A constitution will die if it does not fulfill the purpose for which it was enacted. Not being a living thing, its death takes the form of being ignored, trivialized, or corrupted. The purpose of any constitution is to reflect a set of fundamental principles by which to govern rational and social beings, that is, people. A constitution in a free society is a blueprint for constructing a government fitted to the people’s temper of mind, affections, or passions which I shall call the nation’s central cultural vision or collective worldview. Thus, we have three elements: the people, their central cultural vision, and their constitutional blueprint.
If a constitution is not functioning as intended, one of three things has happened or is happening. First, the constitution as drawn did not reflect the fundamental principles of the people. Second, the fundamental principles of that people changed over a period of time and now stand in contradiction to the principles upon which the constitutional blueprint was originally drawn. Third, the leaders of a society through craftiness and corruption have undermined the intent of the constitution in a manner contrary to the central cultural vision of the people.
The power of the American Constitution to provide prescriptive rules, principles, and ordinances for the American people is waning. Something is amiss, and to determine which of the above reasons is the source of the decline, we must examine our history.
The central cultural vision held by the colonists down through the Founding era was the basis for the set of blueprints for building the American form and practice of government, our national house so to speak. Those blueprints had been drawn largely from the Judeo-Christian tradition and its reliance on a transcendent God, His eternal truths, and His revelation to the Hebrews and first century Christians. To these central elements were added the prescriptions of history, custom, convention, and tradition—in essence, our patrimony. After a number of years certain wings of the house were demolished (e.g., slavery) and rebuilt to better adhere to those original blueprints.
Most of the governance of the house in the intervening years since its construction dealt with routine maintenance, interior decorations, and arrangement of furniture within. But the house was of sound construction, and apart from occasional errors in modification which were readily corrected, the structure served its inhabitants well. The house was large and had many rooms, and many were welcomed to live therein, even those that did not like the architecture and the central vision of its culture—the over-arching banner of the Judeo-Christian worldview.
However, the Founders knew of the fallen nature of man and foresaw a time when men would attempt to change that which they had built on timeless truths. In their great wisdom, the Founders believed they should insure what they had built would not be changed capriciously by its inhabitants. So they drew the Constitutional blueprint to limit those changes so the house would continue to function within the time-tested guidelines, or as Thomas Jefferson said, to “…bind him down with the chains of the Constitution.”
True to the Founders’ prediction, several groups believed that the house should not be just maintained or periodically redecorated but be reconstructed in its entirety. They wished to tear down the structure and build a new house using a set of old blueprints based on the tenets of humanism (which the Founders had judged to be fundamentally flawed and structurally unsound).
For the humanists, the center of the cultural vision would have to be shifted, and the old overarching banner of the Judeo-Christian worldview would have to go. Their demolition efforts began in earnest in the nineteenth century and progressed rapidly throughout the twentieth century. The structural supports of the old house were identified as the first to be demolished—belief in a transcendent God, hierarchy, moral truths, right and wrong, the fallen nature of man, and the sanctity of life to name just a few.
However, the chains of the Founders’ Constitution slowed the humanists’ progress. So they took the Founders’ words and invented new definitions and meanings to attach to those words. Once the new meanings were defined, taught in our schools, and embedded in our media-saturated consciousness, the humanists insisted that the old Constitution was outdated and must be modified and modernized to fit the new progressive understanding of the world and its problems. The old structure still stands, but for how long we do not know. Its future depends on its inhabitants. In spite of humanist assaults, the great majority of the inhabitants still like the original plans but seem to not know how (or care enough to rise from their lethargy) to stop the demolition and rebuild the house as it once was.
Our analysis leads us to conclude that the decline of the American Constitution is primarily due to the third reason listed above—the leaders of the institutions of American life through craftiness or corruption over several decades have undermined the Constitution’s original intent which they now deem to be contrary to the central cultural vision of the people. But, there is also collateral damage from the humanist assault. Because of the unrelenting assault on the biblical worldview for three generations and a lack of truthful teaching in our schools about our Founding, America is seeing a shift by a growing segment of its citizens to a humanistic worldview devoid of belief in a transcendent God, objective truth, and the fallen nature of man. The consequences of such a shift in the American vision were foreseen by our Founding fathers.
“The only foundation for…a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.” [Benjamin Rush – Signor of the Declaration of Independence, attendee at the Continental Congress, physician and first Surgeon General]
“Without morals, a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion…are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.” [Charles Carroll – Signor of the Declaration of Independence, lawyer, member of the Continental Congress and first U.S. Senate]
“We have no government armed in power capable of contending in human passions unbridled by morality and religion…Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” [John Adams – One of the drafters and a signor of the Declaration of Independence, 2nd President of the United States]
We have only to read the words of the Founders to understand why the power of the American Constitution to provide prescriptive rules, principles, and ordinances for the American people is waning. In summary, our Constitution won’t save America if it’s citizens abandon virtue, morality, and religion. Such abandonment leaves the Constitution powerless to guide the nation as it enters the turbulent waters of humanistic moral relativism. And the ultimate consequence is a loss of liberty.
Larry G. Johnson
Sources:
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. 401-404.
Benjamin Rush, Essays, Literary, Moral & Philosophical, (Philadelphia: Thomas and Samuel F. Bradford, 1798), 93. Online source: http://fromthisconservativesviewpoint.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-only-foundation-for-republic.html (accessed May 9, 2013)
“Letter of Charles Carroll to James McHenry,” dated November 4, 1800. Bernard C. Steiner, The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry, (Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers, 1907, 475.
Online source: Quoted by Dave Miller, Ph.D., Apologetics Press http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=7&article=1508 (accessed May 9, 2013)
John Adams, “Letter to Zabdiel Adams, Philadelphia, 21 June 1776,” in The Works of John Adams – Second President of the United States, ed. Charles Francis Adams, Vol. IX, p. 229, October 11, 1798, (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1854). Online Source: http://historicwords.com/american-history/john-adams/ (accessed May 9, 2013)
