It is a brilliantly conceived plan that puts the Catholic Church in the awkward position of defending a position that most Americans, including some its own members, do not support. Yet, it is their conviction, and if we really believe in religious liberty, it must be respected and supported. To many, this is a silly position to take in today’s world. Holding this position makes the Catholic Church appear to be out of step with current realities. It is designed to marginalize and the church and cause it to fall into disrepute with the less religious.

Aside from the obvious benefit of crucifying an opponent of his policies… there is something even more sinister afoot. If the church can be moved into the irrational curmudgeon category on the contraceptive issue, it damages its stand on the critical issues of abortion and homosexual marriage. It is the Alinsky tactic subjecting a opponent to ridicule and isolation to diminish its influence and serve as an example to others who would oppose the “anointed one’s” dictates.

The Catholic Church has been publicly pushed into a position of standing against the government or going against strongly held beliefs. Corporately this is a problem… individually it has eternal consequences. Matthew 10:33 tells us “But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.” I don’t think the President understands the strength of personal faith and how, even with the strictest interpretation of Romans 13, there is a duty to follow the godly promptings of conscience.

Bill Donahue of the Catholic League promised the the ruling would be fought with law suits and other legal means… and left the door open to take the battle “to the streets”. Furthermore the church leadership wrote a letter that was read in almost all Catholic Churches this past weekend that read, in part:

We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law. People of faith cannot be made second class citizens. We are already joined by our brothers and sisters of all faiths and many others of good will in this important effort to regain our religious freedom. Our parents and grandparents did not come to these shores to help build America’s cities and towns, its infrastructure and institutions, its enterprise and culture, only to have their posterity stripped of their God given rights. In generations past, the Church has always been able to count on the faithful to stand up and protect her sacred rights and duties. I hope and trust she can count on this generation of Catholics to do the same. Our children and grandchildren deserve nothing less.

This is a powerful and courageous stand the church is taking. I would hope and pray my protestant brothers and sisters… Baptists, Pentecostals and everyone in between would join them in this stand, not just for liberty, but because, contrary to some teachings, the Catholics are our brothers in the Lord we need to support each other in our faith… lest we be divided into scattered and ineffective non-entities.

Our country is run by an administration that is continuously poking and prodding the religious community… those of us who bitterly cling to our God and our guns. If we allow them to dictate the terms of our faith, we are tacitly admitting there is someone, or something, more powerful and more worthy of our allegiance than God Himself. For the sake of those who may fall into the trap of radical secularism, we cannot let this take place.

This political blunder that could well turn a reliable Democrat voting bloc away from the party many supported in the past because of some of the economic programs seems to have come from one of two possible mindsets. The first is that, being radical secularists, members of the Obama regime simply do not understand the power and influence of faith. As bad as this sounds, it is the more benign reason. Otherwise, it could be a conscious effort to stamp out the religion that gives people hope and confidence apart from the government.

The question for us, Catholic and protestant alike, as well as our Jewish friends, is that if the stand does mean taking to the streets, will we be there standing side by side? Before we answer, it would be good to consider that Obama is a disciple of Saul Alinsky who would be only to happy to use civil unrest to clamp down on the opposition. What does this mean for those of us who take a stand? It could well mean that the stand would be more than a bus ride to gather at the mall in Washington. It is a decision that must be made with purpose… with Matthew 10:33 in mind. The time may be coming when the choice is more than just theoretical. Will we see it as an blessing or a curse? Will we, like our forefathers, pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor?

It seems he would have been quite comfortable with Jeremiah Wright’s sermon about America’s “chickens coming home to roost.” While it is undeniable that our country has taken some indefensible actions, the fact remains that, at least until recent years, it has been the closest thing to a Christian nation the world has seen. This thinking bothers the critics, whose secular humanistic expectations of us are higher than our creators, while ignoring the wickedness all around us.

He obviously either did not live through the cold war period, or has chosen to overlook the Evil Empire we faced off against in that time. It is easy to criticize the US for things that have gone wrong and justify the world hating us, while making nice with dictators, both major and petty, around the world who have slaughtered millions. It seems that there is a guilt among some for the success our country has had and the ease of their lives. There is also, in some quarters, a rejection of the Judeo-Christian values that have guided our country to greatness.

Outside of a few specifics, we have nothing to apologize for on the world stage as we have generally been a stabilizing influence. When disaster strikes anywhere in the world, who comes to help the victims. Do the Chinese? Do the Islamic states? Do the people in the Russian sphere lend a hand? No! It is the evil Americans who show up with food, clothing, medicine, and anything else that is needed. We have often given more to overseas victims than we’ve given to our own people. That is how terrible we Americans are.

Unfortunately, sometimes our leaders have allowed the concept of “the greater good” to guide our support of some pretty awful people. Many times we would have been better off heading George Washington’s advice to steer clear of foreign alliances of this sort. Instead, we have followed the course of expediency rather than the course we know is right. Our error was that we have tried to take the short cut of trusting the untrustworthy and being unequally yoked with brutal, godless men who could do us favors in the short term.

I’m not sure this makes us evil. It does make us foolish and lazy! We don’t have to go around taking out every petty dictator that appears on the world scene, but we certainly don’t have to finance and arm them either. We have forgotten the value of virtue. Yet, in spite of errors in judgment our country has done nothing so awful as to warrant the hatred of those wanting to kill us. We have been a little heavy handed in times past, but to find the reason for the irrational attitude of the followers of radical Islam, we need look no further than the Koran, with its message of dominance and victory over the infidels.

The conflict we are facing is nothing that can be negotiated away. You can only negotiate with reasonable and rational people. We can blame ourselves all we want, and, while we can always do better, we can never make ourselves acceptable to the radical Islamic leaders except by surrender.

So, the blame America first crowd does not have the solution to world peace, but they do have the solution to destroying patriotism and pride in our country.

James Dobson tugged at the heart strings, S.M. Lockridge spoke with passion. However, for me, the most memorable speaker, was Dr. Robert A. Cook from The King’s College in Briarcliff Manor, NY. – now moved to New York City. He was a delightful gentleman who had a way of putting things into perspective. He began his address by telling us that two days before, he talked to Vice President Bush, and just the day before, he talked to the President. Then, with a twinkle in his eye, he said. “But this morning… I talked to God.”

In his own, plain spoken way, the bow tied Dr. Cook showed an unusual understanding of the what was important and where the real power rests. As great a man as Ronald Reagan was, he could not walk on water or turn water into wine… and, even though this may come as a surprise to some, neither can the man who occupies his office now nor any of those seeking to replace him.

We are told to respect our leaders and pray for those in authority. This does not mean we are to blindly follow and not speak up when we see things are amiss. They are men… only men. We are privileged to live in country where we still have the ability to raise our voices when we see the train is headed off a cliff. With this privilege comes the responsibility to do so! After all, it’s not just about us. We are our brothers keeper.

As a practical matter, then, we need to stay in touch with our legislators, at all levels. We are not doing our jobs as citizens if we don’t and our complaints to others just become ineffective whining… and nobody likes a whiner. People respect those who take decisive action – even if they don’t agree with, or even like, you.

Recently Allen West has attracted a strong and loyal following.  He has the courage to speak the truth and stand against the prevailing political winds.  Many of you are already fans of what may be a modern day Patrick Henry.  He has been so effective at stirring up the populace that the powers that be in the Florida Republican Party are working at redistricting him out of his seat in congress so he would no longer be the standard by which they are judged.

Using Lt. Col. West as the standard for judging congress is not really a bad idea, yet there are few who would benefit by the comparison.  So for those of you know about the man already… enjoy.  For those who are not familiar with him… enjoy!

Essentially there are two primary ways of viewing the world around us. C.S. Lewis called it the “Great Divide”. Do we live our lives with the recognition of the supreme being, or do we consider ourselves (man) to be the supreme being? There is even a perversion of the secular humanist thinking that sees man as the supreme underbeing and Mother Earth is the deity to be worshipped… in the way that these unusual people shall specify for us.

In any case, the culture war that currently engulfs our country is one that most who would claim the God centered world view are blissfully unaware of. So many, like their secular neighbors, are absorbed in their own lives and problems. They have been distracted by the small acts of goodness they can do, and totally miss the bigger picture that shows the Christian viewpoint being shuffled off to the side. Many of us have been majoring in minors, as the saying goes… fighting over hymnbook content or carpet colors.

Many also site II Timothy 2:4 that tells us “No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs – he wants to please his commanding officer.” We are told this as they, many with sincerity, attempt to go about the business of the Lord. The problem with this thinking is that it fails to recognize that a major part of the battle has moved into the public arena and the forces of secular humanism have been winning by default. The other problem with this thinking is that many of the Lord’s “soldiers” are AWOL from the fight entirely.

Many also take Paul’s admonition to heart that we need to endure hardships and the implementation of a secular based government with no concept of the creator endowed rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is just something we will have to live with.

This all well and good except they are missing the main point: IT’S NOT ABOUT US! Our convenience and ease of life are not the issue. The issue is the millions of children going through the public schools immersed in Darwinism. The issue is the millions of babies killed in the name of convenience with no concept of consequences. The issue is the gay and lesbian clubs in the same public schools that now call Christmas Vacation a Winter Break. No, it is not about us. It’s about permitting a culture that devalues the God of the Bible and promotes the idea that our puny logic can figure out what is right and wrong based on our circumstances… and it’s about the tragic consequences to those misdirected by our culture.

An example of how one’s world view determines their actions and impact on those around them is the slavish allegiance of academic biology departments at all levels to the evolutionary thinking of Charles Darwin. They understand there are gaps in the theory, but they have faith that eventually, their knowledge will be filled. Why is this, as the facts can’t substantiate their position? To understand this, let’s go back to the basic divide in world views. One says there is a creator God and the other denies this fact.

Most academicians in their ivy covered world with inbred social and work life circles publicly proclaim that they have never been able to see or measure God, therefore, he must not exist. With this background they HAVE TO embrace Darwinism since it meshes with their world view. There is no way they can even admit Creationism is a valid alternative. They deride Intelligent Design as simply an attempt to insert religion into science.

Ben Stein showed the foolishness of this position in his film Expelled when he interviewed a distinguished professor who could accept the possibility that a superior race from another solar system could have set life in motion on earth, but could not accept that we were created by a deity. These people are people are teaching our young and we are letting them!

Books could be, and have been, written about the effect of the secular humanist philosophy on our society as a whole and on us individually. Basically it has only led to increases in crime, suicide and poverty. The secularized society has proven it is not the paradise envisioned in John Lennon’s Imagine any more than the former Soviet Union produced the workers paradise it touted around the world.

Consider your world view. Compare it to the programs and pronouncements coming out our Washington and your state capitol. Don’t just think about the impact they will have on your life. Think about what they will do to the people around you and society as a whole. Many are trying to buy you off with trinkets as they steal and corrupt the soul of our country.

[We live in a secularized world of nation states in which traditional religion, especially Christianity, is unwelcome. Rooted in the “Enlightenment,” this view supports a secularized and authoritarian public square enforced by government and that progress requires forcing religion ever backward into remote corners of society. In short, America has become a secular theocracy with a civic religion of national politics (nationalism) occupying the public realm in which government has replaced God.]

Continued from Part 1:

During the Enlightenment, nationalism became the new civic religion, in which the nation state was not merely a substitute for the church, but a substitute for God, and political religion benefited from being more tangible than supernatural religion in having the physical means of violence necessary to enforce mandatory worship and funding. Nation states provided a new kind of salvation and immortality; one’s death is not in vain if it is “for the nation,” which will live on.

This “myth of religious violence” lived on with legal theorist John Rawls who claimed that the modern problem is a theological one and the solution is political. For Rawls, since people believe in unresolvable theological doctrines over which they will kill each other, a secular state must rule. Similarly, Stanford law professor Kathleen Sullivan, a secularist, has claimed that as a necessary condition for peace to avoid a “war of all sects against all,” religion must be banished from the public square.

As William Canavaugh notes, “[O]nce the state had laid claim to the holy, the state voluntarily relinquished it by banning religion from direct access to the public square . . . then what we have is not a separation of religion from politics but rather the substitution of the religion of the state for the religion of the church.”

Hence, in Abington Township School District v. Schempp, Supreme Court Justice William Brennan stated that the function of public schools is:

the training of American citizens in an atmosphere in which children may assimilate a heritage common to all American groups and religions. . . . This is a heritage neither theistic nor atheistic, but simply civic and patriotic. A patriotic and united allegiance to the United States is the cure for the divisiveness of religion in public.

In his dissent, Justice Potter Stewart correctly warned that the Abington ruling would be seen “not as the realization of state neutrality, but rather as the establishment of a religion of secularism.”

The reality of today’s secular theocracy is its hypocritical authoritarianism that circumvents the natural-law tradition of Christian teachings. Cavanaugh well sums up the incoherence of the secular theocrat who claims that, “Their violence—being tainted by religion—is uncontrolled, absolutist, fanatical, irrational, and divisive. Our violence—being secular—is controlled, modest, rational, beneficial, peace making, and sometimes regrettably necessary to contain their violence.” The appalling problem with the “myth of religious violence” is not that it opposes certain forms of violence, but that it not only denies moral condemnation of secular violence but that it considers it highly praiseworthy.

In Politics as Religion, Emilio Gentile notes that the “religion of politics” is “a system of beliefs, myths, rituals, and symbols that interpret and define the meaning and end of human existence by subordinating the destiny of individuals and the collectivity to a supreme entity.” A religion of politics is a secular religion because it creates “an aura of sacredness around an entity belonging to this world.” And according to Cavanaugh, “People are not allowed to kill for ‘sectarian religion’. . . . Only the nation-state may kill. . . . it is this power to organize killing that makes American civil religion the true religion of the U.S. social order.”

Among most Christians in the U.S. for example, very few would agree to kill in Christ’s name, while killing and dying for the nation state in war and supporting “our troops” is taken for granted. The religious-secular split enables public loyalty by Christians to the nation state’s secular violence, including invasive wars, torture, and “collateral damage,” while avoiding direct confrontation with Christian beliefs about the supremacy of God and natural law teachings.

Hence, the secular theocracy exalts a sovereign and powerful state that pervades all of life and compels obedience not just to its mandates but to the secular nationalism of the Zeitgeist itself, for which the populace is forced to conform to and fund. This worldview dominates public schools, colleges and universities, elite media, entertainment, and an ever-expanding array of government domains in law, health care, welfare, retirement, transportation, commerce, parks and recreation, etc. Not coincidentally in the modern era when nation states have displaced God, Cavanaugh notes, “it does not matter that the U.S. flag does not explicitly refer to a god. It is nevertheless a sacred—perhaps the most sacred—object in U.S. society and is thus an object of religious veneration.” And worship in the secular theocracy in schools and at public events consists of singing the “National Anthem” and saluting the flag in “The Pledge of Allegiance,” which as described by its socialist author Francis Bellamy, “is the same with the catechism, or the Lord’s Prayer.”

In contrast, C.S. Lewis understood that natural law applies to all human behavior including government officials, and he clearly saw that government power was a dangerous force that needs to be strictly limited.  Contrary to secular interpretations of the Establishment Clause, the issue is not “the separation of church and state” into distinct and conflicting realms but the reduction of state power to micro-minute levels in order to eliminate the establishment of a state-backed church of any kind. Individuals have property rights that are sacred and need to be protected under a uniform rule of law, Christianity instructs us in the civic virtues upon which such law depends, and good ends can only be pursued using good means. The result is the recognition that compelling people into some collectivist regimentation is evil and produces immense human suffering. Lewis noted that:

I do not like the pretensions of Government—the grounds on which it demands my obedience—to be pitched too high. I don’t like the medicine-man’s magical pretensions nor the Bourbon’s Divine Right. This is not solely because I disbelieve in magic and in Bossuet’s Politique. I believe in God, but I detest theocracy. For every Government consists of mere men and is, strictly viewed, a makeshift; if it adds to its commands ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ it lies, and lies dangerously.

The point is that the natural law is rooted in the religio of Christianity and sets the epistemic and moral foundation and context for the existence of all people as individuals and that such laws make the cooperation, norms, and relationships of community possible. To break the natural law in the name of a secular theocracy is to simultaneously break the relational bonds of community that are the basis for the natural rights of all individuals to be free and responsible.

Moreover, the solution is to end secular theocracy by de-socializing the public square, not seek to “take over” this theocracy. This means privatizing government schools, transportation, welfare, retirement, parks and recreation, commerce, civic areas of all types, etc., and allowing covenants and other private institutions and communities to flourish. Those who believe that such government domains are workable and should be exempt from natural law tenets are hubristically fooling themselves and end up embracing the moral relativism of utilitarianism. As Lewis further noted:

[S]ince we have sin, we have found, as Lord Acton says, that “all power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The only remedy has been to take away the powers…. Theocracy has been rightly abolished not because it is bad that priests should govern ignorant laymen, but because priests are wicked men like the rest of us.

Don’t FAIL to ask a candidate why he or she believes what he or she believes

Church leaders often are under pressure from the government (Attorneys General or IRS, to name a few departments) to not involve themselves in providing parishioners access to information to make up their own minds about candidates or ballot issues.

They claim that pastors, by doing so, are in violation of what has become known as “separation of church and state.” Typically this is done whenever someone does not want a person who professes Christ as their Lord and Savior to use the doctrine of the faith as foundation for their choosing between competing points of view or candidates.

There are two problems with this so called doctrine:

1. Pastors have a God-given right and responsibility to preach and teach “thus sayeth the Lord” from the pulpit and parishioners have a corresponding right to “choose ye this day who you will serve” relative to moral issues.

2. The term, “separation of church and state,” is a misnomer. It implies that a Christian’s faith is somehow outside of or otherwise “attached” to the follower of Christ rather than it being from within as the Holy Bible tells us, because our “body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [Spirit]” – the place where God resides within us — and “… ye are not our own.”. (1 Cor. 6:19)

Christianity therefore is the essence of a Christian’s being. It is his or her character. It is the foundation for their decision making, and as such, is who Christians are. And since they cannot be separated from themselves, the idea that they should not bring to the table who they are is ridiculous.

I believe that the intent of this effort to separate church from state has two purposes:

1. To remove the God who judges both behavior and persons from the discourse even in the house dedicated to his honor and glory.

2. To curtail the influence (especially in the political arena) of those who profess to be Christians so as to move an agenda forward that is contrary to God’s revealed word.

To further present this, I now will provide you with my definitions of two terms: position and opinion.

1. Position: taken where the proof is inviolate and a conclusion can be made.

2. Opinion: given when there exists the ability to have more than one conclusion

Why are these definitions important? Because we need to remain vigilant and because candidates for office who stridently cite scientific studies, poll data, etc., as authority for their position on secular issues, even though the so called “experts” they cite may disagree among themselves, must similarly be made to cite their authority for their position on moral issues.

I contend that there are one or the other of two main reasons candidates might profess agreement with a bible-based position but not cite the bible as their source:

1. Their position was derived at by happenstance and represents only the opinion they have arrived at without the use of an absolute standard.

2. Their position truly is taken from God’s Word, but they are ashamed of the author of the truth they speak because they fear man more than they fear God.

Scripture, however, admonishes us against this. We are to fear God and not man (Mt. 10:28) and to “Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord . . . but be though partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.” (2 Timothy 1:8)

Christians therefore need to be wary of those who merely present an opinion that, in truth, just happens to agree with the biblical principle that applies, but that may only be a matter of expedient personal choice or preference and not necessarily a position someone is committed to as we would be as non-ashamed persons indwelled with the Holy Spirit.

The fact that there is no standard against which a candidate may come to a conclusion other than what is in his or her own mind is even more egregious with regard to moral issues than it is were the issue to be a secular one. And both are inconsistent with representing the public interests.

And even worse, if some who truly are Christians are fearful of or ashamed to publicly acknowledge such and therefore withhold boldly speaking about what they know to be true; they thereby cause other Christians to struggle to identify them.

As for me, I take positions on moral issues based upon my understanding of God’s Word and am not ashamed. (Please note that this does not imply that I received a unique revelation from God, merely a revelation that is consistent with that received by others who know and love the Lord as do I, and who then have studied His Word to show themselves “approved.”)

[This is an updated extract from the paper, Traditional Family Values, written by Paul R. Green Jr. in July, 2006 while he was the Republican Party general election nominee for the California State Senate District 6 (Sacramento County). Paul is a member of and former adult Sunday school teacher at Faith Baptist Tabernacle, North Highlands, CA. He also served as interim pastor of First Filipino Baptist Church in Los Angeles, CA for one year while a member of the United States Air Force stationed in El Segundo, CA at the Los Angeles Air Force Station (now Air Force Base).]

[Part 1 of this article was originally published on To the Source and The Independent Institute.  Part 2 will be published January 2012.]

Part 1:

We live in an increasingly secularized world of massive and pervasive nation states in which traditional religion, especially Christianity, is ruled unwelcome and even a real danger on the basis of a purported history of intolerance and “religious violence.” This is found in most all “public” domains, including the institutions of education, business, government, welfare, transportation, parks and recreation, science, art, foreign affairs, economics, entertainment, and the media. A secularized public square policed by government is viewed as providing a neutral, rational, free, and safe domain that keeps the “irrational” forces of religion from creating conflict and darkness. And we are told that real progress requires expanding this domain by pushing religion ever backward into remote corners of society where it has little or no influence. In short, modern America has become a secular theocracy with a civic religion of national politics (nationalism) occupying the public realm in which government has replaced God.

For the renowned Christian scholar and writer C.S. Lewis, such a view was fatally flawed morally, intellectually, and spiritually, producing the twentieth-century rise of the total state, total war, and mega-genocides. For Lewis, Christianity provided the one true and coherent worldview that applied to all human aspirations and endeavors: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” (The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses)[1]

In his book, The Discarded Image, Lewis revealed that for Medieval Christians, there was no sacred/secular divide and that this unified, theopolitical worldview of hope, joy, liberty, justice, and purpose from the loving grace of God enabled them to discover the objective, natural-law principles of ethics, science, and theology, producing immense human flourishing. [2] Lewis described the natural law as a cohesive and interconnected objective standard of right behavior:

This thing which I have called for convenience the Tao, and which others may call Natural Law or Traditional Morality or the First Principles of Practical Reason or the First Platitudes, is not one among a series of possible systems of value. It is the sole source of all value judgements. If it is rejected, all values are rejected. If any value is retained, it is retained. The effort to refute it and raise a new system of value in its place is self-contradictory. There has never been, and never will be, a radically new judgement of value in the history of the world. What purport to be new systems or (as they now call them) “ideologies,” all consist of fragments from the Tao itself. Arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the whole and then swollen to madness in their isolation, yet still owing to the Tao and to it alone such validity as they possess. If my duty to my parents is a superstition, then so is my duty to posterity. If justice is a superstition, then so is my duty to my country or my race. If the pursuit of scientific knowledge is a real value, then so is conjugal fidelity. (The Abolition of Man)[3]

And in his recent book, The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark has further shown “How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and the Success of the West.”[4]  Similarly and prior to the rise of the secular nation-state in America, Alexis de Tocqueville documented in his 1835 volume, Democracy in America,  the remarkable flexibility, vitality and cohesion of Christian-rooted liberty in American society with business enterprises, churches and aid societies, covenants and other private institutions and communities.[5]

In his book, The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict, William Cavanaugh similarly notes that for Augustine and the ancient world, religion was not a distinct realm separate from the secular. The origin of the term “religion” (religio) came from Ancient Rome (re-ligare, to rebind or relink) as a serious obligation for a person in the natural law (“religio for me”) not only at a shrine, but also in civic oaths and family rituals that most westerners would today consider secular. In the Middle Ages, Aquinas further viewed religio not as a set of private beliefs but instead a devotion toward moral excellence in all spheres.[6]

However in the Renaissance, religion became viewed as a “private” impulse, distinct from “secular” politics, economics, and science.[7] This “modern” view of religion began the decline of the church as the public, communal practice of the virtue of religio. And by the Enlightenment, John Locke had distinguished between the “outward force” of civil officials and the “inward persuasion” of religion. He believed that civil harmony required a strict division between the state, whose interests are “public,” and the church, whose interests are “private,” thereby clearing the public square for the purely secular. For Locke, the church is a “voluntary society of men,” but obedience to the state is mandatory.[8]

The subsequent rise of the modern state in claiming a monopoly on violence, lawmaking, and public allegiance within a given territory depended upon either absorbing the church into the state or relegating the church to a private realm. As Cavanaugh notes:

Key to this move is the contention that the church’s business is religion. Religion must appear, therefore, not as what the church is left with once it has been stripped of earthly relevance, but as the timeless and essential human endeavor to which the church’s pursuits should always have been confined…. In the wake of the Reformation, princes and kings tended to claim authority over the church in their realms, as in Luther’s Germany and Henry VIII’s England…. The new conception of religion helped to facilitate the shift to state dominance over the church by distinguishing inward religion from the bodily disciplines of the state.[9]

For Enlightenment figures like Jean-Jacques Rousseau who dismissed natural law, “civic religion” as in democratic regimes “is a new creation that confers sacred status on democratic institutions and symbols.”[10]And in their influential writings, Edward Gibbon and Voltaire claimed that the wars of religion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were “the last gasp of medieval barbarism and fanaticism before the darkness was dispelled.”[11] Gibbon and Voltaire believed that after the Reformation divided Christendom along religious grounds, Protestants and Catholics began killing each other for more than a century, demonstrating the inherent danger of “public” religion. The alleged solution was the modern state, in which religious loyalties were upended and the state secured a monopoly of violence. Henceforth, religious fanaticism would be tamed, uniting all in loyalty to the secular state. However, this is an unfounded “myth of religious violence.” The link between state building and war has been well documented, as the historian Charles Tilly noted, “War made the state, and the state made war.”[12] In the actual period of European state building, the most serious cause of violence and the central factor in the growth of the state was the attempt to collect taxes from an unwilling populace with local elites resisting the state-building efforts of kings and emperors. The point is that the rise of the modern state was in no way the solution to the violence of religion. On the contrary, the absorption of church into state that began well before the Reformation was crucial to the rise of the state and the wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Nevertheless, Voltaire distinguished between “state religion” and “theological religion” of which “A state religion can never cause any turmoil. This is not true of theological religion; it is the source of all the follies and turmoils imaginable; it is the mother of fanaticism and civil discord; it is the enemy of mankind.”[13] What Rousseau proposed instead was to supplement the purely “private” religion of man with a civil or political religion intended to bind the citizen to the state: “As for that man who, having committed himself publicly to the state’s articles of faith, acts on any occasion as if he does not believe them, let his punishment be death. He has committed the greatest of all crimes: he has lied in the presence of the laws.”[14]

As a result, the Enlightenment set in motion what has become today’s secular theocracy that is authoritarian and hypocritical for not just its denial of moral condemnation of secular violence, but its exaltation of such violence as highly praiseworthy.

[David J. Theroux is the Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Independent Institute and Publisher of The Independent Review.]

[1] C.S. Lewis, “Is Theology Poetry?” in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2001).

[2] C.S. Lewis, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1994).

[3] C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1974), 44.

[4] Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success (New York: Random House, 2006).

[5] Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Delba Winthrop (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).

[6] William T. Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 62–68.

[7] Ibid, 70.

[8] Ibid, 79–83.

[9] Ibid, 83–84.

[10] Ibid, 113.

[11] Ibid, 127.

[12] Charles Tilly, “Reflections on the History of European State-Making,” in The Formation of National States in Western Europe, ed. Charles Tilly (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975), 42.

[13] Cavanaugh, 128.

[14] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, trans. Willmoore Kendall (South Bend, IN: Gateway, 1954), 149.

“Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day? … Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth. That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity, and gave to the world the first irrevocable pledge of the fulfillment of the prophecies announced directly from Heaven at the birth of the Savior and predicted by the greatest of the Hebrew prophets six hundred years before?”

Adams was exactly right: America’s birth is directly linked to the birth of our Savior. In fact, the United States of America is the only nation established by Christian people, founded upon Biblical principles, and dedicated to the purpose of religious liberty. This truth is easily observed within America’s earliest history.

America’s forebears first established a written covenant with God as early as November 11, 1620, when they penned The Mayflower Compact. It states in part:

“In the name of God, Amen. … Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and Honour of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia; do by these presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid; And by Virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the General good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.”

The sentiments and statements of America’s founders make it clear that this nation has enjoyed a love and appreciation for the rights and freedoms recognized in Natural Law that is unique in the annals of human history. No other people have such a heritage.

One thing America’s founders could not envision was–after they had paid so terrible a price to purchase our liberties–that the time would come when their posterity would be denied the basic freedoms to publicly express their reverence for God. Never could they have imagined that the day would come when citizens of the sovereign states (each with a State constitution protecting religious liberty) would be denied their right to pray in school, or place Nativity scenes on public property, or hang copies of the Ten Commandments on courthouse walls.

I am also confident that America’s founders would be completely repulsed by the way the United States has jumped headlong into corporatism, socialism, and globalism. At the national level, Democrats and Republicans alike have created a central government so large that it would be unrecognizable to any Founding Father (even Alexander Hamilton or John Adams). In addition, both Big Business and Big Religion have sold our great country down the old proverbial river. Truly, our Founding Fathers must be rolling over in their graves.

Therefore, at this Christmas season, let us remember well the founding principles of these United States of America. Furthermore, let us renew with vigor the fight for freedom before our liberties and our heritage are gone altogether.

From my family to yours: Merry Christmas!

P.S. Many readers of this column also watch our live stream broadcast from Liberty Fellowship each Sunday afternoon at 2:30pm (Mountain Time). Since this Sunday is Christmas Day, Liberty Fellowship will conduct its service on Christmas Eve, Saturday, December 24, at 5pm (Mountain Time). And, yes, this service will be broadcast live. I invite readers to join us as we celebrate Christ’s birth this Saturday, December 24, at 5pm (Mountain Time). To view our live stream broadcast, click here.

For more by Chuck Baldwin, click here.

Being human, we should know that perfection is not within our grasp. There comes a time when we have to just make the best choice we can, then make sure it works. Since there is no one that has every issue nailed down, the selection comes down to prioritizing the strong points of each one and making the painful decision about what we can put on the back burner for the moment as we accomplish our primary task of evicting Barack Hussein Obama from Washington public housing.

I’m sure there will be disputes about what the primary issue is, but let’s get started looking at what each prospective president would contribute to the cause. I also want to make clear that these issues are complex and those we look at are not the only strong points any of the people bring to the table or that they are not the only points that matter.

Rick Santorum really is the man with the longest and most consistent conservative record. He touts his ability to get things done in the legislature, and he is right. He also tells us about his ability to win difficult elections in a swing state. This is also true… up until the last time around. He is a good family man and would be a steady, though bland, hand in the White House.

Michelle Bachmann also has a solid conservative record, though not as long as Santorum’s. What she does have is a passion for freedom and our country. She has the ability to draw people together and motivate them as she tells us about the time she got 40,000 to come to DC on about two days notice. What is not generally reported is that after the primary speakers that day, there was a continuous stream of congressmen and women who wanted to be part of the event and made token greetings to the crowd. This spoke volumes as it showed the lady was not just a voice crying out in the wilderness, but when she stands up to the bad guys on the other side, others come along. Beyond this, she lived her Christian faith by caring for numerous foster children.

Rick Perry has a great record of job creation in Texas, something that has earned him much criticism from the welfare state mavens inside the beltway. He understands Second Amendment rights. He is unapologetic about his Christian faith. While he stumbles verbally sometimes, he is not afraid of some unpopular truths.

Ron Paul has been warning us of the dangers of the Federal Reserve for years. He knows that congress abdicating its responsibility to coin money and turning control of the banking and monetary system to these bankers is completely unconstitutional. Unfortunately, his warnings have often fallen on deaf ears, but that does not diminish the truth of his outcries. He is also go be given credit for his tenacious dedication to this cause.

Newt Gingrich has been criticized as a “bomb thrower” by many in the Republican establishment. What they are really saying is that he is speaking the truth that most don’t have the courage recognize. Their reaction to calling the Palestinians an “invented” people group recalled George Orwell’s admonition that “truth is treason in the empire of lies”. Some even acknowledged the accuracy of his statement, but thought it was not helpful to expose Israel’s enemies as hate filled impostors.  This statement is part of a larger picture where Mr. Gingrich is the only one to expose the dangers of radical Islam.

Mitt Romney still has the nicest of any of the male candidates, and his suits are nicely tailored. He has the support of the inside the beltway crowd. Wait a minute… that is not a positive recommendation given their track record of selling out the American people for their own benefit.

Perhaps the best interactive response of the evening came after Romney, one more time, touted his private sector, outsider background that has led him to criticize the professional politicians he is fighting as excellent examples of moral turpitude. Gingrich replied, “The only reason you didn’t become a career politician is you lost to Teddy Kennedy in 1994.”

So we are presented with six imperfect humans. Yet in their imperfection, each has some good ideas or qualities. If we expect perfection in our politicians we will be waiting for a long, long time.

Some have expressed a choice of “none of the above”. This is a valid opinion, particularly for those of us who are fans of really good, but also imperfect, people like Sarah Palin. The problem is that running for President is such a strenuous undertaking and time is counting down to the point where unless someone is completely committed to the pursuit, they will not get the job done.

Commitment to the candidate of your choice is great. Try to get the nomination for them, but I ask you to consider that right now, we have to stop Barack Hussein Obama from destroying our country. Once that is done, we can revisit the Jefferson vs. Hamilton visions for the country and return our country to be the land of freedom that we inherited from our forefathers.