Biblical Roots of American Liberty
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Biblical Roots of American Liberty
Edmund A. Opitz
The First Amendment to the Constitution forbids Congress to set up an
official church; there was to be no "Church of the United States" as a
branch of this country's government. Such an alliance between Church and
State is what "establishment" means. An established church is a
politico-ecclesiastical structure that receives support from tax monies,
advances its program by political means, and penalizes dissent. Our
Constitution renounces such arrangements in toto; the Founders wrote the
First Amendment into the Constitution to prevent them.
The famed American jurist Joseph Story, who served on the Supreme Court from
1811 till 1845, and is noted for his great Commentaries on the Constitution
of the United States, had this to say about the First Amendment: "The real
object of the Amendment was, not to countenance, much less advance
Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to
exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national
ecclesiastical establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the
exclusive patronage of the national government."
The various theologies, doctrines, and creeds found in this country can thus
be advanced by religious means only-by reason, persuasion, and example.
Separation of Church and State means that government maintains a neutral
stance toward our three biblically based religions Catholicism, Judaism, and
Protestantism, as well as toward the various denominations and splinter
groups. These several religious bodies, then, have no alternative but to
compete for converts in the marketplace of ideas. This is a good
arrangement, good for both Church and State; it avoids the twin evils of a
politicized religion and a divinized politics.
A Christian Nation
It has often been observed that America is a Christian nation-around which
observation several misunderstandings cluster. We are a Christian nation in
the sense that our understanding of human nature and destiny, the purpose of
individual life, our convictions about right and wrong, our norms, emerged
out of the religion of Christendom-not out of Buddhism, Confucianism, or
primitive animism. And it is a fact of history that our forebears whose
religious convictions brought them to these shores in the 17th and 18th
centuries sought to create in this new world a biblically based Christian
commonwealth. But it was not to be a theocracy-of which the world had seen
too many! It was to be a religious society, but one which incorporated a
secular political order!
The reasoning ran something like this. The human person is forever; each man
and woman lives in the here and now, and also in the hereafter. Here, we are
pilgrims for three score years and ten, more or less. Life here is vitally
important for it's a test run for life hereafter. Earth is the training
ground for life eternal. Such training is the essence of religion, and it's
much too important to be entrusted to any secular agency. But there is a
role for government; government should maintain the peace of society and
protect equal rights to life, liberty, and property. This maximizes liberty,
and in a free social order men and women have maximum opportunity to order
their souls aright.
Separating the sacred and the secular in this fashion is a new idea in world
history. Secularize government and you deprive it of the perennial
temptation of governments to offer salvation by political contrivances. By
the same token, things sacred are privatized as free churches, where the
spiritual concerns of men and women are advanced by spiritual means only.
So, when it is said that America is a Christian nation, the implication
intended is poles apart from what is meant when it is observed, for example,
that Iran is a Shiite nation. The Shiite sect of Islam is a branch of the
government of Iran. Other religions are not tolerated. Deviations from
doctrinal orthodoxy are forbidden. The government punishes infidels because
Shiism is Iran's official, authorized church. From time to time government
uses the sword to gain converts. The government of Iran is not neutral with
respect to religion.
In the United States, it is mandated that the government maintain a level
playing field, so to speak, "a free field and no favor," where freely
choosing individuals find their different pathways to God while government
merely keeps the peace. This is what is really meant by the phrase,
"Separation of Church and State." This oft-quoted phrase is frequently
misunderstood as suggesting that religion and politics are incompatible, and
that we should keep religion out of politics.
If we think of "politics" as several candidates wheeling, dealing, and
slugging it out in an election campaign, it's clear that religion doesn't
have a significant role in such a situation. And if we think of "religion"
in terms of a contemplative meditating and praying in his cell, it's obvious
that politics is absent. But there is no coherent political philosophy apart
from a foundation of religious axioms and premises.
Religion and the Social Order
Religion, at its fundamental level, offers a set of postulates about the
universe and man's place therein, including a theory of human nature, its
origin, its potentials, and its destination. Religion deals with the meaning
and purpose of life, with man's chief good, and the meaning of right and
wrong. Thus, religious axioms and premises provide the basic materials
political philosophy works with. The political theorist must assume that men
and women are thus and so, before he can figure out what sort of social and
legal arrangements provide the fittest habitat for such creatures as we
humans are. So, some religion lies at the base of every social order.
It is the religion of dialectical materialism that is the take-off point for
the Marxian theory and practice of the total state. Hinduism is basic to the
structures of Indian society. Western society, Christendom, was shaped and
molded by Christianity. Incorporated into Western civilization were elements
from the Bible, as well as ingredients from Greece and Rome. This composite
was lived, worked over, and thought out for nearly 1,800 years by the
peoples of Europe. And then something new emerged and began to take root in
the New World; it was the recovery of that part of the Christian story
needed to ransom society from despotism and erect the structures of a free
society wherein men and women might enjoy their birthright of economic and
political liberty.
A vision emerged of a society where men and women would be free to pursue
their personal goals, unimpeded by the fetters of rank, privilege, caste, or
estate that had hitherto consigned people to roles determined by custom and
command, not by their own choice.
The people who settled these shores during the 17th and 18th centuries were
children of the Reformation driven by their need to worship God as it
pleased them, according to their own wisdom and conscience. Believing that
God had entered into a covenant with His people, they freely covenanted
together to form churches. This was later called "the gathered church idea,"
seemingly endorsed by Jesus Himself in Matthew 18:20: "Where two or three
are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
The local New England church in the Puritan period had full ecclesiastical
authority to ordain its minister and appoint deacons and elders. Its
minister could celebrate communion, perform christenings, baptisms, and
marriages, and conduct funerals-all on the authority of the local church.
Each church was in voluntary fellowship with other churches, but in
authority over none. The covenant pattern of the early New England churches
was the paradigm for the federalist political structure erected two
centuries ago. The West was moving from status to contract, as Sir Henry
Maine would observe in 1861.
This concern for individual liberty in society was not limited to
theologians. Tom Paine generally took a critical stance when dealing with
religion and the church, but in 1775 in an essay entitled "Thoughts on
Defensive War" he wrote as follows: "In the barbarous ages of the world, men
in general had no liberty. The strong governed the weak at will; 'till the
coming of Christ there was no such thing as political freedom in any part of
the world. ... The Romans held the world in slavery and were themselves
slaves of their emperors .... Wherefore political as well as spiritual
freedom is the gift of God through Christ." And Edward Gibbon, so critical
of the Church in his history of Rome, nevertheless pays tribute to ". . .
those benevolent principles of Christianity, which inculcate the natural
freedom of mankind."
Our forebears of a couple of centuries ago regarded human freedom as a
religious imperative. They loved to quote such biblical texts as: "Where the
Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," (2 Cor. 3:17) and "Proclaim
liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants thereof." (Lev.
25:10) They struggled for freedom of worship; they fought for the right to
speak their minds, and for a free press to put their convictions into
written form. They also had firm convictions about private property. The
popular slogan of the time was "Life, Liberty, and Property!" Property meant
the right of private ownership. Adam Smith and his Wealth of Nations came
along at just the right time-with what Smith called his "liberal plan of
liberty, equality and justice"-to become the economic counterpart of the
political ideas of the Declaration of Independence.
The Importance of the Individual
The central doctrine of the American political system is our belief in the
inviolability of the individual man or woman. This is one of the self
evident truths enunciated in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these
Truths to be self evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these
are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." The "equality" which is
the key idea of the Declaration means "equal justice," the Rule of Law, the
same rules for everybody because we are one in our essential humanity.
The reflections of H. L. Mencken on this point are intriguing as coming from
a man usually critical of religion. In 1926 Mencken wrote an essay entitled
"Equality Before the Law." "Of all the ideas associated with the general
concept of democratic government," he wrote, "the oldest and perhaps the
soundest is that of equality before the law. Its relation to the scheme of
Christian ethics is too obvious to need statement. It goes back, through the
political and theological theorizing of the middle ages, to the early
Christian notion of equality before God.... The debt of democracy to
Christianity has always been underestimated.... Long before Rousseau was
ever heard of, or Locke or Hobbes, the fundamental principles of democracy
were plainly stated in the New Testament, and elaborately expounded by the
early fathers, including St. Augustine.
"Today, in all Christian countries, equality before the law is almost as
axiomatic as equality before God. A statute providing one punishment for A
and another for B, both being guilty of the same act, would be held
unconstitutional everywhere, and not only unconstitutional, but also in
plain contempt of common decency and the inalienable rights of man. The
chief aim of most of our elaborate legal machinery is to give effect to that
idea. It seeks to diminish and conceal the inequities that divide men in the
general struggle for existence, and to bring them before the bar of justice
as exact equals."
The freedom quest of Western man, as it has exhibited itself periodically
over the past 20 centuries, is not a characteristic of man as such. It is a
cultural trait, philosophically and religiously inspired. The basic
religious vision of the West regards the planet earth as the creation of a
good God who gives a man a soul and makes him responsible for its proper
ordering; puts him on earth as a sort of junior partner with dominion over
the earth; admonishes him to be fruitful and multiply; commands him to work;
makes him a steward of the earth's scarce resources; holds him accountable
for their economic use; and makes theft wrong because property is right.
When this outlook comes to prevail, the groundwork is laid for a free and
prosperous commonwealth such as we aspired to on this continent.
A Created Being in a Created World
We gaze out upon the world around us and are struck by the preponderance of
order, harmony, beauty, balance, intelligence, and economy in the way it
works. The thought strikes us that the explanation of the world is not
contained within the world itself, but is to be sought in a Source outside
the world. The Bible simply declares that God created the world, and when He
had finished He looked out upon the world He had created and called it good.
The biblical world is not Maya-as Hinduism calls its world; it is not a
mirage or an illusion. Nor is the world of nature holy; only God is holy.
The created world, including the realm of nature, is "the school of hard
knocks." The earth challenges us to understand its workings so that we might
learn to use it responsibly to serve our purposes. Economics and the free
enterprise system teach us how to use the planet's scarce resources
providently, efficiently, and non-wastefully-in order to produce more of the
things we need.
Man comes onto the world scene as a created being. As a created being, man
is a work of divine art and not a mere happening; he possesses free will and
the ability to order his own actions. As such, he is a responsible being.
He's no mere chance excrescence tossed up haphazardly by physical and
chemical forces, shaped by accidental variations in his environment. To the
contrary, man is endowed with a portion of the divine creativity, giving him
the power to dynamically transform himself, and his environment as well,
according to his needs and his vision of what ought to be.
The other orders of creation-animals, birds, bees, fish, and so on-live by
the dictates of their instincts. But our species has no such infallible
inner guidelines as our fellow creatures possess; our guidelines are
formulated in the moral code, as summed up in the Ten Commandments.
Ethical relativism is a popular attitude today; it is a wrong answer to
questions such as: Is there a moral code? Are there moral laws? Let me
summarize briefly the argument that our universe has a built-in moral order
by showing that there is a striking parallel between the laws of physical
nature and moral laws.
The laws of science transcribe into words the observed causal regularities
in the world of physical nature, i.e., the realm of things which can be
measured, weighed, and counted. This is one sector of reality. Reality also
exhibits a moral dimension, where things are valued or disdained on a scale
of ethics ranging from good to evil. Biological survival depends on
conforming our actions to the laws of nature; ignorance is no excuse. Social
survival, the enhancement of individual life in society, depends on willing
obedience to the moral code that condemns murder, theft, false witness, and
the rest. Transgressors lead us toward social decay and cultural disorder.
Your individual physical survival depends on several factors. If you want to
go on living you need so many cubic feet of air per hour, or you suffocate.
You need a minimum number of calories per day, or you starve. If you lack
certain vitamins and minerals specific diseases will appear. There is a
temperature range within which human life is possible: too low and you
freeze, too high and you roast. These are some of the requirements you must
meet for individual bodily survival. They are not statutory requirements,
nor are they mere custom. They are laws of this physical universe, which one
can deny only at his peril.
Establishing a Moral Order
It is just as obvious that our survival as a community of men, women, and
children depends on meeting certain moral requirements: a set of rules built
into the nature of things which must be obeyed if we are to survive as a
society-especially as a social order characterized by personal freedom,
private property, and social cooperation under the division of labor.
Moses did not invent the Ten Commandments. Moses intuited certain features
of this created world that tell us what we must do to survive as a human
community, and he wrote out the code: Don't murder, don't steal, don't
assault, don't bear false witness, don't covet. Similar codes may be found
in every high culture.
It would be impossible to have any kind of a society where most people are
constantly on the prowl for opportunities to murder, assault, lie, and
steal. A good society is possible only if most people most of the time do
not engage in criminal actions. A good society is one where most people most
of the time tell the truth, keep their word, fulfill their contracts, don't
covet their neighbor's goods, and occasionally lend a helping hand. No
society will ever eliminate crime, but any society where more than a tiny
fraction of the people exercises criminal tendencies is on the skids. To
affirm a moral order is to say, in effect, that this universe has a deep
prejudice against murder, a strong bias in favor of private property, and
hates a lie.
The history of humankind in Western civilization was shaped and tempered by
biblical ideas and values, and the attitudes inspired by these teachings.
There was much backsliding, of course; but in the fullness of time
scriptural ideas about freedom, private property, and the work ethic found
expression in Western custom, law, government, and the economy-especially in
our own nation. We prospered to the degree that we practiced the freedom we
professed; we became ever more productive of goods and services. The general
level of economic well-being rose to the point where many became rich enough
so that biblical statements about the wealthy began to haunt the collective
conscience.
The Bible does warn against the false gods of wealth and power, but it
legitimizes the normal human desire for a modicum of economic well
being-which is not at all the same as idolizing wealth and/or power. As a
matter of fact, the Bible gives anyone who seeks it out a general recipe for
a free and prosperous commonwealth. It tells us that we are created with the
capacity to choose; we are put on an earth which is the Lord's and given
stewardship responsibilities over its resources. We are ordered to work,
charged with rendering equal justice to all, and to love mercy. A people
which puts these ideas into practice is bound to become better off than a
people which ignores them. These commands laid the foundation for the
economic well-being of Western society.
Western civilization, which used to be called "Christendom," did not prosper
at the expense of the relatively poor Third World. This unhappy sector of
the globe is poor because it is unproductive; and it is unproductive because
its nations lack the institutions of freedom that enabled us to achieve
prosperity.
During recent years a small library of books and study guides has poured off
the presses of American church organizations (and from secular publishers as
well) with titles something like "Rich Christians (or Americans) in a Hungry
World." The allegation is that our prosperity is the cause of their poverty;
in other words, the Third World has been made poor by the very same economic
procedures-"capitalism"-that have made Western nations prosperous!
Therefore---the argument runs--our earnings should be taxed away from us and
our goods should be handed over to Third World countries--as a matter of
social justice! The false premise is that the wealth we have labored to
produce has been gained at their expense. Sending them our goods, then, is
but to restore to the Third World what rightfully belongs to it! What
perverse ignorance of the way the world works!
Nations of the West were founded on biblical principles of justice, freedom,
and a work ethic, which led naturally to a rise in the general level of
prosperity. Our wealth could not have come from the impoverished Third World
where there was a scarcity of goods. We prospered because of our
productivity; we became productive because we were freer than any other
nation. Freedom in a society enables people to produce more, consume more,
enjoy more; and also to give away more-as we have done-to the needy in this
land and in lands all over the world. The world has never before witnessed
international philanthropy on such a scale.
No one has denied Third World nations access to the philosophical and
religious credo which has inspired the American practices that make for
economic and social well-being. Few nations have done more to make the
literature of liberty available to all who wish it than American
missionaries, educators, philanthropists, and technicians. But there is
something in the creeds of Third World countries that hinders acceptance.
However, when non-Christian parts of the world decide to emulate Western
ideas of economic freedom they prosper. Look what happened to the economies
of Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore when they turned the market
economy loose!
Regarding the Poor
Ecclesiastical pronouncements on the economy are fond of the phrase "a
preferential option for the poor." It is invoked as the rationale for
governmental redistribution of wealth, that is, for a program of taxing
earnings away from those who produce in order to subsidize selected groups
and individuals. But it is a fact that reshuffling wealth by programs of tax
and subsidy merely enriches some at the expense of others; the nation as a
whole becomes poorer. Private enterprise capitalism is, in fact, the answer
for anyone who really does have a preferential option for the poor. The free
market economy, wherever it has been allowed to function, has elevated more
poor people further out of poverty faster than any other system.
Another phrase, repeated like a mantra, is "the poor and oppressed." There
is, of course, a connection between these two words; a person who is
oppressed is poorer than he would be otherwise. Oppression is always
political; oppression is the result of unjust laws. Correct the injustice by
repealing unjust laws; establish political liberty and economic freedom. But
even in the resulting free society, where people are not oppressed, there
will still be some people who are relatively poor because of the limited
demand for their services. Teachers and preachers are poor compared to rock
musicians because the masses spend millions to have their ears assaulted by
amplified sound, in preference to the good advice often available for free!
Ecclesiastical documents announce their concern for "the poor and
oppressed," but the authors of these documents are completely blind to the
forms oppression may take in our day. If there are unjust political
interventions that deny people employment, this would seem to be a flagrant
case of oppression. There are many such interventions. Minimum wage laws,
for instance, deny certain people access to employment, and these people are
poorer than they would be otherwise; the entire nation is less well off
because some people are not permitted to take a job. The same might be said
of the laws that grant monopoly status to certain groups of people gathered
as "unions" -- U.A.W., Teamsters, and the like. The above-market wage rate
they gain for union members results in unemployment for others both union
and nonunion. It is not difficult to figure out why this is so. The general
principle is that when things begin to cost more we tend to use less of
them. So, when labor begins to cost more, fewer workers will be hired.
It would take several pages to list all of the alphabet agencies that
regulate, control, and hinder productivity, making the entire nation less
prosperous than it need be. Our country suffers under these oppressions,
economically and otherwise, but not so severely as the oppressed people of
other nations, especially Communist and Third World nations. Churchmen
recommend, as a cure for Third World poverty, that we deprive the already
over-taxed and hampered productive segment of our people of an even larger
portion of their earnings, so as to turn more of our money over to Third
World governments. This will further empower the very Third World
politicians who are even now oppressing their people, enabling those
autocrats to oppress them more efficiently!
The New Testament and the Rich
It is not difficult to rebut the manifestoes issued by various religious
organizations. But then we turn to certain New Testament writings and are
confronted by what seem to be condemnations of the rich. How, for example,
shall we understand Jesus' remark, found in Luke 18:25 and Matthew 19:24:
"It is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man
to enter into the kingdom of God"?
Jesus' listeners were astonished when they heard these words. Worldly
prosperity, many of them assumed, was a mark of God's favor. It seemed to
follow that the man whom God favored with riches in this life was thereby
guaranteed a spot in heaven in the next.
There is a grain of truth in this distorted popular mentality. Biblical
religion holds that man is a created being, with the signature of his
Creator written on each person's soul. This inner sacredness implies the
ideal of liberty and justice in the relations between person and person.
These free people are given dominion over the earth in order to subdue it,
working "for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate," as
Francis Bacon put it. This is but another way of saying that those who
follow the natural order of things-God's order-in ethics and economics will
do better for themselves than those who violate this order. The faithful, we
read in Job 36:11 if they obey and serve Him ... shall spend their days in
prosperity and their years in pleasures."
Perhaps Jesus had something else in mind as well. Palestine had been
conquered by Rome.
Roman overlords, wielding power and enriching themselves at the expense of
the local population, would certainly supply many examples of "a rich man."
Furthermore, there were those among the subject people who hired themselves
out as publicans to serve the Romans by extorting taxes from their fellow
Jews. "Publicans and sinners" is virtually one word in the Gospels!
In nearly every nation known to history, rulers have used their political
power to seize the wealth produced by others for the gratification of
themselves and their friends. Kings and courtiers in the days of slavery and
serfdom consumed much of the wealth produced by farmers, artisans, and
craftsmen. Today, politicians in Communist, socialist, and welfarist
nations, democratically elected by "the people," share their power with a
congeries of special interests, factions, and pressure groups who
systematically prey on the economy, depriving people who do the world's work
of over 40 percent of everything they earn.
Many a "rich man" lives on legal plunder, today as well as in times past.
Frederic Bastiat's little book, The Law, familiarizes us with the procedure.
The law is an instrument of justice, intended to secure each individual in
his right to his life, his liberty, and his rightful property. Ownership is
rightfully claimed as the fruit of honest toil and/or as the result of
voluntary exchanges of goods and services. But the law, as Bastiat points
out, is perverted from an instrument of justice into a device of plunder
when it takes goods from lawful owners by legislative fiat and transfers
them to groups of the politically powerful. "Robbery is the first labor
saving device," wrote Lewis Mumford, and political plunder is a species of
theft. The fact that it is legally sanctioned does not make it morally
right; it is a violation of the commandment against theft.
The Israelites had fond memories of King Solomon. "All through his reign,"
we read in 1 Kings 4:25, "Judah and Israel continued at peace, every man
under his own vine and fig tree, from Dan to Beersheba." A nice tribute to
individual ownership and economic well-being! The Bible has high praise for
honestly earned wealth, and it is exceedingly unlikely that Jesus, in the
passage we have been considering, intended anything like a general
condemnation of wealth, as such.
At this point someone might raise a legitimate question: "Did not Jesus say,
in the Sermon on the Mount, 'Blessed are the poor'?" Well, yes and no.
The Sermon on the Mount appears in two of the four Gospels, in Matthew and
in Luke. In Luke 6:20 the Beatitude reads: "Blessed are the poor"; but in
Matthew 5:3 it is: "Blessed are the poor in spirit." There's a discrepancy
here; how shall we interpret it?
The Beatitudes were spoken somewhere between 25 and 30 A.D. The Gospels of
Matthew and Luke appeared some 50 or 60 years later. Both authors had access
to the Gospel of Mark, to fragments of other writings now lost, and to an
oral tradition extending over the generations. We do not have the original
manuscripts of the Gospels; what we have are copies of copies, and
eventually translations of copies into various languages.
Scholars tell us that the Aramaic original of those two words, "the poor,"
is am ha-aretz"people of the land." The am ha-aretz-at this stage in
Israel's history-were outside the tribal system of Jewish society; they did
not have the time or inclination to observe the niceties of priestly law,
let alone its scribal elaborations. ne work of the am ha-aretz brought them
into contact with Gentiles and Gentile ways of life, which in the eyes of
the orthodox was defiling. Their status is like that of the people on the
bottom rung of the Hindu caste system-the Sudras. Jesus is reminding His
hearers that these outcasts are equal in God's sight to anyone else in
Israel, and because of their lowly station in the eyes of society, they may
be more open to man's need of God than the proud people in the ranks above
them. The New English Bible provides an interesting slant on this text; it
translates "poor in spirit" as "those who know their need of God,"
In short, Jesus is saying that all are equally precious in God's sight,
including the lowly am ha-aretz; He is not praising indigence, as such.
Biblical Interpretation
The Bible is full of metaphor and symbolism and allegory. Literal
interpretation usually falls short; proper interpretation demands a bit of
finesse ... as in the case of St. Paul's remark about money.
St. Paul declared that "The love of money is the root of all evil." (1 Tim.
6:10) The word "money" in this context-scholars tell us--does not mean
coins, or bonds, or a bank account. Paul uses the word "money" to symbolize
the secular world's pursuit of wealth and power. We tend to become
infatuated with "the world." It's the infatuation which is evil, for God's
kingdom is not wholly of this world. We are the kind of creatures whose
ultimate destiny is achieved only in another order of reality: "Here we have
no continuing city." (Heb. 13:14) Accept this world with all its joys and
delights; live it to the full; but remember-we are pilgrims, not settlers.
In today's vernacular, Paul might be telling us: "Have a love affair with
this world, but don't marry it!"
We know that there are numerous unlawful ways to get rich, and these deserve
condemnation. But prosperity also comes to a man or woman as the fairly
earned reward of honest effort and service. The Bible has nothing but praise
for wealth thus gained. "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? " said
the author of Proverbs (Pr. 22:29). "He shall stand before kings." Economic
well-being is everyone's birthright, provided it is the result of honest
effort. But we are warned against a false philosophy of material
possessions.
This, I think, is the point of Jesus' parable of the rich man whose crops
were so good that he had to build bigger barns. (Luke 12:17 ff.) This good
fortune was the man's excuse for saying, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up
for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry."
There is a two fold point to this parable. The first is that nothing in life
justifies us in resigning from life; we must never stop growing. It has been
well said that we don't grow old, we become old by not growing. The second
point is that a material windfall-like falling heir to a million dollars-may
tempt a man into the error of quitting the struggle for the real goals in
life. Jesus condemned the man who put his trust in riches, who "layeth up
treasure for himself and is not rich toward God." He did not condemn
material possessions as such; He taught stewardship, which is the
responsible ownership and use of rightfully acquired material goods.
Life here is probative; our three score years and ten are a sort of test
run. As St. Augustine put it, "We are here schooled for life eternal." And
one of the important examination questions concerns our economic use of the
planet1s scarce resources and the proper management of our material
possessions. These are the twin facets of Christian stewardship, and poor
performance here will result in dire consequences. Jesus put it very
strongly: "If, therefore, you have not been faithful in the use of worldly
wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?" (Luke 16:12)
What does it mean to be "faithful in the use of worldly wealth?" What else
can it mean except the intelligent and responsible use of the planet's
scarce resources to transform them by human effort and ingenuity into the
consumable goods we humans require not only for survival, but also as a
means for the finer things in life? In practice, this means free market
capitalism-the free enterprise system-in the production, exchange, and
utilization of our material wealth in the service of our chosen goals.
--
Atheism teaches that there is no God, hence no God-given rights. That
ideology coupled with a system that believed in the superiority of the state
at the expense of the individual was murderously synergistic.
burli...@hangup.com
---------------------------------------------------
>ladies use my tongue for your pleasure
></groups?q=author:danaraffaniello%40worldnet.
>att.net&start=210&hl=en&lr=&ie=UT>F-8&selm=
>63j187%24nji%40bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net&rnum=226>
>swm very oral will orally worship any female that wishes to be worshipped.
>will kiss and lick your feet and butt .
>might be wiling to be your toilet paper if you
>are that aggressive
Roger
You are blessed.
"dpr" <why> wrote in message news:100rcec...@corp.supernews.com...
Carol Lee Smith
<snip propaganda>
> --
> Atheism teaches that there is no God, hence no God-given rights. That
> ideology coupled with a system that believed in the superiority of the
> state at the expense of the individual was murderously synergistic.
no, no, no, Dana.
Mustn't steal the work of others.
Proof of Dana's plagiarism: http://snipurl.com/3qrw
Rico
>http://www.libertyhaven.com/noneoftheabove/religionandchristians/biblicalroots.
>html
>Biblical Roots of American Liberty
>Edmund A. Opitz
>
>The First Amendment to the Constitution forbids Congress to set up an
>official church; there was to be no "Church of the United States"
Is your God so feeble as to need the power of the state to win converts? If
not why are you trying to use the state to win converts?
Roger
news:100tqur...@corp.supernews.com...
They don't look at it that way. It is their state. Why shouldn't it do what
they want it to?
Paul Revere
>http://www.libertyhaven.com/noneoftheabove/religionandchristians/biblicalroots.
>html
The Separation of Church and State
Jesus of Nazareth: "Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto the Lord
that which is the Lord's".
Nothing in the establishment clause appears to limit its applicability to
national establishments of religion (or, alternatively, to establishments of a
national religion). On the contrary, the words "establishment" and "religion"
are left unmodified, as we would expect if they were intended broadly.
Similarly, the clause doesn't distinguish between preferential and
non-preferential establishments; accomodationists (who view the establishment
clause as prohibiting only a "national church") create this distinction
without one word of grounding in the text. Rather, as pointed out by legal
scholar Douglas Laycock, the version of the establishment clause adopted by
the First Congress "is one of the broadest versions considered by either
House:"
It forbids not only establishments, but also any law respecting or relating to
an establishment. Most importantly, it forbids any law respecting an
establishment of "religion." It does not say "a religion," "a national
religion," "one sect or society," or "any particular denomination of
religion." It is religion generically that may not be established
("Nonpreferential Aid to Religion: A False Claim about Original Intent,"
William and Mary Law Review, vol. 27, 1986, p. 881).
Conversely, the free exercise clause does contain limiting language, although
accomodationists don't read this clause narrowly. To illustrate this
narrowness, compare the free exercise and free speech clauses:
· Congress shall make no law...prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
· Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech.
As noted by Constitutional scholar Leonard Levy:
The framers of the amendment deliberately used different verbs in the freedom
of religion and freedom of the press clauses....If the framers meant what they
said and said what they meant, then Congress may abridge the free exercise of
religion so long as Congress does not prohibit it. (The Establishment
Clause,pp. 118)
The word "respecting:"
The establishment clause does more than ban the federal government from
establishing religion; it bars even laws respecting establishment. This
language is far more consistent with the broad reading of the clause than it
is with any version of accomodationism. To quote again from Levy:
The First Amendment does not say that Congress shall not establish a religion
or create an establishment of religion. It says Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion. Whether "respecting" connotes
honoring or concerning, the clause means that Congress shall make no law on
that subject. The ban is not just on establishments of religion but on laws
respecting them, a fact that allows a law to fall short of creating an
establishment yet still be unconstitutional. The entire nonpreferentialist
argument reduces to the proposition that, although a law preferring one
religion over others would be unconstitutional, government aid to all without
preference to any would be constitutional. But if government cannot pass a law
on the subject of an establishment of religion, whether the aid is to all
without preference or to only one makes no difference. A law of either kind is
a law on a forbidden subject and therefore unconstitutional. (The
Establishment Clause, p. 118)
The word "thereof:"
An overlooked aspect of the free exercise clause is that it looks back to the
establishment clause for its definition of "religion;" the establishment
clause says that Congress may make no law respecting the establishment of
"religion," while the free exercise clause says that Congress cannot prohibit
the free exercise "thereof." Logically, the word "thereof" must have the same
content as the object to which it refers. Accordingly, what counts as
"religion" for one clause must count as "religion" for the other.
Critically, the free exercise clause makes no sense unless the word "religion"
is read to encompass more than a church, denomination, or sect. On the
contrary, it is common ground that the state abridges free exercise when it
interferes with only small parts of an individual's religious practice. The
state, for example, abridges free exercise when it tells student they cannot
pray during school, even if it allows them complete freedom to practice all
other aspects of their faith. Similarly, the state cannot tell a church it
can't erect a nativity scene on its front lawn even if the church is otherwise
left free to use its property as it wishes. Private prayer and nativity scenes
are protected by the free exercise clause despite the fact that neither of
these practices constitute religions in and of themselves.
If prayer and nativity scenes count as "religion" for the purposes of the free
exercise clause, they must also count as "religion" for the purposes of the
establishment clause. Just as the state abridges religion when it tells a
student she cannot pray, so to does it establish religion when it requires
prayer to be said in the schools. Just as the state abridges religion when it
tells a church it can't set up a nativity scene, so to does it establish
religion when it sets up a nativity scene on government land at public
expense. The state does not cross the line to establishment only when it goes
to the trouble and expense of setting up a state church; it crosses that line
when it sets up any religious practice that constitutes "religion" for the
purposes of free exercise.
Legislative History of the Religion Clauses
If, as accomodationists want to argue, the purpose of the First Amendment was
simply to bar the establishment of a state church, then one would expect to
see evidence of this intent in the framing of the Amendment. In fact, the
framers rejected versions of the First Amendment that would have done nothing
more than bar the establishment of a state church. Rather, the framers adopted
what is arguably the broadest of the proposed versions. (All information in
this section is taken, unless otherwise indicated, from Leonard Levy, "The
Original Meaning of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment," in James
E. Wood, ed., Religion and the State, pp. 43-83. For other discussions of the
framing of the Amendment, see Thomas Curry, The First Freedoms, ch. 8, and
Douglas Laycock, "'Nonpreferential' Aid to Religion: A False Claim about
Original Intent," William and Mary Law Review, vol. 27, pp. 875-923.
Additionally, please consult our online collection of all the mentions of the
religion clauses recorded in the Annals of Congress and the Senate Journal for
the first Congress.)
The House debates:
James Madison introduced the first version of the Amendment in the House of
Representatives in 1789. The version read as follows: "The civil rights of
none shall be abridged on the account of religious belief, nor shall any
national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of
conscience in any manner or on any pretext be infringed." A House subcommittee
immediately edited out the word "national" from Madison's proposal. A variety
of additional versions were proposed and debated; none of these versions
contained the word "national," or can be construed to bar only the
establishment of a national religion. After further debate, the House approved
the following, clearly broader, amendment: "Congress shall make no law
establishing religion, or to prevent the free exercise thereof, or to infringe
the rights of conscience." The first two thirds of the proposal are similar to
our present version of the First Amendment; nothing in the proposal seems
independently to authorize Congress to aid religion in any way.
The Senate debates
The House amendment went to the Senate in August. On September 3 the Senate
took up three alternatives to the House language. The wording of these
versions were as follows:
· Congress shall make no law establishing one religious sect or society
in preference to others.
· Congress shall not make any law infringing the rights of conscience,
or establishing any religious sect or society.
· Congress shall make no law establishing any particular denomination of
religion in preference to another.
None of these versions passed muster. Instead, the Senate approved the
following, much broader, language: "Congress shall make no law establishing
religion." Six days later the Senate returned to the Amendment for the final
time and approved the following: "Congress shall make no law establishing
articles of faith or a mode of worship, or prohibiting the free exercise of
religion." The Senate, in other words, rejected three versions of the First
Amendment that would have codified the accomodationist position (i.e., the
barring of a national church, and little else) in favor of a version that,
while not as broad as the House proposal, was no longer narrowly focused on
the establishment of a "sect," "society," or "denomination."
The conference committe debates:
Given the approval of different versions of the Bill of Rights by the House
and Senate, a conference committee was created to resolve differences. The
House members of the committee (headed by Madison) flatly refused to accept
the Senate version of the religion Amendment, thereby "indicating that the
House would not be satisfied with merely a ban on preference of one sect or
religion over others" (Levy, "The Original Meaning of the Establishment
Clause," p. 60). The Senate conferees then abandoned the Senate proposal, and
the current version of the Amendment was adopted.
The history of the framing of the First Amendment, in other words, gives
little support to the accomodationist position. The House never considered a
version of the Amendment that codified the accomodationist position. The
Senate did consider such versions, but rejected them. In their place, the
Senate approved a more broadly drawn Amendment that barred the establishment
of articles of faith and modes of worship without reference to religious
denominations. The final version of the Amendment was even more broadly drawn
than the House version in that it barred not only an establishment of
religion, but even laws respecting the establishment of religion (i.e.,
wording that further guaranteed that the federal government could not
interfere with the religious affairs of the states). Clearly, Congress
intended the First Amendment to do more than simply bar the establishment of a
state church.
http://members.tripod.com/%7Ecandst/tnppage/basic3a.htm
"I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people, and the West in general, into an unbearable hell and a choking life."
Osama bin Laden, October, 2001 (quoted in NewsMax.com 2/1/02)
Rico
So you admit your God requires the power of the state to survive? Mighty
feeble God IMO.
Roger
I don't have a god. Neither do you.
Cary Kittrell
<Dana Raffaniello, pope of plagiarism wrote:
<
<<snip propaganda>
<
<
<> --
<> Atheism teaches that there is no God, hence no God-given rights. That
<> ideology coupled with a system that believed in the superiority of the
<> state at the expense of the individual was murderously synergistic.
<
<no, no, no, Dana.
<
<Mustn't steal the work of others.
Oh, why not? Dana's said repeatedly that he's not a Christian (this
allows him to indulge in his wet-dream fantasies of violence against
liberals), so how can you expect him to believe in the God-given
right to individual property (in this case, intellectual property)?
<
<Proof of Dana's plagiarism: http://snipurl.com/3qrw
<
The Declaration of Independence seems to believe in Creator-given
rights, but the Bible itself, which is about submission and obedience,
not individualism, does not. I'd like Dana to find the alleged
God-given right to "the pursuit of happiness" in the Bible. Or even
"liberty". If the Bible anywhere thunders against the institution
of slavery -- other than the enslavement of the Hebrews by non-Hebrews --
I'd like to know where.
Creator-given rights were a bit of Enlightenment cant shoved into
a revolutionary manifesto. Hardly Biblical, not the Enlightenment,
and certainly not rebellion against existing secular authority.
(see Romans 13)
-- cary