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

Notre Dame scandal: Obama not role model for Catholics

Emailed April 6 to Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., president at University of Notre Dame. (Confirmation reply received April 16.) To date, 24 bishops have voiced opposition.

"Rather than honor this president and condone his life-denigrating
policies, we Catholics should stand firmly in opposition and call him to task on his ethical transgressions."

Dear Father Jenkins,

Please rescind the invitation that has been accepted by President Obama to speak at commencement on May 17, and reverse the university's intent to confer on him the honorary doctor of laws degree.

Called the "abortion president" by pro-life activists, Mr. Obama’s appearance at the university would contradict the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ policy against honoring pro-abortion politicians. In 2004, the USCCB approved a policy statement regarding "Catholics in Political Life," which states, with reference to pro-abortion politicians, "They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions."

It is an insult to all Catholics; and it would be a lasting disgrace for Notre Dame, as one of our country's leading Catholic universities, and an unwanted complicity for Catholics of conscience everywhere, to have a legacy of hosting and commiserating with this president, who in the first months of his term has done unprecedented moral damage to implicate all taxpayers in funding abortions at home and abroad.

Additionally, this president has supported abortionists’ leaving viable babies – survivors of botched abortion procedures -- to die, thereby compromising the life-protecting and preserving oaths of health care workers in our nation’s hospitals.

Now the Obama administration intends to rescind health service regulations that would result in health care workers being forced to provide such services as abortions in violation of their beliefs and consciences. USCCB President Cardinal Francis George states: "No government should come between an individual person and God—that’s what America is supposed to be about.” Indeed, Mr. Obama’s proposed rescission of these protective regulations amounts to government oppression and threatens the inalienable rights to freedom of religion and conscience and speech that are protected under the First Amendment.

Furthermore, Mr. Obama has promised to sign into law the Freedom of Choice Act, which further would violate and suppress constitutional rights to exercise freedoms of religion, conscience, and speech, and would enforce the taxpayer-funded genocide of unborn infants in America. As a result, Catholic practitioners of conscience could lose their livelihoods, and Catholic health facilities would close. The light of our society’s strongest bastion of reason – the Catholic Church -- would be extinguished, and its voice would be strangulated, in a legalized culture of death in America.

Mr. Obama’s embryonic stem cell research policies, as well -- unnecessary in the light of advances made in adult stem cell research -- are contrary to a respect for the dignity of created life, and they fly in the face of every conscionable Catholic.

Catholic teachings state that “the measure of every institution is whether it threatens or enhances the life and dignity of the human person” (USCCB “Themes of Catholic Social Teaching,” 2005). Mr. Obama’s policies regarding abortion, conscientious objection, and stem cell research threaten the life and dignity of the human person. Rather than honor this president and condone his life-denigrating policies, we Catholics should stand firmly in opposition and call him to task on his ethical transgressions.

Please don't support or honor this president and his problematic policies. He is not a model to raise up before your students, or before Catholics anywhere, to admire or to emulate. Only further harm to our nation’s damaged moral fabric, and to our historic Catholic values, ideals, and identity would come of it.

Please rescind the invitation. Please reverse the decision.

Many prayers for you, your students, and for our country,

Nancy E. Thoerig and Mary W. Thoerig
Mount Savage, MD 21545

cc: Patrick McCartan (fellow and board chairman emeritas), Cardinal Francis George (USCCB president), Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien (Baltimore)
mailed copies to: Bishop John M. D'Arcy (Fort Wayne-South Bend), Richard C. Notebaert (board chairman)

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

President intends to remove 'conscientious objection' clause

Submitted to Cumbelrand Times-News Monday, April 6, 2009.

"Everyone who believes in conscientious objection should write
to the Department of Health and Human Services and to President Obama to let them know your objections...."

To the Editor:

The Obama administration intends to rescind health service regulations that would result in health care workers being forced to provide such services as abortions in violation of their beliefs and consciences.

Everyone who believes in conscientious objection should write to the Department of Health and Human Services and to President Obama to let them know your objections to this proposed rescission of regulations that currently protect that right.

The deadline to log comments is April 9.

DHHS can be emailed through the Maryland Catholic Conference web site at mdcathcon.org. Click on “Protect Medical Conscience Rights.” The President can be emailed at whitehouse.gov. At the far right bottom of the home page, click “Contact.”

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops President Cardinal Francis George states: "No government should come between an individual person and God—that’s what America is supposed to be about.” Indeed, Mr. Obama’s proposed rescission of these protective regulations amounts to government oppression and threatens the inalienable rights to freedom of religion, conscience and speech that are protected under the First Amendment.

Nancy E. Thoerig
Mount Savage

View Cardinal George's message:

Christian humanism made of gratitude

Submitted to Cumberland Times-News March 23, 2009.
Update: Published in Times-News Letters on April 13.

"Gratitude nourishes in us humility to endure lean and low points in life, and grace to embrace abundance and joy. We strive to arrive, as St. Paul did, at a stage of self-sufficiency – spiritually, that is."

“Without gratitude,” writes Theodore Dalrymple in his 2008 book The Politics and Culture of Decline, “it is hard to appreciate, or be satisfied with, what you have; and life (becomes) an existential shopping spree that no product satisfies.”

The difference between Christian Humanism (a culture of life) and Secular Humanism (the culture of death) seems to be the difference between gratitude and emptiness.

“Secular ideologies have lost much of their appeal and once again people are hungering for the unifying vision of the religious imagination.” So says the Center for Religious Humanism (based in Seattle, Wash.), which aims to cultivate respect for truth by celebrating creation and nurturing the soul through art that expresses faith.

The Christian life is filled with gratitude: God gifted us Christ, who died to redeem us. St. Paul says in Philippians 4:13: “In him who is the source of my strength, I have strength for everything.”

Gratitude nourishes in us humility to endure lean and low points in life, and grace to embrace abundance and joy. We strive to arrive, as St. Paul did, at a stage of self-sufficiency – spiritually, that is.

We live in community; and community creates culture. Culture is rooted in religion. Religion sustains and tempers us: It inspires us to hope and instructs us to love. Christians hope for eternal union with God; and we aim to help others attain the same.

Mysterious and difficult, these tenets take a lifetime to unfold and to realize in concrete ways. Sadly, what is difficult to understand or do, or takes time, often is dismissed. At the end, though, our relationship with God is a personal one; and it is our most important relationship.

Elwell’s Evangelical Dictionary cites St. Justin Martyr (born in the year 100) as the first Christian Humanist -- the first to enunciate that truths of faith are more important than human culture.

In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin recounts his quest, around age 30, to acquaint himself with God. His teachers, though, either don’t know God, or they believe He is irrelevant to other matters of learning.

Finally, Justin finds a Platonist: “And the perception of immaterial things…and the contemplation of ideas furnished my mind with wings, so that in a little while I supposed that I had become wise; and such was my stupidity,” for Justin had learned only “to look upon God.”

Then one day he converses with an old man about God and life and teachers; and the old man says to Justin: “There existed, long before this time, certain men…who spoke by the Divine Spirit, and foretold events which would take place, and which are now taking place. They are called prophets…and he who has read them is very much helped in his knowledge of the beginning and end of things...since they both glorified the Creator…and proclaimed His Son, the Christ….”

Justin reads the prophets’ writings and discovers contentment in their “words filled with the Spirit of God, and big with power, and flourishing with grace;” and he yearns to share it. (St. Justin taught and defended the Christian faith in Asia Minor and Rome, until his beheading in 165.)

A culture without God lacks gratitude and contentment; and the lights of truth and beauty and imagination go dark. Anyone who wants to create a culture of life can set out today, as St. Justin did, to know God and his intent for us – to be fully human in a relationship with His son – and to be fully alive, even (and especially) in a secular culture of death.