Is Secular Government a Good Thing?
SWHB SS Class 10:am (audio temporarily downloadable here
[John's comments in brackets]
[Def: sec·u·lar adjective
denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis.
Defining crimes and their respective punishments can only flow from the sense of good and evil that comes from the above-mentioned religious or spiritual basis. This has to mean that secular is not an adjective that we can apply to government. Civil government by very nature and definition must always be religious. The only questions that remain to be worked out are:
Which religion will define law: i.e morality, good, evil, crime, and punishment?
Which practices by other religions will be punished as crimeby that religion-dominated law?]
1:44 Adrian: Why would I, as a Christian believe in a free market more than a secular person who might be a socialist? I am having a hard time answering that, honestly.....
[Maybe because the only alternative to a free market is a coerced market. It is tough because the Church has ignored God's directives concerning economics and law for over 100 years, partly by announcing that the parts of the Bible that speak to those topics (like Exodus, Deuteronomy) are irrelevant for this period of history.]
3:47 John: What does “secular” mean?
Adrian: So, ah, secularism as I'm going to look at it today is simply a matter of..I would say that's...the Lack of religion affecting your..... lack of the transcendent affecting your belief system. So I would say secularism is a rejection of religious foundation, and living a life in a sense w/o religion.....
I'm going to talk about mostly America today.....when America becomes more secular, they're kinda rejecting Christianity.
[Just like there is no such thing as the presence or absence of faith. Everybody has to believe something is transcendent, something has to be Previous. There is only faith in one thing instead of another. Some have faith that someone said, “let there be a big bang”. Some have faith in the Genesis record. Everyone has a sense of “strongest”. Everyone has a sense of “goodest”. So, Where is your concept of “good” coming from and who are the human beings that are representing that view? Why are they the authority? Why are they “right”? It ultimately comes down to who will judge.]
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31:30 Adrian: What I want to do over the next week or two...just attack some of these things. Our Christian faith is an amazing thing. It teaches a certain thing and then you are actually able to go out into the society and see how it affects it. So secularism is a great example. We as Christians say we want to make as many people Christian as possible because it will improve society, for one, and as people leave the church, you saw what happened to society. [KaBlooie] So I want to look at these one by one and give you an example of what it looks like....
33:16 Herb, Before you get into this could I...
One of the fundamental things I think we have a hard time keeping track of is whether there is an actual dividing line between the sacred and secular. Because part of what is going on, nowadays, is … well there is the sacred sphere, which is what you do on Sunday Morning, and the secular sphere which is what you do the other 6 days of the week. And a lot of Christians if they are serious about their faith, or any religious group for that matter, would say, “No, I worship God on Sunday morning, I worship Him at work on Monday, and I worship Him when I am hanging out with my kids, on Tuesday night, and, so ….Part of it is a false...potentially a false divide which allows some of this ….to get the discussion going off in the wrong direction, and that's why, nowadays, for example, there is more discussion about freedom of worship. You don't have freedom of religion because you can't bring religion in to a public conversation. But will it allow you to have freedom of “worship” on Sunday morning, but don't bring what you did Sunday morning to any place else on Monday and that's part of what's going on.
33:30 Yeah, and I want to address that, actually. When I say secular society, I'm not talking about government. I think secular government is a good thing...from this standpoint – I don't want my government having an established religion. The Constitution is very clear about that. And that's a good thing. I don't want..the Methodists to suddenly have their particular flavor and be able to impose any sort of religious standings..on the Baptists, or the Muslims or any of those people..This is a fantastic idea to keep the government secular in the sense that it does not establish a religion. However, I believe secular society – individuals – if more and more of them become secular – it's a bad thing.
[The legend is that the Founding Fathers assumed “rule of law” could only mean God's law from the Bible, since there can be no objective, non-contradictory, intellectually-defensible alternative. The problem is, that the twisted view of “natural law”, which denied Biblical authority and Trinity (i.e. Jesus is God, lawgiver, judge, and emperor), was gaining the upper hand during the time the Constitution was ratified. There was a semi-secret society that pretended that there were fundamental, self-evident, ancient, and universal moral principles that were common (remember “self-evident”?) among all denominations of Christianity, Islam, Hindu, Satanists, and every other possible brand of 'religion' espoused by humans. Our confusion to the present day stems – at the same time – admitting that this world-view of “moral principles” is a religion, yet is not a religion, or at least it is a religion of an entirely different species that must dictate to all other religions which actions will be permitted and which actions will be punished as criminal.
34:14 John. Has there ever been a government in the history of the human race that has not been religious?
Adrian: Umm, that's a good question. So, yes, you have plenty of examples of ….
John: There's times, in your talk, when you say “religious”, you mean a system of thought, or a worldview that defines what's good and what's evil, what's right and what's wrong
Adrian. In society, yeah, exactly, the cultural milieu.
John: in law...it has to decide what is good, and what is bad in terms of the way you define crimes and punishments, and so, do you mean...now you have already defined secular as being non-Christian.....
Adrian, no, Non-Religious, so in America it tends to mean non-Christian,
John:...but see, your worldview...viewpoint, like Herb will point out,...there is no such thing as a non-religious viewpoint. Everything is religious....
Adrian: I understand that. Yes, yes.
John:...even your atheist – you taught us in the last class, they are very religious...they have a concept of evil and good.
Adrian: Right, and here is what I mean by that, and it is tough, you really have to get down to the divide, for example, I would never want to say, because I believe that adultery is a sin, I would never say we are going to arrest the adulterer.
John: Why not?
Adrian: and this is where I think secular society is a good thing. Or, another example, I believe homosexuality (acts?) is a sin, but I would never break into someone's bedroom and arrest them because they are being...practicing homosexuality, that....allowing to cross that line becomes a very dangerous place, because then you've got..which particular theology, you don't believe this one, I believe that one, the granularity of that is scary. What I think is secular society is that, in terms of government, the secular government is the idea that you are going to protect people's property and their rights. That is a religious idea, your rights. People have their rights....
John: 36:16 You will take away their property if they smoke...but not if they are a homosexual [i.e. for homosexual acts]?
Adrian: So what I am saying is that secular government is a good thing, because I don't think they have to tell me A, B, or C about the way of my behavior, unless it starts to impede upon someone else's rights, so that's what I would say …..I don't want government to impose that. I want us as religious people to keep each other accountable for that, and to teach that that is a good thing. I want to teach that adultery is a sin. I don't want the government to come and impose that. That's my personal thing, I'm gonna...that's what I mean when I say secular society is a good thing, as compared to secular government [means secular government is a good thing – secular society is a bad thing]
John:36:58 So only Non-Christian governments are good?
Adrian: no, no not Non-Christian....
John: But that is what you mean by secular.
Woman: ….they can't force their every little detail of a religious belief on us. I mean even God gives us free will. God lets us sin (meaning without directing government to punish us for sins which shouldn't be defined as crimes) if we so chose to.
Adrian: I don't want to give the government that power, even though I might believe my view is right -- I don't want to give the government enough power to do that...to decide the granularity of people's religious beliefs and so on. Or even their behavior that is not an issue of property in the sense of theft or murder or regulation or things like that....so this is a giant discussion I don't want to jump into it at this point because it is such a Big..... [37:50 skipping]
…...My argument is that Secular society does ill.....it is a very bad thing for society to become secular. Government is one thing, I want the government to stay secular, but my society, I want to be very religious...crazy fundamentalists, like us.
Skipping …..
Herb: 38:45 Even the terminology we are talking about...that's part of the reason this problem has developed because what it really boils down to is what institutions help define the values of the society...
[Adrian is hoping that if the Church does a good job of discipling, that a strong Christian worldview will dominate the culture (Very religious/fundamentalists). How would the Institutions operate to define the values of that society?
What kind of crimes would such a society punish?
What would they do with murderers?
What would they do with those who murdered the most innocent- and helpless possible humans?
What would they do with thieves?
What would they do to a man who stole your wife?
What would they do with a man who kidnapped and “outraged” your wife?]
A; Yes, that's a great point.
Herb:...And so, This gets back to the sacred/secular divide because that buys into the notion that there is a sacred and a secular...which is giving away too much I think..
(2nd reel)...reflects that there are certain institutional forces at work, and politics follows culture, so wherever the culture derives its values, that tends to become the dominant institution that regulates things.
Adrian: That's a good point, I want, you're right, I want the Church to drive the values of our nation – not the laws, necessarily, in the sense that we are going to impose our particular flavor...but, Yes, I wish that people, how to say this, who was it? one of the founding fathers, maybe even Jefferson, who wasn't necessarily a Christian, said that, it's tough to have a self-governing society w/o religious institutions because of this...because the more you self-govern..if you've got an immoral society, you have to impose more and more laws upon them to keep them from destroying each other, and so, John Adams! Thank you. (Herb & Tom)
Because we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams: Letter to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, 11 October 1798
John: One more thing, and we should let you go on with your presentation....Ron Paul, in his farewell address to Congress admitted that none of the laws he'd ever presented for passage ever got passed but he said the secret, henceforth, is for people to realize, once more, that every law has to do with morality, and there is no morality except what is defined by religion, and homeschoolers are the hope of the nation.
[What follows are some quotes that try to point out the contradictions we are blind to when we think there is any place to stand in our thinking that is non-religious, or that there is such a thing as secular/non-religious viewpoint that can define good or bad, right and wrong – references where I highlight words that indicate that some moral system defined by a religious worldview is shaping what men thing about good and evil, truth and error, sin and crime. It makes no sense to me why the Church only seeks an “equal place at the table” in a secular system, as if finite, sinful human beings counting votes of “democratic” opinion can determine how Jesus will judge the living and the dead. It is not about who gets to sit at the table, it is about Who sits on the throne as judge.
Ex. 23:1 “You shall not bear a false report; do not join your hand with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. 2 You shall not follow the masses in doing evil, nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after a multitude in order to pervert justice; 3 nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his dispute.
It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.
Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/joseph_stalin.html#WGqDGT25GuddpQh1.99
Watch how Roosevelt contradicts himself by saying creed/religion should have nothing to do with politics/law yet uses such grand religious terms to praise the Righteousness of American Imperialism to police the world and “save” society! Then there are selected excerpts from Ron Paul's Farewell Address. Notice how he rubs our noses in the reality that moral principles (which have to derive from religion) drive everything in politics and law.]
Ann Barnhardt, Roman Catholic, July 2012 in comparison lecture on the Vendee Pt 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib49I4wYw7I
11:55
“....we don't compromise, there is no democracy in terms of good and evil. We do not vote to decide what is true and what is not true. we do not vote to decide what is good and what is evil. truth and good are objective realities. In fact truth and good are constitutive qualities of God himself. We don't vote on this. We don't vote.”
[anonymous quote from internet]
"A lie doesn't become truth, wrong doesn't become right and evil doesn't become good, just because it is accepted by a majority."
Eric Metaxas, with Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer, senior pastor of The Moody Church
The Role Of The Church In Our Culture
http://www.moodychurch.org/watch-online/role-church-our-culture/
14:50
(On religious freedom)
“It doesn't mean that the government is meant to be secular. A lot of people talk about separation of Church and State as though that means the government is supposed to be secular. It is vile nonsense. Could I put in in stronger terms without cursing? I don't think so. It's absurd that the government is meant to be somehow secular. That's just simply not true. You can say I don't agree with it, but the fact is, that's what the founders meant. You can disagree with them, but that's what they meant. …. that government is supposed to take a Pro-Church attitude, a Pro-Religious attitude, a Pro-....but never to take sides and to say everybody in Massachusetts must be Baptist or everybody in Georgia must be congregationalist, or....never to take sides...”
[goes on further to explain the government is not to take sides within Christian denominations. I think he is trying to say government is to be exercised from a Biblical/Protestant worldview – but still somewhat confusing.]
Theodore Roosevelt, speaking to the Knights of Columbus, Carnegie Hall, NY 10/12/1915, in the book Fear God and Take Your Own Part
p. 358,359 Our nation was founded to perpetuatedemocraticprinciples. These principles are that each man is to be treated on his worth as a man without regard to the land from which his forefathers came and without regard to the creed which he professes.....Our duty is to secure each man against any injustice by his fellows.
One of the most important things to secure for him is the right to hold and to express the religious views that best meet his own soul needs. Any political movement directed against any body of our fellow citizens because of their religious creed is a grave offense against American principles and American institutions. It is a wicked thing either to support or to oppose a man because of the creed he professes.....
The Constitution explicitly forbids the requiring of any religious test as a qualification for holding office. To impose such a test by popular vote is as bad as to impose it by law. To vote either for or against a man because of his creed is to impose upon him a religious test and is a clear violation of the spirit of the Constitution......
We must recognize that it is a cardinal sin against democracy to support a man for public office because he belongs to a given creed or to oppose him because he belongs to a given creed......True Americanism demands that we judge each man on his conduct, that we so judge him in private life, and that we so judge him in public life.....
Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States.
p. 372 But let us never forget that the most important of all things is to introduce universal [Federal] military service.....Pay heed to the three principal essentials:
1. The need of a common language, English, with a minimum amount of illiteracy;
2. the need of a common civil standard, similar ideals, beliefs and customs symbolized by the oath of allegiance to America; and
3. the need of a highstandard of living, of reasonable equality of opportunity and of social and industrial justice.
All of us, no matter from what land our parents came, no matter in what way we may severally worship our Creator, must stand shoulder to shoulder in a united America for the elimination of race and religious prejudice. We must stand for a reign of equal justice to both big and small. We must insist on the maintenance of the American standard of living. We must stand for an adequate national control......
This great work can only be done by a mighty democracy, with those qualities of soul, guided by those qualities of mind which will both make it refuse to do injustice to any other nation, and also enable it to hold its own against aggression by any other nation......
In our relations with the outside world, we must abhor wrongdoing, and disdain to commit it, and we must no less disdain the baseness of spirit which tamely submits to wrongdoing.
p. 349 The democraticideal must be that of subordinating chaos to order, of subordinating the individual to the community, of subordinating individual selfishness to collective self-sacrifice for a lofty ideal, of training every man to realize that no one is entitledto citizenship in a great free commonwealth unless he does his full duty to his neighbor, his full duty in his family life, and his full duty to the nation, and unless he is prepared to do this duty not only in time of peace but also in time of war.
http://www.keepandshare.com/discuss/22307/comments-on-ron-paul-farewell-address-to-congress-nov-2012?srch=y
The Financial Crisis Is a Moral Crisis
Many are now acknowledging that a financial crisis looms but few understand it’s, in reality, a moral crisis. It’s the moral crisis that has allowed our liberties to be undermined and permits the exponential growth of illegal government power. Without a clear understanding of the nature of the crisis it will be difficult to prevent a steady march toward tyranny and the poverty that will accompany it.
Because it’s the government that initiates force, most people accept it as being legitimate. Those who exert the force have no sense of guilt. It is believed by too many that governments are morally justified in initiating force supposedly to “do good.” They incorrectly believe that this authority has come from the “consent of the people.”
Limiting Government Excesses vs. a VirtuousMoral People
Our Constitution, which was intended to limit government power and abuse, has failed. The Founders warned that a free society depends on a virtuous and moral people. The current crisis reflects that their concerns were justified.
Most politicians and pundits are aware of the problems we face but spend all their time in trying to reform government. The sad part is that the suggested reforms almost always lead to less freedom and the importance of a virtuous and moral people is either ignored, or not understood. The new reforms serve only to further undermine liberty. The compounding effect has given us this steady erosion of liberty and the massive expansion of debt. The real question is: if it is liberty we seek, should most of the emphasis be placed on government reform or trying to understand what “a virtuous and moral people” means and how to promote it.
If the people are unhappy with the government performance it must be recognized that government is merely a reflection of an immoral society that rejected a moral government of constitutional limitations of power and love of freedom.
The Founders were convinced that a free society could not exist without a moral people. Just writing rules won’t work if the people choose to ignore them. Today the rule of law written in the Constitution has little meaning for most Americans, especially those who work in Washington DC.
The same moral standards that individuals are required to follow should apply to all government officials. They cannot be exempt.
The ultimate solution is not in the hands of the government.
The solution falls on each and every individual, with guidance from family, friends and community.
The Constitution or more laws per se, have no value if the people’s attitudes aren’t changed.
The #1 responsibility for each of us is to change ourselves with hope that others will follow. This is of greater importance than working on changing the government; that is secondary to promoting a virtuous society. If we can achieve this, then the government will change.
Political action, to be truly beneficial, must be directed toward changing the hearts and minds of the people, recognizing that it’s the virtue and morality of the people that allow liberty to flourish.
