances surrounding their actions, we find the alleged crimes are actually stands for righteousness. The Left simply labels and condemns Christians who take an opposing stand on issues such as abortion and women’s rights, homosexuality and discrimination, public display of Christian symbols or speech and Separation of Church and State. They libel and slander their opponents with words connoting evil, malfeasance, selfishness, shallowness, or other low character traits to tarnish the Christian stand for righteousness.
Thom Hartmann has taken aim at Roy Moore and impugned his Christianity for placing a “graven image” of the 10 Commandments in the rotunda of the Georgia Supreme Court. Hartmann’s condemnation of Moore’s placing of “graven images” implies that God would judge Roy Moore. Hartmann compares God’s anger at those who worship graven images of birds, animals, and fish, with the honor and respect that Judge Moore gave God’s 10 Commandments which God Himself had engraved in tablets of stone. The absurdity of this analogy can only be appreciated by someone who actually has knowledge of Biblical teaching. This distorted and improperly contextualized criticism of Roy Moore placing “graven images” is typical of the quotes Hartmann chooses to validate that the Founders were not Christians. It is further typical of the sloppy analogies, quotes, and reasoning he uses to justify his thesis that the Founders would have illegitimized Judge Moore’s placing of the 10 Commandments monument in a public building as an act of government-religion incest. Hartmann avoids confronting the obvious historical honor our nation has given to the Ten Commandments and our Christian heritage as evidenced by the several locations they are engraved in the Supreme Court building in Washington. Obviously the government commissioned these “graven images” and considered it noble to place the icons of the faith that underlay the nation’s moral foundation of the Law the Supreme Court was sworn to uphold.
But, Hartmann is committed to disconnect America from any fundamental allegiance to Christianity over any other religion by quoting a passage from the Treaty of Tripoli and a comment by Jefferson. He attempts to show that several of the Founders were insincere in their own allegiance to Christianity. He gives a few quotes to show that the Founders had no intent to make this a Christian nation. And, he attempts to show that the Founders’ underlying concern was the prevention of a theocratic tyranny by erecting barriers which were meant to separate government far from the influence of religion.
But, the Congressional Senate Judiciary Committee of January 19, 1853 concluded that:
The [First Amendment] clause speaks of “an establishment of religion.” What is meant by that expression? It referred, without doubt, to that establishment which existed in the mother-country… endowment at the public expense, peculiar privileges to its members, or disadvantages or penalties upon those who should reject its doctrines or belong to other communions – such law would be a “law respecting an establishment of religion…” They intended, by this amendment, to prohibit “an establishment of religion” such as the English Church presented, or any thing like it.
But they had no fear or jealousy of religion itself, nor did they wish to see us an irreligious people… They did not intend to spread over all the public authorities and the whole public action of the nation the dead and revolting spectacle of atheistic apathy. Not so had the battles of the Revolution been fought and the deliberations of the Revolutionary Congress been conducted.
We are a Christian people… not because the law demands it, not to gain exclusive benefits or to avoid legal disabilities, but from choice and education; and in a land thus universally Christian, what is to be expected, what desired, but that we shall pay due regard to Christianity.
On March 27, 1854, the Congressional House Judiciary Committee reported:
What is an establishment of religion? It must have a creed, defining what a man must believe; it must have rites and ordinances, which believers must observe; it must have ministers of defined qualifications, to teach the doctrines and administer the rites; it must have tests for the submissive and penalties for the non-conformist. There never was as established religion without all these…
Down to the Revolution, every colony did sustain religion in some form. It was deemed peculiarly proper that the religion of liberty should be upheld by a free people. Had the people, during the Revolution, had a suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, that Revolution would have been strangled in its cradle.
At the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the amendments, the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged, not any one sect [denomination]. Any attempt to level and discard all religion would have been viewed with universal indignation. The object was not to substitute Judaism or Mohammedanism, or infidelity, but to prevent rivalry among the [Christian] sects to the exclusion of others.
It [Christianity] must be considered as the foundation on which the whole structure rests. Laws will not have permanence or power without the sanction of religious sentiment – without a firm belief that there is a Power above us that will reward our virtues and punish our vices.
In this age there can be no substitute for Christianity: that, in its general principles, is the great conservative element on which we must rely for the purity and permanence of free institutions. That was the religion of the founders of the republic, and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants. There is a great and very prevalent error on this subject in the opinion that those who organized this Government did not legislate on religion.
In response to this report, the Congressional House of Representatives of the United States of America, on May 1854, passed a resolution declaring:
The great vital and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Hartmann’s quotes of the Founders may have been accurate, and if these men had said nothing positive about the issues of Christianity and the involvement of government and religion, then his thesis may have been plausible. But, upon examination of other quotes by the Founders (these same men and others), we could come to an opposite conclusion. Please note the Founders quotes as collected by Federer; see www.doctorsenator.com/Founders.html.
The most famous of these quotes, and one that is specifically relevant to the question of our posting the 10 Commandments, is by James Madison, President, Founding Father, and major contributor to US Constitution: 6/20/1785:
“Religion is the basis and foundation of government… We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. 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.”
We shall leave the examination, comparison, and conclusion about the meaning of these quotes to the reader. Compare the two sources for validity and intent. At the very best Hartmann’s quotes simply match one for one with quotes that support an exactly opposite conclusion. But in my opinion, the scale swings heavily in favor of the intent of the Founders’ to include Christianity as the implicit backbone of the American legislative system, just as the Congressional Judiciary committees concluded in 1853 and 1854.
But having stated my belief and bias about the intent of the Founders, we shift our attention to a consideration of the philosophical motivation behind the Founders’ First Amendment prohibition of Congress establishing a religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
Please note: they did not prohibit or authorize any other interaction between religion and the Federal or State governments. Thus, the Constitution is silent on the issue of school prayer, public funding of faith based initiatives, tax exemptions for churches, prayer at football games, and religious texts and slogans on public monuments. The nation began as a democracy with a largely Christian population; therefore as a majority they had the right to vote to establish laws that support Christianity in the public domain. As Christians, we are to treat others as we would be treated. Thus, in the realm of public behavior, we must consider the proper relationship between majority and minority. In a democracy we have the right to implement laws that do not offend God’s Law. And given that most law reflects the majority’s opinion about God’s law, the minority does not have a right to impose their concept on the majority. The minority must simply wait and lobby the nation, state, or community to implement the principles of moral judgment they believe are Godly. Thus, if a majority of citizens wish to include Christian symbols or speech in government, no court should prevent the majority from expressing their corporate will.
A Constitutional Democracy explicitly allows and disallows some legislation in its founding documents; it is up to the courts and legislature to extrapolate the implicitly allowed and disallowed legislation. A moral foundation common to the Founders is required to make a proper judgment in the areas only implied by the Constitution. Thus, moral judgment must be intimately incorporated into the legislative environment since all situations and moral considerations cannot be included in a framework document. But, the Founders were clear that the framework of the Constitution rested on American societal adherence to Christian Biblical Principles and Judeo-Christian moral judgments.
On June 28, 1813, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, John Adams wrote: The general principles, on which the Fathers achieved independence, were the only Principles in which that beautiful Assembly of young Gentlemen could Unite… And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all these Sects were United: And the general Principles of English and American Liberty, in which all those young Men United, and which had United all Parties in America, in Majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her Independence. Now I will avow, that I then believe, and now believe, that those general Principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the Existence and Attributes of God; and that those Principles of Liberty, are as unalterable as human Nature and our terrestrial, mundane System.
On October 11, 1798, President John Adams stated in his address to the military: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
The specific implementations of various policies must be put in place by the legislature, and the judiciary will in turn check that legislation for its fidelity to the spirit of the Constitution. Obviously, such a legislative and judicial process depends upon a culture-wide acceptance of a moral system, and preferably one that reflects absolute Truth.
In America, we have come to a crisis over the issue of the involvement of the religion in government because the judiciary has become increasingly willing to judge that any involvement of Christianity in the governmental or public realm is unConstitutional. But, given the lack of explicit direction from the Constitution mandating such a separation, the Courts have used such extra-Constitutional concepts as “Separation of Church and State” and the “prevention of a Theocracy” to justify their rulings. Thus, we have had a de facto Constitutional revision imposed upon us by a Supreme Court, and in turn all of American society is changing in the wake of their philosophical commitment to a non-Christian America. This liberal Judiciary, supported and protected by Senate Democrats,
is presiding over an almost daily “Constitutional Convention.”
As Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said, “Day by day, case by case, the Supreme Court is busy designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize.”
If the Supreme Court has absolute sway over the issue of the “Constitutionality” of everything, our nation has been reduced to a slow-speed oligarchy, a rule by the 9 men who shape the fabric of society without recourse by the People. Such an oligarchical rule was entirely antithetical to the Founders’ intent. In fact, Jefferson warned explicitly of this threat.
Jefferson said, “Our Constitution… intending to establish three departments, co-ordinate and independent that they might check and balance one another, it has given-according to this opinion to one of them alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others; and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation… The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the Judiciary that they may twist and shape into any form they please.
To Abigail Adams he explained: The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.
And then, to William Jarvis, Jefferson declared: You seem… to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. And their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal.
Thomas Jefferson predicted our current situation with the Judiciary when he noted the only major flaw he saw in the Constitution: “It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression… that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal Judiciary; working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped.”
President Abraham Lincoln, in his “Inaugural Address,” (in defiance of the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court to uphold slavery as “Constitutional”) asserted that: “I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court… At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made … the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having … resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.”
We face a similar threat of a tyrannical rule by the minority if we continue to allow an unregulated filibuster in the Senate, which segues into the Democrats’ desire to implement their social agenda by shaping the courts. The Founders intended a rule by the majority, while allowing the minority a voice in the deliberation. They intended that the Constitution be implemented with legislation, and judged according to their original intent. And yes, they were Christian men, in a Christian society, and it was their intent to continue to perpetuate that moral framework. They had no intent to allow the Supreme Court to establish legal precedent that would allow the nation to change its spiritual bias by implementing a Secular Humanist Godless educational system. In the days of the Founders the Bible WAS the textbook used by home schooling and pastoral teaching.
But the Bible has been taken from the school because of a gradual shift toward public education and the Supreme Court’s ruling against supporting Christian involvement in education. And, the liberal judiciary has argued that this removal of the Bible, prayer, and Christian symbols was the supposed intent of the Founders to ensure a “Separation of Church and State.”
While there are valid considerations in regard to the establishment of a theocratic tyranny, it appears that most who proffer this concern do so with a pretense of sincerity. Their actual goal appears to be the advancement of their agenda to totally remove all Christian influence from government and the public sector. They use the specious principle of “A Wall of Separation between Church and State”, and falsely present it as though it were a Constitutional phrase and mandate.
To quote Supreme Court Justice Potter Steward in Engle v. Vitale, 1962, “I think that the court’s task, in this as in all areas of Constitutional adjudication, is not responsibly aided by the uncritical invocation of metaphors like the ‘wall of separation’, a phrase nowhere to be found in the Constitution.”
Hartmann attempts to give logical weight to this prohibition by emphasizing the concern about the alliance of religion and the power of government. And, no doubt the Founders were acutely aware of the potential for religious abuse at the time of the American Revolution since we had just fought to free ourselves from the theocratic monarchy of England. Their proximity to that history provided a prescient object lesson in the dangers of allowing an excessive influence of religion over the State.
But, religion cannot be separated totally from government, just as government cannot be isolated fully from the realm of the capitalistic and corporate involvement. Government naturally makes laws affecting the nation’s wealth and business activity as they establish policies to collect taxes, award grants to fund research, loan money to struggling companies, invest in the financial markets to fund pension plans, regulate trade and tariff laws, create money, and legislate rules to regulate business activity. All of these activities are inherently disturbing to the economy; and, the greater the influence of government on business the closer we move toward the tyranny of the socialistic state.
In other words, Government must necessarily involve itself in significant transactions with the Military and the Corporate/Capitalistic/Wealth power centers. We can separate the money and military power centers to some degree from the direct authority of the power centers of Government. But, the interrelationships between the various aspects of society are intrinsically interconnected. Thus, when designing the Constitutional framework of the society, the Framers attempted to separate the power centers of military and commerce from government to some degree. But, that separation can only be partial because the functions of the military and commerce penetrate unavoidably into the domain of government.
Thus, given that we can enforce only partial isolation of the functions and power centers of commerce and military from government, we can by extension extrapolate that religion will likewise necessarily have a degree of involvement in government, as it has throughout recorded history, and it will influence on the people and institutions of government regardless of the level of intent to suppress its presence. Every legislator has his own opinions about God and moral probity, and he will support legislation reflecting that bias. Every citizen will likewise vote for representatives and initiatives that most closely reflect their spiritual bias or persuasion. But, given that goodness and Christianity have moral contenders in the socio-political-spiritual realm, we can be sure that these opponents will attempt to occupy and overtake the hearts and states owned by the God of Abraham. The method the enemies of Christianity have used to release the hold of God over our nation is through court orders that prevent the government supported acknowledgment of Christ, and remove public support for the education and enrollment of the succeeding generations in following and learning the Way of Christ.
We note that the desire to possess and expand influence over territory generates naturally inside every living organism. We see this territorial drive overtly in the reptilian brain, whose analogue resides in the medulla at the base of human brain. Therefore, as humans we feel this drive to maintain and expand our territory just as the lower animals. This drive is so inherent to life that even the more primitive single and multi-cellular organisms act as de facto invaders and occupiers by virtue of their reproductive rate and metabolic machinery. Thus, given the deep pressure to occupy and expand, we expect to see metaphorical evidence of this drive for power-spread in the group-mind of the governmental, commercial, military, and religious psyche.
This fact of group-life reflecting the nature of the individual warns us to remain vigilant to the potential abuses of power that could come from the expansion of any single power center into the domain of others. It was for this reason that the Framers attempted to erect a Constitutional-legal structure that established a mutually balancing relationship between the various social power centers. But, regulating subsystems inside a larger system is more complicated than simply establishing blocks to the flow of influence and control. Sub-systems will naturally communicate and control other systems, and this will in turn have an effect on the overall characteristics of the larger system. Thus, any change in the way that a system’s subsystems interrelate will in effect produce a new system.
The Left has used this principle to change our society from a Christian nation to a Secular Humanist nation. They introduced the “Separation of Church and State” concept, and as a result the entire system of public education has shifted. We must remain vigilant against allowing further changes in the nation’s moral foundation, and we must reverse those erosions by organizing, educating, and voting for change. Until we have reversed Everson v. Board of Education the rot will remain in our foundation, and it will continue to spread. That one rotten plank is so virulent that it could bring down the entire national structure.
A trivial examination of our social order reveals that no literal iron fist prevents the merger of government and military, commerce, or religion. We are restrained in our behavior only by our agreement to comply with the law. The violations of God’s Laws produce consequences, and the same must be established for man’s laws. Consequences are necessary to train our sense of boundaries. Thus, a necessary constituent of law is the requirement to establish a punishment of various sorts to supply feedback to those who would disrespect the boundaries of the established law.
As a Christian Nation, the laws we agree to impose and enforce upon ourselves arise from an underlying Truth that dictates the proper and right way to live life. This Truth is succinctly expressed in Biblical Scripture:
Luke 10:27 So he answered and said, ” ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.'”
The Secular Humanist may declare that these rules of behavior are inherent to the nature of man, and merely follow from the fundamental principles of pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain. The Christian would frame this pleasure-pain concept as a reflection of the fact that the laws God has ordained for men to follow will produce pleasure when followed, and pain when violated. The payment for compliance or violation will follow inexorably and will be experienced in this world and/or the next.
One of the most important functions of religion is to properly direct individual and group actions to produce a long term good and pleasurable life experience. Inherent to religion are rules and beliefs that the adherent feels are beneficial to the individual and group. As a result, religion seeks to multiply and expand its influence to produce a more ideal, pleasurable, and good society. But, this desire to dominate the world by multiplying a particular belief structure is one of the driving forces that make religion a power center requiring restraint. The Left should realize that their actions were anticipated by God over 3000 years ago when he predicted their rebellion. He spoke through King David the Psalmist:
(Psalms 2:1-5 NKJV) “Why do the nations rage and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, “Let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us.” He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The LORD shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure:”
Those who oppose God should not be lulled into a false sense of hope and victory, God has had a plan in place for millennia to deal with those who love lies and seek to harm or destroy those who follow God’s will and ways.
The pleasurable emotions we experience when we feel in control are common to all men. Therefore we each bring that desire for personal and group control to the various offices and departments of government, the social power centers, and the interactions within business, home, and friendship. God implanted the thrill of power and control in our hearts to enhance our ability to survive inside our flesh man. But, we can abuse control and elevate “control” to the level of addiction and idolatry just like any of the other strong pleasure stimulants such as sex, drugs, or rock and roll. The religious man can lose perspective and lose his ability to connect with the individual and empathize with his pain and life choices. The man who works to expand the Kingdom of God on Earth can be overcome by the acclaim of men, pride in his work, or the thrill of power and influence. And, while such emotions are not the desired province of religion, the fact that man is the medium of the religious message makes religion another medium for man’s destructive ego.
Thus, we see the drive for men to establish kingdoms and experience the thrill of executing power and control in all aspects of our group and private lives. And as wise people, we should protect against allowing any of the power centers from enlarging past their proper boundaries. In the case of the government-religious merger, we see the potential for creating a tyranny of action, thought, speech, and heart control. Religion, by its very nature, occupies the function of propagating and perpetuating a particular concept of God and His rules of relationship.
No group, or person, except Jesus, can claim a perfect vision into the Holy of Holies and know with certainty the Mind of God. Nevertheless, religion plays a valuable place in the life of the believer. It offers a place of fellowship with both God and man, the possibility of outreach to help the hungry and hurting, the opportunity to educate others in the Truth of His way, and a place to simply honor God and experience His presence.
An important consideration to remember is that religion and its moral valuations provide the basis for individual judgments and determinations of law. The propagation and maintenance of morality is the specific and purposeful center of religion. Every man has his own opinion about the proper relation between God, law, and behavior. But, these concepts will be inevitably included into the function of government and the concepts of Law.
On October 9, 1789, President George Washington wrote to the Synod of the Dutch Reformed Churches in North America: While just government protects all in their religious rights, true religion affords to government its surest support.
On January 1, 1795, President George Washington issued another National Thanksgiving Proclamation: It is in an especial manner our duty as a people, with devout reverence and affectionate gratitude, to acknowledge our many and great obligations to Almighty God, and to implore Him to continue and confirm the blessings we experienced. It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible. It is impossible to account for the creation of the universe, without the agency of a Supreme Being. It is impossible to govern the universe without the aid of a Supreme Being. It is impossible to reason without arriving at a Supreme Being. Religion is as necessary to reason, as reason is to religion. The one cannot exist without the other. A reasoning being would lose his reason, in attempting to account for the great phenomena of nature, had he not a Supreme Being to refer to.
On September 19, 1796, in his Farewell Speech, President Washington said: The name of AMERICAN, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same Religion, Manners, Habits, and political Principles… Of all the 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 the Courts of 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. Tis substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. Who that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric? Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? … Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its virtue?
Those who argue that the Founders were Deists, do so for the purpose of gaining authority for a governing philosophy of Secular Humanism. And, while Deism and Secular Humanism are not identical, Deism is a step away from the personal God against which the Secular Humanists rebel. The Deists would argue that God has wound up the universe and let it operate according to its embedded natural laws, and therefore that no direct, meaningful, or ongoing guidance is available from the Divine in the affairs of men. They assume that their lack of a current living relationship with God leaves man in charge of determining the Laws of the universe. Thus, they are free of oversight and responsibility as they enact legislation to govern man’s affairs. The Deistic assumption leaves man free to judge himself, his fellow man, society, government, and the law without fear of recourse. It is then a short extrapolation from the theology of the Deist to the philosophy of the Secular Humanist who declares that man has within himself the knowledge of right and wrong and is therefore best able to govern himself with that inner wisdom. In fact, they believe that man should throw off the antiquated dogma of myth and superstitious power-based religion.
The Secular Humanist’s worldview is strongly at odds with Christian theology which assumes the possibility of an actual intimate and communal relationship with a true and living God, and co-creating His Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. The Christian believes that when a nation allows and pursues a deeply penetrating relationship with God the result is true freedom personally, and nationally, since the internal leading allows us to minimize the legislative and judicial functions of such a nation. When every man judges himself, and listens to the guidance of the Holy Spirit within, he will function as an autonomous legislative assembly and judicial court convened within his heart. A well ordered society follows automatically when every man follows his own desire and commitment to follow the highest consideration of loving God, neighbor, and self.
As Thomas Jefferson said, whom many now claim was a Deist, “The precepts of philosophy and of the Hebrew code, laid hold of actions only. [Jesus] pushed his scrutinies into the heart of man, erected his tribunal in the regions of his thoughts, and purified the waters at the fountain head. (William Linn, The Life of Thomas Jefferson, 1834, p. 265)
Judge Thomas Jefferson’s words for yourself. Are these the words of a Deist?
A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian; that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus. (Lives of the Presidents of the United States, Abbott and Conwell, p. 142)
Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to me so pure as that of Jesus. (Thomas Jefferson’s writings Vol. 8, p. 377)
The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them. (Thomas Jefferson’s writing’s Volume 14, p.149)
Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would now have been Christians. (Tyronne Edwards, D.D. The New Dictionary of Thoughts, a Cyclopedia of Quotations, p. 91)
I have always said, I always will say, that the studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands. Tyronne Edwards, D.D. The New Dictionary of Thoughts, a Cyclopedia of Quotations, p. 46)
1. The doctrines of Jesus are simple and tend to the happiness of man. 2. There is only one God, and He is all perfect. 3. There is a future state of rewards and punishment. 4. To love God with all the heart and thy neighbor as thyself is the sum of all. These are the great points on which to reform the religion of the Jews. (The Life of Jefferson, by Shmucher)
No one sees with greater pleasure than myself the progress of reason in its advance toward rational Christianity, and my opinion is that if nothing had ever been added to what flowed from His lips, the whole world would at this day been Christian… Had there never been a commentator there never would have been an infidel. I have little doubt that the whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our Creator, and, I hope, to the pure doctrines of Jesus also. (Library of American Literature, Volume 3, p. 283-284)
Remember that all well intentioned walks through life are not morally equivalent. There is a difference between religious zeal for laws that gives us an ego boost for being “right”, and the lawful life of service, love, and relationship led by the Holy Spirit. While the distinction between these two states is subtle, life flows from one and death from the other. Every man must guard against the moment by moment seduction of ego, and pursue the leading of the still small voice. The importance of this principle and distinction is seen in Jesus’ own life; He spent most of his ministry preaching against the self-righteous pharisaical imposition of religious practice. The poignancy of His warning against the leven of the Pharisees was climaxed by His crucifixion arranged by these same hypocritical men. The Pharisees are the would-be religious tyrants; these are the people who are the enemies of freedom and cause people to fear the imposition of religious tyranny. The Pharisees truly are enemies of the soul and state. Every man and his government must remain vigilant for the emergence of the Pharisee in himself and his leaders.
The Secular Humanist is especially susceptible to falling into the trap of pharisaical pride because he does not believe that God intervenes in the affairs of men. Thus, any action taken is directed by man, and any goal worth doing is for the purpose of pleasing man. The lack of a higher level of accountability or service makes it even easier to fall into the trap of pride and belief in personal inerrant vision.
The Right believes that the modern day Secular Humanist Pharisees dominate the media and spin the news to fit their vilification of all things sacred. The entire cast of Democratic leadership (Kennedy, Pelosi, Biden, Dean, Boxer, Frank, Byrd…) line up to support the Left wing propaganda about Iraq, Christians, Social Security, the environment, etc. The Left appears to be honestly puzzled why “values voters” chose George Bush over John Kerry, and now attempt to attract people of faith with their declarations that they too have values.
This motley crew of liberal ideologues personifies how important it is to prevent the would-be religious tyrants of Godless Secular Humanism from enforcing social policy based on the orthodoxy of a priesthood with absolute control of the reigns of government. Seeing the tyranny the Secular Humanist could impose illustrates how important it is to embrace the leadership of the Godly servant and Godly worldview.
The fact that Fundamentalist zealots proof text their own personal truth and attempt to impose it on others does not negate the fact that Truth exists and must be followed. God is too big to completely capture Him with words, but that does not mean that all religions are equally true. Truth is still truth, and if the essence and Spirit of Christianity are in fact true, then the Words and moral guidance of the Holy Scripture are worthy of incorporating into the public debate.
The people of a nation should be able to decide if a religion actually embraces and embodies Truth, and they should be able to use public funds, the media, and the public spaces to post the symbols of their chosen religion as public reminders of that Truth. Certainly, the quality of the person who emerges from a lifetime of commitment to disciplining his mind and heart to follow the Word and Spirit of God, will make a valuable living building block in the edifice of society.
Likewise, the non-Christian man who dutifully strives to follow the leading of God in his life may likewise contribute well and wisely to the social order. But without guidance from a roadmap written by those who have heard from God Himself, most men will be seduced by their own passions and attempt to force life to move in directions that benefit themselves inordinately.
One of the challenges of a multicultural immigrant society is to accommodate for the non-injurious practices of culture, thought, speech, and belief of all people in the society. Christianity has proven itself to be a good neighbor and lord of the house in this regard. The Jewish people in particular have found a safe haven and a natural ally in our Christian nation. The Jewish people are God’s chosen, Israel is God’s land, and America has been blessed for honoring and protecting His property and people.
We can call ourselves a historically Christian nation because Christianity was the dominant religion practiced in the early American Colonies and throughout the history of our nation. And, we have placed the symbols and moral phrases of Christianity on the public places of power throughout the Nation’s life. But, we now find the public recognition of our faith under increasing attack by the weevils of anti-Christian sentiment who wish to wipe out all forms of public acknowledgment of Christianity. They use as their tools of attack questions about the Founders intent, and the appropriateness of allowing Christianity a place of preference in this nation.
This proactive forcing of Secular Humanism has taken place in the face of the Founders’ clear instructions to the Congress and Judiciary disallowing the passage of laws to establish a national religion. And of course the judiciary, using the pretence of following the Founders’ intent, has violated this dictum. They have fabricated and projected upon the Founders a new intent, and validated it with decontextualized quotes. These rebels against God have propagated this fantasy of history to further their agenda of turning our nation from her loyalty and worship of the Judeo-Christian God.
The cabal of media and their bevy of Left wing sympathizers functioning as experts and advocates for their cause in all layers of society have made the appearance of a groundswell of public support for their revisionist history. In turn, education, and the general sense of political correctness and common culture begin to embrace and believe this fabricated history and immoral perspective. The Leftist priests and revisionist rabbis will hijack democracy for the service of rebellion against God if foolish and ignorant Americans are persuaded by the propaganda to vote away the blessings of their Godly heritage.
It is clear that the Founders did not intend to prevent the influence of religion on every level of government. Their only injunction with regard to religion was that Congress not establish a national religion by law. Thus, under the literal reading of this Constitution, the individual States can declare themselves Islamic, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Catholic, or Baptist. In fact some of the original colonies had formal denominational loyalties for a number of years both before and after the Revolutionary War. For example, the Anglican Church was the official Church of the State of Virginia for many years, and taxes were taken from Virginians and given to the Anglican Church even after the Constitution was adopted by the colonies. Clearly, if the Founders allowed such strong expression of belief at the level of State government, then a modern day posting of the 10 Commandments in a state building is a comparatively minor public display of religious allegiance.
No, the current debate is not about what the Founders wanted, accepted, or intended as the proper relationship between State and Religion. Rather, the modern day propagandistic revisionism about the “Separation of Church and State” is an attempt by the anti-God forces to remove any societal recognition of our Christian heritage and stem all public support for propagating the faith.
To overcome this “Separation of Church and State” juggernaut, we must remember and apply the force we have in numbers; we are still a democracy of, by, and for the people. In a democracy the majority rules, as long as their will is consistent with the Constitution. The Constitution can be amended only when the majority of people in 3/4 of the states approve of that change.
The current concern over the “rights of the minority” has become the new rallying cry of those who wish to impose their will upon the majority. Disagreement will always exist within a group, but disagreement does not mean eternal inaction or capitulation to the minority’s concerns. The Senate filibuster issue, where the minority can stop the will of the majority, is simply a reflection of the desire of those who have not yet enrolled sufficient support for their position to take control. This concept is entirely antithetical to the precepts of democracy. In the past, the majority won, enacted their legislation, and the fruit of the law was seen in society over time. The minority then continued the hard work of showing how the majority opinion was flawed. Eventually the pendulum of public opinion swayed toward the minority side, and eventually the once-minority attained power and influence.
Currently, Christianity is the majority religion, and there is no fundamental Constitutional prohibition against teaching our children in the public schools about the precepts of Christianity. In fact, given that this nation is populated by a majority of Christians, the Christian majority has a right to pass laws that direct funds toward the perpetuation of the Christian culture. And yes, under such a system, those who are not Christians will be exposed to the teachings of Christ, and they may not like it. They will be under the influence of a public system of indoctrination in a system not in accord with their own beliefs. But, every society must choose the standards and principles it wishes to guide its citizens. History is littered with cultures that collapsed due to the consequences of choosing wrong guiding principles.
A ten-year research project conducted at the University of Houston from the 1970s to the early 80s, analyzed 15,000 original source political documents, written by the Founders between 1760 and 1805. Researchers were probing for the origins of the quotations most utilized by the Founders. They ascertained that the founders cited 3,154 quotations in those political writings. The individuals that they quoted most frequently were Montesquieu 8.3% of the quotes, Blackstone 7.9%, and John Locke 2.9%. But by far, the single largest source of their quotes was the Bible. The Bible provided the inspiration for 34% of the founder’s quotations in their political writings. Additionally, those individuals most quoted utilized Biblical concepts in their writing.
For example: Montesquieu wrote: “Society, notwithstanding all its revolutions, must repose on principles that do not change.” “The Christian religion, which ordains that men should love each other, would without doubt have every nation blest with the best civil, the best political laws; because these, next to this religion, are the greatest good that men can give and receive.”
Yes, we live in a system where the majority has the right to direct public funds in the direction it desires. And, the necessary implication of this winner take all system is that non-believers will support with their tax dollars a system they do not embrace.
But, this is nothing new in the history of the world. Every society taxes those under it to maintain the system that perpetuates the culture. America has prospered under the influence of Christian principles (although the Left will claim that all the imperfections of American culture are due to the flawed concepts of Christianity – but in fact, the societal errors are due to imperfectly implemented Christianity).
The Constitution guarantees freedom of thought and speech, and our Christian roots promise tolerance of other ideas. But, when the vote is cast, one side will win, and the rest of the society will submit to the will of the majority. Even though the minority did not agree, in a Christian society the minority agrees to obey the new law as it submits to authority. Such principles assure domestic tranquility even though there is not uniformity of agreement across the society. As Montesquieu asserted, Judeo-Christian Principles of relationship and societal dynamics have repeatedly proven to be the ones that elevate and prosper nations. Those nations that have chosen to reject those principles have inevitably fallen and will continue to do so, because only God’s Rules of Relationship work. All other systems create havoc and misery.
The non-Christians might consider such a system unfair, but it is currently no less unfair to the Christians who have their children indoctrinated in a system antithetical to their most sacred beliefs. Thus, the current system of totally secular education, with its indoctrination into anti-God, secular humanist doctrine is imposing the unfairness upon the majority who fund the system with their tax dollars. Thus, the sincerity of the non-Christian argument of unfairness cannot be taken seriously. The “fairness” of teaching secular humanism is hidden under the guise of a Constitutional doctrine of “Separation”. But, that argument has no merit because the doctrines of Christianity have simply been substituted for education in the religious principles embedded in secular humanism. A more honest objection would be, “We want our children educated with the principles of a different dogma, we think it is better, and we won’t allow the school system to educate your children with any other principles other than those of the Secular Humanist religion.”
The anti-God, anti-Christian lobby, has hijacked the system of public finance. Through the judiciary, they have put the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent of the legislative-judicial system. The break in the public support of Christian education started with the specious Everson vs. Board of Education decision of 1947. In that case the court ruled that spending of public funds to transport children to a parochial school was prohibited because it violated the principle of the Separation of Church and State.
From that point on, any expression of public faith or expenditure of public monies to support education that enhanced a Christian worldview in any way could be ruled unConstitutional. The ACLU, People for the American Way, and the Communist Party now have their judicial tool, which if used slowly will not cause inordinate rebellion against their diabolical scheme. They are removing one brick at a time from the edifice of American public Christianity in their attempt to totally secularize the nation. To complete the process will only require only a few generations indoctrinated with the principles and faith of Secular Humanism. We are well into that process.
As Jefferson warned “: “It has been my opinion, … that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal Judiciary; working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped.”
The clock is ticking. The ax of secularization has already taken significant strength from the once robust tree of our American Constitution and of America’s Christian culture. We must act before it is too late. We are still in a majority and as such we have the authority as “The People” to govern ourselves in the manner we see fit. If we surrender to apathy or hopelessness, we will lose. The Left has no fear of wielding the power of the majority and subjugating the minority, yet they protest loudly about how they are being treated unfairly because the majority will not concede to their position when they are in the minority. Anyone who takes a position in opposition to them is castigated as “divisive”.
The Left has a simple philosophy of political operation: When the opposition is in the majority, the principle of “minority rights” and the spirit of “bipartisanship” should apply. The principles dictate that the minority’s position must be considered and incorporated into legislation. And, when Left is in the majority, they declare that the winner deserves the spoils of victory. The Left has claimed that the last two elections were fraudulent, and that a great voting conspiracy took place to prevent every vote from being counted. But their supposed allegiance to counting every vote is thin. When they win, such as in the election of Washington State Governor, they claimed foul play until the 3rd recount. When the Democratic candidate finally won they declared that contesting has this has gone on long enough, and that the Republicans should just be good sports, even though there were credible indications of voter fraud.
When the Left lost the popular vote and the Electoral College in 2004, they failed to understand that it was because their values did not resonate with mainstream America and were in direct opposition to the Laws of the God of the Universe.
As the majority, as a nation of Christians, we have a right to ask for what we want and to require our elected officials to fulfill their Constitutional duty to faithfully protect the Constitution and to represent the best interests of those who elected them. At this time, our major task is education and mobilization.
Our Founders were wise in recognizing the tyranny and foolishness of which the masses were capable. Thus, they established our nation as a representative democracy. By electing representatives for the various population centers, they incorporated elements of Plato’s Republic and required that the representatives must reach a majority agreement about public policy before it was implemented as law. The Constitutional Republic allows for reasoned debate of men dedicated to representing the needs of their constituency, and only enacting laws which fit within the guidelines of the Founders’ intent.
Thus, before the Christian majority is turned into a minority by the public education system, it is time to take back the foundations of government bequeathed to us by our Forefathers. It is time to restore our right to choose to educate our children to become mature and knowledgeable Christian citizens. It is time to educate dissenters in the basic principles upon which our nation was founded and regulates our lives, society and culture.
It’s time for the dedicated non-Christians among us to pay taxes AND pay for private education to give their children the secular-only education they wish to impart. This is what many Christians have done for decades. It is time for those who desire to give their children a secular-only education to bear the burden and expense of their special desires. Parents want to choose the form of education their children receive, and at the very least we should allow funding for Charter schools and vouchers. It’s time to stop requiring the majority to beg the public schools to educate their children in their chosen manner.
It’s time for the Left to learn to be tolerant. They want the majority to tolerate their Gay Pride Parades, Gay Weddings, abortion clinics, and protest marches, but they have no tolerance of Right wing America’s values. It’s time to stop catering to bad behavior, time to stand up for righteousness, and time to legislate it. We have seen the result of an era where we pass laws that avoid offending every group except the Christian majority.
Capitalism is the political equivalent of majority rule, a system where only the most fit survive. When a majority passes legislation, and imposes its will on the minority, that law will only stand as long as the majority remains in power. Democracy requires an idea be promoted sufficiently to gather majority support. Thus, if a Christian education proves to be a public disaster, then the minority can publicize the results and pass laws that direct money toward secular education.
But, currently we are not operating under the rules of Democracy, nor are we acting in a manner consistent with the Framers’ Constitutional intent. We are living inside of a court ordered, governmentally enforced, nationwide secular public education system. We will someday see the fullness of the results of subjecting our children to an education based on the Secular Humanist Religion. Given the founding principles of the nation, and the majority status of Christians in America, we should not implement this state-enforced funding of the Secular Humanist paradigm.
But, as Christians, we have allowed this theft of our heritage because we have not demanded that Congress repeal Everson vs. Board of Education. As a result, this ruling stands as a landmark precedent in case law. It allows the Left to cite it as legal justification for enforcing injunctions against any district which chooses to use State funds to include any Christian philosophy, history, or doctrine in its curriculum. As a result, we have allowed the courts to prohibit public support for Christian education, even though Christians comprise the majority population.
As a Christian nation we have become weak and afraid to take back the God given right to govern ourselves and teach our children in the Ways of the Lord. We have allowed the Left to intimidate us into acquiescing to their every demand, just because they are convinced that we have no right to impose our beliefs on them. We constantly hear the mantra “you can’t legislate morality.” But, through the liberal judiciary they are legislating from the bench and forcing us to live in a society where they legislate im-morality. The truth is ALL LAW IS LEGISLATED MORALITY. The question is only whose morality will direct the formation of the laws and personal code of conduct for the citizens of this nation? Will it be the radical Left’s Godless agenda or God’s 10 Commandments?
Will the premeditated murder of innocent babies be the new standard of American “morality” or will America again embrace the Judeo-Christian sanctity of life ethic? Will God’s design of marriage between one man and one woman prevail, or will the Homosexual world view that guided Hitler’s Germany prevail in America? Are we going to let “the wall of Separation between Church and State” dictate our future through the tyranny of the activist liberal Judges, or will we demand that our elected officials rightly perform their duties to protect the Constitutional mandate of majority rule in our nation?
Chief Justice Rehnquist: Wallace v. Jaffree, 1984. William Rehnquist referred to this phrase regarding separation of church and state as a misleading metaphor and continued, “But, the greatest injury of the ‘wall’ notion is its mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intentions of the drafters of the bill of rights… the ‘wall of separation between church and state’ is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which as proven useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.”
Judge Gallagher in Baer v. Kolmorgen, 1958, “Much has been written in recent years… to ‘a wall of separation between church and state’… [it] has received so much attention, that one would almost think at times that it is to be found somewhere in our Constitution.”
Justice Potter Steward in Engle v. Vitale, 1962, “I think that the court’s task, in this as in all areas of Constitutional adjudication, is not responsibly aided by the uncritical invocation of metaphors like the ‘wall of separation’, a phrase nowhere to be found in the Constitution.”
The points of action for societal transformation include:
1) In America, we are a Democratic Republic, and the majority rules.
2) The minority has the right and obligation to endure in well doing, to inform the majority of their error, and enroll them in “right” thinking.
3) Everson vs. Board of Education gave a non-Constitutional concept, “Separation of Church and State” the status of Constitutional decree and it must be overturned by legislative action or judicial reversal.
4) Any public display of religious symbol or speech is allowed by the Constitution as long as that display is not subsequent to Congress establishing a nationally sanctioned official State Religion.
In conclusion, as a Christian Nation we must recognize that the Constitution prohibits Congress from establishing a State Religion. Any implementation of legislation which favors Christianity in terms of funding, social preference, or public expression IS Constitutional. In turn, we must oppose the tyrants of the Secular Humanist priesthood who demand that we cleanse the society of anything offensive to their practice and imposition of their State sanctioned dogma of Secular Orthodoxy.