TODAY'S INSIGHTThe Congress And Supreme Court Speak
What joy for the nation whose God is the LORD, whose people he has chosen for his own (Psalm 33:12, NLT).
Dear friends:
In a previous message, I said that our national Christian and Bible-based heritage was occasionally challenged by agnostics and atheists, but after careful study, the challenges were always dismissed.
One challenge prompted an extensive study by the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary. The 1854 report could not have been more clear: "At the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the amendments, the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged.... It must be considered as the foundation on which the whole structure rests.... That was the religion of the founders of the republic, and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants." This report distilled the collective organic utterances of the Founding Fathers, the Congress, the courts and the states.
Also, in 1892, the U.S. Supreme Court faced a similar challenge and concluded, "This is a religious people... we are a Christian people... These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation." (The Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States).
What is amazing is that in this 1892 conclusion, the Court cited 87 different historical and legal precedents from the Founding Fathers, the Congresses and the state governments, saying, "There is no dissonance in these declarations. There is a universal language pervading them all, having one meaning; they affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation." The Court said it clearly: "This is a Christian nation."
The Court's decision was ruled by facts, and legal precedent, as it is supposed to be. Compare 87 precedents with virtually zero precedents in the 1962 case removing prayer from schools, and the 1963 case removing the Bible.
We are not talking about ancient history. In as recent as 1931, in United States v. Macintosh (1931), the Supreme Court declared, "We are a Christian people.... according to one another the equal right of religious freedom, and acknowledging with the reverence the duty of obedience to God."
Although it is not politically correct today to say so, without question America was a Christian nation. God was involved in the founding of our great nation. He has blessed America, and shed His grace on us as with no other nation in history.
Yours for helping to fulfill the Great Commission each year until our Lord returns,
Bill Bright
12 comments:
Does this not make you wonder if/when God will stop blessing this nation as we (as a nation) continue to pull farther from Him?
sorry. that "anonymous" was me, and i didn't sign it.
I sort of think that the whole nation of Christians issue is moot. Sure, maybe we were formed under many precepts of Christianity (though I found through a research project that many of our perceived "Christian" founders believed many very different Deist things), but the fact is our nation is no longer a Christian nation. That is obvious. So, when we go around arguing about whether or not we're a Christian nation and trying to legislate Christian morals on an unChristian society we just waste time that we could be using to spread His kingdom through our lives, relationships, and truth spoken in grace.
The question is not whether we were/are a Christian nation but what we are doing to bring about a new Kingdom!
-Pepe
Pepe: So who do you vote for? Or do you not vote because that's a waste of time that could be spent witnessing?
I want to vote for people who bring sound Biblical morals to their leadership. I want to vote for people who will interpret the Constitution the way it was meant to be interpreted.
I'm not saying don't vote. I'm saying that we spend way too much time arguing about whether or not this country was founded as a Christian nation and then trying to legalize our religion through Congress, and probably not winning too many people over in the process. Can you find one person brought to Christ because of a law some special interest group got passed?
It's each individual persons choice to vote and who to vote for, and as a Christian obviously you are going to have different thoughts than most people on those things, but that wasn't at all what I was getting at.
-Pepe
The very idea of a "Christian nation" flies in the face of everything that Christ taught. While He was here in person, He had every opportunity to set up such a worldly kingdom, but repeatedly refused. Instead, He stated:
"My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence."
John 18:36-37
P.S. Our prayers to the One Who holds nations and the hearts of rulers in His hand are about a million times more powerful than our silly little votes. 1 Tim. 2:1-6
True, Christ did come to set up a heavenly nation, not an earthly one.
But my first thought on reading your comment?
"Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance." Psalm 33:12
"Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people." Proverbs 14:34
Jim: So do you think it would be un-Christlike for a follower of Christ to be the President of the United States? It's not about having a "kingdom" here on earth, it's about having leaders who fear the Lord. It was abundantly clear in the old testament that the leaders of a nation could strongly influence the direction of the people's hearts. That's still true today. The leaders of our nation have an amazing platform to the World.
If we just shrug and say, "A Christian nation isn't important. I'm going to focus on converting my neighbor." Then we're ignoring a huge opportunity to exalt the name of Christ.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying ignore your neighbors salvation, and I'm not saying strive after political dominance at the expense of your Christ focus.
However, I believe that a nation can be and should be founded on the name of Christ. I believe the founders of our nation never intended for Christianity to be cut out of government. I believe they knew that in order for a republic that was "by the people, for the people" to survive, those people had to have Christian world-views.
While we shouldn't get so caught up in the political process that it hinders our focus on Christ, we also should pull out of the political process because of some notion that the process itself is evil.
It absolutely would be un-Christlike for a believer to be President in the current context. A believer would never situate himself as commander-in-chief of a worldly military force which exists to kill people (under any guise of "peace-keeping"). His first act would be to take away the guns, open up the borders and turn fighters into healers and heads of state into servants.
As citizens of this country, our duty is to live in (and pray for) peace, pay our taxes, cast our votes; render to Uncle Sam what belongs to him.
I vote and pray for leaders who most closely align with Christ's teachings, but to call the United States (or any other organization of humans with a standing military and guarded borders) Christian is a gross misunderstanding and misuse of the term.
Old testament scriptures aimed at God's chosen people Israel do not apply to the United States; they cannot be used to support militant patriotism.
His kingdom is now open to all peoples. Our tasks as citizens of His kingdom extend far beyond trying to convert our acquaintances. Our work includes social justice, active peace-making, holding the powerful accountable and re-distributing our incredible excess to relieve the suffering of the ill, starving, hopeless masses. At best, politics are a tool that can sometimes be used to achieve those ends.
Jim,
I'd have to disagree...a little.
John 18:36-38 in the KJV is translated incorrectly. Jesus is saying that his Kingdom is not from this world (ek tou kosmou). The Lord's prayer makes it clear as we pray that "thy kingdom come...on earth as it is in heaven". His kingdom might not be from this world, but it certainly is for this world.
I would also note that Paul's language is itself political as he attribute many of Caesar's own self-claimed characteristics to Jesus. Just look at Romans 5:1. Jesus is the Lord and King (ie Christ) who brought justice that results in peace.
At the same point, even though Jesus set up a Kingdom, our own politics looks quite different from the politics of the world. We don't bring justice by the sword, but by the Spirit (which we see working as faith, hope, love, etc...). Whether or not we can viably be Christians and part of a state that enacts un-Christian policies, I just don't know...yet. On the one hand, we all take part in groups that are not 100% moral 100% of the time (even, some might say especially, our churches). But if Jesus is really an alternative king, then to bow to any other ideal is false. And through all of this, many tend to point to the ethical norms of the group (Jim referred to the standing armies and such of the US) instead of the political nature of Christianity (and how to make sense of an as yet unfulfilled eschatology within this context).
In short, I don't know. There are a lot of intelligent Christians throughout the ages that have contributed to the debate that deserve to be heard. And I don't really understand what most of them have said.
Perhaps my confusion could be better stated like this.
Vigorous militarism gives the upper hand to powerful. Because we are to stand up for and protect the weak (whether they are economically weak, physically weak, politically weak, etc...) vigorous militarism must be opposed.
At the same time, it seems like a vigorous pacifism does the same thing, allowing the powerful free reign. It would suggest that this should also be opposed.
As always, Chesterton put it a bit more...vigorously. "[Pacifists] preach that if you see a man flogging a woman to death you must not hit him. I would much sooner let a leper come near a little boy than a man who preached such a thing."
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