In this country, we have the freedom to believe as we like regarding the sanctity of the Constitution. We can believe that it is the most magnificent and timeless blueprint for governance ever devised by the mind of man. Or we can believe that it is an outmoded government design, in need of constant revision, because it was written by nearsighted men who couldn’t see past the eighteenth century.
We also have the freedom to believe that the Bible is the infallible, inspired word of God … or that it is simply a collection of fairy tales … or that it is merely an insidious book, used by controlling people to instill fear and obedience into the masses.
Being allowed to embrace any or all such beliefs is what individual freedom is all about.
But there are a certain few among us who, by virtue of their position, ought not to have the right to such beliefs.
There once was a time when national office holders (especially presidents, senators, congressmen, and Supreme Court justices) believed that the Constitution was the incontrovertible law of the land and that it was their honored duty to uphold it. The words preserve, protect and defend had a tangible, concrete meaning. And that meaning in no way allowed the infiltration of the concepts of edit, assault, and declare obsolete. As a matter of fact, it forbade them.
That someone would seek elected or appointed national office, the prime duty of which is to preserve, protect and defend a document, would consider that document malleable, and every aspect of it interpretable in countless ways, is ludicrous. Why would anyone want to take an oath to protect something whose very definition (and therefore its value) is forever changing?
There once was a time when America’s leaders were (as they should be) a cut above the rest of us. That time is long past (it has been waning for decades, but drew its last breath around 1989). If they were not Constitutional scholars per se, they at least had a working knowledge of the document they were charged to defend, and they were committed to seeing to it that it remained whole, and supreme.
As this article so beautifully observes, those once-upon-a-time strict constructionist leaders, who regarded the Constitution as a sacred trust, for the most part are now viewed as dinosaurs – and dangerous dinosaurs at that. ‘After all, we really don’t know what the Founding Fathers meant. And even when we do know, their intent is secondary to the dictates of our current [immoral, irresponsible] situation.’
To which I say to the dinosaur-phobes, ‘Then go back to private life, where you may hold any Constitution-related belief that you like. Let someone else take your seat – someone who reveres the document he was elected/appointed to defend.’
When those who are entrusted with the defense of ‘sacred’ ground are allowed to defile that very ground, the ground is then neither sacred nor worth defending.
The Episcopal Church USA is practicing the same convenient, duplicitous behavior. Its leadership (especially, and certainly, at the level of bishop) used to accept a certain unequivocal level of responsibility and allegiance to the sanctity of scriptural doctrine. Again, why would one choose to minister to others a theology that is not considered immutable, but changeable according to the whim of man?
As regards the scriptural description of God’s view of homosexuality (which these ‘ministers’ choose to pretend doesn’t exist between the covers of the Bible), nowhere in the Bible is there any evidence of God’s condoning it. And there are many examples of His declaring it an abomination in His eyes (Lev 18:22, Rom 1:27, and 1Cor 6:9,10 being the most frequently cited). His condemnation of homosexual behavior is explicit and not open for interpretation, except by those who choose irrational distortion over reality.
If the Lord judges homosexuality as an abomination in humankind in general, how much more of a sin must it be to be practiced by a minister of His word? And how can one preach that which one defiles?
James 3:1 reads: Not many of you should be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. Scripture tells us that the Lord holds teachers to a higher standard than others, because they are expected to have a thorough knowledge of their subject, an allegiance to it, and an unwavering dedication to imparting it without tarnishing its truth by infecting it with their own personal biases or desires.
And when the subject is the word of God, and the ‘teacher’ is a minister of the gospel, assessing the word of God as if it were malleable, revisable by man, and not timeless but dependent on human era or situation, that minister needs to retire to the public sector, where such beliefs are his right and privilege.
One of the primary reasons so many of our institutions are eroding and decaying beyond recognition (government and church sitting highest on the list) is that those in decision-making positions of power no longer remain true to the foundations of those institutions whose purity and integrity they are charged to defend.
The dismantling of the Constitution, and the ignoring or interpretational editing of scriptural doctrine, amount to the corruption of words whose sources are pure and well-conceived, in order to justify self-absorbed, irresponsible human behavior. And if we continue to allow government and church leadership to chip away at those timeless (and, in the case of scripture, divinely-inspired) documents and doctrines, we will find ourselves sailing in dark waters … without anchor or compass. And then we had better hope (having forfeited our right to pray) for a storm-free future.
~ joanie
You write beautifully, and here, especially, I am so grateful, because you have written a timeless gem.
A friend lately asked me, how did I think that we could end wars. "I just want to stop the killing." Me, too.
She asked that in the context of, as liberals are want, their notion that wars happen because people like war, people ("militarists") want war, and that if we pursue peace, if we only would, there will be peace.
I told her that warfare is a basic human institution; it may even be a basic human condition; that, the best we can do, is keep it to a dull roar.
Unfortunately, as usual, the time limit for her listening to me, expired ...
I'd like to have continued:
To have peace, we must have a system of justice that the people have sovereign power over at all times. We must adhere to the rule of law. We must preserve the keystone of this system, its constitution. We must amend it only by the procedures that we have agreed upon. We must not bend the words to mean other than their original intent.
Wars happen most because original intent is violated. The grounds upon which we agreed to live in peace, are not maintained. In effect, peace treaties are broken.
There are many reason why they are broken, yet wars start over the attending disagreements.
It's that simple.
Our Constitution is a peace treaty.
Good words. All true.
I like your new and improved FR profile page too, especially the new tribute to Reagan.
Thoughtful and beautiful post, as always, Joanie.
(Thought you might like the read ahadams2, if you hadn't seen it.)