Easter and the Constitution

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Yesterday was Easter, a celebration of the greatest act of love in history.

Jesus Christ died on the Cross on Calvary so that we may know Him, and receive the gift of salvation.  We are free to make that choice, or to reject it.  That is the freedom of Christianity.  It is a choice, voluntarily made by an individual.  The choice is offered out of love, but refusal to convert is simply that, a rejection made freely by an individual.  As with all decisions, consequences are attached.  That is the beauty of freedom. . . our choices, and our consequences, are entirely up to us.

Whenever Easter, or Christmas, approaches, if you know where to look, the news media becomes flooded with stories of anti-Christian acts.  Hatred is thrust at Christians during these times (though I admit that hatred persists throughout the year), for daring to hold a conviction of faith that others have rejected.  The hatred, however, goes beyond a normal difference in opinion, and many of those that reject the Christian holidays initiate extreme actions to mock, destroy, and ultimately silence the Christians.  Yet, it is those very same people that accuse the Christians of doing the same, calling Christians closed minded, bigoted, intolerant, and hate-mongers, when in reality, that is far from the truth.

While Muslims defend their call to prayer on loudspeakers, they complain because flyers for Easter egg hunts are being handed out.  While progressives urge that their secularism be able to reign unopposed in government, and that all politicians should only make their decisions based on the established secular religion, they complain if a politician prays to the Christian God, or if a child prays before his lunch in the school cafeteria.  In their opinion, it is a violation of the establishment clause.  Of course, all other prayers from other faiths, especially Muslim prayer, is fully acceptable.

As men of faith, the Founding Fathers of the United States of America celebrated the birth and resurrection of Christ.  Sometimes, with all of the deconstruction of the founding of this nation going on in today's political battlefield, we forget how much these people from over two hundred years ago, loved the Lord.  We fail to remember that they believed Divine Providence guided their hands through the American Revolution, and the writing of the United States Constitution.

John Adams said, "The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God."

Samuel Adams said, "...we may with one heart and voice humbly implore His gracious and free pardon through Jesus Christ, supplicating His Divine aid . . . [and] above all to cause the religion of Jesus Christ, in its true spirit, to spread far and wide till the whole earth shall be filled with His glory."

The United States Congress in 1854 declared, "The great, vital, and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and the divine truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

Alexis de Tocqueville was amazed when he came to America in the 1830s.  He expected to find a nation in ruin, for the stories in France was that the American experiment was a failure.  America was a mistake.  Self-governance was impossible, and a system not fully secular could not properly function without the dictates of leaders of the church rising up, taking control, and becoming a hindrance.  What Tocqueville found, however, was a thriving America, deeply rooted in Christian convictions, yet a system where the government and the church were symbiotic.  The politicians prayed, and the pastors preached politics, but neither controlled the other.  Only in America could this be possible, and because of it, America was a great land.

In today's society, with the onslaught of an anti-Christian progressive agenda in full swing, the attacks against God are incredible.  There seems to be an infinite list of things that can set off those that hate the teachings of Jesus Christ, and they are willing to use the law, and the courts, to silence their opposition.  Christians are attacked as haters and bigots for even daring to express an opinion different than the liberal left's political desires.

To the leftist, a difference of opinion is labeled based on who has the difference of opinion.  If a Christian or Conservative has a difference of opinion with the Left, it is hate speech, bigotry, racism, anti-government, terrorist threats, treason, and should be silenced, or at least punishable by law.  If a secular liberal left progressive socialist has a difference of opinion with the Right or Christians, it is courageous, hopeful, tolerant, brave, and should be congratulated.

In Chicago, The Freedom from Religion Foundation, an atheist group, has posted an anti-Easter sign in Chicago's Daley Plaza. The signs are two eight-foot banners featuring Thomas Jefferson and John Adams promoting the atheist group's misguided, and misinformed, depiction of the secular views they believed our founding fathers held.  The banners by the atheists shows how ignorant they are of the belief system of the founders, and especially in regards to Jefferson and Adams.

In a letter to Mr. Charles Thompson, as provided in the 1902 republishing of The Jefferson Bible, Mr. Jefferson wrote after explaining his reasons for the writing of that book, "It is a document in proof that I am a REAL CHRISTIAN, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus."

The all caps was by Jefferson, and the statement was a true profession of who the man was.

As for the Jefferson Bible, it was not a rewrite of the Bible for the sake of stripping from Christ his deity, as you will read from unknowing, agenda-driven leftists, but Jefferson removed the references to Christ's deity in order to simplify the gospel for the Indians.  Jefferson sought to spread the gospel to the Indian Tribes, but believed it needed to be done originally in a simplistic manner, in order to gain their attention without an overload of supernatural information.  So, "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth" by Jefferson was a cut and paste version of the Bible that he felt would be accepted and welcomed by the Indians in order to spread Christianity to those peoples.

An interesting endeavor to spread the gospel for someone that was only a deist, as the secular left professes.

John Adams was also a man of faith.  He was a Unitarian, so it is understandable that his beliefs did not always perfectly coincide with traditional faith, but one thing was for sure, he was not an anti-Christian individual as the liberal left proclaims.

In my opinion, one quote alone clears up any doubt about the faith of John Adams, and the influence he believed God had on the founding of this nation, and how faith in God should influence this nation.  He wrote, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

Even Benjamin Franklin saw Christianity in a positive light. "As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and His religion as He left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see."

And remember, it was Dr. Franklin who also suggested that the delegates enter into prayer before each session of the constitutional convention.

It is at this point I would like to bring attention to the liberal left's rebuttal to what I have written, if there are any liberal left democrats that have lasted this long into this article.  They are surely wishing they could proclaim, "What about the anti-religious statements by founders, or the language on the Treaty of Tripoli where the United States puts in a treaty that it is not a Christian nation?"

The Founding Fathers were men of faith, believers in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and their decisions were no doubt influenced by their faith, and their opinion that all they were doing was being guided by the hand of Providence.  However, with the Church of England as the frame of reference, as well as the Catholic Church of that time, and how government and religion in Europe had become one and the same not unlike what was happening in Muslim countries, the founders were not particularly fond of "religion."  It was a majority opinion that human nature ruined Christianity through established churches and organized religion.  When the church and government joined in unholy matrimony the evil of the rule of men took charge, and though these were men of deep religious conviction, who based the template of the U.S. Government on the virtues and principles of Christianity, they did not wish for the alliance between government and the church to ever emerge in America in a manner as it existed in Europe.  As they stated in the Treaty of Tripoli, this nation was not founded as a Christian nation, and by that they meant that it was not a theocracy like you saw in Muslim nations, and it was not conceived in a manner remotely close to the theocratic style of governance that existed in Europe.

Opposition from the liberal left regarding the faith of the founders, or the importance of Christianity during the founding of this nation, is not based on the religious beliefs of the liberal left, or their lack of faith, thereof, however.  That is what they want you to think, and that is why they present it in the way they do.  Ultimately, the war against God in America by groups like The Freedom From Religion Foundation goes much deeper, all the way back to people like John Locke, and the concept of Natural Law.

Everything about the Left is agenda-driven.  Nothing is ever what it seems, and sometimes their actions are perplexing because they are often obviously the opposite of what is best for America.  But when dealing with the liberal left in the United States, we have to remember that their decisions are not based on what is best for America, the people, or our posterity.  Everything, every decision, every policy is agenda-driven.  And the reality is, Natural Law, the Constitution, and a value based society following virtuous principles such as is taught in the Holy Bible, are in complete opposition to their progressive agenda.

When Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was being confirmed by the United States Senate, a veteran Senator by the name of Joe Biden asked Mr. Thomas what he would base his rulings upon.  Thomas responded, "Natural Law."

Senator Biden went into a tirade about Thomas's answer. Joe Biden's attack accused Thomas of following an obscure, out of mainstream doctrine that had no place in constitutional law.  To use the concept of natural law would be to say that the law had some meaning outside the context of what the government says, and would in turn give priority to individual rights and property rights over governmental regulations, and that kind of thinking had no place in the federal court system.  After Biden's tirade, Thomas calmly explained what natural law is, and why it is an important philosophy to him in regards to the law of the land.  Biden revealed that he did not understand concepts like 'natural law' or 'the rule of law', and Thomas restrained himself from embarrassing the Senator by failing to tell Biden that the importance of natural law in our system of government is laid out in the very first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.

Was Biden truly ignorant of the concept of natural law, or was he so repulsed by it that a potential supreme court justice even considering using natural law sent him into a tirade?

Natural law is in complete opposition to the liberal left agenda.  Natural law says that our rights come from God, not from government, and therefore government has no authority to regulate in any way our lives in relation to the reality that our rights are God-given.

Natural law also calls for a limited government, where a central government operates only within the boundaries of the authorities granted to it, and no further.  Mr Biden, and the democrats, are not satisfied with a limited government that must follow rules established by the people through their States.  They are collectivists, placing the community above the individual.  The Founding Fathers reasoned that human nature is to deny God, and greedily grab wealth and power, and the way to combat human nature was to place a check and balance upon everything in government, and to limit the authorities of the federal government as much as possible, placing the emphasis on individuality and sovereignty. . . more specifically, the individuality and sovereignty of the citizens, and the individuality, sovereignty, and autonomy of the States.

The banners by The Freedom From Religion Foundation in Chicago's Daley Plaza read, "In reason we trust", and, "Keep state and religion separate,"  The banners are designed to counter the nineteen foot tall cross and a ten foot tall image of the resurrected Jesus, that has been erected each year at the plaza over the last decade.

Reason can be a good thing.  The Founding Fathers were enlightened.  They reasoned.  Not because reason is against godliness, but because reason was against tyranny.

The liberal left's version of keeping the state and religion separate is not what was intended, however.  The Left's version is "reason" based on the same reasoning that went into the French Revolution, to replace tyranny with tyranny, to believe tyranny is good when tyranny is godless, or the tyranny is run by the right people.

Karl Marx believed the same.

The Founding Fathers recognized the danger of tyranny no matter the form it takes.  They understood that the problem was not religion, nor secularism.  The problem was not monarchy, nor democracy.  The problem was not government, nor mob-rule.  Those things were only symptoms of the real problem.  They were only symptoms, and tools, of the power-hungry who had succumbed to the lusts and desires of human nature.

Tyranny is tyranny, and tyranny is always applied with an iron fist.

The opponents of originalism and faith erected those signs in Chicago, just as they did in Wisconsin's capital, and as they do throughout the world. . . and they are entitled to do so.  They are free to do so.  That is the glory of freedom.

Their freedom ceases to be freedom, however, when it stands in the way of the freedom of others.  Theirs ceases to be a righteous cause when they must use mandates through government to force their position upon the public, making it a crime to disagree with them, making it a hate crime for daring to stand in opposition.  They destroy businesses and individuality with their dictates.  They believe that tyranny comes through the cross.  They have decided that Christianity is not unlike the fictional tyranny in V for Vendetta, and that Christians desire a theocracy wherever they are, yet their response to their assumptions is tyranny of their own, to silence their opposition through the threat of fines and imprisonment, as they have to all of those that dare to speak out against them on social issues, or dares to call their president dangerous to this nation.

They tell you that because of their version of the separation of church and state that the religious cannot pray, or mention Christmas and Easter, in the public square.  But does not their signs of atheism proclaim their faith in the public square?  Does not their religion of secularism ringing through the halls of Congress betray the very establishment clause they claim to defend?  Is not forcing prayer out of school to replace Christianity with their beliefs of homosexuality, evolution, and transexual access to all bathrooms in schools not a blatant display of hypocrisy?

The Christians have agreed that freedom goes both ways, and have determined that the atheists have every right to put up their public display, while The Freedom From Religion Foundation demands that the Christian displays be removed.  Who, then, are the tolerant ones, and the champions of freedom?  Who is it, in reality, that truly believes that you have a right to believe, and say, what you will, and are willing to go to the highest mountaintop to defend it?

To accept Jesus is a voluntary, individual decision one has the freedom to make, or reject.  Obamacare, Islam, militant feminism, socialism, and the homosexual agenda, does not offer such liberty.

"V" would be disappointed.

Ask yourself, what would a free people do?

Any religion, or a belief such as secularism, ceases being anything other than a dangerous tyranny when it demands that all opposition must be silenced by the rule of force, through law and government.  Freedom is choice, and one of the choices, if this nation is to remain free, must be to disagree with them, and be able to freely say so.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Now Muslim parents are complaining about flyers for Easter Egg Hunts - Daily Caller

The Founding Fathers on Jesus, Christianity, and the Bible - WallBuilders

Fox News Kicks Off 2014 Coverage of the "Unholy War on Easter" - Media Matters for America

Jefferson, Thomas, The Jefferson Bible (The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth); New York: N.D. Thompson Publishing, 1902.