A Lesson

Aboutthe Constitution

By

Dennis Fischer

Print

When I was a young boy my father taught me a valuable lesson about the constitution. He said, “Son, if you want to know what the constitution says, READ IT. If you want to know what it means, look at the lives of the men who wrote it.”

There is a profound wisdom in that instruction. Tragically, however, it is one lost on a host of policy makers across this land. Today our leaders as well as those who would influence them are engaged in great moral battles over such issues as abortion, same sex marriage, and the burning of the American flag. These debates are invariably championed on both sides by “experts” invoking the most cherished document in American history. What many fail to do however, is to sincerely ask themselves what the framers of this extraordinary manifesto meant when crafting it.

Nothing more graphically illustrates this point than the current battle over the role of God in the public square. This debate has ignited passions in millions of Americans and those passions run deep. But how difficult would it be to understand what men like James Madison and Fisher Ames meant when they drafted what would ultimately become the highest law in the land? To hear some arguments you would think that the founding fathers viewed faith as the mortal enemy of freedom. As a result, in the United States today any public expression of religious belief, especially Christianity, is not only shunned but viewed with outright contempt.

The most recent episode of America's battle against God occurred on June 15th during a graduation ceremony at Foothill High School in Las Vegas Nevada. As the senior class valedictorian, 18 year old Brittany McComb earned the privilege of addressing her classmates and guests. However, when school administrators reviewed a copy of her speech they deleted all references to her faith in Jesus Christ and warned her against veering away from the school-censored text. However, when giving her speech McComb reinserted every one of them. As soon as she began speaking of her faith, school administrators promptly pulled the plug on the sound system.

Miss McComb would later defend her actions on constitutional grounds because she believed they were protected by the first amendment which provides for freedom of religious expression as well as freedom of speech. She then stated that she was not trying to make a political statement with her address but rather simply giving credit where credit was due. “In my heart I couldn’t say the edited version because it wasn’t what I wanted to say,” McComb told the Associated Press. “I wanted to say why I was successful, and what inspired me to keep going and what motivated me. It involved Jesus Christ for me, period.” Earlier she said, “God’s the biggest part of my life. Just like the other valedictorians thank their parents, I wanted to thank my Lord and Saviour.”

School officials defended their actions arguing that the speech amounted to proselytizing, which violated the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rulings that mandated school districts to censor speeches that promoted religion. This is the same court that ruled in favor of an atheist who argued that the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional because of its reference to "one nation, under God”, but that California world history curricula involving students repeating Islamic prayers and creeds were perfectly acceptable and protected by the constitution. As a result of this judicial wisdom young people like Brittany McComb are now being forced to stay silent when it comes to expressing their faith in public.

The irony to this is that this nation was once proud to proclaim its belief in the God of the Bible. Consider just a few examples: John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States, thought nothing of expressing his thoughts concerning the value of the scriptures. He once said that it was his custom to read the Bible in its entirety once a year.

He was not alone in this sentiment. Abraham Lincoln actually acknowledged that Jesus Christ was the Savior of the world and that the Bible was a gift from God Himself. Here are his exact words.

I believe the Bible is the best gift that God has ever given to man. All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through this book. I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go.

Can you imagine our leaders today expressing such words? Why there would be such an outcry of protest the sound would be defining. But there is more. Presidents such as George Washington, Andrew Jackson, and Calvin Coolidge all saw an inextricable connection between a workable government and obedience to the Bible. George Washington once said…

“It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”

Andrew Jackson proclaimed that the Bible was the “rock on which our republic rests. ”Calvin Coolidge once cautioned that “the foundation of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.”

And then there is Thomas Jefferson who once offered ominous words to those who think our freedoms can thrive in a world without the Almighty. This author of the Declaration of Independence offered a chilling thought.

God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people, that these liberties are a gift from God?

Jefferson’s words express a fundamental principle as powerful as the law of gravity – In essence they are declaring that without God and His word, what goes up will come down.

Today as we quietly watch this nation question whether there is room in America for the Creator who is so eloquently described in the scriptures, perhaps we should take note that the heroes who made this nation great also warned that its survival was impossible without faith at its very center. Perhaps the great 19th century statesman Daniel Webster said it best

"If we and our posterity shall be true to the Christian religion, if we and they shall live always in the fear of God and shall respect His commandments. We may have the highest hopes of the future fortunes of our country. But if we and our posterity neglect religious instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us that shall bury all our glory in profound obscurity."

Dear friends, Consider for a moment the following: Imagine if the architects of this once great nation had the wisdom to warn future Americans that our republic was built on a foundation that relied on God Himself. Now imagine that they knew that if God was ever removed from the public square that foundation would also be removed and freedom itself would suddenly be lost. If you consider the lives as well as the words of these great men it doesn’t take much to imagine just that.