O, America, America, Wherefore Art Thou, America?
It is that time of year. We celebrate our nation’s 234th birthday on July 4. It is a worthy commemoration, one encouraging special reflection, let alone celebration.
I usually spend my summers reading up on some aspect of the Founding Fathers or, more broadly, the colonial and revolutionary eras of our history. I am currently drawn afresh to the Federalist Papers. Here is an extract from No. 37:
“When we pass from the works of nature, in which all the delineations are perfectly accurate and appear to be otherwise only from the imperfection of the eye which surveys them, to the institutions of man, in which the obscurity arises as well from the object itself as from the organ by which it is contemplated, we must perceive the necessity of moderating still further our expectations and hopes from the efforts of human sagacity. Experience has instructed us that no skill in the science of government has yet been able to discriminate and define, with sufficient certainty, its three great provinces — the legislative, executive and judiciary; or even the privileges and powers of the different legislative branches. Questions daily occur in the course of practice which prove the obscurity which reigns in these subjects, and which puzzle the greatest adepts in political science.”
Our Founding Fathers certainly approached the creation of a new government with the requisite humility. They had learned from history that the encroachment of governmental power always leans towards tyranny and away from personal liberty.
It was the determination of the Constitutional Convention to provide a system of government that would be strong enough to sustain and promote an independent society, yet small enough so as not to present any danger to American liberty.
They succeeded, all-in-all, beyond imagining. It wasn’t a perfect system that was unfurled in 1787, but it was one by which America grew in power and prosperity and in which the redress of injustice was given an opportunity. Hear again:
“Would it be wonderful if, under the pressure of all these difficulties, the convention should have been forced into some deviations from that artificial structure and regular symmetry which an abstract view of the subject might lead an ingenious theorist to bestow on a Constitution planned in his closet or in his imagination? The real wonder is that so many difficulties should have been surmounted with a unanimity almost as unprecedented as it must have been unexpected. It is impossible for any man of candor to reflect on this circumstance without partaking of the astonishment. It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution.”
(Nicholas Cage bemoaned in the film National Treasure that “No one ever talks that way any more!” I moan with him.)
James Madison spoke of the evident effects of the Almighty’s hand insofar as the immediate success of the Convention was concerned, and that was before it was ever ratified by the States! Think about the next two centuries!
Yes, our awe-inspiring expansion of territory, industry and power came at the expense of the indigenous Americans who were treated to one indignity after another, from living on reservations to caricatures in Hollywood films.
Yes, we would be ravaged by a Civil War that was the consequence of the ravaging of our African-American brethren within the vortex of that “peculiar institution” of slavery in the South and, for many more decades, the Jim Crow Laws.
Yes, a terrible conflict between labor and management was fought in the early days of the 20th Century. The unions rose upon the broken backs of a legion of workers.
Yes, the Great Depression and its corresponding human trauma would only be surmounted by our entry into WW II, a war that fought Fascism in Europe and the East, but also that jump-started the most powerful economy ever known in history.
No one minimizes these heinous realities. But they are indicative of a fallen human nature and consonant with its expression throughout the history of a fallen world.
The positive effects emanating from that hot and sweaty summer of 1787 in Philadelphia are what make the difference. Luminaries of independence briefly shone elsewhere, but often only with the narrow concern of one class or party.
Here the effects parleyed into an opportunity given for all! Those effects are lived out by average Americans (like me!) on a daily basis. Those same effects travel the high seas and corridors of air, taking root in human hearts and minds everywhere.
What was it that made our experiment in a government of, for and by the people so enormously successful? Democracy, yes, but democracies heretofore had rarely produced much of worth to the human spirit.
Ancient Athens was a democracy, but their empire was built upon the backs of others. They were solely concerned with their own prosperity and “they” refers to a handful of men (and we mean men, not women) who held power and had money.
The Swiss cantons were democratic in nature, but, as Orson Welles in The Third Man cynically observed, the democratic Swiss produced the cuckoo clock but the ruthless authoritarians of Florence and Rome produced the Italian Renaissance.
Capitalism? Yes, but for all of life’s improvements, it can’t be forgotten that labor laws had to be promulgated and unions formed against fierce managerial resistance The world of capital and labor was always a ruthless, brutal world.
Sherlock Holmes observed that when all the evidence has been examined and discounted, whatever is left must be the answer to the question at hand. What remains (Dare we say it, lest someone take offense?) is Religion.
The ethic of the Judeo-Christian civilization was planted and with increasing measure permeated the air of our nation and the soul of her people. It is an ethic that was fostered as the civil arm and civic populace paid homage to God Almighty.
Think about it. The colonies were populated by people who — Yes, wanted to prosper financially and socially — but also by people who sought to honor the Lord. The Puritans of Boston and Quakers of Philadelphia are classic cases in point.
The Spirit of God seared the Atlantic seaboard with the Presence of Christ during the Great Awakenings of 1735 and 1741. Revival unfolded during the Revolution and at various intervals throughout much of the 19th Century.
Freedom of religion was postulated in the Bill of Rights that prefaced the Constitution. A woman actually led religious services in the Capitol Building in those early days. Churches were granted tax exemptions in honor of God.
What is troubling today stems from two sources: the citizenry and the government. The citizenry is uprooting itself from its biblical foundations, especially amongst (but not exclusive to) the young, at the behest of our academic and corporate elites.
And government is making a grab for more and more power. The power that is currently invested in Washington is alarming. The framers of the Constitution drafted our foundational document as a safeguard against government intrusion.
Those holding power are recklessly but methodically moving to seize more of the same. Government power has been applied to better our lives, but such instances pale in comparison with the inherent dangers, whatever the immediate advantages.
And to Christians I say this: Government always proves the enemy of true religion. It sets itself up in rivalry to the authority of God. Humility is inherent to limited government in comparison to the arrogance of its burgeoning counterpart.
It is our current predicament. We have been warned: “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against His Anointed One. ‘Let us break their chains,’ they say, ‘and throw off their fetters” (Psalm 2:1-3).
A people who walk away from God and His ways will be complemented by a government salivating for more authority over those same people. Freedom comes at a price, but the utilization of freedom for sin comes at an ever greater price.
God will not be mocked: “The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. Then He rebukes them in His anger and terrifies them in His wrath, saying, ‘I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill’” (Psalm 2:4-6).
The increase of government is one of the terrible prices we pay for the decrease in godliness. Christians need to recognize this. We have been told to pay attention, to be alert and self-controlled and to pray. The signs of the times are there to be read.
President Lincoln discerned God’s judgment amidst the Civil War. The evils of slavery were at issue: “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, ‘The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
Other evils are at play today. Conservatives warned us against the evils of Communism, but not of materialism and promiscuity; liberals warn us against things like global warming but can’t recognize the threat of radical Islam.
The Bush administration rightly moved to protect us against a deadly external foe, but it must be remembered that God does not honor those who have a powerful military, only those who acknowledge and revere the Almighty Himself.
The Obama presidency has sought to correct pronounced inequities within our society, but there are limits to human sagacity (i.e. Federalist No. 37), especially when abortion and homosexual marriage, but not Israel, are given federal support.
God will not be mocked by a sinful citizenry or an idolatrous government; nor, for that matter by sleeping Christians. National renewal starts with us. God spoke long ago with words that reverberate still in souls sensitive and attentive to God’s Spirit:
“If my people, who are called by my Name, will humble themselves, and turn from their wicked ways, pray and seek my Face, then will I hear from heaven, then will I forgive their sin and then will I heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).
I know of no better way to honor the Fourth than by honoring God: First by giving Him the offering of our repentance; second, by receiving from Him the refreshment He promises. Happy and Blessed Fourth!
Bradley E. Lacey
July 2, 2010
The World’s Greatest Message with Pastor Brad Lacey is heard on Philadelphia’s WHAT 1340am every Sunday at 9am. Please pray for our listeners and for the finances needed to maintain this faith-based ministry. Your support is invaluable.