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Sickness in the Soul of the American Republic – Part II

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : February 28, 2014
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Category: America, Archives, Christianity, Culture Wars, Government

In Part I we described the sickness in the soul of the American Republic as being caused by a loss of unity and the denigration of the truths upon which the nation was founded. At its founding, America’s unity was derived from a central cultural vision that reflected a Christian worldview whose truths rested upon biblical principles. For those that adhere to the central cultural vision of the Founders, certain actions must be taken to not only defend but reverse its decline in American society. To restore the central cultural vision of the Founders, these actions must be taken by Christians but also by non-Christians who believe in the biblical moral code as a guide for living life and governing the nation.

John Adams said that our Constitution (the framework for governing) was made only for a moral and religious people, and by morality and religion he meant Christian morality. In other words, morality in government must flow upward from the morality of its citizens. Without a moral citizenry, there is no hope for a moral and just government. Therefore, moral reformation must start with the individual, that is, morality begins with us and our families. Humanists war against the individual through exaltation of self. Exaltation of self leads to egotism and loosens the bonds of moral restraint and weakens relationships with God, spouse, family, and community. From such comes a devaluation of a society’s moral traditions, heritage, and history. For a regeneration of both private and communal morality in the American Republic, we must adhere to and teach our children and grandchildren the standards of biblical morality.

Moral degeneration has affected every sphere of American society. We have mentioned the individual and family, and here we see the attack on the traditional view of marriage and the elevation of homosexuality in society; the fragmentation of family structure through divorce and co-habitation; and the devaluation of life through abortion, assisted suicide, and in some cases calls for infanticide. Moral degeneration in other spheres includes government, politics, education, arts and entertainment, economics and business, and religion. As humanists gained dominance in these spheres, the individual can have little direct or sustained impact on these monoliths propagating the humanist worldview. However, the collective worldviews of like-minded individuals who actively stand against humanism’s onslaught can turn the tide.

In the education sphere, humanistic policies and practices in conflict with biblical standards of morality are dictated to schools and universities by an entrenched academic establishment and federal bureaucracy. If change is to come in the sphere of education, it will be a long process and must come from concerted action by our elected representatives who ultimately control the purse strings and can reign in insulated institutions and bureaucracies immune to the wishes of the people. However, in the near term there is still power to hinder if not change humanistic policies and practices at the local and state levels. To do so we must have the courage to speak out against immorality in public education, elect officials that hold the Christian worldview, and hold those elected officials accountable for their actions and inactions.

Likewise in economics and business, the individual can take a stand and hold accountable businesses for breaches of morality through public exposure and withholding one’s dollars from support of such businesses. Economic policies are typically a function of government which will be addressed as part of the discussion on government and politics. The arts and entertainment field are blatantly humanistic in worldview and offer little opportunity for influence. However, we must remember that they are businesses and sensitive to loss of patronage and revenue. We must make our positions and concerns regarding immorality known to the leadership of this sphere of American culture and withhold patronage and revenue where those concerns are not sufficiently addressed.

Religious organizations are not exempt from humanistic influence. And because religion is closely tied to biblical standards of morality, there have been significant declines in patronage, membership, and revenue in those religious and church organizations that have abandoned biblical precepts and morality in favor of a humanistic worldview in matters such as abortion and homosexuality.

We now turn our attention to government and politics for the remainder of this article. Many Christians disdain any involvement with politics and government, having bought into the erroneous liberal argument regarding separation of church and state. This is a tragedy and responsible to a large degree for the sickness that pervades our Republic. However, apart from individual morality and concerted and sustained prayer by Christians, our efforts to influence and change government and politics offers the greatest opportunity to advance a moral reformation of America.

America is a republic by which is meant that power is “…lodged in representatives elected by the people. In modern usage, it differs from a democratic state, in which the people exercise the powers of sovereignty in person.” [Webster] The American Republic is a constitutional democracy (as opposed to an absolute democracy) in which the constitution is a body of fundamental laws and customs that are just and join together various regions, classes, and interests of a country. The beauty and longevity of the American Constitution occurs because “…it is in harmony with laws, customs, habits, and popular beliefs that existed before the Constitutional Convention.” [Kirk, p. 416.] Constitutional safeguards against abuses by the majority or dictatorial officials and bureaucrats include separation of powers among the federal branches and a division of powers between the federal government and states.

In humanism’s effort to remake America in its image, the safeguards built into the Constitution must be weakened or made of no effect. Additionally, the voice of the people through its elected representatives must be muted or diminished in relation to the wishes of a regal presidency and a radicalized judiciary. For anyone with eyes and ears and who is concerned about the future, the massive attacks on the Constitution and the republican form of government in America over the last five years are abundantly clear.

The attacks become obvious when one understands President Obama’s “above-the-law” attitude and actions that include his many instances of unilateral violation of the constitutional separation of powers between the executive branch and the legislative and judicial branches; seizing powers allotted to the states; imposition of illegitimate executive orders; non-enforcement of laws passed by Congress; and vocal denigration of the judiciary and its decisions with consequent promotion of disrespect of the law. Through judicial activism of liberal judges usurping the role of the legislature in making laws, the courts have appropriated unto themselves a law-making role never intended by the Founders. Additionally, their power to decide what is right and wrong is all too frequently based on man’s law, not God’s laws. These abuses of power by the judiciary have significantly undermined the Founders’ meaning and intent with regard to the Constitution.

For Christians and those non-Christians who also adhere to the biblical worldview of morality, it is imperative that we become actively involved in electing and supporting men and women who will defend the Founders’ intent with regard to the Constitution; who will uphold biblical standards of morality, both privately and publicly; who will govern based on Christian principles; and who will tighten the reigns on humanistic bureaucracies and government-funded institutions that impose their policies, practices, and regulations that conflict with the laws and directives of the elected representatives of the citizenry.

Humanists will scream that such mixing of morality and politics is nothing more than a ruse by religious zealots attempting to impose a theocracy on the nation. But, an examination of the historical record reveals otherwise. In the founding era, politics was defined as the science of government and considered a part of ethics. This definition of politics includes “… the protection of its citizens in their rights, with the preservation and improvement of their morals.” (emphasis added) [Webster] Therefore, the active involvement of government and politics in the moral well-being of its citizenry is not of recent invention but a pattern established and followed by the Founders.

There is one other action that only Christians may take. It is more important than all of the actions listed above but not a replacement for those actions. Ultimately, the preservation of the Christian worldview as the dominant central cultural vision of America depends on her people’s reliance on the principle expressed in God’s covenant with ancient Israel: “…if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. [II Chronicles 7:14 RSV.] We must work and pray.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Noah Webster, “Republic,” American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828, Facsimile Edition, (San Francisco, California: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1995).

Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order, 3rd Edition, (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1991), p. 417.

Webster, “Politics,” American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828

Work

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : February 14, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Government, Socialism

A few years ago before my mother passed away at age 79, we were talking about life on the family dairy farm when my brothers and I were kids. For those that don’t know, a dairy farm is a seven-day-a-week job with long hours, and as kids we thought everyone worked like that. Teasingly, I told my mother that if I knew then what I know now, I would have reported her and my father for child abuse! We both had a good laugh. While my brothers and I may not have appreciated it when we were children and teenagers, the instilled work ethic molded us, shaped our characters, and made possible the joys and blessings of life.

However, as our nation staggers toward the looming welfare state, work has become just another profane four-letter word. The denigration of work has been around for thousands of years and flourished in the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome in which physical work was considered demeaning to all except slaves and the lower classes. In ancient Athens, one-third of freemen sat daily discussing the affairs of state in the court of Comitia as slaves, who outnumbered citizens five-to-one, performed all manual labor. In the “bread and circuses” pleasure-seeking Roman culture, it was again slaves who did all of the manual labor. [Schmidt, pp. 194-195.]

But during the first century, at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean, a child was born that would give voice to God’s view of the dignity of labor. His name was Jesus, the promised Messiah. His early disciples were mostly callus-handed fishermen, tradesmen, and even a local IRS agent. And the arch-persecutor-turned-apostle of this tiny Christian sect was a brilliant theologian and evangelist but also a tent-maker by trade. And the Apostle Paul admonished the Thessalonian Christians that, “If any one will not work, let him not eat.” [2 Thessalonians 3:10. RSV] It was in the first century that Christians were driven from their homeland and made their first appearances in the Greco-Roman world. Because Christians believed in the dignity and honor of work, they were held with contempt by their Roman masters. Persecution arose, in part, because those strange Christian beliefs about work conflicted with the Romans’ view of the world and also because of suspicions and jealousies of the Christians’ prosperity due to their strong work ethic. [Schmidt, pp. 195-196.]

But the first century Christian view of work was not a new philosophy but a reflection of the image of the Creator stamped on man, the pinnacle of His creation. Biblical instruction and admonitions regarding work are abundant. The first chapter of Genesis records God’s labors in creating the universe. Not only does God work, He charged man with responsibilities and duties of being fruitful, replenishing and subduing the earth, and having dominion over all living creatures. When Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden because of their sin, God told Adam that “…cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life…In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground…” [Genesis 3: 17, 19. RSV] Notice that God did not impose work as a punishment for their sin. Rather, the curse was on the ground upon which they would toil. In other words, the curse was upon the conditions under which the work would be performed, not on work itself. But God loved man and would make possible a way for man to re-enter right relationship with Him by sending His Son Jesus in human form as a babe. Perhaps this gives us another insight into God’s view of work in that the earthly father of God’s Son was a carpenter.

With the decline and fall of the western half of the Roman Empire by the end of the fifth century, a remnant of the Christian heritage of the western portion of the Roman Empire was pushed northward into the sparse and hostile forests of France and western Germany. The inhabitants were Gauls whom the Romans had conquered and brought civilization at the beginning of the Christian era. To this group was added a smaller number of Teutonic invaders that had come from the East and hindered for a time the building of an organized social life and assimilation of the Mediterranean culture. Life was harsh in the pioneer wilds of northern Europe at the beginning of the Middle Ages around A.D. 500. However, out of this difficult and meager existence was built a cohesive and somewhat refined civilization, and the broad and general characteristics of their medieval society remained for centuries. Those characteristics and viewpoint, worldview if you will, became the ideas and ideals of Christendom which were the foundations of the American experience from the earliest colonial days to the middle of the twentieth century. [Johnson, p. 88.]

Christendom’s creedal reverence for work and the practical necessity of work amidst primitive conditions in the forests and clearings of early Europe produced the phenomenon of the middle class, unknown before the advent of Christianity and now present in all of Western civilization. With the birth of the middle class came the reduction of poverty and its attendant disease. And from the middle class arose political and economic freedom of a magnitude unknown in the history of the world to that time. [Schmidt, pp. 198-199.]

In the very earliest years of Europeans on the American continent, socialistic answers were sought to replace the Christian work ethic as the North Star for organizing society. Because of their isolation from the civilized world, Jamestown and the Plymouth Colony stand as great laboratory experiments regarding questions as to the validity and worthiness of socialistic principles. Communism of an almost pure variety, in the isolated and controlled environment of the New World, failed miserably in its initial years as laziness and inefficiency trumped thrift and industry. As the colonists abandoned their experiment in socialism, the colonies flourished. [Johnson, p. 247.] Karl Marx’s ideas regarding socialism presented in The Communist Manifesto became the twentieth century’s grand socialist experiment which led to the enslavement of a third of humanity behind the iron and bamboo curtains. For three quarters of a century, the consequences of these socialistic systems were death and misery unparalleled in the history of mankind.

But our collective memory is short and socialism’s propaganda machine is strong. As a result Christianity and its values are being rapidly abandoned in Western societies in favor of a humanistic worldview requiring socialistic solutions to society’s problems. As a result, socialism is destroying the middle class and its indispensable Christian work ethic, and America is becoming a bread and circuses culture.

The displacement of the work ethic by the actions of the American government’s social engineers since the 1960s has had a multitude of far-reaching consequences. Just one example is the humanistic welfare solutions that have fractured the concept of family by substituting governmental assistance to unwed pregnant teenage girls. Fathers are not required to work and provide for the mother and child for whom they are responsible. This welfare system perpetuates itself through ensuing generations that repeat the cycle. The direct consequences of institutionalization of illegitimacy in American life are a rise in the illegitimacy rate (6% in 1963 to 41% in 2014) and consequent increases in drug use rate, dropout rate, crime rate, and incarceration rate. [Buchanan, p. A-14.

In the mid-1990s Congressional welfare reforms required those seeking welfare to work. However, this requirement was removed by an executive order by President Obama in 2012. Additionally, governmental subsidies provided by the Affordable Care Act have now been determined to be a disincentive to work by those receiving subsidies with a consequent loss of 2.5 million jobs over the next three years according to a Congressional Budget Office report. [Carruthers]

The operation of man’s fallen human nature exposes the soft and rotten underbelly of the tenets of the socialism and humanistic faith in mankind and their commitment to the principle of the greatest-happiness-for-the-greatest-number which humanists consider to be the highest moral obligation for humanity as a whole. [Johnson, p. 247.] The operation of human nature conflicts with man-made socialistic solutions to the problems of life, and the end result is failure. People fail, families fail, and cultures ultimately fail. The socialists’ false view of man’s nature leads to poverty, starvation, and loss of freedom. The antidote is a rejection of socialism and a return to the Christian work ethic.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World,” (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2004), pp. 194-196, 198-199.

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 88, 247.

Patrick Buchanan, “Is this end of the line for the welfare state?” Tulsa World, February 12, 2014, A-14.

Wanda Carruthers, “Joe Scarborough: CBO Report Shows Obamacare ‘Still Red Hot Mess’,” Newsmax.com, February 6, 2014. http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/cbo-work-obamacare-disincentive/2014/02/06/id/551246#ixzz2tEpiNt4b (accessed February 13, 2014).

Liberal Hypocrisy – The Hollywood Ten and the Friends of Abe

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : January 31, 2014
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Category: America, Archives, Government, Humanism

One would have thought that when the IRS (and the Obama administration) got their tail feathers burned in the scandal over targeting conservative groups (through harassment and denial of tax exempt status) the IRS would use a little more caution or at least subtlety in promoting the liberal agenda. Rather, they have taken their cue from President Obama who ignores the constitutional separation of powers in favor of illegal executive orders, bureaucratic bullying, and legitimization of incompetence. And now the IRS need not worry about little things like criminal charges. According to the Wall Street Journal as reported by the Chicago Tribune, the FBI investigation of the IRS “…did not uncover the type of political bias or ‘enemy hunting’ that would constitute a criminal violation. The evidence showed a mismanaged agency enforcing rules it did not understand on applications for tax exemptions…” [Reuters] So behind this shield the administration and the IRS have doubled-down on their attack on conservatives.

But subtlety is not the liberals’ strong suit in their rush to change society into the image of a humanistic worldview. Given recent cover granted by FBI investigators, the IRS continues its storm-trooper tactics when dealing with conservative organizations. Another example surfaced in recent weeks. Friends of Abe is a relatively small conservative-leaning organization of 1,500 people in the entertainment industry who hold conservative values within the enormous and blatantly liberal industry. To be conservative in Hollywood is to risk marginalization, loss of work, and eventual banishment. Therefore Friends of Abe tends to be a secretive organization except for a few who have chosen to come out of the conservative closet. Quoting the New York Times, Friends of Abe “…keeps a low profile and fiercely protects its membership list, to avoid what it presumes would result in a sort of 21st-century blacklist, albeit on the other side of the partisan spectrum.” [New York Times]

For two years Friends of Abe has sought tax-exempt status under IRS 503(c)(3) regulations. Last week the IRS requested detailed information about meetings with conservative-leaning politicians such as Paul D. Ryan, Thaddeus McCotter and Herman Cain, as well as other matters. Previous demands by the IRS included access to the organization’s security-protected website that included all members’ names, but the organization refused the IRS’s request. Tax experts said that giving the IRS enhanced access to the secured portions of its website would have meant access to the group’s members list. The experts stated that the IRS already had access to the site’s basic level which is usually all that is required. To demand access to Friends of Abe’s security-protected site and by default the names of its members was unusual. [New York Times]

Jeremy Boreing, executive director of Friends of Abe, said, “Friends of Abe has absolutely no political agenda. It exists to create fellowship among like-minded individuals.” But for every conservative organization like Friends of Abe, there are a multitude of liberal organizations in the entertainment industry such as People for the American Way that spend millions of dollars a year directly or through affiliates on issue advocacy in Washington and elsewhere. [New York Times]

Few Americans know the history of the late 1940s and early 1950s with regard to the extent of communist infiltration of American government and the rise of anticommunism. The political and cultural fallout of these events came to define the liberal-conservative riff in American life and foreshadowed the culture wars that began in the 1960s. One of the side-stories of that era was the investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) of the influence of the Communist Party within the movie industry.

During the 1930s, the political preferences of people in the movie industry covered the entire spectrum, but there was a strong tendency to lean to the liberal and left. Within this liberal-left community was a strong and active Communist presence that contained several dozen screenwriters who were Communist Party members. Large amounts of money were raised by Hollywood Communists for Party approved political and social causes. Communist influence spread into various unions associated within the entertainment industry and Popular Front causes approved by the Communist Party. Numerous actors, screenwriters, and others in the movie industry were subpoenaed and called to testify before HUAC. Some were friendly and testified as to their observations and knowledge of Communist efforts in the industry. Others, upon advice of the Communist Party, were unfriendly and took a defiant stance toward HUAC. The hostile witnesses charged HUAC with preparing America for fascism and Nazi-styled concentration camps and claimed they had a First Amendment free-speech right to refuse to answer HUAC’s questions. However, federal courts later upheld the right of Congress to subpoena witnesses and compel testimony. [Haynes, pp. 70-73.]

Following the hearings, Congress cited ten of the witnesses with contempt of Congress because of their refusal to answer questions (nine were members of the Communist Party USA and one a close ally). The ten could have avoided prosecution by invoking the Fifth Amendment and thereby refuse to give testimony that might be used against them in a criminal case. [Haynes, pp. 72-73.] The cited screenwriters became known as the Hollywood Ten and a cause célèbre for liberals to the present day.

As a result of the revelations about Communist infiltration and spying within the government and the emerging Communist threat worldwide, Americans were concerned. Mindful of public opinion and its effects on the box office, the major movie studios pledged to not employ Communists. Both Communist and non-Communist witnesses before HUAC who invoked the Fifth Amendment (estimated at 200 to 300) were swept up in the national backlash against Communism. Most of those witnesses who invoked the Fifth Amendment were or had been members of the Communist Party. However, others invoking the Fifth Amendment for whatever reasons became unwitting victims of the movie studios’ blacklist that lasted until the late 1950s. [Haynes, p. 73-74.]

Today, a great majority of the entertainment industry is fervently liberal but denies there is an informal but effective unwritten blacklist of conservatives in their industry just as the hierarchy of American universities will deny there is an omnipresent liberal bias that effectively operates as a blacklist of conservatives in academia.

However, we must not assume moral equivalence between the blacklist of Communists and fellow travelers in the entertainment industry of the 1940s and 1950s and the implicit blacklist of known entertainment industry conservatives of today. Nine of the Hollywood Ten were members of the Communist Party USA which was under the direct and dominating influence of the Comintern (Communist Party International) that trained and guided a network of Communist agents, party members, and spies bent on the overthrow of the American system of government. These were not heroes but traitors. Communism operating in America during the first half of the twentieth century was of the same political and social philosophy that was ultimately responsible for the enslavement of a third of humanity for three-fourths of the twentieth century, the consequences of which were the deaths of millions and misery unparalleled in the history of mankind. And of what are the Friends of Abe and other conservatives guilty? Their sin is to support traditional American values—those values prized by the Founders and woven into the Constitution. Liberals’ targeting of conservatives for their beliefs exposes their pervasive hypocrisy.

Liberalism dominates American culture and the leadership and institutions of American life. But, the end result of liberalism stands in stark contrast to the beliefs of a majority of Americans and the principles upon which the nation was founded. And it is in the end result of liberalism that we find the humanistic worldview and its undeniable linkage to totalitarianism.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Reuters, “FBI doesn’t plan charges over IRS scrutiny of Tea Party: WSJ,” Chicago Tribune, January 13, 2014. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-01-13/news/sns-rt-us-usa-tax-teaparty-20140113_1_fbi-director-james-comey-irs-cincinnati-irs-scrutiny (accessed January 28, 2014).

Michael Cipley and Nicholas Confessore, “Leaning Right in Hollywood, Under a Lens,” New York Times, January 22, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/us/politics/leaning-right-in-hollywood-under-a-lens.html?_r=0 (accessed January 28, 2014).

John E. Haynes, Red Scare or Red Menace? American Communism and Anticommunism in the Cold War Era, (Chicago, Illinois: Ivan R. Dee, 1996), pp. 70-74.

Belief-free government? Let’s hope not.

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : January 3, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Government

Brady Henderson (legal director of the ACLU of Oklahoma) would have us “keep beliefs free from government” and defends the work of the American Civil Liberties Union by claiming it must protect “…the simple but critical right of each to make his/her own choices in matters of faith or creed.” Henderson tells us that,

…we should be more wary than ever when local leaders now tell us that more government is the solution to what ails our churches, faith communities, or souls. Yet that is exactly what they are doing. The Ten Commandments monument at the state Capitol now literally and explicitly tells Oklahomans what is and is not to be worshiped and believed. The ‘Merry Christmas Bill’ seeks to enshrine government – not pastors, churches, or people of faith – as an exclusive protector of the spirit and meaning of Christmas. [Henderson, Tulsa World, p. A-19.]

Religious freedom was guaranteed by the First Amendment. When the machinery of government is used to protect those Constitutionally given freedoms, Henderson and the ACLU cry foul and claim that government shouldn’t interfere in issues of faith. In reality, it is government through legislation and the courts that is undermining the very religious freedoms they claim to protect. Put another way, Henderson’s assertion that we must keep our religious beliefs free from government interference is in direct conflict with his and the ACLU’s use of government to constrain expression of those religious beliefs in the public square. Driving beliefs from the public square does not enhance but destroys religious freedom in the name of some rapacious and undefined egalitarian ideal.

Choice in matters of faith or creed is an important component of our nation’s founding, but it is the incorrect interpretation of the meaning of religious freedom and the enforcement of this false understanding that does the real violence to religious freedom in 21st century America. This misinterpretation of the meaning of religious freedom occurs with regard to both our founding principles and to the requirements necessary for American culture to survive.

The United States was founded on Christian principles and was not created as a belief-free government or a government of over-reach in attempting to equalize expressions of religious faith in the public square. The overarching moral suasion of Christian principles under which our nation was founded made possible religious freedom for all faiths. Such moral suasion of Christian principles in government is not coercive to religious freedom as the ACLU would have us believe. Rather, it provided the nation with a central vision and resulted in stability and unity by working through the individual as he voluntarily chooses the manner in which he orders his soul. [Johnson, p. 224.]

This was the attitude of the Founders as evidenced by the words of Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (appointed by James Madison, fourth President and Father of the American Constitution).

The real object of the [First A]memdment was not to countenance, much less advance Mohometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects (denominations) and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy (a denominational council) the exclusive patronage of the national government.” [Federer, p. 575.]

To confirm the existence of this strong religious sanction that still held sway over the nation forty years after the Constitutional Convention, we look to the words of Alexis De Tocqueville’s 1831 Democracy in America, one of the most influential political texts ever written about America. “Americans so completely identify the spirit of Christianity with freedom in their minds that it is almost impossible to get them to conceive the one without the other…” [Tocqueville, p. 343.] Tocqueville went on to say that the peaceful influence exercised by religion over the nation was due to separation of church and state. [Tocqueville. P. 345.] But unlike the modernists’ definition of the separation of church and state, Tocqueville’s separation was a separation of the spheres of power and not a separation of government from ethics and moral guidance supplied by the moral suasion of Christianity.

Henderson’s second misinterpretation of religious freedom in America regards the requirements of an enduring culture. Rather than a culture whose government is made barren of religious influence, a sustainable culture requires unity that may be attained only by a single central cultural vision. The very foundation of the cultural concept is unity that assumes a general commonality of thought and action, that is, to be informed by ethics and moral guidance. John Quincy Adams unequivocally identified America’s source for that moral guidance.

The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity…From the day of the Declaration…they (the American people), were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of their Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of conduct.” [Federer, p. 18.]

For a culture to survive, its government must not stand in opposition to its central cultural vision or to attempt to meld together or comingle multiple cultures into one culture with multiple centers of vision. To do so is to create a powerless culture with little influence and place it on the road to disintegration. [Johnson, p. 399.] The cultural vision of America at its founding was centered on the principles of Christianity. To believe otherwise is a matter of ignorance or denial of the massive weight of the history of the colonial and founding era.

Henderson and the ACLU’s perceived dangers of big government on religious freedom are correct but not in the way they describe. Their remedies effectively impose big government denial of religious freedom and stand in opposition to our nation’s history and the requirements for an enduring culture.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Brady Henderson, “Keep beliefs free from government,” Tulsa World, December 28, 2013, p. A-19; Brady Henderson, “Henderson – Keep beliefs free from government,” Tulsa World, December 28, 2013. http://www.tulsaworld.com/opinion/readersforum/henderson-keep-beliefs-free-from-government/article_60cf4f9f-2eee-517c-bbc6-9dc6051acb4e.html (accessed December 30, 2013).

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 224, 399.

William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: Fame Publishing, Inc., 1996), pp. 18, 575.

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Trans. Gerald E. Bevan, (London, England: Penguin Books, 2003), pp. 343, 345.

The Reasons for Governmental Abuse of Power

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : June 21, 2013
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Category: Archives, Constitution, Government

We are a nation ruled by laws that exist under the Constitutional umbrella. The rule of law implies that governmental authority (power) is limited and may only be exercised in accordance with written laws adopted through an established procedure. When elected or appointed officials and bureaucrats exercise power beyond the limits established by the law, it is called abuse. This abuse of power has increased significantly as a result of the rejection of the biblical worldview and the adoption of a humanistic, secular worldview by many of the leaders of American institutions and especially leaders of government and related bureaucracies.

Numerous scandals have erupted in recent weeks because of widespread abuse of power in the Obama administration and many departments of the federal government. Although scandals in government punctuate every time period in our nation’s history, the recent scandals in various segments of government appear systemic in nature and go beyond anything in memory, at least as to frequency and pervasiveness but possibly of magnitude as well (which is yet to be determined).

Typically, government scandals are primarily about isolated abuses of power by governmental officials and bureaucrats which are related to financial gain and/or waste which appear to be endemic to a sprawling government filled with faceless bureaucrats insulated from accountability and punishment for wrongdoing. The more serious and systemic abuses of power go beyond theft or malfeasance and revolve around intimidation, coercion, injustice, loss of freedom, and a general and pervasive attitude of lawlessness. More than greed and waste, these abuses of power cut as the heart of protections afforded by the Constitution and our laws.

For all of its failings, the one for which the Obama administration will be remembered most is the widespread lawlessness at all levels of government during his administration. Regardless of President Obama’s involvement, knowledge, or lack thereof in the various scandals rocking his administration, his arrogant example sent the message that his decrees and agenda were superior to the laws of the land, especially if those laws were based on a biblical worldview as held by the Founders.

Because of the President’s arrogant attitude and actions in pursuit of his ideological agenda that disregard Constitutional limits and many laws passed by Congress, his administration and much of the governmental bureaucracy have followed his example. The President’s “above-the-law” attitude and actions include many instances of his unilateral violation of the Constitutional separation of powers between the executive branch and the legislative and judicial branches which were meant to limit government authority and thereby protect individual liberty; abuse of the power of executive privilege; non-enforcement of laws passed by Congress; and vocal denigration of the judiciary and its decisions with consequent promotion of disrespect of the law.

Following the President’s lead, various agencies and departments have become a law unto themselves through imposition of draconian regulations (many which are far removed from the original intent of the laws permitting those regulations) and selective enforcement of laws and regulations for the purpose of furthering the administration’s ideological agenda through the power of their position. Examples include:

• The federal government’s refusal to continue enforcement of the Clinton-era welfare reform that required aid recipients (all who were able) to work.
• Rewriting of immigration laws without Congressional approval.
• Implementation of elements of the President’s Dream Act which Congress refused to adopt.
• Imposition of environmental rules (e.g., cap-and-trade carbon rules) which the Congress refused to adopt.
[Samuel E. Burns, “Blatant disregard of laws passed by Congress violates separation of powers.”]

The most recent scandals at the IRS and Departments of State, Justice, and Health and Human Services have exposed the dark underbelly of the monster created by the consistent public flaunting by the President and his minions of the Constitution, its protections and processes, and the laws of the land.

The media, investigators, and the public dissect, discuss, and demand retribution for the transgressions of government, but few talk of the underlying structural/systemic reasons that provide fertile ground for the abuse of power to occur. Only when those structural/systemic deficiencies are addressed and corrected will we see a decline in the abuse of power by the government.

The governmental structure upon which the nation was founded rested on the biblical worldview of the Founders and was reflected in the Constitution. Fundamental to this governmental structure were the limitations placed upon it. The retreat from the biblical worldview as the basis for our laws and policy making began accelerating in the 1930s. At the same time there began a vast increase in the scope and authority of government over society and its institutions in a manner not intended by the Founders or God’s design for the social order. Again, the government abuses its power when its reach usurps the power and authority of other spheres of the social structure designed by God. Here we speak of the family, church, labor, community, and relationship between man and God. This intrusion is so omnipresent and complex, even the most ardent socialist cannot deny it.

To remedy the structural or systemic failings that have led to abuse of power in the government, four actions must be taken. First, we must hold all branches and departments of government strictly accountable to the Constitution and laws of the land. Second, we must remove (by vote or action of law) and/or prosecute those who violate the Constitution and/or laws of the land. Third, we must limit the size of government. And fourth, we must limit the reach of government into the various spheres of the social order for which government was never intended to intrude.

We gain an appreciation of the importance of these four actions when we turn to F. A. Hayek’s words written during World War II in his seminal work titled The Road to Serfdom.

There is no justification for the belief that, so long as power is conferred by democratic procedure, it cannot be arbitrary…it is not the source but the limitation of power which prevents it from being arbitrary…If democracy resolves on a task which necessarily involves the use of power which cannot be guided by fixed rules, it must become arbitrary power. (emphasis added)

The President and his administration have refused to be guided by fixed rules and as a result have arbitrarily used government power to further the President’s ideological agenda and purposes. The shield of democracy will not hide the abuses of that power. Prevention of abuse comes only with limitation of the power of government. Those limitations must be guided by the fixed rules of the biblical worldview which the Founders held and not the humanistic perversions of moral relativism.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Samuel E. Burns, “Blatant disregard of laws passed by Congress violates separation of powers,” The Last Chance for Freedom, August 6, 2012. http://thelastchanceoffreedom.blogspot.com/2012/08/blatant-disregard-of-laws-passed-by.html (accessed June 4, 2013).

F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, Bruce Caldwell, ed., (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1944, 2007), p. 111.