I oppose the "separation of church and state." I studied the law and passed the California Bar Exam, hoping to return our legal system to its Christian roots, but was denied admission to practice, ultimately because I reject the myth of "separation." Any Christian who challenges this Secular Humanist myth cannot become an American Citizen.
James Madison, called the "Architect of the Constitution," is said to have claimed,
We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God. . . . [1]
For ten years, beginning in 1988, I lived and worked at an urban halfway-house for homeless drug addicts, picking up the pieces of human destruction left by a Constitution which forbids the reading of the Bible and the mere posting of the Ten Commandments in our nation's schools. I meet hundreds of people a week, most of whom cannot "govern themselves," "control themselves," or "sustain themselves according to the Ten Commandments of God" (to use Madison's words), or, to use Biblical language, "cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand."[2] I am constantly reminded, in graphic and concrete expressions of brokenness and bondage, how far our nation has strayed from God's Paths, and it is very draining.
I can't help wonder if the Supreme Court and Law School Academicians really understand what keeps school children from becoming homeless adults, and what really creates a prosperous social order where rights are secure. The answer is Godly character, not faceless checks from impersonal bureaucracies.[3]
When hostility toward Christianity reaches such a fever pitch that children cannot even be reminded of the Ten Commandments, then we have a social order which is committing suicide. The Stone Court did not deny the truth of the plaque below the Ten Commandments posted in the school hallway, which read, "The secular application of the Ten Commandments is clearly seen in its adoption as the fundamental legal code of Western Civilization and the Common Law of the United States."[4] It simply ruled that this claim was a ruse to get "religion" into the schools. In so ruling, the Court cut the Constitution off from Western Civilization and our Common Law heritage, and sent it hurtling into Nihilism.[5] Many teachers would like to shape the character of their students in such a way that when they grow up they would respect the lives, the property, and the liberties of others. But with the judicial repudiation of God's Law, these moral values seem to be "unconstitutional" in schools. Distinguished Harvard Psychologist Robert Coles is quoted in the Readers Digest as saying,
Many schoolteachers are afraid to bring up moral and spiritual questions for fear that they violate the Constitution. It's a tragedy, intellectually as well as morally and spiritually. This might relate to the educational problems among some children.[6] A large number of the schools' assumptions are materialist and agnostic; there's a culture conflict between families and schools. That conflict may have some bearing on what children learn and what they don't learn, and how children behave[7] in school.[8]
The statistics are by now common knowledge: children are more likely to be carrying guns or condoms to school than they are homework with the caliber of learning of a previous century.[9] The Founding Fathers were unanimous in their belief that ignorance and immorality were destructive of good government. That is why the organic law of this country required the teaching of religion in the public schools.[10]
It is not that the Supreme Court is unaware of the Christian history of this country. They simply do not believe that they are bound by the Founding Fathers. Period. Consider a Supreme Court case which ruled that a privately-donated Christmas manger scene on county property was "unconstitutional." The majority of the Court was clearly offended at the idea that the county would even passively admit that Christ was the Messiah, the Son of God. Justice Kennedy noted a few historical examples of government recognition of the claims of Christ, but he was in the minority. The majority virtually spat in the eyes of the Founders:
The
history of this Nation, it is perhaps sad[11] to say, contains numerous examples of official acts that endorsed Christianity specifically. Justice Kennedy [dissenting in this case] evidently believes that contemporary references to exclusively Christian creeds (like the Trinity or the divinity of Jesus) in official acts or proclamations[12] is justified by the religious sentiments of those responsible for the adoption of the First Amendment. See 2 J. Story,[13] Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 1874, p 663 (1858) ([which says that] at the time of the First Amendment's adoption, "the general, if not the universal sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state"). This Court, however, squarely has rejected the proposition that the Establishment Clause [of the First Amendment] is to be interpreted in light of any favoritism for Christianity that may have existed among the Founders of the Republic.[14]
In the ten years I spent at Isaiah House, the Catholic Worker in Santa Ana, CA, I spent many hours a day working with addicts, criminals, and illegal aliens. No doubt this did not win friends and influence people among the conservative "Christian Right." What did I do? Why did I do it?
The Founders believed and publicly declared that Christian morals must be inculcated if the freedoms they fought for were to survive. The Secular Humanist legal system is destroying the moral foundation of society. I have dedicated myself to helping the victims of Secular Humanism.
Two singles and a family of six rented a 12-bedroom house in a not-very-trendy part of Orange County, a few minutes' walk from the Santa Ana Civic Center, where many homeless people slept at night. We opened our home to them all. The rooms which we did not occupy ourselves were opened to those who were seeking employment or recovery from addictions. Several days a week we served lunch in our dining room. During the week over 200 meals were served. During the years I lived there, over 300 people were given hospitality.
We knew that most of these people were here illegally, were on parole or had warrants out for their arrest, and needed lunch because they had blown their money on drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes. They were all victims of secularization, who did not know their right hand from their left. Our materialist culture would rather we pay attention to the wealthy, the glamorous, the athletic, and the trendy. The homeless are literally bulldozed out of sight, to make room for those whose celebrity status will sell us more trinkets.
How can you make up for an education which never taught the rudiments of God's Law? You can't. Not in one day. Not one day a week. We lived with the "marginalized" seven days a week, 24 hours a day. We taught ESL classes (English as a Second Language). We had 12-step meetings in our home. Our home was an oasis from the darkness of urban secularism. And as in John 4, Jesus met the sinner at the well. Only this time, Jesus came disguised as the sinner. 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.' (Matthew 25:40). We learned how to practice the "works of mercy" which Jesus taught distinguished the sheep from the goats.
I do not regret the many hours of intense, prolonged discussion I've had with drug addicts, trying to keep them from heading off to the dealer, to escape their meaningless secular world. I cannot regret the planting of seeds, just because God has not yet chosen to water them. But I do get angry. I get angry that all my preaching can be so quickly negated when the government declares drug addiction to be a "disability" rather than a sin, and sends these "disabled" people a Social Security check, which is given to the pusher before the ink has dried. I know I am outnumbered by a Secular Humanist Empire. Jesus taught me to be willing to give up my life. My reward will not be a BMW.
1. Cited in David Barton, Myth of Separation, p. 120, and Holmes Alexander, How to Read the Federalist, 35 (1961). No primary source document of Madison has been found containing this quote. It may have been made in a speech. Read more about the quote. [Return to text]
2. Jonah 4:11; cf. Deut. 17:11,20. [Return to text]
3. See below, text at note 211. [Return to text]
4. Stone, above, at 449 U.S. 41, 66 L.Ed.2d at 202. Prof. Harold J. Berman of the Harvard Law School has written,
[E]ven fifty years ago . . . if you had asked Americans where our system of law came from, on what it was ultimately based, the overwhelming majority would have said, "the Ten Commandments," or "the Bible," or perhaps "the law of God." . . . In the past two generations the public philosophy of America has shifted radically from a religious to a secular theory of law. . . .
H. Berman, "The Interaction of Law and Religion," 8 Cap. U. L. Rev. 345 at 349-50 (1979). [Return to text]
5. See Whitehead, The Second American Revolution, and Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture, (1976) at 110. [Return to text]
6. That is, the kids don't know how to read, write, compute, or discern, but do know how to use a condom, a submachine gun, and a coke pipe. -k.c. [Return to text]
7. You mean teaching children that they don't have to restrain themselves from killing, stealing, raping, and lying will have an effect on their behavior? Naaah! [Return to text]
8. Robert Coles, "Points to Ponder" 139 Reader's Digest 99-100 (no. 832, August 1991). (Originally appearing in Time Magazine.) What is significant about this quote (aside from it being astute) is not that the Reader's Digest is a recognized authority in Psychology or Law, but that the Reader's Digest has perhaps the largest subscription of any periodical in the United States. Its publishers have shown a knack for printing articles which reflect the aspirations, feelings, and fears of millions of Americans. [Return to text]
9. See the statistics in Barton, Myth, pp. 207-220. [Return to text]
10. See the discussion of the Northwest Ordinance, above, text at notes 111-115. [Return to text]
11. "Sad"? [Return to text]
12. The Court is saying that a manger scene on public property constitutes an "official act or proclamation." As though the Founding Fathers felt that an explicitly pro-Christian proclamation was bad. [Return to text]
13. As Barton points out, Joseph Story was a professor at Harvard Law School who was appointed to the Supreme Court by (President) Madison, where he sat for 34 years. He authored the Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, which was unquestionably the most authoritative treatise on Constitutional Law in the 19th century. Only the rise of Secular Humanism has rendered it obsolete. See Barton, Myth, p. 79. See also Cord, above note 138, at 12n.38. [Return to text]
14. County of Allegheny v. ACLU, 492 US 573, 604, 106 L Ed 2d 472, 501-502, 109 S Ct 3086 (1989)(emphasis added). [Return to text]