{"id":4005,"date":"2021-10-31T20:38:38","date_gmt":"2021-10-31T20:38:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/?page_id=4005"},"modified":"2022-12-31T15:43:20","modified_gmt":"2022-12-31T15:43:20","slug":"blog-archive-2020","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/?page_id=4005","title":{"rendered":"Blog Archive: 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n143. 1\/1\/20 The Foundations of American Law
\n144. 2\/1\/20 Existentialism: Not all bad, not all good
\n145. 3\/1\/20 DNA & De-volution
\n146. 4\/1\/20 The Good Life in America
\n147. 5\/1\/20 Unspeakable
\n148. 6\/1\/20 The Doctrine of the Christian Life
\n149. 7\/1\/20 The Call
\n150. 8\/1\/20 Doubt: A Good Thing?
\n151. 9\/1\/20 Sealed Upon Your Heart
\n152. 10\/1\/20 The Original Marxist-Leninist
\n153. 11\/1\/20 So-Called Scholars
\n154. 12\/1\/20 A Time for Truth
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

———————–<\/p>\n


\n143. The Foundations of American Law
\nJanuary 1, 2020
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the last hundred years or so, Christians in America have sporadically been disturbed over various trends in society, including flagrant immorality, pornography, abortion, evolution indoctrination in the public schools, the breakdown of families, crime and violence, and political corruption. In Francis A. Schaeffer\u2019s 1981 book, A Christian Manifesto<\/em>, he argues that Christians have mistakenly viewed such issues as core problems, instead of symptoms of a much bigger problem, that the worldview of the West has shifted away<\/em> from something at least vaguely Christian, toward<\/em> an irrationality \u2013 that reality is ultimately based on impersonal matter and energy, shaped into its present form by impersonal chance.<\/p>\n

America has never had a population whose majority were born again Christians, but Biblical truths guided the principles on which it was founded and Christian values have infused much of the nation\u2019s history, including respect for individual liberties, the importance of stable families, and a common recognition of objective moral virtues. That has changed over the last few generations.<\/p>\n

Schaeffer observes that \u201cthese two worldviews stand in complete antithesis to each other in content\u201d and in their impact on society and government, including on the laws of the land. The two worldviews cannot be mixed. They cannot be synthesized. Liberal churches have attempted synthesis over the last century by throwing the Gospel under the bus in favor of \u2018social justice\u2019 programs, which typically feature cheeseburgers for the homeless and shoes for orphans . . . which may provide some temporal encouragement, but are oh-so-rarely (or never?) combined with a Gospel message that could actually turn someone\u2019s life around and open the door to Heaven. Instead, the cheeseburger just provides a bit of comfort while the lost fellow stays lost, one heartbeat from Hell, with no Holy Spirit to convict his conscience and direct his steps in this life.<\/p>\n

Evangelical leader David Platt recently challenged 12,000 pastors at a conference, that the churches are responsible for exacerbating racism, because they haven\u2019t prioritized its solution. What foolishness! The Gospel itself solves racism. The Bible teaches we are one race, all sons and daughters of Adam. Racism is just one form of hatred \u2013 based on evolutionary fantasies.<\/em> Repent from hatred and trust Christ. That\u2019s the solution . . . the only solution.<\/p>\n

Schaeffer argues that materialists (matter \/ energy \/ chance is everything), whether Marxists or not, not only miss the truth about God, they do not know who Man is. Not knowing Man as made in God\u2019s image, with free will and a moral conscience, and accountable to the moral realities delineated in God\u2019s word, they get society wrong, they get government wrong, and they get law wrong. Their foundation is that man is merely a clump of molecules bumping along; therefore morality and law can only be matters of whim or instruments of power.<\/p>\n

Supreme Court jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935) wrote, \u201cThe life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.\u201d Thus, there is no basis for law except man\u2019s experience, feelings, opinions. Holmes\u2019 final conclusion: Law is \u201cthe majority vote of that nation that could lick all others.\u201d Brute force, that\u2019s what counts.<\/p>\n

Henry DeBracton, a 13th<\/sup> century English judge, consistent with a Christian worldview, noted that God could have crushed Satan in his revolt by use of sufficient power, but because of God\u2019s character, justice came first. Christ died to satisfy the demands of justice and, at the same time, to demonstrate His love. That\u2019s who God is, the source of justice and love. The basis of English common law was that the prince has power to rule, but not the right to do so without justice.<\/p>\n

Schaeffer, from his 1981 vantage point, observes that the U.S. State Department, after WW2, sought to implant \u2018democracy\u2019 all over the world, in cultures whose philosophy and religion would never produce it. In almost every case, this ends in some form of tyranny. It should be obvious today, but is not to our ruling elite, that in Muslim nations it is impossible to establish constitutional republics that respect individual liberty.<\/p>\n

Humanists \/ materialists \/ atheists will speak of \u2018freedom\u2019, but the end will be chaos or slavery under an elite. That\u2019s what we see today in America. The \u2018freedom\u2019 the Left espouses is a license to persecute and prosecute their opponents, even to stir up violence and lawlessness, with the goal of an all-powerful state.<\/p>\n

True freedom must derive from the understanding that we are, individually, made in God\u2019s image. The Gospel is all about free will. It is impossible to \u2018force\u2019 someone to be a Christian. You can force someone to be a Muslim, to submit, to perform the Islamic disciplines. But you can\u2019t force genuine agreement with the true God. You can\u2019t force genuine repentance or love.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s founders understood the basis of government. Schaeffer: \u201cThink of this great flaming phrase: \u2018certain inalienable rights.\u2019 Who gives the rights? The state? Then they are not inalienable because the state can change them and take them away. Where do the rights come from?\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue is . . . Is God there?<\/em> And is He the God described in the Bible? If He is, then government and law build from that foundation. If God is not there, then anything goes. Let\u2019s not pretend the political debates are merely Left vs. Right, or about who is offended, or who feels strongly. All the current discourse is either fluff or misdirection. The issue is . . . Is God there?<\/em><\/p>\n

Right after the Revolutionary War was over, the Congress proclaimed the first Thanksgiving Day to thank God. John Witherspoon\u2019s sermon that day included, \u201cHe is the best friend of American liberty who is most sincere and active in promoting pure and undefiled religion.\u201d William Penn (1644-1718) said earlier, \u201cIf we are not governed by God, then we will be ruled by tyrants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost everyone understood these principles, once.<\/p>\n

John Adams wrote that our law is rooted in a common moral and religious tradition that stretches back to the time that Moses went up on Mount Sinai. The deep thinkers of Adams\u2019 time had the wisdom to agree that our liberties are God-given, and that there is an obvious distinction between liberty and license.<\/p>\n

Schaeffer: \u201cAnd now it is all gone.\u201d Recall that he wrote this in 1981. We now live by sociological law. The courts decide abitrarily what they think is good for society. It is striking that if you want to buy a copy of America\u2019s Constitution, you are sold a huge tome that includes all the Supreme Court rulings that have reinterpreted the Constitution again and again. Frederick Moore Vinson (1890-1953), former Chief Justice, said, \u201cNothing is more certain in modern society than the principle that there are no absolutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regarding personal ethics and the social order, Will Durant, a notable atheist \/ humanist, admitted in a 1977 column in The Humanist <\/em>magazine, \u201cMoreover, we shall find it no easy task to mold a natural ethic strong enough to maintain moral restraint and social order without the support of supernatural consolations, hopes, and fears.\u201d Indeed. Not just difficult, but impossible, Shaeffer declares . . . correctly.<\/p>\n

In Durant\u2019s book with his wife, Ariel, The Lessons of History<\/em>, they quote the agnostic philosopher \/ historian Ernest Renan (1866): \u201cIf Rationalism wishes to govern the world without regard to the religious needs of the soul, the experience of the French Revolution is there to teach us the consequences of such a blunder.\u201d In this context, the Durants comment, \u201cThere is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

They\u2019re partly right, of course. It\u2019s not just religion, but the Biblical Gospel of Jesus Christ that transforms lives and undergirds a sustainable moral fabric. Atheism is determinedly foundation-less. A worldview based on matter and energy alone, according to Schaeffer, \u201cmust be by its nature, silent as to values, principles, or any basis for law.\u201d In fact, there can be no such thing as values or principles, because they are found neither in the Periodic Table nor in the laws of physics.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, religion <\/em>in general, has no hope. False out-of-touch-with-reality religions like Islam, Hinduism, and Roman Catholicism consistently foster societal immorality, despise individual liberty, and subjugate various \u2018classes\u2019.<\/p>\n

Laws are not foundational. Neither are constitutions. Secular conservatives in America today tragically miss this. You cannot sensibly argue that reality is founded on the American Constitution. And, if not, then why not change it? But if laws are measured by God\u2019s word, because He is there<\/em>, then laws may correspond to reality, a reality that is reflected in any man\u2019s moral conscience that has not been fully seared.<\/p>\n

As with a man-made Constitution (and we should have one, but it must be based on God\u2019s morality), we dare not battle for mere freedom <\/em>as the ultimate goal. Foundationless freedom becomes licentiousness, which leads to anarchy and then tyranny, which terminates freedom for everyone. Rather, Truth must be our goal. Will Americans ever, in a majority, side with Biblical Truth as a foundation for government, law, and policies? Of course not. But individual Christians must have this perspective. Otherwise, Christian energy is poured into fruitless political adventures and the Gospel is despised. As we\u2019ve seen for several decades.<\/p>\n

In my view, and possibly Schaeffer\u2019s, John Wesley (1703 \u2013 1791) may have had the richest understanding in combination with the largest contributions in modern history for application of the Gospel to both individual salvation and societal stability. Wesley\u2019s ministry was in a time when the urban poor (in England, especially) were the overwhelming demographic. An unfettered Industrial Revolution victimized multitudes. Wesley worked tirelessly for the spiritual and material welfare of coal miners, smelters, copper workers, shipyard laborers, farm hands, and women in the factories, among other groups, who responded to his efforts wonderfully.<\/p>\n

Wesley opened free dispensaries, started a credit union, and built schools and orphanages. But his priority was always the Gospel<\/em>, to save souls, to transform lives, to give purpose for this life and an assured hope for eternity. Wesley preached 500 sermons per year for most of his adult life and saw multitudes saved.<\/p>\n

Modern evangelical churches would applaud Wesley\u2019s community work, but they despise the forthright preaching of the Gospel.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, <\/em>and so unusually, <\/em>he understood Biblical discipleship, and therefore established local \u2018societies\u2019 \u2013 really, house churches \u2013 for Christians to learn together, and grow, and encourage and help each other. He worked to the Biblical pattern of organizing Christians at local levels, not trusting a distant and centralized hierarchy. The founders of this nation, including James Madison (not a Christian), learned in part from such examples, both Methodist and Baptist, in fact, in devising a government that distributes power, enabling measures of freedom that we still coast upon.<\/p>\n

Schaeffer: \u201cEven secular historians acknowledge that it was the social results coming out of the Wesley revival that saved England from its own form of the French Revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Materialists \/ humanists have no reason to obey the state, Schaeffer suggests, \u201cexcept that the state has the guns and has the patronage (money).\u201d Those are big motivations for them to control the state. Oddly, the humanist is never content to simply live his own life. He is obsessed with controlling the lives of others. That obsession has no foundation in materialism, of course, but is easily identified with Satan\u2019s desire to rule, to be worshipped, and to oppress those who defy him.<\/p>\n

The Christian is commanded to obey the state, except in those rare instances where the state outlaws the Gospel itself. A Christian, if consistent with his own worldview, simply wants to live his own life, and serve others voluntarily . . . if they voluntarily wish to engage. The Christian wants to speak truth freely, and allows others to do so, too. The Biblical pattern is filled with principles and examples of reasoned discourse. It is the Adversary who stifles communication.<\/p>\n

In God\u2019s reality, and by His decrees, the state is a \u201cdelegated authority; it is not autonomous. The state is to be an agent of justice, to restrain evil by punishing the wrongdoer, and to protect the good in society. When it does the reverse, it has no proper authority. <\/em>It is then a usurped authority and as such it becomes lawless and is tyranny.\u201d Consider Romans 13:1-4, 1 Peter 2:13-17, and Acts 5.<\/p>\n

The Romans tortured and executed Christians because the state demanded state worship. Religious beliefs were irrelevant to the empire; in fact, a huge diversity of religious beliefs were practiced. But the state must be above all. That\u2019s what leftists today demand. That\u2019s why they get \u2018outraged\u2019 when Christians defy them.<\/p>\n

Samuel Rutherford (1600 \u2013 1661) wrote Lex Rex: or The Law and the Prince <\/em>in 1644. He held that a tyrannical government is always immoral . . . on absolute grounds. And that citizens have a moral obligation to resist unjust government. We must respect the office, <\/em>but we are not to be subject to the man <\/em>in the office who oppresses.<\/p>\n

The threshold for defiance must not be trivial. Schaeffer argues that when rulers act in ways that attack the fundamental structure of society, then citizens are right to relieve them of authority. The leaders of the American Revolution acted on this understanding. You might argue that the leaders of the French Revolution did, too, but they replaced the tyranny of their monarchy with an oppression far worse and more bloody.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Schaeffer notes echoes of Rutherford in Bob Dylan\u2019s song, \u201cWhen You Gonna Wake Up\u201d, pleading with people to wake up to the strength that remains, because of adulterers in the churches and pornography in the schools, gangsters in power and lawbreakers making the rules.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll mention a few specific areas where worldview makes all the difference in establishing laws. Abortion is an obvious one. Is the unborn child a human being, created in God\u2019s image, with an eternal soul? If yes, preserve life. If not, who cares?<\/p>\n

How about evolution indoctrination in the public schools . . . mandated . . . to the exclusion of any competing ideas? How about marriage? Who invented it? Is marriage God-ordained or just an arbitrary social construct? How about hormone injections and transgender surgery for children, some as young as eight years old? Yes, that is happening today. What about equal justice for corrupt leaders, even if they are part of the establishment? Or even if they are filthy rich? What about lawless borders or self-defense (gun ownership)?<\/p>\n

Worldview matters.<\/p>\n

Schaeffer observes that the humanistic leftist worldview \u201cis completely intolerant when it presents itself through the political institutions and especially through the schools.\u201d As I\u2019m drafting this, I\u2019ll note a news blurb I just saw. A conservative speaker was invited by a couple of student groups to speak at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. His topic was that men are not women. They\u2019re different. That was too much for campus radicals. He never got the chance to speak. Hecklers screamed and threatened, and one activist attacked him physically.<\/p>\n

Schaeffer: \u201cThe state will not tolerate any gods beside itself. The school is their special target . . . One either confesses that God is the final authority, or one confesses that Caesar is Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harvard historian Perry Miller, an atheist, analyzed the genesis of the American Revolution: \u201cActually, European deism was an exotic plant in America, which never struck roots in the soil. \u2018Rationalism\u2019 was never so widespread as liberal historians, or those fascinated by Jefferson, have imagined. The basic fact is that the Revolution had been preached to the masses as a religious revival, and had the astounding fortune to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller argued, \u201cCircumstances and the nature of the dominant opinion in Europe made it necessary for the official statement [that is, the Declaration of Independence] to be released in primarily \u2018political\u2019 terms \u2013 the social compact, inalienable rights, the right of revolution. But those terms, in and by themselves, would never have supplied the drive to victory, however mightily they weighed with the literate minority.\u201d Rather, he goes on, the Revolutionary inspiration was grounded on beliefs that God\u2019s laws are inviolate.<\/p>\n

Secular conservatives, today, don\u2019t get this. They have no foundation, but simply believe that \u2018conservative principles\u2019 will work out better for the economy, for health care, etc. That\u2019s not good enough. They have denied that God is there <\/em>as much as the leftists have. Additionally, they pander to and take advantage of evangelical sentiments, but then don\u2019t keep promises. And the state rages ever more powerfully.<\/p>\n

Schaeffer concludes his work a bit surprisingly, in some uncertainty. He saw the trends in 1981 that have only exponentiated in the forty years since, but he hints of despair in hoping that political action may turn America around.<\/p>\n

His thesis is that the worldview must shift \u2013 a daunting prospect at the national level. That would necessitate national revival. It seems he doesn\u2019t want to admit the unlikelihood, but there it is anyway.<\/p>\n

What about you and me, personally? It is foolish to stew over \u2018national\u2019 issues that you can\u2019t do anything about, when you should be motivated over the battle that rages around you. It\u2019s the same spiritual battle! You are called to do your part in this battle.<\/p>\n

What part? The strategy for you and me, the solution<\/em>, is simply the Great Commission, not at a national level, but one-to-one, which is where any revival has always started. If you have any hope for a national revival, it must start <\/em>at the 1-2-1 level, with prayer, fervor, and holiness energizing individual Christians. Now, I would be totally shocked to see even a large-scale revival, let alone a national movement. But what can any individual Christian do . . . today?<\/p>\n

Any of us, every day, can offer the Gospel by conversation and \/ or by tract to any lost sinner. And do it again tomorrow. And pray that the Holy Spirit work on that heart. Then repeat. Repeat again. If someone trusts Christ, then befriend and teach. And replicate. And again.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not hard to do what you can do!!! So do it.<\/p>\n