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Can You Have A Republic?

In today’s America we hear constantly about the separation of church and state. It matters not that those words are found neither in the Declaration of Independence nor in the Constitution. Somehow, we have taken a statement written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists in the state of Connecticut and have warped it into a truism the Founders never intended.

But is it really realistic to believe that we can operate a government without a belief system at all? When we say religious faith, we tend to think of a belief in a Supreme Being. However, religious faith doesn’t necessarily entail believing in the spiritual forces around us. Religious faith can be “a cause, principle, system of tenets held with ardor, devotion, conscientiousness, and faith:  a value held to be of supreme importance,” according to Merriam-Webster. In that sense, religious faith can mean humanism, secularism, liberalism, atheism, conservatism, or whatever one holds to be of supreme importance around which to base one’s life decisions. It doesn’t necessarily have to include a deity.

When we realize that we all believe in something (whether that something is nothing at all matters not), we begin to see that some type of belief system is naturally going to influence the way government and mankind interact. What drives that belief system is what determines the type of government a society will have.

When it comes to our Republic, our founding documents and the thought processes that went into producing them show a belief system underpinning the entire basis that understood the inherent freedom that all men have to live and achieve as they see fit within the boundaries of moral law. They believed that while government was a necessary construct man must endure, it should always be constrained and tempered by the citizenry. It was the value they placed on the individual that allowed them to achieve this. But where did this belief come from?

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Many point to an age of enlightenment and reasoning that was the fertile soil in which these ideas flourished at the time. They talk about mankind coming out of the Dark Ages of superstition and religiosity and into an Age of Reason. However, was the Enlightenment really the catalyst for our country’s founding?

In a word? No. Enlightenment and reason without God culminate in the nihilism of Nietzsche. It was the enlightenment and the truth of the Gospel of Christ which allowed people to stand up to despotic kings and queens and a papacy that had been bought in order to achieve a freedom they believed came from God. It was the Protestant Reformation and the desire for religious freedom that pushed the Pilgrims to risk their lives and fortunes to settle a new world. It was the Bible and Judeo-Christian ethics that saw the inherent value in each person and the God who ordered their days. No other faith system can claim this belief and that’s why no other faith system can properly keep us grounded in the original intent of our Founders.

When we lose the underpinnings of what created us, we lose the foundation of our country. And when the foundation is gone, the Republic crumbles.

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One comment

  1. Your articles on history, education, political thought, etc. are very enjoyable and educational. Keep up
    the great work!

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