Filed under: academic freedom

American Education Philosophy Corrupted

Those who champion the atheistic-secular concept of open-mindedness use it to justify exclusivity for imposing their God-rejecting life view upon captive classroom students.  "Not only must school teachers and principles be 'exemplars of open-mindedness and free inquiry, but severally and collectively, they must be prepared to proclaim their faith in that open-mindedness and free inquiry.'"  Here we must hearken to Dewey:  "The administrator will… realize that public education is essentially education of the public: directly, through teachers and students… in the transformation of society [into a God-rejecting, socialistic society]."*

 

Atheistic-secular demands that "school teachers and principals be exemplars of open-mindedness [in] the transformation of society" undermine the moral foundations of civil society.  The justification for a tax on the people for education, in a representative republic, requires that the curriculum promote foundational moral boundaries.  The constitutions of the Soviet Union, China and Cuba proclaimed liberty.  But in the absence of a moral predicate providing certainties for Constitutional law--such as provided in the American Declaration of Independence and Northwest Ordinance, they rule by what Solon of Athens called "incalculable and changeable decrees."**

 

Prior to the leftist takeover, the National Education Association published God-honoring, character-building booklets for students and parents as recently as 1950.  For example, A Golden Treasury from the Bible, contained twenty-four Bible verses, including Psalm 1; Proverbs 20:1; Exodus 20 (the Ten Commandments); Romans 12; John 3:16, 6:23, 14:1-4 and 15:1-4; 1 Corinthians 13; and Ecclesiastes 12:1, "remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth."

 

In contrast to the old European secular philosophy, the American philosophy of education requires that all prominent views, including the atheistic-secular view, be introduced, but that they are taught in the context of the history of their outcomes.  This is seen in the resolution proposed by both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and adopted by the newly founded University of Virginia (see Chapter 10 of Restoring Education Central to American Greatness).  Their resolution identifies the great need of our day, stressing citizen responsibility and the need for a thorough knowledge of historic American foundations.

 

The education guidelines set forth for the University of Virginia emphasize that "all students shall be 'inculcated' with the basic American principles for government," and, "None should be inculcated which are incompatible with those on which the Constitution of this States, and of the United States were genuinely based, in the common opinion."  The resolution also stated that the faculty had a standard of responsibility and were required to teach affirmatively these unique American principles.  Only after they had done so were they to teach the conflicting principles as such, judging them by the soundness of the American principles that served as a basis.***  These principles are detailed in Chapter 10 of Restoring Education Central to American Greatness.

 

Faithful school boards and administrators take seriously the fact that youthful trust, inexperience and vulnerability to exploitation by the enemies of the family and self-government require that the learning environment be protected.  God has given mankind a wonderful mind to use and explore the universe, with but one exception:  we are not to use our minds to absorb the details and wiles (deceptive snares) of evil (Genesis 3:13; Isaiah 5:15-16, 20; Romans 16:19; and James 1:12-17).

 

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*James Allen Johnson, "A Note on Academic Freedom: Schoolmen Must Declare Their Faith," Phi Delta Kappan, 44:185-88 (January, 1963), in Robert Hoffman, Foundations of American Education (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1970), 192.

**Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization, vol. 2, The Life of Greece (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1939), 118.

***Nathaniel F. Cabell, Early History of the University of Virginia as contained in the "Letters of Thomas Jefferson and Joseph B. Cabell" (n.p.: Richmond, Virginia, 1856), 339.  Repeated in Hamilton Albert Long, The American Ideal of 1776, Your American Heritage Books, 141-44, 147.

 

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The Emergence of Teacher Tenure Law

Teacher tenure law was brought from Europe to America with the founding of the American Association of University Professors in 1915.  Their first president, Professor John Dewey (1859-1952) was a published atheist.  Dewey reminded conferees, "To have failed to undertake these initial demands would have been cowardly."*

 

The abuse of academic freedom and teacher tenure guarantees is rooted in the old European secular philosophy.  John S. Brubacher and Willis Rudy point out that, when Darwinian advocates coupled their "origin and destiny of man" theory with the authoritarianism of "German graduate methods [faculty independence]… academic freedom became a cause celebrate [highly controversial]."**  According to Darwinian militants, "There is no fixed limit or perfect form of knowledge and, that on the contrary, truth is always tentative."***

 

The harmful impact of teacher tenure guarantees arises from the use of law (government power) to shelter teachers from accountability to the public for what they teach.  "The obligations of the teacher are direct to truth, and the teacher who, in order to please anybody, suppresses important information, or says things he knows are not true, or refrains from saying things that need to be said in the interest of truth, betrays his calling and renders himself unworthy to belong to the company of teachers."****

 

John Dewey is recognized as a key leader of the Teachers Union, Local 5, which was organized in 1916 as an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) in New York City.  The union's principal target was the repeal of the Lusk Laws, statutes that allowed for the revocation of a teacher's license "if he is not of good moral character--or if by act or utterance he shows that he will not support the Constitution of the State or of the United States of America.*****

 

This belligerent breed of social engineers gradually pushed its way into the leadership of government-administered education.  The group also included Professor John Dewey.  He was the first president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and was one of the signers of the first Humanist Manifesto.  He also served as honorary president of the National Education Association (NEA) after it came under leftist control.

 

These authoritarians demand taxpayer-funded tenure guarantees, the means to finance and empower their war against citizen self-rule and liberty.  To achieve their goal, they must have the freedom to turn the minds of students away from the beliefs of their parents and traditional American values.

 

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*John S. Brubacher and Willis Rudy, Higher Education Transition (New York: Harper and Row, 1958), 310.

**Ibid., 296.

***Ibid., 306.

****W. T. Couch, Academic Freedom (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 1995), 1; quoted at a conference titled "Fifty Years After Russell Kirk's Academic Freedom:  The Future of the Liberal Arts in America," Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan, February 2-6, 2005.

*****Kheel Center for Labor Management, Teachers Union of the City of New York. Records, 1921-42, Collection Number: 5445, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY, http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/KCL05445.html

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A Celebration of Liberty

"Be it remembered, however, that liberty must at all hazards be supported … cannot be preserved without a vernal knowledge among the people…  And the preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks, is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country.  The people … have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know."*  This is from the 1765 Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, by John Adams.  He was a devout Christian, a Harvard-educated lawyer and a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses that adopted the Declaration of Independence.  He was the second president of the United States.  Adams' wife, Abigail, has been recognized as a Founding Mother because of her influence on behalf of women's rights.  Their son, John Quincy Adams, was the sixth president of the United States.

 

Are we as citizen taxpayers willing to forfeit our liberty, the teaching of essential knowledge, as a courtesy to union bosses and tenured secular militants who have rejected American history, the traditional family, public morality and representative government?  AS EDUCATION GOES, SO GOES A NATION.

 

On July 3, 1776, John Adams wrote the following to his wife, Abigail:  “The second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America.  I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival.  It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.  It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more” (cited by David McCullough, John Adams, New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2001, 130).

 

On July 4, 1787, consistent with the nationwide custom, Philadelphia celebrated the Declaration of Independence with bell ringing, marching with fife and drums, the salute of guns and speeches.  It was Wednesday, and the constitutional delegates had taken the day off.  That "The Grand Convention may form a constitution for an eternal Republic!" was the toast of the day.  The Pennsylvania Herald declared, "With zeal and confidence we expect from the Federal Convention a system of government adequate to the security and preservation of those rights which were promulgated by the ever memorable Declaration of Independence."  

 

No more rule by pretender gods -- Samuel Adams is quoted as saying, "We have this day [Fourth of July] restored the Sovereign [the God of creation] to whom all men ought to be obedient.  He reigns in Heaven, and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His Kingdom come."*


Fireworks2

*http://www.usachristianministries.com/us-history-quotes-about-god-and-the-bible/

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Tighten Up the Language

Let's tighten up the language and clear the air about the basics for public education.  The language of secular open-mindedness along with Darwinian origin and meaning of life have proven to be diabolical enemies of the rule of law.  The underpinning for the rule of law rests in the July 4, 1776 Declaration that gave birth to the United States of America.  All men "… are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."  The Declaration of Independence is universal and immortal in scope.  Along with the Declaration, the citizen's Bill of Rights (of which government employees cannot legitimately violate) added later to the Constitution provides the design.  The Constitution is the tool for implementing that design.

 

Appellate court judges need not bow down to atheistic secular legalese.  The impartial non-sectarian Supreme role of a Higher Authority, emphasized in the Declaration, is justifiably appropriate when writing a court opinion.

 

It is needful that we reject the spirit of rebellion and enjoin the spirit of truth that empowers man to storm the strongholds of evil.  It is spiritual wisdom that enabled this nation to become the most blessed civilization in history.  The restoration of spiritual glory--the potential to reassert our culture's values of freedom, education, prosperity and truth--is at hand.

 

Using twisted renderings of the Bill of Rights, leftist lawyers and tenured radicals in education have forced Americans--good teachers, as well as the citizen majority--into submission.  They terrorize by denigrating the reputation of teachers who dare to disagree and endangering the financial solvency of those who must hire expensive lawyers to defend traditional American values.  Secular militants have shut down ideological competition by preventing religious, political and academic freedom on many campuses throughout the nation.  Militants who oppose citizen self-reliance and limited government in America are effectively muting the voices of tens of millions of concerned citizens.

 

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Exegesis of the Constitution

 

The importance of firmness in retaining the original meaning of the Constitution for judiciary, legislative and administrative separation merits repeated emphasis.  The duty of unelected judges is to settle disputes based upon the Constitution and Precedents consistent with the Constitution.  Responding to the question, "Is there a role for politics in our judicial system?" Atonin Scalia, who has now served for over twenty years on the Supreme Court, said:  "The absolute worst violation of a judge's oath is to decide a case based on a partisan principle or philosophical basis, rather than what the law [states]."*

 

Prior to the Everson v. Board of Education decision in 1947, the First Amendment protected religious liberty.  Liberals going to court to get the Ten Commandments removed from public property would have been wasting their time.  A disruptive student who objects to the statement "Jesus is the reason for the season" on t-shirts in the public school would not have threatened a lawsuit.  The force of government was on the side of the people's civic right to use their institutions, including public education, to proclaim belief in the nonsectarian God of creation.

 

The First Amendment upholds the unalienable right of the people to share their religious beliefs and make comparisons.  With this knowledge they can then choose what appears to be best.  This competition between the religions strengthens the Higher Authority "government of laws, and not of men" consensus among voters.

 

"On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed" (June 12, 1823, Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography Notes on the State of Virginia, Public and Private Papers, Addresses and Letters, New York: The Library of American, 1984).

 

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*V.P. Price "Are There Too Many Lawyers?" Parade, September 14, 2008, 9.

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John Adams: A Government of Laws and Not of Men

John Adams used the words "government of laws, and not of men" when he wrote the Bill of Rights for the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780.*  The preamble to the Massachusetts Constitution includes:  "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."  The Massachusetts Bill of Rights goes on to read like the principles in the non-sectarian Creator-based Declaration of Independence.**

 

In contrast, a government "of men" rests upon revisionist morality, which makes the Constitution meaningless.  Contemporary liberals who reject the God-honoring meaning for "government of laws, and not of men" are aided by militant atheists, who not only reject "government of law," but work feverishly to eliminate all references to God in education and public discourse.  Described by Solon of Athens as "government by incalculable and changeable decrees," the religious justification for revisionist morality is a strongly held belief about life's origin, meaning and purpose:  atheistic Darwinism.***  Sold as absolute science, the demand for education exclusivity is, in reality, the religion of scientific fascism.  Liberals are constantly revising Darwin's theory because the absurdity of their science is continually being exposed.  The underlying cause of the anger and militancy for their demands becomes clear.  They must prevent any ideological competition in the taxpayer-funded classroom.  Secular militants must have total control in order to dumb the students down.

 

Elected representatives make laws and serve by the "consent of the governed," who are "endowed by their Creator" with certain unalienable rights.  This claim reaches the very heart of American society and law.  Conservative Supreme Court justices have cited the Declaration as support for their decisions over two hundred times.  The Federalist Papers, written to promote acceptance of the Constitution by the people, cited the Declaration thirty-seven times.

 

When confronting the greatest crisis since the War for Independence, Abraham Lincoln turned to the Declaration to assert the "sacred right of self-government."****

 

When the Founding Fathers undertook a long war for independence, the did not dither, knowing full well that there were huge problems such as slavery and harmful citizen voting restrictions.  Citizen awareness, prayer and the Declaration of Independence resonates with people and by the grace of God those problems in 1776 were remedied.  With citizen awareness, which we are working on, and prayer, the cancer of socialistic paternalism can be removed.

 

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John Adams

2nd President of the United States

1735 - 1826

 

*www2.bartleby.com/73/991.html

**http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/Constitution#cp00s00.htm

***Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization, Vol. II, The Life of Greece, Simon and Schuster, 1939, 118. 

****Abraham Lincoln, October 10, 1854, Peoria, Illinois, http://www.nps.gov/liho/historyculture/peoriaspeech.htm

 

 

John Marshall: A Government of Laws and Not of Men

A related cause of judicial incompetence is the foolishness of judges who have closeted the true role of the nation's basis for law--the non-sectarian Biblical principles of the Declaration of Independence.

 

John Marshall wrote the landmark 1803 Marbury v. Madison opinion that inaugurated the concept of judicial review.  He served as chief justice of the Supreme Court from February 4, 1801 to July 4, 1835.  Marshall saw the importance of biblical morality in civic affairs as did the other Founding Fathers.

 

When writing the Marbury v. Madison opinion, Marshall said:  "The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men… That the people have an original right to establish, for their future government, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness, is the basis, on which the whole American fabric has been erected.  The principles, therefore, so established, are deemed fundamental.  And as the authority, from which they proceed, is supreme, and can seldom act, they are designed to be permanent."*

 

The meaning and intent of Chief Justice Marshall's statement--"The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men"--is clear.  "The government of laws" is based upon impartial Higher Authority moral law, "and not of men."  The benefit is that "government of laws, and not of men" is anchored in the timeless principles revealed by Scripture and proven beneficial in the American experience.  This stands in contrast to arbitrary rule and oppression that follow governments "of men," meaning rule by privileged authoritarians.  Application of this basic understanding preserves the all-important predicate for the safe and impartial application of government power.  It is the "rule of law," emphasized by Moses, that identifies with the desirable outcomes that prevail over circumstances and diverse cultural environments.

 

The rule or "government of laws" occurs when the voting sovereigns base their preferences for government on the wisdom that is available from the Creator and the self-evident boundaries of creation's nature.  The people then elect like-minded representatives to serve as lawmakers.  In contrast, self-righteous liberals, especially law professors who are given captive audiences (not held accountable to those who pay their salaries), fool people by teaching them that God has no relevance.  Citizens and judges must reject the wisdom of creation's God.  Then hierarchical elites slip into the vacuum as god, and society experiences the tyranny of the rule or "government of man."

 

John Marshall's Higher Authority basis for rejecting the atheistic secular government "of men" also concurs in full with the public standard of Benjamin Franklin whose call for prayer was adopted by the delegates at the Constitutional Convention.  In this regard, Henry Steele Commager, eminent historian of the twentieth century, points to the Creator-based Declaration of Independence as the source of America's unique principles of government, and refers to America's new political system for the vindication of God-given rights as "matchless logic" and of "permanent" rather than "transient" value.**

 

Unabashed belief in the providence of the universal and impartial God of creation, as a political principle, is fully American.  This was the source of the courage of the Founding Fathers when risking confrontation by the greatest military force on earth at the time.  The Higher Authority standard for morality in matters of law is indelibly written in American history:  "The Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions… And for the support of this Declaration [of Independence], with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

 

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*http://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/democrac/9.htm

**Henry Steele Commager, forward to McGuffey's Sixth Reader (New York: The American Library, 1962), xiv.

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Government by Written and Permanent Law: Stability vs Manipulation

The most significant correction that came with the American Revolution was that citizens themselves were recognized as sovereigns under God over government.  In the United States, people looked to creation's God for higher authority.  The First Amendment rejection of power, claimed by government authoritarians, kings, academians, clergy, etc., unleashed competition for religion, education and speech among the people that enabled America to become the greatest nation in world history.

 

William Ellery Channing wrote, "Erase all thought and fear of God from a community, and selfishness and sensuality would absorb the whole man.  Appetite knowing no restraint, and poverty and suffering having no solace or hope, man would trample in scorn on the restraints of human laws.  Virtue, duty, principle would be moved and scorned as unmeaning sounds.  A sordid self-interest would supplant every feeling, and man would become… a companion of brutes."*

 

"Government by written and permanent law" is not complicated.  No matter what one's religion, birthright or political view, the principles of the Declaration and universal absolutes shown here clearly distinguish right from wrong.  Stealing property that belongs to another is violating an unalienable right upon which liberty depends.  Adultery is a violation of the sacred obligations of marriage and family, creating stress and shortening life.  Dishonesty cheats the victim out of an unalienable, God-given right and undermines the reliable communication upon which commerce and community depend.  Deliberately stopping the heart of an unborn child is an horrific offense to the God of life as well as to society.

 

How then can the people protect themselves from cavalier authoritarians who manipulate changes in laws that enable radicals to dumb down students and, by extension, over time, manipulate society?

 

Historians Will and Ariel Durant pointed out Solon of Athens' recognition of the critical procedural choice that is directly related to limiting the options for political deception.  Do we insist upon "government by written and permanent law," or do we permit "government by incalculable and changeable decrees?"**

 

Impressions of Solon of Athens and other lawmakers from different cultures, with the focus on Moses and the Ten Commandments, are displayed on the Supreme Court building in Washington, DC.  Although Solon did not support his understanding with references to the Old Testament for reliable standards, he did recognize the ongoing dangers of deception by authoritarians who manage to dominate soft sciences.

 

"Government by written and permanent law" provides long-term stability.  Mankind is protected from short-lived popular fantasies and preserved from the inroads of political deception.  Secular elitists who insist that the American charter for the use of government power is a "living constitution" now artfully advance "government by incalculable and changeable decrees."  To retain respect for the family and liberty, the Constitution must be anchored to the political truth adopted by the Founding Fathers.

 

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*William Ellery Channing, 1820, The Great Doctrine of Retribution: The Founders' Views of the Social Utility of Religion, cited by James H. Hutson in a presentation to the John Courtney Murray Seminar at the American Enterprise Institute, 1150 Seventeenth Street, NW, Washington, DC, June 6, 2000.

**Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization, the Solon of Athens "government by incalculable and changeable decrees" Vol. II, The Life of Greece, 1939, 118.

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Finding the Place of Personal Faith in Government

The two classifications of religion, civic and personal, can live openly side by side.  The fact that Americans are free to share their personal religious convictions in public is indispensable.  Different beliefs can then be known, evaluated and decided upon by individuals.  Citizens are to be trusted with this freedom to know and choose.  This is to be respected.

 

The morality in one's personal faith and beliefs about education, government, politics and law are inseparable.  Personal faith is primary, and the nonsectarian American civic religion which is so vital to public education is the composite result.  The purity of America's civic religion that advances individual liberty is totally dependent on religious freedom, which in turn requires freedom from intimidation by government-established ideologues (educators, clergy, etc.).

 

The Founding Fathers were not only avid Creationists; they were members of many different church denominations, and the vast majority of them were, in their personal faith, born-again Christians.*

 

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature:

old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

2 Corinthians 5:17

 

For you have been "born again, not of corruptible seed,

but of incorruptible, by the word of God,

which liveth and abideth for ever."

1 Peter 1:23

 

The Founding Fathers who adopted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution came from eleven Christian groups that held different views about church ordinances, baptism, communion, church polity, discipline, worship and so on.  Alexander Hamilton said in an essay published soon after the Constitutional Convention adjourned: "For my own part, I sincerely esteem it a system, which, without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests."**  Madison expressed the same belief in The Federalist No. 37.

 

"Hast thou not known?  Hast thou not heard, [that] the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?  [There is] no searching of his understanding.  He giveth power to the faint; and to [them that have] no might he increaseth strength."

Isaiah 10:28-29

 

Colonial churches were clearly Biblical.  Schools such as Harvard and the local public grade schools were Bible-based and evangelical.  Noah Webster (1758-1843), a contributor to the Constitution and widely acknowledged as the most influential educator for over a hundred years, unabashedly proclaimed his conversion to Christ during a campus revival at Yale.***

 

Webster, who was skilled in six languages, published the American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828.  In 1833, he said, "It is extremely important to our nation, in a political as well as religious view, that all possible authority and influence should be given to the scriptures, for these furnish the best principles of civil liberty and the most effectual support of republican [meaning republic] government."

 

Public school students must be taught to understand and appreciate the importance of the all-encompassing concept of an impartial, nonsectarian God of creation's nature.  This is America's civic religion.  Inculcation, however, in the personal faith relating to worship and a denomination's specific religious doctrine must not be allowed to become a function of government education.

 

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*http://www.adherents.com/gov/Founding_Fathers_Religion.html

**http://www.zeios.com/OurRepublic/Author/22

***http://www.yalestandard.com/tidbits/voices-of-yales-past/

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Note:  In the Judeo-Christian Bible, we learn of the personal faith shared by many different Christian denominations:  "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved" (John 3:16-17).

 

Justice and grace meet at the cross of Calvary, where the price of sin was paid by Christ, Who loves us more than we love ourselves (see also Romans 5:8-9; 10:9-13 for more context of the phrase "born again").  When individuals acknowledge their need for forgiveness and humbly accept God's gift of salvation from the penalty of sin, a divine God-to-man cooperative becomes a reality.

 

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America's Civic Religion in Light of Its Judges

In times past, our nation's judges recognized that America has a civic religion.  In 1952, Justice William O. Douglas wrote, "We are a religious people and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being."*  Civic religion is different than the personal faith of individuals--their manner of worship, fellowship and practice.

 

American courts and judges honored the benevolent providence of God unabashedly.  "On Monday last the Circuit Court [Portsmouth, NH, May 24, 1800] of the United States was opened in this town.  The Hon. Judge Paterson presided.  After the Jury was impaneled, the Judge delivered a most elegant and appropriate charge…  Religion and morality were pleasingly inculcated and enforced as being necessary to good government, good order, and good laws, for 'when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice [Proverbs 29:2]'…  After the charge was delivered, the Rev. Mr. [Timothy] Alden addressed the Throne of Grace in an excellent, well adapted prayer."**

 

In 1892, the Supreme Court of the United States cited eighty-seven precedents and proclaimed:  "Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of Mankind.  It is impossible that it should be otherwise:  and in this sense and to the extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian…  This is a religious people.  This is historically true.  From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation… we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth."***

 

The Supreme Court had reviewed eighty-seven decisions for settling disputes by previous courts and they all followed Biblical principles of right and wrong.  Respect for this truth can be traced historically to the founders' Christian faith.  Human authoritarianism was rejected.  The principles of the nonsectarian God of creation, spoken of in the American Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights were viewed as supreme.

 

Legislation drafted by the United States Senate and House of Representatives adding the words "under God" to the American Pledge of Allegiance was signed by President Eisenhower in 1954.  In 1964, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the law.

 

The obligations that apply to theistic religions also apply to atheistic religions.  By refusing to admit that faith-dependent atheism is religious (concerned with beliefs about origin, meaning and purpose of life), secular militants hope to escape responsibility for civil standards of morality.  While demanding supremacy for their God-rejecting faith, they deny public freedom for the Creator-based civic creed in the soft sciences, most particularly in the study of biology, economics, American government, history and judicial foundations.  When secular militants succeed here, they then move to deny belief in God--period--even as the basis for personal faith.

 

Student understanding of American civic religion in taxpayer-funded schools is a foremost curriculum requirement.  By excluding the denominational creeds and biases that tend to be divisive, the people unify in support of governments that honor "In God We Trust" as a nonsectarian creed.

 

"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine…  Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants.  Indeed, these two sciences run into each other."

James Wilson

Signer of the Constitution

U.S. Supreme Court Justice

 

Under_god

 

 

*Zorach v. Clauson, Docket 431, citation 343 US 306, 1952.

**Barton, Original Intent, 118-19.  See also The Documentary History of the Supreme Court, Vol. III, 436.

***Ibid.

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