Tag Archives: Constitution

Free or Not Free?

There are two types of people in the world when it concerns the subject of human freedom: 1) those who believe it is an absolute God given right, and 2) those who believe freedom to be granted by the governing authorities. In the United States we have a Constitution, which guarantees what our Declaration of Independence states clearly. “All men (people) are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable (absolute and unchallengeable) rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In other words, choice number one above is guaranteed by God and the U.S. Constitution. Yet, increasing numbers of citizens have become convinced—many by a corrupt educational system—that our rights are not absolute. For these people, government is god, regardless of their personal profession to the contrary. The government has the right to force you to stay inside your home, to determine what form of employment is “necessary,” and what is not, to force you to wear a face mask, and now to force you to be vaccinated. Many have surrendered their absolute rights in favor of promises from the government that this is necessary for everyone’s safety. You are not permitted to make up your own mind; these people have made the decision for you. This is wrong. This is the reason the United States fought the Revolutionary War. A new revolution is under way, and it favors totalitarian lockdowns, forced vaccinations, and soon will determine every aspect of your personal freedom. Population control is the object of this “progressive” revolution. Travel will be limited and the means of transportation determined in the purported interest of climate change. Already we see freedom of expression (guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution) limited because the Leftist gatekeepers want to control the message. The rationale often given is: “That is hate speech.” Translation, we hate your free speech. You’ve contradicted our effort to brainwash the populous. We will shut you down. Recently Twitter suspended the press secretary for Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida because she called out the Associate Press for publishing a story with claims which DeSantis disagreed. So, we cannot make up our own minds about the AP story or DeSantis disagreement. Twitter has decreed disagreement with AP is cause for being silenced. This is what Marxist nations have done since the beginning of that monstrous movement: silence dissent. Disseminate disinformation. Punish critical thought. Push the narrative and broker no compromise. 

There are two types of people in the world and they treat others according to their understanding of human freedom: 1) those who feel the need to control others, or tell others what to do and how to live, and 2) those who—although they may offer advice—choose to live and let live. These two types occupy both the Left and the Right on the political spectrum. The Left has one agenda and the Right another, but those who are of type one want to force you to do what they and their Tribe says you must. There is an editorial on CNN today (although, the case can be made that all CNN publishes is Progressive editorializing) the title of which is: No You Don’t Have a Constitutional Right to Refuse Vaccination. Really. I’d hazard a guess that the same Progressive who wrote this would stand up for abortion rights. So, the government should not be permitted to stop an abortion in favor of saving an unborn baby’s life—my body, my choice—but the government can force you to accept something in your body with which you disagree. Before you pin me to the anti-vax tribe, let me state clearly: I have been vaccinated and I strongly encourage adults to see their doctor and get the vaccine if their doctor agrees it is the healthy choice for them. So, vaccine good; please get it. However, I strongly disagree with the government forcing the matter. It..Is..Your..Choice. This is still the United States of America, a Constitutional Republic founded on the ideal of God given absolute freedom. The only time that freedom should be limited is when it can clearly be shown to inhibit  the freedom of others or endanger the lives of others. Careful when and how you apply that. The present pandemic, although deadly for about 1.5% of those infected, disproportionately the elderly and those with co-morbidities doesn’t qualify as rationale to force people not to work, to limit their freedom to leave their homes, to enforce mask mandates across the board, or to enforce universal vaccination. Covid-19 is not Ebola, friends. Freedom is an amazing gift from God and it is your right. Your rights are not granted by government, rather government exists at the consent of the governed. Learn not to consent to the removal of your freedom for the hollow promise of a little safety.

COVID-19 as Constitutional Crisis

My friends,

Could we be witnessing the  attempted deconstruction of the United States as a Constitutional Republic, and destruction of democracy in the West, all under the guise of safety from the bogeyman COVID-19?

I ask you, where did this virus come from? How did it come about? Is it an accident? It came from Wuhan province in China. Evidence is mounting that it came from a laboratory there, which is near a wet market where the virus is believed to have first spread. This means it is engineered, which explains why it is a novel coronavirus (it is new, unprecedented). Now, the most important question: is its release an intentional act by the Chinese Communist Party as an experiment or outright effort in exercising control? The mechanism of control has been the World Health Organization. It is clear that the WHO is being manipulated, if not outright controlled by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party). Chinese Communists have lied and sown disinformation since the beginning regarding COVID-19, which the WHO simply accepted.

If what I am asserting here is in any wise accurate, we are witnessing an act of war by China on a global scale. If it is merely an accident that was covered up while millions of people left the Wuhan province and travelled around the world to spread the virus, then the Chinese Communist Party and the WHO are guilty of crimes against humanity. This action has caused death, sickness and loss of income for a large number of people. As of this writing there are over three million who have been infected (likely a very small percentage of the actual number, since a relative few have been tested), and 212,522 have died. The United States alone has gone at least two trillion dollars more in debt by sending stimulus payments to its citizens. The amount of lost income due to unemployment is a large and growing number.

Why are many of our elected officials in the United States refusing to hold China responsible for this? Why isn’t it being investigated? Why are Democrats more concerned about assigning blame to President Trump or their political opponents, than in protecting this country from further threats? Could they be complicit in an effort to deconstruct our democracy to fit their Socialist aims? Bare minimum they are opportunists who are using this to further their policy agenda. Nancy Pelosi has proven she will stuff every stimulus package with agenda items having nothing whatever to do with economic relief for workers. It is Democrat governors like Northam in Virginia and Whitmer of Michigan who have used their power in the both draconian and arbitrary ways. 

In a recent video Dennis Prager observes that the current shutdown sets a dangerous precedent for the future, wherein Democrats may use a shutdown mandate to push policies like limiting climate change, if given power in the White House and both houses of Congress Democrats could simply make the case that we need to shut down or have government take over of certain industries to combat climate change. The idea of a government takeover of industry is a Socialist policy move already floated by some Democrats at the outset of the COVID-19 crisis.

I’m not a political analyst. I’m an observer. I’m asking questions that need answers. I am the pastor of a small church, and a citizen who appreciates deeply the freedom to live, work, speak freely, and worship my God openly. My congregation has not been permitted to meet together for over a month. We’ve made do with online services, certainly. However, I question the Constitutional authority of our government to do what they’ve done. The 1st Amendment is not superseded and should not get suspended by orders purportedly made to keep us safe. In fact, the 1st Amendment protections of freedom of speech are being assailed daily by the very platform we use to put our worship service online. As of last night YouTube removed two journalist interviews of doctors in California who factually and with great respect disagreed with our current mitigation protocols. YouTube cited the videos as being in violation of their “community guidelines”. I’ve seen terrible, disrespectful, tirades that YouTube has no problem with, but these videos were by experts who simply disagreed with the prevailing wisdom, which, I make the case here, is politically motivated manipulation from the Left. YouTube has proven to be an ally of the Left often. 

Again, friends, what we are witnessing is a chilling violation of our Constitutional protections. I am not marching in protest, yet. However, I have fasted and prayed, and I will continue to pray and speak out. Will you join me?

Rule of Law

So, you don’t like the way things are going? You don’t like President Trump? You don’t like Confederate monuments? You don’t like illegal/undocumented immigrants? You want to smoke marijuana without being arrested? What to do? Impeach Trump? Get a mob and pull down a statue? Create “sanctuary cities” as safe zones? Pass a local or state ordinance that ignores federal law? There is a serious problem with all of these solutions. To one extent or another they abuse, ignore or circumvent the Rule of Law.

The President was duly elected. I didn’t vote for him. However, his opponents cannot just get rid of him. A member of congress recently posted that she wanted to see the president assasinated. She subsequently removed the post, but it betrays the lawlessness of some of our elected officials. Impeachment is a serious legal procedure against a sitting United States President, who must have clearly violated the law. Hatred, outrage or dislike for a President is not cause for impeachment.

You see, it actually doesn’t matter how full of rage you are about whatever it is you’re protesting. It is illegal to smash a window, loot a business, burn a car, or tear down a statue. It doesn’t matter how righteous you believe your cause to be. If you break the law, you should be punished accordingly. That the police stand by and watch riots like those in Charlottesville or Berkeley, that they do nothing when protestors stand in the middle of a busy highway, is sad commentary on a society that is ignoring the laws upon which t is founded. Our country, indeed Western Civilization, was founded on the Rule of Law.

Rule of Law was established in the Magna Carta in England in 1215. It is enshrined in the Constitution of the United States of America. Rule of Law, simply stated, is this: all citizens from the President, to the police, to the average person are responsible to obey the laws of the land. If you don’t like something, follow legitimate procedures for grievance, and make/change the law. Such a procedure begins by electing representatives who will be responsible and responsive to citizens.

Protest is a legitimate way to make a point, which may get the attention of elected representatives to remove, change or make a law. A protest, however, that turns into a riot is illegal. Individuals who assault other individuals or destroy property must be arrested, prosecuted and punished. It doesn’t matter which side they represent, how enraged or offended they feel, or what point they sought to make.

The problem is our nation is moving away from the principle of Rule of Law. In it’s place we value personal feelings and the opinion of our identity groups. The law doesn’t care about your feelings. Justice is blind to your political party, your self-righteous indignation, or the popularity of your cause. If a person doesn’t obey authority, if they break the law, they should be arrested, prosecuted and punished. If you don’t like the law, then work to change it peacefully.

Rule of Law is the basis for civilized society. The alternative is descent into chaos, mob rule, might makes right, and the consequences are already being seen.

American Freedom Revolution

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
-1st Amendment to the United States Constitution.

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
-Evelyn Beatrice Hall paraphrasing Voltaire

“Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence, whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians.”
-John Leland, “A Chronicle of His Time in Virginia,” The Writings of the Later Elder John Leland, published in 1845.

Christianity, and more specifically its Protestant expressions, often experienced preferential treatment by government for the first two centuries of the founding of the United States of America. The pendulum is swinging the other direction in our time, and with increasing momentum. Now Christian expression is in disfavor, not only with government, but corporations, academic institutions and the media. There is an obvious bias against orthodox Christianity.

How should Christians respond? How should government respond?

Let’s begin with the latter. The United States of America was not founded as a Christian institution, even though most of its founders were Protestant Christians, and some sought to establish a Christian commonwealth in their respective states. No, the U.S. was first settled by religious dissenters from England who sought freedom to practice their religion. The War of Independence was fought to establish a sovereign nation, whose people would be free from unrepresented taxation and tyrannical monarchy.

The United States was established so that people could have a government that is, as Lincoln famously stated, of the people, by the people, and for the people. Government is established to protect the God given rights of people, not grant those rights. Indeed, the Declaration of Independence opens with the famous lines:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Government exists for the benefit of the governed, not the other way around. Government receives its power from the people, and the people have the right to take that power back.
However, the United States government’s power has expanded continuously over time, and and dramatically in the last 15 years. Under the Presidency of George W. Bush, motivated by the fight against terrorism, federal spying and policing agencies were given unprecedented power under the Patriot Act and through the Department of Homeland Security. During the Presidency of Barack Obama government expansion continued into private healthcare. The U.S. government threatens businesses who will not violate the religion and conscience of their owners by providing health insurance that enables abortion.

From the beginning the Supreme Court has acted as though it has the authority to deny or create rights to persons. Slaves were denied rights under the 1857 Dred Scott decision because they were considered property by the Almighty Court. In 1973 SCOTUS denied unborn babies the right to life because, in the fatal logic of the court, the mother has an overriding right to privacy. Since that time courts have consistently upheld the right of a woman to terminate the life of the unborn baby in her womb because the court considers that baby nothing more than a part of the woman’s body. In 2015 the Supreme Court defied 5,000 years of precedent in every civilization by redefining marriage.

This is not government of the people, for the people and by the people: it is government granting rights to people. Such a government flies in the face of both the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the Constitution— the latter of which, ironically, the U.S. Supreme Court is supposed to interpret to protect the rights of citizens.

Citizens of the United States must retain their rights to think, believe and speak as their conscience or religion calls them to. The only limits to this are the rights of others to the same life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. In other words, if an Islamic extremist claims they are called by God to kill the infidel, they are not permitted to do so in the United States, since this obviously deprives other citizens of the very rights the jihadist would claim.

1st Amendment rights are being eroded by government’s ever increasing tendency to enforce a politically correct agenda. However, the same principle that applied to Christians seeking to establish a commonwealth, applies to secularists seeking to outlaw public expressions of Christian faith. Leave people to express themselves freely in the marketplace of ideas. The President of the U.S., Congress and the Supreme Court have no right to prohibit or inhibit the free exercise of religion, nor do they have the right to censor free speech. This applies equally to state and local governments, agencies and officials.

Examples of erroding 1st Amendment rights abound.

We need another revolution, a revolution that returns us to our founding principles. Government needs to be limited, not expanded. People must be left to exercise their God given rights.

How should Christians respond?

We must speak the truth in love. That means believers must be intimately acquainted with, and personally committed to, the truth found in the Bible and embodied in Jesus Christ. If you are a Christian I implore and challenge you to love God above all, and refuse to compromise or capitulate to a godless culture. Increasing numbers of nominal Christians are proving the reality of the Apostle Paul’s prophecy in 2 Timothy 3, “having a form of godliness but denying its power.”

You and I would do well to heed the Apostle’s command, “Have nothing to do with them!” Paul was not speaking of avoiding atheists or those from other religions, but those who profess to be Christians but fail or refuse to believe the truth plainly taught in the Word of God. They may be active in their respective churches, yet choose the same values as the godless culture around. The Apostle also prophesied about this in the same passage quoted above. “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—” (2 Timothy 3:1–4, NIV84)

Increasing numbers of formerly “mainline denomination” churches are now actively supporting sexually immoral lifestyles, even among their leadership. Episcopalians have ordained openly homosexual bishops. United Methodists are debating inclusion of transgendered ministers. If you are a member of one of these apostate churches I believe the following command and promise applies to you.

“Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” (2 Corinthians 6:17–18, NIV84)

The United States is not a Christian nation– if it ever was. However, it can be a nation full of God loving, Bible believing Christians who seek to show the love of Jesus both to fellow Americans and fellow residents of planet earth. It may be a nation with a government occupied by many Christians who seek to protect the rights of all people, not Christians alone, and who seek to keep the marketplace of ideas free of totalitarian laws and leaders in order that the Gospel of Jesus may be openly shared alongside other ideas.

Christian faith is always harmed when it is enforced by government coercion.
“An enforced uniformity of religion throughout a nation or civil state, confounds the civil and religious, denies the principles of Christianity and civility, and that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.” -Roger Williams (founder of the first baptist church in America), in The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for Cause of Conscience.

Roger Williams, is the same Baptist pastor to whom Thomas Jefferson famously wrote concerning the wall of separation between church and state in his Letter to the Danbury Baptists. This was a concept Williams strongly espoused. Williams likened the church to a garden around which God has placed a wall, and he saw the world as a wilderness outside that wall. What Williams didn’t want was influence from the world or coercion from government coming into the church.

If properly understood, you and I would do well to support this concept. It is not a prohibition against public displays of religious thought and sentiment, but a prohibition against government involvement and intrusion into church affairs, or preference for a particular religion.

Some examples follow. Should children be permitted to pray in schools? Absolutely. Should children be required to pray with a teacher or administrator of a public school? Absolutely not.

Should public schools teach the Bible?  Even if taught as literature there are many possible problems with teachers importing their own personal bias, or government mandating a certain interpretation, so I think this is a bad idea.

Should private hotels be permitted to put Bibles in their rooms? Of course they should.

What about celebrations of Christmas in schools? Considering the secular nature of Christmas in our time, I don’t know why this should pose a problem. Santa, Frosty and Rudolph have nothing whatsoever to do with Jesus. However, even recognizing Christmas as a celebration of the birth of Christ does nothing to establish Christianity. Perhaps we should be open to celebrations being limited in communities where large groups from other religious expressions exist. Certainly Christmas celebrations shouldn’t be enforced.

Should displays of the 10 Commandments or Manger Scenes be removed from government facilities? Yes. This does not mean every religious display must be erased from public spaces. Christianity is part of the history and cultural heritage of the United States, and leaving a cross on a hillside where it has stood as a war memorial does not establish Christianity.

These are examples of how I believe it would play out if we’re serious about the 1st Amendment and why the United States was founded.

Listen Christian friends, the Gospel will triumph because it is true and it is the best news. Christianity and its Gospel do not require government enforcement. When you combine Christianity and politics, you no longer have Christianity, just politics using that name. Believers must be free to preach and to live out their faith without government intrusion.

I’m sure I’ve made no one happy here. It is likely you disagreed with something I wrote. However, I hope you get the main point: no one’s point of view, religious or not, should be prohibited from public discourse. You have the right to disagree and believe differently, and so does everyone else. Shutting the opposition up or shutting them down is not American, and it is not Christian. Speak the truth as you understand it. Don’t be offended because someone disagrees with you. Give a better reason, a better argument. Live a better life!