Power without God deludes, tyrannizes, destroys

Published Wednesday, February 10, 2010 in Cumberland Times-News.

“Throughout the years, the United States Senate has honored the historic separation of Church and State, but not the separation of God and State”: From the web site of Barry C. Black, U.S. Senate Chaplain.

“The first Senate, meeting in New York City on April 25, 1789, elected the Right Reverend Samuel Provost, the Episcopal Bishop of New York, as its first Chaplain.” Since then, “all sessions of the Senate have been opened with prayer, strongly affirming the Senate's faith in God as Sovereign Lord of our Nation.”

Intending to undo our country’s unbroken grounding in God, 255 atheists, humanists, secularists, skeptics and freethinkers, along with thousands from 19 national and local organizations, represented by Michael Newdow, renewed their fight on Dec. 15, 2009 to remove prayer from public life.

In at least nine suits filed since 2002, Newdow leads the charge to remove “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance; strike “in God we trust” from American currency and as the national motto; stop invocations at Presidential inaugurations; eliminate “so help me God” from the Presidential swearing-in; and wipe “God save the United States and this honorable court” from court session openings.

In its amicus brief filed in Newdow’s appeal (the D.C. Circuit dismissed the case), American Center for Law and Justice attorney James M. Henderson writes that Newdow’s “targeting of religious expression at Presidential inaugurations is particularly meritless given the controlling decision” in Marsh v. Chambers (July 5, 1983).

Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers sued to prove that prayer offered by a state-supported chaplain at the legislature’s opening violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. The Supreme Court held that prayer in the legislature, and state-hired chaplains, are constitutional, given the “unique history” of the United States.

“The practice of opening sessions of Congress with prayer has continued without interruption…since the First Congress drafted the First Amendment, and a similar practice has been followed…in Nebraska and many other states,” writes then-Chief Justice Warren Burger in the court opinion.

“To invoke divine guidance on a public body entrusted with making the laws is not…a violation of the Establishment Clause; it is simply a tolerable acknowledgment of beliefs widely held among the people of this country.”

As Justice Burger cites, “the Continental Congress, beginning in 1774, adopted the traditional procedure of opening its sessions with a prayer.” Burger quotes from a document of the first Senate session to recount that one of our founders’ early items of business was “to take under consideration the manner of electing Chaplains.”

Burger notes the House followed the Senate by six days to elect its first chaplain May 1, 1789. “A statute providing for the payment of these chaplains was enacted into law on September 22, 1789,” Burger writes, adding that three days later, “final agreement was reached on the language of the Bill of Rights.

“Clearly the men who wrote the First Amendment Religion Clauses did not view (paid chaplains) and opening prayers as a violation of that Amendment.”

The Rev. Daniel P. Coughlin, a Catholic priest, is U.S. House of Representatives Chaplain. In Maryland’s General Assembly, House sessions open with the Pledge of Allegiance; then a different delegate each day offers a prayer. In the Senate, either an invited religious leader or one of the senators leads daily prayer.

Our founders, imperfect but striving, knew that political pursuits without God’s blessing were untrustworthy. History demonstrated for them -- as it does for us -- that power without God deludes, tyrannizes and destroys. Let us pray that our leaders hold fast to exceptional American principles and common sense, and never lose sight of God.

Christian thinking fundamental to forming Constitution

"Davis proposes a monument to secularism, in opposition to the
Judeo-Christian principles that are displayed on the Ten Commandments monument -- which he has said publicly he would prefer to see removed from the courthouse lawn."

Glenn Riffey (“Constitution a product of Christian influence,” April 14) presents an informed argument for honoring Christian influence in the construction of the U.S. Constitution, in response to Jeffrey Davis (“Why shouldn’t we honor the Constitution,” April 8).

Surely, your savvy readers appreciate historical facts; and they desire to understand the reality of Christianity’s essence and the impact of the Judeo-Christian experience in our forebears’ formation of the Constitution; and they believe in the Constitution’s purpose to protect and guide a civil society.

We may add to Mr. Riffey’s list of founding fathers John Witherspoon, the only active clergyman and college president (College of New Jersey, now Princeton University) to help form the Declaration of Independence and to sign it.

A native of Scotland and a minister of the national Presbyterian Church, Witherspoon, like others involved in forming our nation, was wary of the power of the British crown.

In 1774, Witherspoon joined the American Revolution as a member of the Committee of Correspondence, which interpreted British actions among the colonies and disseminated information. This committee brought the colonies into political union, and many of its members were daring Sons of Liberty.

In June 1776, Witherspoon was elected to the Continental Congress as a member of the New Jersey delegation. He became one of the Congress’s most influential members, serving on more than 100 committees, among them the board of war and the committee on secret correspondence.

Witherspoon helped draft the Articles of Confederation, and he argued to adopt the Constitution during the New Jersey ratification debates. (Source: Wikipedia.)

Presbyterian pastor and evangelical Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer writes in his 1981 book, A Christian Manifesto, that the “linkage of (Witherspoon’s) Christian thinking and the concepts of government were not incidental but fundamental” to form and establish the American civil society.

Now, what is disconcerting about Jeffrey Davis’ indignation in pressuring the county to put up a monument to the Constitution is that what he really wants is not a monument to the Constitution at all.

Davis proposes a monument to secularism, in opposition to the Judeo-Christian principles that are displayed on the Ten Commandments monument -- which he has said publicly he would prefer to see removed from the courthouse lawn. In fact, Davis has had limited success in attempts to do just that.

Davis wants a monument to his viewpoint, which he believes is the only one possible. This attitude misses the mark.

“The meaning conveyed by a monument is generally not a simple one like ‘Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner,’” writes Justice Samuel Alito in the unanimous Supreme Court opinion in Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum.

“Even when a monument features the written word,” writes Justice Alito, “the monument…may in fact be interpreted by different observers, in a variety of ways.”

A monument is a sort of fine art object. It inspires us and brings us to pause and reflect, in a personal and communal way, on matters that have individual and social significance.

A monument to the Constitution, especially if it includes words, should represent the Constitution, not Jeffrey Davis.

We should see, on a monument to the Constitution, the Preamble, which sums up the Constitution’s reason for being. Then let us pray that the document, so carefully crafted by our courageous and faithful forefathers, remains up to the task to “secure the Blessings of Liberty” for all.

by Nancy E. Thoerig 05.13.09

Constitution a product of Christian influence

Written by Glenn C. Riffey, Cumbelrand, Maryland, and published in Cumberland Times-News Letters April 14, 2009.

To the Editor:

In his letter of “Why shouldn’t we honor the Constitution?” (April 8 Times-News) Mr. Jeffrey Davis makes the comment that the Constitution is truly a secular document.

If he means that it was written without any Christian influence, I totally disagree. Here is why.

During the Constitutional Convention, when things were becoming quite tense, Benjamin Franklin not only called for prayer but stated that “he could hardly conceive a transaction of such momentous importance — referring to the Constitution — to pass without being in some degree influenced, guided and governed by that omnipotent, omnipresent and beneficent Ruler, in whom all inferior spirits live and move and have their being.”

Now, Dr. Franklin was no Christian but he was highly influenced by the British evangelist, George Whitefield, and was a close friend of his.

In addition, convention President George Washington stated, “This event is in the hands of God.” He went on to say, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

James Madison, the chief architect of the Constitution and fourth president of the United States stated in the Federalist Papers no. 43 that the authority for ratification of the Constitution by nine states under Article VII of the document was the same “laws of Nature and Nature’s God” to which Thomas Jefferson, our third president, had appealed for our right to exist as a nation in the Declaration of Independence.

In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote that liberty was a gift of God and an “unalienable right” to be secured by government. In the Constitution the preamble states that one of the purposes of the government is to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Prosperity [sic]" (should be "posterity").

According to Washington, one of those liberties was the right to worship God.

Last, but not least, John Adams, our second president succeeding Washington said this, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” In other words, Adams knew that unless we kept moral and religious principles that the Constitution would not work.

During these times Christianity was a daily living way of life, and even non-Christians were greatly influenced by Christian principles. Without the guidance of God and Christian influence in the midst of this convention the Constitution would not be the document that it is.

he Constitution of the United States may not be a Christian church document, but it was by Christian reason and influence that gave way for the liberties that it gives, even to the point of one wanting to deny any Christian influence upon the document at all.

This same Christian influence is what gives Mr. Davis the right to say that it is only a secular document and for that he should give thanks to God for the ability to do so.

Glenn C. Riffey
Cumberland

Irreligious secularism not American way

Submitted to the Cumberland Times-News on Friday, February 6, 2009.
(Update: Published in Cumberland Times-News Letters on Tuesday, February 10, 2009.)

"Religion gives us that arc – the continuum of a personal and
national past, present and future. The majority of Americans hope and trust in a providential God – however we define or name Him."

As county leaders consider a monument to the U.S. Constitution, proposed by local citizens who advocate secular government, let’s hope they remember that laicité is not the American way. Hopefully, the monument truly will honor the Constitution, and not deliver a statement that decries religion.

The governor of Washington State found herself in a quandary at Christmastime when she permitted atheists to post a viewpoint, rather than set up a holiday display, in the Capitol building. The brouhaha that ensued made a mockery of First Amendment rights. Our commissioners would do well to avoid a similar free-for-all on the courthouse lawn.

The type of secularism that irreligious groups promote (laicité) suppresses citizens’ freedom to express their faith in public; and it oppresses those who do. It requires political leaders to disregard their consciences when making decisions for the citizenry; and it shuns those who don’t.

Our Constitution’s First Amendment serves exceedingly well to keep church and state separate, to the extent that neither shall rule the other; and it engenders a rich synergy among political and spiritual elements in our society that is unique among the nations of the world.

It is fitting that early in his first day in office, the President of the United States prays. At the National Cathedral web site is the full video of the Inaugural Prayer Service held Jan. 21. We see President Barack Obama, along with Vice-President Joe Biden and other officials, join a full array of American religious leaders to commend our nation to God and to implore His benevolence. Parts of the prayers are borrowed from the Inaugural services of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

According to historian Peter Henriques, in his 2006 book, Realistic Visionary, Washington (baptized Anglican) was an orthodox believer who attended services regularly, though he kept a public silence about details of his beliefs. The first President’s Inaugural Address is replete with supplications to the “Almighty Being who rules over the Universe” on whose “divine blessing…the success of this government must depend.”

Lincoln often attended the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church while living at the White House. In 1846, when he ran for Congress, Lincoln published on a handbill: “That I am not a member of any Christian church is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures….” In an 1873 Scribners Monthly, after Lee’s victory at the Second Battle of Bull Run, he says: “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go” (Source: Wikipedia).

Entering the nave at the National Cathedral, President Obama and his entourage walked past Herbert Houck’s statue of Abraham Lincoln kneeling in prayer.

In his 2006 Call to Renewal keynote address on religion and politics, Barack Obama states that “Americans are a religious people;” and he cites these figures: “90 percent of us believe in God, 70 percent affiliate themselves with an organized religion.” He goes on to say that our “religious tendency…speaks to a hunger…that goes beyond any particular issue or cause. (Americans’) work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not enough. They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives.”

Religion gives us that arc – the continuum of a personal and national past, present and future. The majority of Americans hope and trust in a providential God – however we define or name Him.

Our political leaders must uphold the First Amendment. They would do well, also, to preserve and be guided by our nation’s religious heritage.

by Nancy E. Thoerig 02-06-09