God has given American Christians a gracious privilege that few believers in world history have ever known. However, America is in trouble morally and spiritually and this is not the time to retreat. Rather, Christians must stand up, speak up, and refuse to give up. You cannot dispel darkness with more darkness, and you cannot correct error with silence. I am so thankful that George Washington and his brave men who were battling blizzard-like conditions, ill-clad and ill-equipped while literally starving to death, did not finally resign themselves to failure and give up. I am especially thankful that the General did not bail out on the troops and send them home. Instead, the troops looked to their brave leader who remained in the trenches with them and watched him pray for divine guidance and deliverance. Those who survived that fierce winter at Valley Forge followed him back into the battle that spring where they witnessed God’s great faithfulness. They discovered that with God, all things are possible. They discovered what we can easily forget…that God always honors those who honor Him. And they discovered you never lose until you quit.
The Scriptures are filled with accounts of God intervening on behalf of His people wherever He found yielded servants who were willing to engage the enemy. When the Jewish people were targeted for extinction as a result of Haman’s ‘final solution’…seems Hitler had a similar program…suggestion to King Xerxes in Esther 3:8-10, Queen Esther was willing to get involved with politics! Mordecai, Esther’s uncle, heard of an order signed to put Haman’s plan to eliminate the Jews into action. A date was set for Haman’s ‘final solution’ as fear and dread hung like a cloud over the entire Jewish population. Mordecai immediately began to pray and seek God’s face for the deliverance of his people and their culture. Because Mordecai understood that God always has a purpose in mind when He places someone in a position of leadership and authority, he sent a messenger to Queen Esther informing her of the Jew’s plight and requesting her to petition the king on their behalf. When she responded with her fear that such a petition might cost her throne or even her life, Mordecai responded with his penetrating words…“if you remain silent at this time relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come into a royal position for a time such as this” (Esther 4:14). Esther then decided to put her faith into action. She began by requesting that others of faith join her in prayer and fasting for deliverance. She did not stop there. She exercised her ‘rights’ as Queen and took a risk that could have resulted in her death. She put it all on the line physically, but she first put it all on the altar spiritually with the confession “…if I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16). Esther courageously approached the king. God gloriously intervened on behalf of His people and exposed the wickedness of Haman while saving and vindicating the Jews.
Clearly our judiciary is now taking the role of God in our culture, and few see the inherent danger. Those who adamantly argue religion has no role in government never complain when government intrudes into religion, which is what our founders sought to prevent with the adoption of the First Amendment. Founding father Edmond Burke is credited with the quote, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” He was absolutely correct. The great attorney, Charles Finney, who was converted to Christianity reading Blackstone’s commentaries on the Laws of England…which were filled with Biblical references, wrote: “The church must take right ground in regards to politics…God cannot sustain this free and blessed country, which we love and pray for, unless the Church will take the right ground. Politics are a part of religion in such a country as this, and Christians must do their duty to their country as a part of their duty to God…God will bless or curse this nation according to the course Christians take in politics.” He believed that Christians have an absolute mandate to take their Christianity into the marketplace of ideas and be salt and light. For the past seven decades the American people have been inundated with the myth that our Constitution forbids the mixing of religion and politics. A whole generation of Americans has grown up believing the Constitution demands the separation of church and state. Even supposed learned attorneys refer to the ‘fact’ that the First Amendment to the Constitution includes the phrase: ‘separation of church and state.’ It does not! That is simply a lie introduced by Satan and fostered by some of the courts. Unfortunately, it is embraced by the American public to our shame and disgrace, and that lie has led this nation to the edge of the abyss. The American dream has become for many, the American nightmare.
Satan gave the world the philosophical foundation of atheistic communist regimes that keeps one-third of the world’s population in darkness. And he gave the world the religious philosophy for the false religion of Islam, which another third of the world has embraced. Both philosophies have one thing in common…both would prefer a world with neither Jews or Christians. Jesus said that Satan is a liar and the father of all lies. When the Supreme Court Justices ruled that the Constitution erected a “wall of separation” between church and state, they perpetrated the lie. Whether their actions were intentionally designed to subvert the truth, or they acted in ignorance of the truth, is beside the point. The framers of our Constitution never erected such a wall. In fact, they saw the necessity for a union to exist between the church and the state, without which there could be no morality. John Adams wrote: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” The First Amendment makes no such claim of separation. In fact, it states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Recent judicial debates have revolved around the definition of what constitutes religion. Historical record proves the framers of the Constitution viewed religion and denomination as interchangeable words. In Europe, state churches funded by the government had fallen victim to a corrupt clergy and religious intolerance. The framers of the Constitution were guarding against the danger of the federal government attempting to sponsor a national denomination. In America, there would be no state church. They never ever considered the possibility of other religions, much less atheism, being a threat to their freedoms. They were simply guarding against one denomination within the Christian faith dominating the others. The government’s role was designed to be one facilitating the free exercise thereof. The colonists who settled in the new world tended to nestle around their cherished religious traditions. A principle of propaganda is that any lie, no matter how absurd, if repeated enough, becomes believable.
Next week we will continue on the subject of the church and politics. It is difficult to find any evidence that supports separation of church and state in the founding principles of this nation.
-Bob Munsey
“There is no freedom without law. There is no law without truth.” (Sign in an auto repair business.)
Geezer Politics 