Re: http://townhall.com/columnists/MichaelGerson/2009/12/23/public_policy_as_public_corruption

American exceptionalism is based on the world view that birthed a system of government in which power is divided between a central authority and the several states with delimited self-governing authority, where the boundaries are placed on the central authority: its powers being specific and few with respect to the states. This is federalism as defined by the American Founders.

Behind federalism is the political philosophy in which the member states are bound together under the rule of law known as the Constitution.  The Latin for covenant is “foedus” from which the word federal is derived.

Senator Reid has a different understanding of federal, which is a perversion of federalism. He would see us return to feudalism.

Feudalism can be defined as a social organization created by exchanging grants in return for formal oaths of allegiance; or in its modern sense, it is the exchanging of public money for critical votes. “Quid pro quo” is another name for bribery, but the insidiousness in this case is that our money is being used for the bribe to return us to serfdom.

What’s going on in the media is just a symptom of the larger problem; this is the problem that faces all the nations of men because men universally have this problem in common. The issue is authority and man’s tendency toward autonomy and self-deception.

Re: http://ksky.townhall.com/columnists/DouglasMacKinnon/2009/12/22/a_warning_and_a_ray_of_hope_from_an_intelligence_operative

The Bible asserts that all men know God so inescapably and clearly from natural revelation that they are left with no defense for their unfaithful response to the truth about Him. ‘What can be known about God is plain within them because God made it plain to them... [being] clearly perceived from the created world, being intellectually apprehended from the things that have been made... so that they are without excuse’ [Romans 1:18-22].  Nevertheless, even as they are categorically depicted as ‘knowing God’, all men are portrayed in their unrighteousness as ‘holding down the truth’. They are suppressing what God has already shown them about Himself. As a result of hiding the truth from themselves, they neither glorify nor thank God, but instead become futile in their reasoning, undiscerning in their darkened hearts, and foolish in the midst of their professions of wisdom. Men are able to suppress what they very well know, confirming the words of the prophet, ‘The heart is deceitful above all things…’ [Jeremiah 17:9].

[from Bahnsen;  http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/pa207.htm ]

The Puritan and Reformed view of government is based on the ideals of the Protestant Reformation: All men are under a two-fold theocratic form of government, which are ecclesiastical and civil. The church ministers the word of God through the preaching of the Law and the Gospel; the state enforces the moral law of God through its system of civil justice. The regenerate obey the moral law from the heart out of a motive of love for mercy received; the unregenerate obey out of outward constraint and fear of punishment by the civil magistrate. All men are to be ruled by the moral law of God.

Human government is an institution given by God to be cared for and reformed by men. The ultimate destiny of government is to establish Christ’s dominion over all the earth. Christ will return when all things are visibly subject to Him. The role of the elect is to occupy both ecclesiastical and civil forms of government until He comes.

The biblical model of reformation for church and civil government was pioneered by the Pilgrims and Puritans who settled in America. This was the foundation for our democratic republic.

The strengths of Puritan and Reformed thinking are the belief that Christ rules over every sphere of society with Christians being stewards of the earth; and having a long term view of Christ’s return with an emphasis on advancing the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

By the early 1600s, when the Pilgrims and Puritans began their exodus to Massachusetts Bay Colony, the ideals of the Reformation had taken hold of most of northern Europe. Yet the Reformation would have its fullest expression in America.

The Pilgrims or Separatists had broken away from the Church of England. The Puritans were Anglican Church reformers that had broken away from the Episcopalian government and now sought to create a theocratic government.  Both groups had adopted Calvinism and had a vision of a society built on the laws of God.

They disclaimed the divine authority of lords and bishops and believed in the priesthood of the individual believer. As each believer was to be self-governing, so was each church; each family; each community; each township; each colony…The idea of association of these self-governing colonies gave rise to federalism.

The Puritans saw all of human history as a progression toward the fulfillment of God’s design to advance the kingdom of God. They had a long term view of history, and generally regarded the Second Coming of Christ to be far in the future. They were optimistic about the attempts of Christians to reform civil government. In their doctrine of covenantalism, they saw God bringing in the kingdom in a gradual and orderly fashion. They understood that it was their role in society to be visible saints in the church and to be light and salt in the world.

Covenant theology laid the groundwork for a political theory which held that state and all society came into being as a contract on the basis of God’s eternal covenant. Hence, the moral law of God must be the foundation for a society’s laws and government.

The Puritans held to covenant or federalist theology which maintains that God operates through covenants, or eternally binding legal agreements with men. The idea of federal headship is plainly taught in Romans 5. Adam is said to represent all men, in that in Adam all men fell into sin. Even so, Christ is said to be the head or representative of His people, who are accounted as righteous in Him.

The Old and New Covenants are God’s basis for governing the universe. There is no division between the Covenants. The New Covenant is built firmly on the foundation of the Old Covenant. This presupposes that the Law does not change: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law of the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill” [Matthew 5:17].

Covenantalism begins with the assumption that the believer is no longer condemned by the law but justified by faith. Once a man is saved, the law becomes his rule of life. When ‘God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh…He condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us…who walk according to the Spirit’ [Romans 8:4].

The contribution of the First Great Awakening was a revitalized Puritanism—a combining of personal experience with God with the complete biblical worldview of the Puritans. The Great Awakening began under the ministries of Jonathan Edwards and English evangelist George Whitefield in the early 1730s. These men were strictly Calvinistic in their view of salvation, yet they preached using the Law to awaken sinners to their state in sin and then gave them the Gospel of grace.

The mass conversions that took place during the Great Awakening were undergirded by the Puritan ethic which had been developed in the preceding centuries. It was the strength of the Reformed view of biblical social order combined with personal experience with God that led to the reformation of American society. The Great Awakening did much also to unite the thirteen colonies. It encouraged people to look optimistically at life in America. It prepared them for the Revolution.

By 1830, the America nation had become well defined, reformed, and constituted. Alexis de Tocqueville, the French social scientist, recorded in his classic work, Democracy in America, that Americans exhibited certain distinctions that set them apart from Europeans. It was as if God Himself had formed a new race of men and women on the earth. American idealism was so unique that it warranted an investigation. According to de Tocqueville, American idealism was characterized by individualism—a self-reliant spirit that pushed individuals to take on great responsibilities and produce great accomplishments. There was a sense of a personal responsibility to God, country, and family. These were, in fact, Puritan ethics.

[credits Jay Rogers] http://www.forerunner.com/statesman/twoviews.html

We applaud Sandy Rios for taking the argument to the next level. Let us return to the meaning of constitutionalism and to the original covenant.

Re: http://townhall.com/columnists/SandyRios/2009/12/09/tigers_story_has_consequences_for_us_all

Our Constitution involved the implementation of an existing covenant into a framework of government. A constitution may include reaffirmation of the original covenant, as does the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780…

PREAMBLE  

‘The end of the institution, maintenance, and administration of government is to secure the existence of the body-politic, to protect it, and to furnish the individuals who compose it with the power of enjoying, in safety and tranquility, their natural rights and the blessings of life…’

‘The body politic is formed by a voluntary association of individuals; it is a social compact by which the whole people covenants with each citizen and each citizen with the whole people that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good…’

‘We, therefore, the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the goodness of the great Legislator of the universe, in affording us, in the course of His providence, an opportunity, deliberately and peaceably, without fraud, violence, or surprise, of entering into an original, explicit, and solemn compact with each other, and of forming a new constitution of civil government for ourselves and posterity; and devoutly imploring His direction in so interesting a design, do agree upon, ordain, and establish the following declaration of rights and frame of government as the constitution of the commonwealth of Massachusetts.’

 

http://www.nhinet.org/ccs/docs/ma-1780.htm 

Thus, from their earliest beginnings, the people and polities comprising the United States have bound themselves together through covenants to erect their New World order, deliberately following biblical precedents. The covenant concluded on the Mayflower on November 11, 1620, remains the first hallowed document of the American constitutional tradition:

In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are under-writen, the loyall subjects of our dread soveraigne Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britaine, Franc, and Ireland king, defender of the faith, etc., haveing undertaken, for the glorie of God, and advancemente of the Christian faith, and honour of our king and countrie, a voyage to plant the first colonie in the Northerne parts of Virginia, doe by these presents solemnly and mutualy in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves togeather into a civill body politick, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete and convenient for the generall good of the colonie, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witnes wherof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cap Codd the 11. of November, in the year of the raigne of our soveraigne lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fiftie fourth. Ano: Dom. 1620.

A classic covenant, it explicitly created a community and the basis for its subsequent constitutional development.

Although it is impossible to determine definitively the influences upon the minds of the framers of the Constitution who created the unique American federal system, the most overlooked, yet perhaps most important, source of ideas is the covenant tradition which found its first political expression in the federation of tribes of ancient Israel.

It should not be surprising, therefore, that the Americans established a federal system of government with sovereignty divided and shared between the states and the nationwide government. This is often treated as an anomaly or as a product of unique circumstances. Yet the governmental outcome of the Revolution could have been very different. The states could have separated as independent nations. They could have been united in whole or in sections by conquest. The Americans could have erected a monarchy. Indeed, given past experiences with the governance of large territories, these were much more likely outcomes than the actual one. Instead, the Americans, within their states, sent representatives to a convention, ostensibly to improve the Articles of Confederation, and then ended up ratifying,  a wholly new constitution that employed federal principles to create the first continental republic in world history. Whereas, historically, large territories were invariably ruled by an imperial center, the United States became governed through a system of dispersed democratic majorities coupled with nationwide representation of both individuals and constituent states.

The alternative reality gives no reason for righteousness, self denial and the pursuit of virtue, no matter what your politics.

Re: http://townhall.com/columnists/EvaLorraineMolina/2009/08/28/where_have_all_the_ladies_gone

Constitutionalism was born from the view of reality that the self-revealed God has spoken and given finite man a reference to the infinite and absolute; in the Bible man has truth in the areas of morals and law and truth about his origin and condition.

Conservatism is that which seeks to conserve constitutionalism.

Rather than a personal God making man in His image, the alternative view of reality holds to the irrational belief that the personal nature of man originates from the impersonal, whether it be matter or energy, apart from purposeful design.

This view has no basis for truth in the areas of morality or law except what autonomous man thinks is right. It believes that the progress of man is hindered by the constraints put on him by the Bible.

The article uses language to describe the behavior of a conservative that is the same language found in the NT that describes the behavior of a Christian. This behavior requires a change of heart ‘for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man…’ [Proverbs 4:22, Matthew 15:19].

Re: http://townhall.com/columnists/BenShapiro/2009/04/15/whatever_happened_to_states’_rights

Mr. Shapiro, how can you advocate for state sovereignty and praise Abraham Lincoln at the same time? Do you know anything of men like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson? Do you dismiss these men as racists because they owned slaves? Are you ashamed of what the Old Testament says of slavery? Is the modern practice of slavery to state welfare any less cruel than the OT laws governing the practice of bond servants? We could learn much toward the principles of general equity from a study of the Mosaic civil law dealing with the poor and the widow and the orphan.

To the men like Lee and Jackson and many more like them the issue of the war was one of state sovereignty, not slavery. When offered the command of the federal army, Lee issued his famous quote (that goes something like this), “How can I raise my sword against my native state of Virginia?” Lee’s quote says much about the real issues.

At creation God wrote Moral Law, the Decalogue, in the hearts of Adam and Eve. All men as image bearers have this same law written in their hearts. This Moral Law was later written upon tablets of stone by God and delivered to Israel through Moses. This law remains in effect even after the Old Covenant was abolished. Christ upholds this law "as a rule of life" for His church.

Let’s look at the three texts in order, 4:2; 19:2; and 19:5.

[http://www.reformedreader.org/ccc/1689lbc/english/1689econtents.htm]

In chapter 4, Of Creation, the confession teaches that Adam and Eve had "the law of God written in their hearts." Here is the full text of paragraph 2 followed by Scripture references…

After God had made all other creatures, he created man, male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls, rendering them fit unto that life to God for which they were created; being made after the image of God, in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness; having the law of God written in their hearts, and power to fulfill it, and yet under a possibility of transgressing, being justify to the liberty of their own will, which was subject to change.

[Genesis 1:27; Genesis 2:7; Ecclesiastes 7:29; Genesis 1:26; Romans 2:14, 15; Genesis 3:6]

In chapter 19, Of the Law of God, the confession defines what is meant by "the law of God written in their hearts." The full text of paragraph 2 says…

The same law that was first written in the heart of man continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness after the fall, and was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments, and written in two tables, the four first containing our duty towards God, and the other six, our duty to man.

[Romans 2:14, 15; Deuteronomy 10:4]

"The major assertion of paragraphs 1 and 2 is that the same law written in the heart of Adam was reiterated in the Ten Commandments." [Sam Waldron, A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith]

The final text in the confession is found in chapter 19:5. The text reads as follows…

The moral law [Decalogue] doth for ever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof, and that not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator, who gave it; neither doth Christ in the Gospel any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation.

[Romans 13:8-10; James 2:8, 10-12; James 2:10, 11; Matthew 5:17-19; Romans 3:31]

It is clear that the confession teaches that all men are obliged to obey the Ten Commandments. "The moral law doth for ever bind all …" The obligation for man to keep the Ten Commandments is based on God’s authority as Creator. He demonstrates this as Judge and Redeemer. All sin is dealt with either in everlasting punishment for the unrepentant or in a rich display of mercy in Christ for all who repent and believe the gospel.

Gentiles who know nothing of the Bible may by nature ‘show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them’ [Romans 2:14-15].

This law is what philosophers call the "natural law." It is man’s innate moral knowledge given to him as image bearers of his Creator. All men are held accountable to this law in that they are judged according to their judgment of other men. You say that it is not good to steal from you or to covet your wife, but if you do the same thing to me, then you condemn yourself when you practice what you condemn in others. [Romans 2:1-3]

All men know this law is good, but because of the Genesis 3 Fall into sin, they will naturally suppress its righteousness in order to justify their sin.

From the perspective of revealed truth in Jesus Christ, natural law has a limited but significant value. It connects Christianity to the moral order of nations and affirms Christ as the Ruler of nations. He rules by His Law and this is the same Law as written on the heart of every man. The Kingdom of God has come and those who enter in submit to His rule.

Because of sin and the need of regeneration there is limited expectation of natural law as a source of revelation. God does not save the world through natural law, nor does He reconcile the world through the pursuit of justice; but He does provide the knowledge of His eternal power and divinity through the law written on the heart.

Re: http://townhall.com/columnists/TonyBlankley/2009/04/01/liberty_and_tyranny_reviewed

Mr. Blankley might be accused of anti-Protestant bigotry. In a nation founded on religious liberty, fought for and won and implemented mostly by Reformed Christians, we accuse by association: Puritanism with theocracy and Protestantism with intolerance. The Protestantism practiced by the KKK and that may have influenced Hugo Black [Everson v. Board of Education] is not the Protestantism that sailed over on the Mayflower. Nor do we think that the Catholicism practiced in Europe in suppression of the Protestant Reformation is the Catholicism practiced in America today.

The Reformation benefited all men in that it gave us an open Bible and the revealed Law of God in the common tongues. This is the stable reference point and foundation for natural law of which Mr. Levin is pointing to as the moral order required for constitutional conservatism. He is trying to remind us of the importance of these things, and to his credit Mr. Levin was more careful not to misuse the term Protestantism for a perversion of Protestantism.

Our founding documents called the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution cannot be taken out of the context of their heritage. They are a reflection of that heritage. The reason why we elect and continue to elect those who have no regard for the Constitution is that the heritage is lost, disparaged and disregarded. Independence from a tyrannical king meant dependence on something else.

‘Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people’ [Proverbs 14:34].

How is it that a nation can be righteous or sinful? When God blessed Israel with His law, it was intended as a model for all nations…

See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the LORD my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people." What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today? [Deuteronomy 4:5-8]

When nations honor the law of God, they enjoy the fruits of righteousness. When nations suppress the law of God and its application and exchange it for licentiousness and the practice of lawlessness, they face the righteous judgments of God….

See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you…But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed…This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life...’ [Deuteronomy 30:15-20].

Civil magistrates are called ‘ministers of God’ [Romans 13:4]. They owe allegiance to Jesus Christ as the ruler of the kings of the earth [Rev. 1:5; Psalm 2:10-12].

This was the consensus of the colonial Christians. They believed themselves a kingdom of priests to their God. They thought and lived as if they were bringing their nation under the rule of Christ.

Furthermore, the principle of law is king was established as an agreed upon covenant called a constitution that secured the protection of specific individual rights of citizens to life, liberty and private property and included a bill of rights intended to protect the people against government intrusions into the people’s liberty.

Furthermore, the constitution was written with specific checks and balances to protect the people from the tyranny of the elite with the express purpose that power should rest with the people under the presumption that the people as image bearers are responsible for there own welfare and the welfare of their neighbor, being ultimately accountable to their Creator.

Furthermore, this system of government presumes an educated public knowledgeable in the foundations of liberty revealed to men in the doctrines of the Bible. Being fully aware of the nature of man and the tendency of men to abuse their authority and being persuaded that the power of the Gospel is the only remedy against such abuse, an informed public is essential to maintain such government by the election of God fearing men to public service.

Therefore, the free society established in America depends on the Christian world view.

God has ordained human government for the well being of man in his fallen state for the restraint of lawlessness and the encouragement of righteousness. Through Old Testament example God has revealed divine principles of government for the benefit of all nations for His promise to Abraham was that Christ would be a blessing to all nations. Christ’s Church is ordained of God to call the elect to salvation and to promote godliness and the sanctification of men, society and government. Though New Testament testimony we understand that church and state are to be independent…

“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” [Mark 12:17]

‘What have [we in the church] to do with judging those…who are outside [the church]?’ [1 Corinthians 5:12]

The freedom of conscience is the mark of a free society. Therefore, we include as the first article of our Bill of Rights the right of religious liberty. We affirm that the revealed religion of the Son of God is to be encouraged and in no way restrained, since we believe the Scriptures that Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life, there being no other way to be reconciled to God except through the Mediator. But according to the Apostle Paul’s appeal to our conscience regarding the grace of God we will not impose our religion on the conscience of other men…

What are the origins of American constitutionalism? Did the Enlightenment come to colonial America or did the Reformation come here with the Bible and yield the fruits of liberty? What is the origin of rule of law? Did it come from the secular elite or from the Protestant Reformers who gave us the principle that no man is above the Law of God, not even the king.

Why do we have separation of powers and why was the intent of the constitution to limit federal power? These things and all of the checks and balances in government are in place to establish clear boundaries to the extents of political power because of the Biblical doctrine of the depravity of men.

What of the purpose of the first amendment? A free church free from the state is essential for a free state. The love of civil liberty and the sanctity of life and the sacredness of private property all come from divine liberty granted to men through the gospel.

Is the chaos around us the result of godliness or lawlessness in the culture? Godlessness is our enemy, not God. For the same reason our constitution is trampled under foot by those sworn to uphold and defend it. Men are without integrety because they are without God and without the respect due to His Law. If men have no respect for divine Law, then they will have none for civil law.

For a thousand years the church had lost the message of the Gospel. Men looked inside themselves for the graces that merited salvation rather than a righteousness wholly outside of themselves. It is to Christ that one must look for salvation, said Dr. Luther, not inside oneself. Once the religious subjectivism of the medieval church was eliminated among the Reformation countries, the energy consumed by desperately seeking and ‘earning’ salvation was turned outward, and a thousand years of intellectual, political, social, economic, and religious stagnation ended.

The Reformation gave us the Scriptures in the common tongues. The Bible was the written constitution of the church. It limited the power and authority of church leadership and made them accountable to the membership. The people could now read for themselves the proper role of the clergy and the church.

The death and resurrection of Christ had guaranteed free access of all believers to God. Justification came only by grace through faith, not through baptism, nor through the mass, nor any other sacrament, and certainly not through good works. The Reformation rebirthed the idea of the priesthood of all believers, and it became the foundation for modern political democracy; that is, the equality of all men before God and the law.

The pre-Reformation structure of ecclesiastical authority would not withstand the Protestant idea of sola scriptura; the doctrine that the Bible alone is the authority for faith and practice in the churches. A Christian man with a Bible was superior to any pope or council or tradition without it. The Bible was translated into the common tongues so the people could read it in their own language and not be subject to the ecclesiastical ruling class and freeing the people from ecclesiastical totalitarianism.

The Bible was the written constitution of the church. It limited the power and authority of church leadership and made them accountable to the people. The people could now read for themselves the proper role of the clergy and the church.

Consider the origin of constitutionalism; a written covenant founded in revealed truth and agreed upon for the mutual good of lawful men. Did the idea of a written constitution exist before the Reformation? Consider that there is a direct connection between the Reformation cry of sola scriptura and the American idea of the Constitution. The rule of law is a Biblical idea applied to the state in the outworking of Reformed Theology.