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It is hard to believe, but once again we are back to the Christmas
season. While families are busy shopping and planning their holiday
celebrations, the secularists are busy trying to wipe every reference
to God from the public square. Public school administrators are
telling teachers they cannot wear Christmas pins or mention the name
of Jesus during class time. Nativity scenes are being restricted from
public property (even while menorahs are allowed). And business
executives are telling employees to say "Happy Holidays" or
"Merry Winter" (my favorite) instead of "Merry
Christmas", which is deemed insensitive to the tiny fraction of
the population that doesn't celebrate Christmas. Though some retailers
may not indulge Christmas-loving shoppers by wishing them a
"Merry Christmas", rest assured they will still be happy to
take their money. But let's hope retailers will at least take a moment
and be thankful to Jesus because, were it not for His birth, this time
of year would not be nearly as lucrative for them.
The attacks on Christmas are just the latest incarnation in a broader
and more lasting movement to wipe every vestige of Christian faith
from American public life. Most Americans are familiar with the
well-publicized legal fights over prayer in schools and the Ten
Commandments, but few probably realize the broader implications of the
secularization of America. Attacking the special place of God in our
national heritage is an attack on the foundations of our system of
government. America would not have been possible without an
acknowledgement of and deference to the supreme authority of God.
The NAS Bible states in 1 Peter 2:14 that governments are ordained by
God for the "punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who
do right". God ordains government to be an extension of His
divine authority on earth by enforcing his standards of justice in the
world. The Founders of our nation recognized this. They acknowledged
with our first founding document, the Declaration of Independence,
that all people are granted certain rights by God that cannot be taken
away. These "unalienable" rights include "life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" and the role of government
is to "secure these rights". Note that the government does
not grant these rights, it secures these rights, which
are already granted by God. The role of government is to
protect the God-given rights of mankind. If a government fails to do
so and becomes abusive of citizens' God-given rights, the Declaration
states that it is the right and the duty of the people to "throw
off such government" and establish a new one.
Think of a system of government in which the acknowledgment of God is
absent. From whom do the people derive their rights? Certainly not God
- He doesn't exist, right? If the people receive any rights at all,
they would be granted to them by their rulers. If a ruler can grant
rights, he can also take them away. He is the absolute authority in
the land, and the people have no final recourse but to him. When one
really ponders it, this is absolutely shocking. A human being, a mere
mortal subject to disease and death like the rest of humanity, is in a
position of absolute ownership over his people. He is an
absolute despot who can do with the people as he wishes. If a despotic
ruler has some measure of virtue, the people are fortunate. But human
history demonstrates that those with absolute power tend to be
corrupted to an astounding degree. The leader who believes he answers
to nobody but himself for his actions is capable of any form of evil
against his people.
If the Founders did not believe in God, they could never have appealed
to His standards to condemn the abuses of the despotic King of
England. The highest authority in their lives would be the King
himself and they would have no legal basis with which to rebel against
him. But the Founders did believe in God, and they appealed to
His higher standard - the standard to which the King of England also
was subordinate. Because the King had broken the laws of God by
violating the unalienable rights of the colonists, he forfeited his
authority over them. It then became the right and duty of the
colonists, as expressed in the Declaration, to reject the King's
authority and establish a new government that recognized and observed
God's laws.
If today's secularists lived back in the Founding Era, they could
never have produced a document such as the Declaration of
Independence. To what standard would they have appealed to pass
judgment on the conduct of the King of England? In a world of moral
relativism, how could they even say that the conduct of the King was
wrong? The secularist rejects the idea of an absolute moral standard,
let alone one from God.
It is important that Americans realize that the acknowledgment of God
and His Divine authority are central to the existence of the American
Republic. With the first stanza of the Declaration, the Founders
subordinated American government to God's authority. The central role
of the new American government was to secure the natural, God-given
rights of its citizens, placing it in a position of service to both
God and its citizens. If God is removed from the equation, our
government becomes the supreme authority in the land. Composed of
corruptible people and answerable to nobody but itself, it will once
again devolve into the same tyranny that has plagued all of human
history. Americans need to fear if their leaders no longer fear God. A
leader who has no fear of Divine justice in the next life is capable
of great evil in this life. It may not seem like a big deal for a
store to forbid a "Merry Christmas" wish, but the wider
effort to eliminate God from America's public life is a big
deal because it strikes at the very foundation of our form of
government. God is central to the mission statement of our nation, the
Declaration of Independence. Without Him and the acknowledgment of His
laws, America would never have been possible.
The
full text of the Declaration of Independence is available here.
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