By Lowell Hagewood
“…no truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure freedom.“
––Noah Webster, signer of the Constitution
Upon arriving in Washington D.C. in 1937, freshman Congressman Lyndon Johnson reputedly commented that the Capitol “smelled” of power, an aroma he loved and “enjoyed” to the fullest as President of the United States nearly 30 years later. However, the odor became so foul under his successor Richard Nixon that an enraged press and public drove him from the White House in 1974 over a series of government abuse scandals collectively known as “Watergate.” But seldom have so many scandals exploded within days of each other as those during the summer of 2013. Yet, the odor is only offensive to a select portion of the news media and public. Where is the outrage over the I.R.S. targeting of faith-based organizations, or the N.S.A. storing and perhaps monitoring of billions of phone calls and e-mails without probable cause? Is our society so celebrity-driven that only the opinions of our favorite pop culture icons matter? Possibly, but even N.S.A. leaker Edward Snowden has received more attention than Kim and Kayne’s baby or Derek Jeter’s girlfriend. Or is it more likely that Americans have become so accustomed to the stench of scandal that they can no longer “smell” it? The latter scenario is the most dangerous because it is one that has resulted from the steady secularization of our government and society and threatens our most fundamental freedoms. Please read on!
In Government We Trust: Get Your Gas Masks Here!
Did you know that as late as 1892 every state in the Union not only featured some type of God-centered declaration in their constitutions, but many also required their elected officials to affirm their belief in God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit? Today the mere suggestion of such oaths would be the basis of a lawsuit. But have you ever wondered why early Americans, especially those contemporary with the American Revolution and the writing of our “Founding Documents,” supported such a close relationship between Christian values and the public square? As students of classical history, the authors of America’s freedom documents––the “Founding Fathers”––were keenly aware of how repressive democratic governments can become when their basis is secular or pagan. While ancient Athens pioneered democracy, the Greeks were polytheists who did not subscribe to what Thomas Jefferson called “unalienable rights” that come from a singular Creator. The Greeks believed the universe originated from an impersonal, divine force, not a personal God who created man in His own image with fundamental, natural rights that all human governments must protect. Consequently, the periods of Greek democratic government usually degenerated into dictatorships, giving rise to the term tyranny. While the American Founders were also fascinated with the Roman Republic, neither Greece nor Rome accepted a doctrine of equal, God-given rights to protect the individual from the state. Negatively impressed, Jefferson and his generation rejected a secular basis for the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights and chose a Biblical one rooted in Romans 13. Just as God established government as a servant of the people with the power to defend and protect them, Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that people were not created by God to serve the government. Instead, the government was to serve man by protecting three God-given, and therefore, unalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Conversely, without God, the highest lawgiver, rights are not “unalienable,” but are based on whatever the government deems legal. In other words, if the secular state becomes the highest moral authority, the government decides what values its citizens can hold. Unalienable rights are no longer inseparable gifts from God, but are provided by the state and, consequently, temporal. This would also explain why many states once required their elected officials to believe in the Godhead. Otherwise, how could leaders be expected to protect God-given freedoms without a belief in God? In short, without a Biblical vision of the human person, our political life is doomed to become the mere exercise of power subject to the whim of a tyrant, caesar, dictator, or president.1
The Declaration of “Dependence”
Contemporary secularists ignore the Biblical roots of American freedom by manipulating the media and public with the language of “compassion” and “human rights.” Myopically, many Christians have bought into President Obama’s “spiritualization” of the welfare state when he claims that all Americans have a mutual responsibility to be their “brother’s keeper” and that responsibility should be defined and implemented through the government. In reality, Christianity teaches reliance upon God, not the government. Christianity limits the power of civil government, as “there is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and destroy” (James 4:12). Tragically, this Christian worldview has been under steady assault for 50 years, and just since 2009, there has been such a dramatic increase in federal entitlements that today 60% of Americans receive more government benefits than they pay in taxes. Even more insidious is the trend toward centralization, which secularization necessitates. Secularists know that in a nation with a long Christian heritage like the U.S., only the federal government has the power to rival the influence of family, church, and community with cradle-to-grave welfare or by special rights for minority behaviors abhorrent to people of faith. Whereas God-given natural rights limit the government’s power, government-created ones expand it under the guise of “humanitarianism,” i.e., the right to health insurance, food stamps, student loans, marriage “equality,” just to name a few. Secular rights are also relativistic, subject to increasing demands from recipients and the centralized, impersonal boards and agencies that implement them. In such a humanist paradigm, the government must grow in power and become increasingly authoritarian in determining which “rights” are legal. Should faith-based companies be forced by the government to provide health coverage that includes abortion-inducing drugs? Should a state that passes a state-wide referendum with a Biblical definition of marriage be forced to recognize same-sex marriage through a court order? Can an Army sergeant with 25 years experience be punished for serving Chick-fil-A sandwiches at his promotion party in honor of the Defense of Marriage Act? The answer has been an emphatic yes in each case!2
The Road to Tyranny
According to many of the Founders, if legality determines morality then dictatorship must be the result. The framers of America’s Constitution understood that there could be only one true foundation for republics––religion and morality––because if people voluntarily accept moral responsibility for their actions, the government will not have to coerce them. On the contrary, a democracy divorced from moral and religious foundations would destroy itself in crime, corruption, and ultimately become a dictatorship to restore order. They understood that without a concept of sin, tyranny is certain. If there are no moral absolutes in society, we cannot expect them in government. Without them in government, policies cannot be based on anything but raw power. Hence, whoever is in power shapes the laws to serve them rather than protecting the constitutional rights of the people. As a case in point, the Supreme Court’s de facto reversal of California’s Proposition 8 in June 2013 should concern all Americans, Christian or otherwise. In denying the 7,000,000 Californians who voted for a Biblical definition definition of marriage a voice in the making of state law, the least democratic and most centralized branch of government––the judiciary––is advancing a political agenda opposite their Constitutional purpose of interpreting, not making law. “Smell” the corruption? Our government is becoming a thinly veiled dictatorship with awesome power, but no responsibility to God’s laws, the Constitution, or its fellow citizens. Thus, as secular humanism replaces God and moral relativism replaces moral responsibility, William Penn’s 17th century caveat appears more astute than ever that, “those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.”3
The Faithful Remnant
Americans, both Christian and non-Christian alike, will continue to have trouble smelling the stench of corruption without both re-examining the Christian roots of American freedom and re-engaging in civil stewardship from a Biblical perspective. Christians must be the faithful remnant and alternative to a government and culture embracing same-sex marriage, institutionalizing anti-Christian bias in government programs and agencies such as the I.R.S. and mandating pro-abortion policies for faith-based companies, schools, and hospitals through “Obamacare.” Much is still not known about the N.S.A. program of mining phone and e-mail data of citizens, but it too is beginning to have that “Orwellian smell of ‘Big Brother.'” In the final analysis, Christians cannot change a culture for Christ by just using worldly means such as politics. Real cultural change comes from the inside. But it is also true that American political and social institutions once respected and even reflected Christian values because Christians lived and voted in such a way that shaped those institutions. They also understood the Biblical basis of American constitutional law and were quick to defend their constitutional rights. To do otherwise, to abandon civil stewardship and ignore Christ’s admonition to be “salt and light” in society is to ignore God’s warning, “When the righteous rule, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule the people mourn.” Obviously, the righteous cannot rule unless Christians help to elect them, and without Christian values in government, we subject ourselves to devious, immoral leaders who will bring hardships on “we the people.” Secular post-modernists know they must destroy Christianity because it is always easier to dominate a morally weak people who do not take time to smell the corruption around them.
note: Christian is used in a general sense in this article to mean all religionists in Christendom, not necessarily Christians in the New Testament sense.
Lowell Hagewood has taught history and political science in Nashville for 38 years.
