Christianity and the Constitution

The Christian Constitution

My family keeps a simple-looking, large, Office Depot desk calendar in the kitchen with all of the varying work and school schedules, birthday reminders, and activities we have for the month. A while ago, as I was looking at the upcoming month of September, I scanned the page and felt that something seemed amiss.

Written by Christopher S. Bentley

"Let’s see,” I thought to myself while looking, “there’s Labor Day” (for both Canada and the U.S.), “and I see Patriot Day (September 11), Mexico’s Declaration of Independence Day (September 15), and Mexico’s Independence Day (September 16).”

“Hmmmmm,” I thought, “where’s Constitution Day?” “Maybe it got printed on the wrong month by mistake.”

So, I went to October. I found Mexico’s Day of the Race, Canada’s Thanksgiving, and Columbus Day, all on October 12. Then I saw National Boss Day on the 16th and United Nations Day on the 24th.

Then I went to August. After that, I searched every month. And I didn’t find it, either.

Even Mexico’s Anniversary of the Constitution on February 5th made the cut — but not America’s Constitution Day.

Some time later I asked a colleague what she thought. She looked at her Quill Corporation calendar, and sure enough, there were many of the same holidays as on the other calendar, but no Constitution Day, either.

I wonder what the Founding Fathers, who sacrificed so much to get this country started, would think of our collective indifference and ignorance. One of them viewed the Constitution as having in its creation “a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution” (Federalist No. 37).

In the Old Testament, there’s a story about an Israelite king named Josiah (2 Kings 22:8-20). The text recounts how Hilkiah the high priest found “the book of the law in the house of the Lord.” It was not only out of sight, but out of mind.

Hilkiah gave it to a scribe to read to the king, who, upon hearing its words, “rent his clothes.” Not many had heard its principles for a long time. Even the leaders had forgotten them.

The king then told the high priest,

Go ye, enquire of the Lord for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found: for great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according unto all that which is written concerning us.

For Americans living today, taking out the Constitution and reading it after not having done so for a very long time can produce a “Josiah Experience” — a sobering realization that we have ignored something of priceless value, and which will bring about serious consequences if we continue to do so.

Nearly every single provision of that venerable document has been ignored, misrepresented, removed, or eroded in piecemeal fashion.

Many ancient rulers at least recognized the fact that words on a page have meaning, even if they didn’t agree with them. Today’s breed of politicians is willing to twist and warp even the simplest English words in a quest to rationalize their actions, such as the Verbal-non-Euclidean-in-Chief’s infamous admission.



For the current White House occupant, we’re spreading “freedom” and “democracy” by bombing countries into smithereens who have never known the meaning of freedom, and likely never will.

For the next president, we’ll be informed that government is lifting America to new heights of prosperity even as we are bled dry through foreign aid, welfarism, hostile economic policies which drive jobs overseas, and the debasing of the currency into worthlessness — unless of course enough “Josiah’s” wake up in time.

In the same year the Master of Slick questioned the meaning of the word which denotes our very own existence, I had a "Josiah Experience." I read America’s Thirty Years War, by the late Balint Vazsonyi.

Vazsonyi, a world-renowned concert pianist, historian, and Hungarian-born immigrant to the United States, had experienced firsthand the evils of both Nazism and Communism while as a child, and spelled out in great detail how we are following them down the same self-immolating path.

In one priceless part of his book, Vazsonyi wrote: “One need not be a practitioner of any religion to appreciate the enormous significance that the Ten Commandments had in America’s founding, regardless of their origin. Of course, although the reader may not, the founders did believe in their divine origin.”

Vazsonyi showed in unmistakable clarity the fact that our nation’s foundation was poured from the concrete of the Ten Commandments.

Lining up the Ten Amendments to the Constitution and the Ten Commandments, Vazsonyi observed:

Articles I and X [“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” and “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution…are reserved…to the people”] may be traced directly to the First Commandment, for rulers and governments not bound by such constraints tend to claim divine rights over their subjects.

To see this on display, we need look no further than the idolatrous personality cult societies which elevate the Dear Leader to god-like status, in such beacons of hope and freedom as Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Red China, Cuba, Cambodia, Vietnam, any of the “stans” throughout the Middle East, and so on throughout the past 100 years, ad nauseum.

“Articles IV and VI,” continued Vazsonyi, “harken back to the Ninth Commandment.”

And I would add the Fifth, too, because without due process, the Bush administration has been able to justify its jailing of “enemy combatants” on the slimmest, if any, evidence, and step on the body of habeas corpus with the passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Vazsoniy: “The Sixth, Eighth and Tenth Commandments are all at work in Articles III and V.” I would add to them the Fourth (“unreasonable searches and seizures” against “persons, houses, papers, and effects”) and the Eighth (“excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted”).

Without those restraints on human conduct, we get rendition and torture, terrorist “no fly” lists, Gitmo, surveillance, and wiretapping of millions of Americans, to name some of the more overt abuses of power.

Vazsonyi also demonstrated the welding nature of family, which holds any civilized society together:

The Fifth Commandment, positioned after the relationship with the Creator had been defined, and before the prohibitions of the Second Tablet, sets up nothing less than the prerequisites for the development of traditions. People wonder why respect for one’s parents would lead to a longer life on earth. Yet the message becomes clear if we substitute society for the individual. Only through respecting the people and events upon whose shoulders each generation stands can the longevity of a society be secured.

Now the very definition of family and marriage is up for grabs in the United States. And considering how little understanding of constitutional principles have been passed along over the past three generations, if what's left of the family is destroyed, then that will make the task of restoring freedom an impossibility.

We could go on and on in our analysis, but for this brevity-challenged writer, this is enough for now.

To those who would like to let Office Depot and Quill Corporation know that we would prefer celebrating Constitution Day rather than Mexico’s Anniversary of the Constitution, or United Nations Day, among others, please send them a polite, but serious, message that their oversight or deliberate admission in this matter is unacceptable.

As for our atheist and agnostic friends who love the Constitution as much as we do, don’t go throwing a conniption fit when we point out that America’s political institutions and laws are built on Biblical principles. It’s a historical and demonstrable fact.

And the beauty of it is you live in a country where you can still voice such an opinion, even though doing so elsewhere in the world leads to rather unpleasant consequences.

Oh, and to all, Happy Constitution Day!

Written by Christopher S. Bentley

More about the book, America's Thirty Years War: Who is Winning?

Many Americans have turned their backs on the wonderful founding principles of this country because they are being constantly brain washed by the leftist media, thus becoming "useful fools", as described by Stalin. Unwittingly, they are helping to destroy all what have made this country the greatest. This book, if read without prejudice, could awaken them to the realization of how much we might loose in terms of individual rights and freedom if we don't go back to the founding principles and the Rule of Law.

Quotes from the book:

The frames of the Constitution understood the wisdom of making few laws. The fewer the laws, the broader the agreement.. The broader the agreement, the less need for enforcement. The less enforcement, the less friction between government and the governed. And the less friction, the less waste of time and energy. The time and energy thus freed vastly increase people's creative capacity. That, in a nutshell, is the success story of the United States of America. (49)

Under a variety of labels, the former (Franco-Germanic thought) is unconcerned with the human nature, and seeks only those outcomes it considers "desirable." The latter (Anglo-American thought) has always engaged in creating the circumstances that, based on human nature and empirical evidence, will offer the best chances for individual success. While the later holds that successful individuals will constitute a successful society, the former believes that a good theory will produce a "good" society - communism being the ultimate "good society." (67)

Once again, the more groups we have, the more "rights" we have. The more groups we have, the farther we drift from the rule of law. The more groups we have, the more restrictions we have on our true rights: Individual rights. Individual rights reflect our similarities; group rights emphasize our differences. Individual rights promote equality; group rights cultivate inequality. Individual rights permit every one of us to be special; group rights create stereotypes. Individual rights are unalienable, and are guaranteed by the Constitution; group rights are born at activist rallies, conferred by a party-political executive branch, and confirmed by a temporal judge. Group rights can be taken away be an even louder rally, a different regulator, a new judge.

Individual rights and group rights are mutually exclusive; we can not have it both ways. Individual rights provide a sense of security. The greater the sense of security, the more of people's creativity will be converted to productivity. The higher the productivity, the greater the sense of independence.

Buy the book: Thirty Years of War

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