The Treaty of Tripoli Provides No Support for Secularist Argument

Misguided as he is most of the time, Ed Brayton over at Scienceblogs is a pretty bright guy. But I’m amazed that he and so many others still refer to the Treaty of Tripoli as support for the position that the United States was founded within a secular framework. Most Americans probably have never even heard of the Treaty of Tripoli, yet a short quote from the document taken completely out of context is often presented as a major component of the argument for a secular Founding. The phrase in question is as follows, from Article 11 of the treaty:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;

Hopefully that didn’t read like a complete sentence, because it wasn’t one. And using it like one is disingenuous at best (or just ignorant), lying by omission at worst. If taken as a complete sentence, it certainly gives the impression that the treaty is declaring that Christianity, in no shape or form, had any influence on the Founding of our nation. However, let’s look at the whole article for the context, which is important:

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Note that there is no period after the word “religion”, only a semicolon. This means that the thought expressed by the article continues beyond the oft-quoted opening statement. To properly understand the complete intended meaning of the drafter, the entire article must be taken as a whole. The most important phrase, in my opinion, and the one that most colors the meaning of the article as a whole, is the one that concludes the article:

. . . no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

This phrase indicates that Article 11 was not making a declaration that America’s government was not rooted in a Christian worldview. Why would the representatives of Tripoli even care about that? I would think that the details about the philosophical underpinnings of the American government would be irrelevant in a peace treaty, particularly if the treaty was with a nation with a vastly different philosophical worldview. Why highlight your differences when you’re trying to make peace, right? The key phrase is “pretext arising from religious opinions”. This refers to conflicts deriving from differing religious views. In other words, by signing, the parties to the treaty are agreeing not to start any holy wars.

And why would the issue of “religious opinions” need to even be raised in a peace treaty with a Muslim nation? Because it was well-understood that the United States was a predominantly Christian nation, meaning that the vast majority of citizens held to a Christian worldview. This is not to say that the United States was a Christian theocracy as many Muslim nations are theocracies, only that the United States was heavily influenced by a Judeo-Christian worldview. If that was the case, it is pretty safe to say that a Christian worldview heavily influenced the framing of America’s system of government. And why would it be any other way considering the Founders came from heavily Christianized Europe?

The bottom line is that the Treaty of Tripoli provides zero support for the position that America was founded within a strictly secular framework. Secularists would be better off to drop the argument altogether.

The official version of the treaty can be seen in digitized form on the Library of Congress website.

The Law of Liberty: Freedom Through the Laws of God

Without liberty, law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness. – James Wilson, Signer of the Declaration of Independence

A long time ago, in a sermon on the nature of God, I remember my pastor relating the results of an informal and very unscientific survey of Sunday-school children on their perception of God. One child, a little boy, described God in a way that I have never forgotten. He very frankly told how he saw God as a big parent who just went around trying to keep people from having fun. I think I’ve always remembered what that little boy said because I too can relate to that perception of God. When I was a child, there were many times that I saw Him as just a bigger version of my parents, a being whose sole purpose it seemed – especially when I was being disciplined – was to keep me from having a good time. Unfortunately, in today’s day of watered-down Christianity, I think many adults still view God this way. Many Christians see God not as a just and benevolent parent who places boundaries in our lives out of love, but as a punitive parent who simply wants to restrict our freedom to do as we wish.

A few years ago, when studying the Book of James, I came across an amazing truth contained in Chapter 1, verse 25:

But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does. (NASB)

Did you notice the phrase “the law of liberty”? Think about that for a moment. These two concepts, law and liberty, operate at odds with one another. Liberty is freedom, and law restricts freedom, yet the former cannot exist without the latter. Ironically, law, which restricts liberty, is also that which makes it possible. Freedom actually cannot exist without law. William Blackstone, a 18th century Christian legal scholar influential on the Founders of our nation, described the link between law and liberty. According to Blackstone, God has so “inseparably interwoven the laws of eternal justice with the happiness of each individual, that the latter cannot be attained but by observing the former”. In other words, God’s laws are not only designed to create human happiness, human happiness cannot be truly achieved apart from the observance of God’s laws. The two are “inseparably interwoven”, as Blackstone said. Furthermore, if God’s laws are “punctually obeyed, it cannot but induce” human happiness. 1 Blackstone continues:

In consequence of which mutual connection of justice and human felicity, he has not perplexed the law of nature with a multitude of abstracted rules and precepts, referring merely to the fitness or unfitness of things, as some have vainly surmised; but has graciously reduced the rule of obedience to this one paternal precept, ‘that man should pursue his own true and substantial happiness.’ 2

God’s laws aren’t just a series of random, meaningless rules – a list of “dos” and “don’ts” intended to inhibit our fun. They are designed to provide a framework for human conduct through which we can achieve the highest level of happiness, healthiness, and freedom. Think of His laws as a guardrail on a mountain road. When the road gets a little slippery, the guardrail is there to prevent a devastating disaster. Or think of them as signposts pointing us down the smoothest road and warning us of any trouble along the way. As long as we take heed, we can experience the greatest joy and peace in our lives – even when life is difficult. God’s design for our lives does not guarantee that we will never experience difficulty in life, but it does help to insure that we create for ourselves the least amount of trouble that can encroach on our freedom and happiness and that of others.

Despite what our do-whatever-I-want society preaches, we cannot truly be happy and free without boundaries in our lives. What kind of adult does a child become when he is allowed to run wild throughout his boyhood and youth with no limits on his behavior? Such a child is a terror in childhood and very likely a criminal in adulthood, and society is typically forced to take away his freedom just to keep him from creating trouble. The truth is that too much freedom inevitably leads to slavery. If we choose to disregard God’s boundaries for our lives and choose to decide for ourselves what is right and wrong, we invite enslavement upon ourselves and others. What are the consequences when we choose to indulge in drugs? We become addicted to them. What if we indulge in sexual experimentation? We enslave ourselves to sexual baggage and maybe even diseases that will impact every major decision made for the rest of our life. That certainly doesn’t sound like freedom. What if we engage in the freedom “to choose”? We take away the life of another and enslave ourselves to the resulting guilt and shame. What if we refuse to believe the truth about God? We choose to remain enslaved to our sin and deny ourselves the boundless depth of peace and joy that comes from knowing God.

The truth is that the God of the Bible is like a loving parent with our best interests at heart. Any good parent knows that one of the greatest expressions of love for their children is not to let them run free to do as they wish, but to provide boundaries and loving discipline so that they grow up to be healthy, functional adults. Can anybody that does otherwise possibly be considered a good parent? God places limits in our lives so that we can enjoy the greatest freedom and happiness in our lives, just as Blackstone wrote. God’s standards for our behavior and His design for our lives constitute a “law of liberty” that insures our freedom from the bondage of sin. If your experience with Christianity is that it is just a set of stern rules and regulations, then you have never experienced the true, freeing power of Christ. Knowing Christ is not about legalism, but about being free from sin through His power. Only by believing in Jesus Christ can we overcome the shackles of sin and achieve the joy and freedom He wishes for our lives.

References

1. William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England. (n.d.). Retrieved October 4, 2007 from, http://www.lonang.org/exlibris/blackstone/bla-002.htm
2. Ibid.

The Philosophy of Our Founding: Natural Law and the Foundation of Our Government

Most of us probably don’t think too much on a daily basis about our rights because we are so accustomed to having them; it is as normal to us as rush hour that we get to determine for ourselves our course in life. For this we can thank the Founders of our nation because they had the wisdom to structure a system of government that has protected our rights for over two centuries. Though the Founders deserve credit for the system of government that has protected our rights, to whom do we ultimately give credit for the rights themselves? The government? The court system? The truth is that neither of these – or the Founders – are the ultimate source of our rights, though they have all played an important role in protecting them. You might think “who cares?” when pondering this question, but it is an important one because the answer lies in a concept absolutely foundational to our system of government and the preservation of our rights: natural law. It is the recognition of natural law that enabled our Founders to first declare our nation free and it is the continued recognition of natural law that will insure that our descendents have the same freedoms we enjoy today.

A good place to begin to understand natural law is our first founding document, the Declaration of Independence. If you are not familiar with the Declaration, take a moment to read through it. You will find that it contains a long list of grievances against the King of England and an explanation of why rebellion from his authority was morally and legally justified. Not only does the Declaration proclaim why the colonists were rebelling, it explains why they were right to rebel – a point critical to understanding the source and nature of our rights and freedoms. The Declaration of Independence opens by famously declaring the “self-evident” truth that “all men are created equal” and are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”. The term “self-evident” refers to the universality of the truth that all men are equal and have been given certain rights by our Creator. By being “self-evident”, the Declaration is indicating that this truth requires no explanation, it is simply understood to be true. The term “unalienable” means that our rights cannot ever be taken away. The Declaration continues by stating that the role of government is to “secure” the rights to “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”, insuring that they are not violated by other citizens or the power of the government. Note that government doesn’t create unalienable rights, it secures rights that already exist. The Founders believed so strongly that this is the proper role of government that the Declaration even says that citizens have the right to “alter or to abolish [the government]” if it ever became abusive of their rights. So, if not government, where do these rights come from? The answer is that they derive from a moral standard known to the Founders as natural law, or the law of nature. William Blackstone, a renowned legal scholar very influential on the Founders, describes natural law:

This law of nature, being coeval with mankind and dictated by God Himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other-It is binding over all the globe in all countries, and at all times; no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this: and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original. 1

First and foremost, note the source of natural law: God. The Founders had a deep belief in God and understood that a core component of His nature is justice, just as the Bible says. Natural law is essentially God’s standards of justice and morality. As Blackstone describes, natural law is “superior in obligation to any other” and is “binding over all the globe in all countries”. In other words, the authority of natural law is superior to any man-made law and is binding on all people regardless of nationality or social or political status. No human law has any validity if contrary to natural law and human laws that conform to natural law derive their authority from it. It is this understanding of natural law that provided the legal basis for America’s rebellion against the authority of the English crown. If all people and all human laws are subject to the laws of God, or natural law, then the king of England and his laws are also subject to the laws of God. If the king acts contrary to the laws of God and abuses the unalienable rights of his citizens, they are justified in declaring themselves free of his authority. The Declaration explains this reasoning and justifies it with a long list of abuses against the American colonists. If not for this understanding of and belief in natural law, it is safe to say that the Declaration of Independence as we know it would never have been possible. Justification for rebellion was only possible by appealing to an authority higher than the king and condemning his actions based on that authority.

As a side note, let me point out an absurd assertion I have often heard from secularists. Always looking for justification to remove any reference to Christianity from American public life, some secularists maintain that the Creator invoked in the Declaration was not the God of the Bible, but a vague, universal higher power that could have been a reference to any deity in any religion. This is ridiculous and patently false. Our Founders were English – citizens of a nation deeply influenced by Christianity. It would make little sense for them to invoke a deity they didn’t believe in as justification for what amounted to treason against their King. Similarly, the king was the head of the Church of England, therefore he most certainly believed in the Christian God himself. If the Founders were to condemn the king for his actions and justify rebellion against him by appealing to a higher authority, it wouldn’t make sense for them to appeal to any other authority than that in which the king himself believed. Besides, Blackstone identifies God by name as the source for natural law and declares it to be “found only in the holy scriptures” 2 (emphasis mine). Blackstone himself was an Englishman and a Christian, so it makes sense that he would invoke the Christian God.

Now that we understand that we have unalienable rights granted by God and that no human authority is justified in infringing upon those rights, we need to examine the relationship between the Declaration and the Constitution. Secularists many times attempt to distance the Declaration of Independence from the Constitution because of its troubling mention of the “Creator”. They want to cast the Constitution as a completely secular document that can be understood separately from the Declaration. The truth is that the Declaration is critical to understanding the Constitution because it specifies the purpose of government: to protect the God-given rights of citizens. The Constitution then lays out a governmental framework for fulfilling that purpose. Essentially, the Declaration is the mission statement for our government and the Constitution is the implementation of the mission. The implementation cannot be properly understood without first understanding the mission.

So what would be the consequences if we removed God from the equation? What if we, as a nation, no longer acknowledged God as the ultimate source of our rights? Secularists have campaigned very successfully over the last few decades to achieve this – to remove all acknowledgement of God from the public life of our nation. If we reject that God is the source of our rights, we also reject that the role of government is to protect the rights that God has given us and we place government in the place of God as the highest authority in our land. If government is the highest authority in the land, then it also must be the authority that grants our rights. And if government grants rights, it can also take them away. Our rights and freedoms would no longer be an untouchable extension of God’s law, but instead would be subject to the whims of the majority controlling the government. Instead of our government being subject to the unchangeable laws of God, our nation would be ruled by a government whose moral standard could change with the whims of the majority in power. In today’s environment of increasing hostility to Christian faith, you can bet that a secular majority would enact laws increasingly unfavorable to Christian faith. We are already seeing this in many states with the passage of hate crimes laws that could make Biblically-based criticism of homosexuality a prosecutable offense. It doesn’t matter that our Constitution guarantees every individual freedom of speech and conscience. The majorities passing such laws tend to have a secular, left-leaning worldview and their version of “morality” dictates that opposition to homosexuality – even religious opposition – is absolutely impermissible. Therefore, they seek to punish it even though doing so is at odds with the Constitution. Without the recognition of God’s transcendent natural law, morality and rights and freedoms become whatever the majority wants them to be. What are the consequences if our leaders no longer acknowledge the authority of God and His laws? Political leaders are many times notoriously corrupt because they know they can escape accountability for crimes much more easily than an ordinary citizen. If a leader has no fear of God, no recognition of His transcendent standards of justice, is he not capable of just about any evil? If he has no fear of consequences in this life or the next, what is to restrain his actions? The recognition of God’s justice and His inescapable judgment is a powerful restraining force on political leaders.

Hopefully it is apparent that the recognition of God and His natural law is absolutely essential to our system of government and the preservation of our rights. Our government was never intended to be absolutely secular, and to make it so would essentially abolish it by removing its philosophical foundation. The vision of our Founders was that future generations of Americans would enjoy the same rights and freedoms they did, therefore they designed a system of government they believed best suited to fulfilling its proper role of securing the “unalienable” rights God has given us. As we have seen, the recognition of God’s transcendent and sovereign standard of justice is the cornerstone of our rights. If we choose to remove this recognition of God’s role in our rights, we risk losing our rights altogether.

References

1. William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England. (n.d.). Retrieved October 4, 2007 from, http://www.lonang.org/exlibris/blackstone/bla-002.htm
2. Ibid.

The Philosophy of Our Founding: Tyranny and the Separation of Powers

So this is how liberty dies . . . with thunderous applause. – Padmé Amidala, Star Wars Episode III

CNN reported January 31, 2007 that Venezuelan lawmakers unanimously granted President Hugo Chavez “authority to enact sweeping measures by decree”. Termed the “mother law”, the new legislation granted Hugo Chavez complete authority to legislate in “11 broad areas, from the ‘economic and social sphere’ to the ‘transformation of state institutions.’” Venezuelan congresswoman Iris Varela hailed the new law, and was quoted by CNN.com as saying that the new power granted to Chavez had been given by “[t]he people of Venezuela, not just the National Assembly”. Citizens such as high school teacher Luis Gonzalez were less enthusiastic about the developments. With human history amply supporting his concerns, Gonzalez predicted that Venezuela is “headed toward a dictatorship”.

The Founders of our nation were very familiar with tyranny, having endured for years the abuses of the King of England. Their efforts to structure a new government protecting the people from the abuses of their leaders were rooted in a basic truth recorded thousands of years ago by the prophet Jeremiah:

The heart is more deceitful than all else
And is desperately sick;
Who can understand it?
- Jeremiah 17:9 (NASB) 

Many people today insist, contrary to the teachings of Scripture, that humanity is basically good. If this were true, then the Venezuelan people would have nothing to fear by handing absolute power to Chavez. However, Founding Father James Madison said that “[i]f men were angels, no government would be necessary.” 1 “Men” certainly are not “angels” and becoming a ruler does not make a person immune from temptation. Historical accounts of tyrannical rulers like Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, and Pol Pot demonstrate abundantly that unchecked power often leads to great evil. Our Founders understood this, therefore they designed the system of government they believed best able to rule effectively without being abusive. James Madison explains the challenge they faced:

If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. 2 

In other words, government must have the power to effectively govern but must also be restrained enough that it does not encroach upon the inalienable rights of the people. Joseph Story, an early Supreme Court Justice, points out that “every government must include within its scope, at least if it is to possess suitable stability and energy, the exercise of the three great powers . . . the executive, the legislative, and the judicial powers.” 3 What makes governments more or less authoritarian and the people more or less free is how these powers are distributed among ruling authorities. When two or more of the three great powers are concentrated in one individual or a small number of individuals, the result is typically a dictatorship that restricts the freedom of the people. Our Founders believed it a “maxim of vital importance” to preserving the liberties of the people “that these powers should for ever be kept separate and distinct” 4. Therefore, the federal government was organized into the three separate and distinct branches with which we are familiar today: the Legislative Branch (Congress), the Executive Branch (President), and the Judicial Branch (Supreme Court and Federal Courts). The Legislative Branch was given the authority to make the laws, the Executive to execute to the laws, and the Judicial to interpret the laws. An intricate set of checks and balances were also put in place to ensure that potential abuses by one branch of government could be checked by another branch. In an effort to further delegate power, the Founders limited the powers of the federal government to only what is specifically granted by the Constitution:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. – 10th Amendment, U.S. Constitution 

Because state governments were considered closer and more responsive to the people, the Founders specified with the 10th Amendment that anything not addressed or anticipated by the Constitution was to be the domain of the states or the people themselves.

It is clear that the Founders of our nation went to great lengths to insure that the ruling powers in our country were divided up and placed under stringent controls so that future generations would not find themselves living in tyranny. Their wisdom ought to be something for which we are continuously thankful because it has resulted in the 230 years of freedom our people have enjoyed. It is both frightening and fascinating to see before our eyes in Venezuela what happens when a single sinful individual acquires great power over the lives of his people. History provides plenty of reasons to be concerned for the people of Venezuela. Let us Americans never take for granted the freedoms we enjoy and may we never forget that only with our diligence as citizens will they be preserved for future generations.

References

1. The Federalist #51. (n.d.). Retrieved March 15, 2007, from http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa51.htm
2. Ibid.
3. Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1987), pg. 195.
4. Ibid, pg. 196.

Free Speech Rights of Students Violated Again

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .” – First Amendment, U.S. Constitution

As seems to be the case too many times these days, the free speech rights of another student have been violated again. School officials cut short a valedictorian speech by Las Vegas teen Brittany McComb when it was apparent that she intended to deviate from the edited version of her speech approved by school officials. So what exactly was removed from the speech? Numerous references to Miss McComb’s Christian beliefs, of course. School officials believed that her references to Christianity would somehow violate the First Amendment because they would constitute a prohibited establishment of religion. Maybe the school officials ought to be reminded about what an establishment of religion actually looks like. The House Judiciary Committee Report of 1853-1854 describes what is required for something to be a religious establishment:

It must have a creed defining what a man must believe; it must have rites and ordinances which believers must observe; it must have ministers of defined qualifications to teach the doctrines and administer the rites; it must have tests for the submissive and penalties for the nonconformist. 1 

The Senate Judiciary Committee provides even more insight:

The clause speaks of ‘an establishment of religion’. What is meant by that expression? It referred, without doubt, to that establishment which existed in the mother-country . . . . [which was an] endowment, at the public expense, in exclusion of or in preference to any other, by giving its members exclusive political rights, and by compelling attendance of those who rejected its communion upon its worship or religious observances. 2 

So, the question is whether Miss McComb was actually creating a national church by mentioning Jesus in her valedictorian speech. It is hard to believe that any reasonable person would think so, therefore it is safe to conclude that her speech did not in fact violate the First Amendment. If anything, what was truly violated were her First Amendment rights to express her religious views, even if some people don’t like them.

References

1. David Barton, Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, and Religion (Aledo, TX: Wallbuilder Press, 2000), pg 30.
2. Ibid.