21: Why Is Jay Sekulow Saying No Abortion Questions For John Roberts?

[TheGeneral]

On this program, we discuss Jay Sekulow's strange view that Bush Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, in his confirmation hearing (which starts September 6), must not be asked about, and must not answer questions about, abortion or any abortion-related court decisions such as Roe v. Wade. We say this is strange because Sekulow and his organization, the "American Center For Law & Justice," have raised millions of dollars pushing the pro-life issue! We interview a Bush-worshipping cheerleader for John Roberts (it does not go well once he sees we are not also cheering for Roberts). And we discuss God and Hurricane Katrina.

Link to full article:
http://www.theamericanview.com/index.php?id=387

[Areopagus]

On this program, we discuss Jay Sekulow's strange view that Bush Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, in his confirmation hearing (which starts September 6), must not be asked about, and must not answer questions about, abortion or any abortion-related court decisions such as Roe v. Wade. We say this is strange because Sekulow and his organization, the "American Center For Law & Justice," have raised millions of dollars pushing the pro-life issue! We interview a Bush-worshipping cheerleader for John Roberts (it does not go well once he sees we are not also cheering for Roberts). And we discuss God and Hurricane Katrina.

Link to full article:
http://www.theamericanview.com/index.php?id=387
Jay Sekulow falls for the The Irrepressible Myth Of Marbury. http://www.law.northwestern.edu/mai...l%20Paulsen.pdf. The indoctrination he received at law school branded his brain to believe that the U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions supersede the U.S. Constitution, Biblical commands, and even common moral sense.

Sekulow should understand that “the first and most important thing to know about constitutional law is that it has virtually nothing to do with the Constitution,''as Dr. Leo Graglia, who is the A. Dalton Cross Professor of Law at the University of Texas law school, testified before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property, of May 15, 1997.

Sekulow, who is Jewish, should read “Between Two Holocausts” http://www.jewsforlife.org/Bonfire-News.cfm, and he should be informed that the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal convicted ten Nazi leaders for "encouraging and compelling abortions," an act which the Tribunal characterized as "a crime against humanity." As with their other crimes against humanity, the Nazis protested that "we were just following orders." Lieutenant General Richard Hildebrandt, the SS (Schutzstaffel) Chief of the RKFVD's Race and Settlement Office in Berlin, stated that "Up to now nobody had the idea to see in this interruption of pregnancy a crime against humanity.”

Sekulow has already been born, and is in no danger of being aborted; however, should the U.S. become more like Germany when Hitler ruled and public sentiment began to go against the Jews, most Jews would probably like to know the opinion of anyone who is being considered for the U.S. Supreme Court.

You can play games as long as others are marked for death, but when it comes to your own hide next in line for the state approved executioner, the debate game ends and you start to get serious.

Christian conservatives excel in vigils, letter writing, phone trees, marches, protests, prayer closets, prayer meetings, church, seminars, hand wringing, weeping, warning, biblical quotations, fund raising, finger pointing, eating, and T.V. watching, but when it comes to understanding what the WRITTEN U.S. CONSTITUITON states, and what GOD states in the BIBLE about government and murder, they endlessly repeat the indoctrination they received from their ANTI-CHRISTIAN, and ANTI-AMERICAN masters in government schools, and mainstream media.


http://www.renewamerica.us/archives/media/interviews/03_08_28farah.htm

So, if we're going to take the attitude that it's all lawful, so long as the judge says it, without any regard for what's in the law or the Constitution, then we no longer have a government of laws, we have a government of arbitrary dictatorship by the courts. That's what I don't understand. Paul Weyrich, Richard Land, Jay Sekulow, all these people acting as if the mere pronouncement by a judge is the law. Under the Constitution, no power to make law is given to the courts; that's in the hands of the legislature. And therefore, if a judge says something that has no basis in law, and that has no basis in the Constitution, it is not lawful just because he says it.

What's the purpose of having a written Constitution, if they can make it up as they go along? What's the purpose of having laws? If anything dictated by the judge will now be considered a law, we don't need legislatures, we don't need the Congress anymore, we just need the dictators who sit on the bench.

I don't understand how these folks can ignore what the Founders told us, can ignore what Jefferson said, and Adams, and others about the despotism of the judiciary if you allow them to depart from the law as written, and the Constitution as written. Hamilton talks about it in the Federalist Papers, and identifies it clearly as an offense, a high crime and misdemeanor, that is subject to impeachment.

So, under the circumstances, the notion that you should do everything a judge says--so if a judge says to kill an innocent person as they come into the courtroom, you're supposed to obey that order? Far from it. You are under an obligation, morally and otherwise, to disobey it, just like a private soldier in the Army would be, if given an unlawful order. And here's the point: how can Pat Robertson say this is lawful, when there's no federal statute, and when it is contrary to the clear, plain language of the Constitution, which leaves this matter in the hands of the state, and forbids federal authority to address it? It is an unlawful order--and unlawful orders not only should not be obeyed, they must be refused when they violate the fundamental right of the people.

[exmarine]

Jay Sekulow falls for the The Irrepressible Myth Of Marbury. http://www.law.northwestern.edu/mai...l%20Paulsen.pdf. The indoctrination he received at law school branded his brain to believe that the U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions supersede the U.S. Constitution, Biblical commands, and even common moral sense.

I assume you are an attorney. What is your assessment of the quality of education (or should I say "indoctrination") in today's law schools?

Sekulow, who is Jewish, should read “Between Two Holocausts” http://www.jewsforlife.org/Bonfire-News.cfm, and he should be informed that the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal convicted ten Nazi leaders for "encouraging and compelling abortions," an act which the Tribunal characterized as "a crime against humanity." As with their other crimes against humanity, the Nazis protested that "we were just following orders." Lieutenant General Richard Hildebrandt, the SS (Schutzstaffel) Chief of the RKFVD's Race and Settlement Office in Berlin, stated that "Up to now nobody had the idea to see in this interruption of pregnancy a crime against humanity.”

Great point. The Nazis at Nuremburg used the excuse that they were just "following orders." When men like Ashcroft and Gonzalez pledged in their confirmation hearings to enforce Roe v. Wade, i.e. that they would "follow orders," are they not making the same moral error as the Nazis at Nuremburg? Is it acceptable for a Christian to do such a thing? Were they not pledging to uphold man's evil laws over God's?


Christian conservatives excel in vigils, letter writing, phone trees, marches, protests, prayer closets, prayer meetings, church, seminars, hand wringing, weeping, warning, biblical quotations, fund raising, finger pointing, eating, and T.V. watching, but when it comes to understanding what the WRITTEN U.S. CONSTITUITON states, and what GOD states in the BIBLE about government and murder, they endlessly repeat the indoctrination they received from their ANTI-CHRISTIAN, and ANTI-AMERICAN masters in government schools, and mainstream media.

There is a serious lack of discernment these days. "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children." Hos.4:6

So, if we're going to take the attitude that it's all lawful, so long as the judge says it, without any regard for what's in the law or the Constitution, then we no longer have a government of laws, we have a government of arbitrary dictatorship by the courts.

The infamous Nazi judge, Roland Freisler, has this same attitude...loyalty to the laws of men (which in his case were Nazi laws). Dostoevsky said that if there is no God, all things are permissible. Under the laws of men, all things are permissible, because God is excluded.

[Areopagus]

What is your assessment of the quality of education (or should I say "indoctrination") in today's law schools?


http://www.visionforumministries.org/sections/hotcon/ht/interposition/2004-02-20_doug_phillips_dolaws.asp

A millennium of Christian legal tradition came to an end in 1870. In that year, Christopher Columbus Langdell, newly appointed Dean of Harvard Law School, began a revolutionary approach to legal education which specifically discarded the Genesis foundation of law in favor of a philosophy rooted in Darwinism.

Langdell abandoned the historic method of teaching Christian principles of the common law in favor of the new “case-book method” which directed the student to discover law through the constantly evolving opinion of judges.

Langdell began a century-long tradition whereby judges no longer viewed themselves bound to interpret pre-existing laws. They may now decide what laws should be. Thus, Langdell answered the question, “By what standard should man legislate?” by pointing to the autonomous reason of man. Do laws evolve?

The single most influential jurist of the Twentieth Century was United States Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. His massive treatise, The Common Law, supplanted Blackstone’s Commentaries as the premier text for law students. Holmes taught “the life of the law has not been logic, but experience,” and argued that it was the responsibility of courts to direct the evolution of law. Because right and wrong do not exist in any absolute sense, judges must determine which standards are most appropriate at a given point in the evolution of a society. For three decades, Holmes brought his distinctively Darwinian bias to the Court. He spoke candidly: “I see no reason for attributing to man a significance different in kind from that which belongs to a baboon or a grain of sand.”

A consistent evolutionist, Holmes declared that “the sacredness of human life is a purely municipal ideal of no validity outside the jurisdiction.” He authored the landmark decision in Buck v. Bell upholding a Virginia eugenics law mandating the involuntary sterilization of people the State deemed undesirable. It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. Holmes and his contemporaries laid the foundation for legalized abortion, no-fault divorce, the legalization of homosexuality, and the rejection of the Framers’ vision for Constitutional interpretation. Today, most courts have embraced an evolving standard for Constitutional interpretation, rejecting the notion that the Constitution must be interpreted in light of the meanings intended by the Framers.

http://www.law.northwestern.edu/mai...l%20Paulsen.pdf The Irrepressible Myth Of Marbury, by http://www.law.umn.edu/facultyprofiles/paulsenm.htm Michael S. Paulsen
Briggs & Morgan Professor of Law, UofM Law School




Nearly all of American constitutional law today rests on a myth. The myth, presented as standard history both in junior high civics texts and in advanced law school courses on constitutional law, runs something like this: A long, long time ago - 1803, if the storyteller is trying to be precise - in the famous case of Marbury v. Madison,1 the Supreme Court of the United States created the doctrine of "judicial review." Judicial review is the power of the Supreme Court to decide the meaning of the Constitution and to strike down laws that the Court finds unconstitutional.

As befits the name of the court from which the doctrine emanates, the Supreme Court's power of judicial review - the power, in Chief Justice John Marshall's famous words in Marbury, "to say what the law is"2 - is supreme. The Congress, the President, the states - indeed, "We the People" who "ordain[ed] and establish[ed]"3 the Constitution - are all bound by the Supreme Court's pronouncements. Thus, the decisions of the Supreme Court become, in effect, part of the Constitution itself. Even the Supreme Court is bound by its own precedents, at least most of the time. Occasionally the Court needs to make landmark decisions that revise prior understandings, in order to keep the Constitution up to date with the times. When it does, that revised understanding becomes part of the supreme law of the land. Other than through the adoption of a constitutional amendment, however, the Supreme Court is the final authority on constitutional change.

Judicial review (the myth continues) thus serves as the ultimate check on the powers of the other branches of government, and is one of the unique, crowning features of our constitutional democracy. The final authority of the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution has withstood the test of time. It has survived periodic efforts by the political branches, advanced during times of crisis (the Civil War and the Great Depression) or out of short-term political opposition to initially unpopular or controversial rulings (like Brown v. Board of Education4 and Roe v. Wade5), to undermine this essential feature of our constitutional order. Through it all - Dred Scott6 and the Civil War, the New Deal Court-packing plan, resistance to Brown, the Nixon Tapes case,7 the Vietnam War, the quest to overrule Roe v. Wade - the authority of the Supreme Court as the final interpreter of the Constitution has stood firm. Indeed, the Court's authority over constitutional interpretation by now must be regarded, rightly, as one of the pillars of our constitutional order, on par with the Constitution itself.

So the myth goes.

But nearly every feature of the myth is wrong.


http://www.house.gov/judiciary/4155.htm

It's Not the Constitution, It's Judicial Activism: The Need for Restraint on the Policymaking Power of Judges, Lino A. Graglia, A. Dalton Cross Professor of Law,
University of Texas School of Law, Austin, Texas. Submitted to the Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property of the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives. Hearing on Judicial Misconduct, May 15, 1997

The first and most important thing to know about constitutional law is that it has virtually nothing to do with the Constitution. Discussions of constitutional law and the role of the Supreme Court in the American system of government are almost exclusively in terms of how the Court should interpret the Constitution in deciding so-called constitutional cases. This, however, is a mere legal fiction, a verbal convention used, like other legal fictions, to conceal what is actually going on. In almost no controversial Supreme Court decision of recent decades was any question of interpretation in fact involved. The real question presented by the Courts controversial rulings of unconstitutionality, is not how the Court should interpret the Constitution, but whether it should confine itself to that limited task in making its "constitutional" decisions.

As the function of judicial review since Brown has been to substitute the policy views of liberal academics for the views of a majority of the American people, the basic function of constitutional law professors has been, in turn, to defend and justify judicial review to the American people. The task is a difficult one. Although government by Supreme Court justices is obviously inconsistent with the fundamental principles of government established by the Constitution, it must somehow be defended as a product of the Constitution. It is not politically possible for defenders of judicial activism to come clean and openly argue, with Plato, that government by philosopher kings is an improvement on representative self-government. Democracy is the norm in American political life, and must be paid lip service even by intellectuals who hold it most in disdain. Further, even if it were possible to defend government by philosopher kings, how is it possible to defend government by lawyer kings?



Judges do not cease being lawyers, professionally trained advocates for any assigned or adopted cause, upon being elevated to the bench and clothed in black robes. They retain the skills and ethical standards of advocacy, which permit the less than total attachment to factual accuracy and logic that is characteristic of their profession. As a result, Supreme Court opinions are often characterized by misstatements of fact and defiance of logic that would not be considered permissible in statements by other public officials.



Policymaking by judges is not favored by liberal constitutional theorists, however, because they consider our lawyer-judges exceptionally knowledgeable or otherwise qualified in making policy decisions. It is favored only because it has since Brown reliably pushed social policy choices to the left and can be expected to continue to do so regardless of who makes the judicial appointments. One reason for this is that the judicial landscape_in particular, the view of judges as to their proper role_has so changed as a result of decades of hyper-activism since Brown that there seems to be no going back. The center has moved so far to the left that a so-called conservative judge today can be to the left of where a liberal judge was forty years ago.

[Areopagus]

What is your assessment of the quality of education (or should I say "indoctrination") in today's law schools?


http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/0310/031001jtuomala.php
Jeff Tuomala is Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Associate Professor of Law at Liberty University School of Law, Lynchburg, Virginia.

The reason for this is that most American lawyers and judges, be they “liberal” or “conservative,” hold false views concerning certain fundamentals of our legal system. While liberals and conservatives may hold differing opinions as to particular rules, such as whether a display of the Ten Commandments is lawful, they share the belief that the opinion of judges about the meaning of the Constitution, and not the Constitution itself, is the law of the land. For them, Judge Thompson’s order, not the First Amendment, is the applicable rule of law. As a result, these officers believe that their oath of office is, in effect, one of allegiance to the judiciary rather than to the Constitution and the laws enacted pursuant to it.

There is a fundamental principle of constitutional law that nearly every American lawyer seems to forget somewhere between his high school civics class and his graduation from law school — Congress has the power to make law while federal courts have the power only to apply law in particular cases and controversies. The Constitution vests all legislative powers therein granted in Congress. Judicial powers are vested in the courts. Despite the clear language of the Constitution, nearly all lawyers nowadays mouth the platitude that courts make law.

An error that necessarily follows from the false view that courts have the power to make law is the assumption that the law is not what the Constitution says but rather what judges say about the Constitution. Through a distortion of the common law principles of precedent and stare decisis, a court’s holding in a particular case is converted into a law binding on all persons within the court’s jurisdiction and all inferior courts. The proper use of the principles of precedent and stare decisis is that holdings in past court decisions serve as a compelling guide in subsequent proceedings, but they do not bind unless they are themselves consistent with the law.


http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_5_57/ai_n13490953

National Review, March 28, 2005 by Robert H. Bork:

Neither our courts nor the foreign courts are bound by actual constitutions. Prof. Lino Graglia was quite right when he said that "the first and most important thing to know about American constitutional law is that it has virtually nothing to do with the Constitution." That is certainly the case with the Bill of Rights. From abortion to homosexual sodomy, from religion to political speech and pornography, from capital punishment to discrimination on the basis of race and sex, the Court is steadily remaking American political, social, and cultural life. As Justice Antonin Scalia once said in dissent, "Day by day, case by case, [the Court] is busy designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize."

[exmarine]

Judges do not cease being lawyers, professionally trained advocates for any assigned or adopted cause, upon being elevated to the bench and clothed in black robes. They retain the skills and ethical standards of advocacy, which permit the less than total attachment to factual accuracy and logic that is characteristic of their profession. As a result, Supreme Court opinions are often characterized by misstatements of fact and defiance of logic that would not be considered permissible in statements by other public officials.

Thank you for the nice summary - very informative.

It conforms to what I have read from people like Judge Roy Moore, Alan Sears, etc. Regarding misstatements and defiance of logic, I believe Moore's case is the epitomy of that malpractice. Judge Thompson refused to define religion, yet ruled that Moore's monument was unconstitutional. This is overtly ridiculous since it is legally and logically incoherent to rule that the monument represented an "esablishment of religion" if "religion" itself is not defined.

Another case that comes to mind is Lee vs. Wiseman, wherein the court ruled that invocations and prayers at graduations were unconstitutional, even though history proves beyond doubt that some of the founding fathers themselves prayed at graduations; not to mention the call to prayer by the U.S. Congress, George Washington, etc. So much for historical precedent! Judges make their own precedent! - which is then followed by subsequent blackguards in black robes.

Regarding Marbury vs. Madison, didn't Jefferson refuse Marshall's order to deliver the appointments? Since Marshall's ruling was defied by Jefferson, and later court ruling was defied by Andrew Jackson, can you elaborate a little bit about how this was twisted into a victory for the supremacy of judicial review?

[Areopagus]

twisted into a victory for the supremacy of judicial review?

The starting and stopping point for discussion:"We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is." - Justice Charles Evans Hughes (speech at Elmira on May 3,1907) & Federalist #78.

That's a fine starting point, but let's continue:

"We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the People say it is." - Preamble to the Constitution. 9th & 10th Amendments

"We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the States say it is." - Enumerated powers. 9th & 10th Amendments.

"We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the Congress say it is." - Oath of Office implies Cong. Review of USSC. Fed. #51

"We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the President says it is." - Oath of Office implies executive Review of USSC.

The People acting through their elected representatives in the states and U.S. Congress amend the Constitution. The executive and judicial branches aren't involved in this procedure. This fact alone should convince all but the terminally confused, where most of the power is distributed in a Constitutional Republic which is governed by a written Constitution requiring adherence, or amendment.

The only power that any federal court has is the power of majority opinion. Congress can remove any federal judge and can remove jurisdiction from the federal courts. Congress controls the funding and is involved in the appointment of federal judges and amendments to the Constitution. The federal courts are only involved in opinion. The President can veto legislation and force Congress to override. If the President (A. Lincoln, A. Jackson) refuses to enforce any federal court majority opinion, that opinion will not be enforced. The federal courts have no power other than opinion, and when they err, the President, the Congress, the States and the People must correct their error using the numerous approaches available in the Constitution. When the court is the main source of the problem, it is the court that needs to be corrected and not the Constitution. Amending the Constitution provides more words for the federal courts to misinterpret (14th Amenement). Either remove the federal judge(s) from the case (impeach & remove), or remove the case from the federal judges (regulating jurisdiction).

5/9th of the flimsiest limb among the federal branches is destroying the strongest nation on earth. It is happening because the People, States, President and Congress believe the myth that they can't review judicial opinions and judge the judges. The founders designed a Constitutional Republic that has through apathy and ignorance degenerated into judicial oligarchy.

[Areopagus]

Great point. The Nazis at Nuremburg used the excuse that they were just "following orders." When men like Ashcroft and Gonzalez pledged in their confirmation hearings to enforce Roe v. Wade, i.e. that they would "follow orders," are they not making the same moral error as the Nazis at Nuremburg? Is it acceptable for a Christian to do such a thing? Were they not pledging to uphold man's evil laws over God's?

You recently mentioned F.A. Schaeffer on another thread.
What does he have to say along these lines?

Francis A. Schaeffer, Amazon.com: Books: A Christian Manifesto, Crossway Books, Westchester, Illinois, 1981, p. 93.
Clearly, the state is to be a ministry of justice. This is the legitimate function of the state, and in this structure Christians are to obey the state as a matter of "conscience." But what is to be done when the state does that which violates its legitimate function? . . . The bottom line is that at a certain point there is not only the right, but the duty, to disobey the state. Through the ages Christians have taken the same position as did the early church in disobeying the state when it commanded what was contrary to God's law. William Tyndale, the English translator of the Bible, advocated the supreme authority of the Scripture over and against the state and the church. Government authorities continually sought to capture him, but Tyndale was successful in evading them for years. . . ."

In almost every place where the Reformation had success there was some form of civil disobedience or armed rebellion. . . ."

Whereas Reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin had reserved the right to rebellion to the civil rulers alone, (John) Knox went further. He maintained that the common people had the right and duty to disobedience and rebellion if state officials ruled contrary to the Bible. To do otherwise would be rebellion against God. Knox was not against civil government per se. He knew well that civil government is ordained of God. Knox maintained, however, that state officials have the duty of obeying God's Laws." p. 93.

(Samuel) Rutherford argued that Romans 13 indicates that all power is from God and that government is ordained and instituted by God. The state, however, is to be administered according to the principles of God's Law; Acts of the state which contradicted God's Law were illegitimate and acts of tyranny. . . . Rutherford held that a tyrannical government is always immoral . . . since tyranny is satanic, not to resist it is to resist God -- to resist tyranny is to honor God . . . since the ruler is granted power conditionally, it follows that the people have the power to withdraw their sanction if the proper conditions are not fulfilled. . . . Violation of the trust gives the people a legitimate base for resistance. It follows from Rutherford's thesis that citizens have a moral obligation to resist unjust and tyrannical government." pp. 100-101.


Erwin W. Lutzer, Amazon.com: Books: Hitler's Cross: The Revealing Story of How the ..., Moody Press, Chicago, 1995, p.111.

German children were taught prompt, explicit obedience to parents, teachers, and military commanders. Respect for . . . (order) was taught by ritual and threat of punishment. Everyone was to keep pace with the nation and its highest good. Romans 13:1-2 was often quoted: "Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. . . ."

Hitler spoke of both Protestants and Catholics with contempt, convinced that all Christians would betray their God when they were forced to choose between the swastika and the Cross. Do you really believe the masses will be Christian again? Nonsense! Never again. . . . But we can hasten matters. The parsons will dig their own graves. They will betray their God to us. They will betray anything for the sake of their miserable jobs and incomes." p.104

We must support our government, but we must be ready to criticize it or even defy it when necessary. Patriotism is commendable when it is for a just cause . . . . if the German church has taught us the dangers of blind obedience to government we must eschew the mindless philosophy "My country, right or wrong'" . . . We must teach parents, teachers, nurses, bankers and attorneys to stand for biblical values; we must not be ashamed of "coming out of the closet" and letting people know that not everyone is buying into the relativistic values of our disintegrating culture." pp. 204-206.

[exmarine]

Thanks. I have read most of the Schaeffer works - I have them in my library. He is the most right on Christian thinker that I know of in our present era. I believe he advocated civil disobedience by individual Christians. When I mentioned this to my pastors, their eyes glazed over.

Although I am not as knowledgable as you on the many nuances of Constitutonal law (the real stuff), I am familiar with it because I have read it, and I have reconciled it to Scripture and my Christian worldview. That's the beauty of it -- it was written that any American who wants to know it can read it and learn it. It says what it says. Words have meaning.

Of course, our founders warned that a virtuous people is required to keep the Constitution intact.

What has happened to the Constitution is the same thing that has happened to the Bible. The Bible has also been rewritten according to the arbitrary whims of men. The same words are still on the page, but they have been relativized, twisted, ignored, redefined, etc. Just as the Law is what the Constitution says, the Word of God is what the Bible says. I cringe when I hear someone ask, "What does this verse mean to you?"

I believe it was de Tocqueville who said, "America is great because she is good; when she ceases to be good she will cease to be great."

[exmarine]

We must support our government, but we must be ready to criticize it or even defy it when necessary. Patriotism is commendable when it is for a just cause . . . . if the German church has taught us the dangers of blind obedience to government we must eschew the mindless philosophy "My country, right or wrong'" . . . We must teach parents, teachers, nurses, bankers and attorneys to stand for biblical values; we must not be ashamed of "coming out of the closet" and letting people know that not everyone is buying into the relativistic values of our disintegrating culture." pp. 204-206.

I couldn't agree more. At my former church, I gave a 45 minute talk (Wed. service) on our Christian Heritage, the enemies who are working to erase it, and the duty of the Christian. If Christians don't wake up, their children will not be free to worship, if we are lucky enough to still have America 10-15 years from now. It has changed so much that I fear the Republic is already a dead letter and we are just a few years away from dictatorship and/or total ruin. From where I sit, law, education, government, and morals are deteriorating so fast (light speed!) that I am already preparing my family for very hard times - which I believe are coming very soon!

We have sold our house in California and paid cash for a house in Texas. We are almost totally debt free (thanks to God). When hard times do hit, it's going to make the Great Depression look like a picnic.

[Areopagus]

What has happened to the Constitution is the same thing that has happened to the Bible. The Bible has also been rewritten according to the arbitrary whims of men. The same words are still on the page, but they have been relativized, twisted, ignored, redefined, etc. Just as the Law is what the Constitution says, the Word of God is what the Bible says. I cringe when I hear someone ask, "What does this verse mean to you?"



I agree with your analogy.
Some folk have perspectives that are incompatible with the text and internal logic of the Bible and Constitution, but they can’t just replace those texts with something else in a short time frame. They devise a scheme to replace the text with their ‘private interpretation,’ and acquire a platform to indoctrinate their deviant disciples. After a few decades the original document bears little resemblance to the propaganda that replaced it.

The best systematic theology is like the best judge, in that both will adhere to the text, and have the least internal inconsistency in their exposition.

This online book, .pdf, or html written by Raoul Berger who retired in 1976 as Charles Warren Senior Fellow in American Legal History, Harvard University.
http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/Book.php?recordID=0003
“Government by Judiciary: The Transformation of the Fourteenth”Amendment describes how the federal courts began to deviate from the text and internal logic of the Constitution.

It is the thesis of this monumentally argued book that the United States Supreme Court - largely through abuses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution?has embarked on "a continuing revision of the Constitution, under the guise of interpretation." Consequently, the Court has subverted America’s democratic institutions and wreaked havoc upon Americans’ social and political lives. One of the first constitutional scholars to question the rise of judicial activism in modern times, Raoul Berger points out that "the Supreme Court is not empowered to rewrite the Constitution, that in its transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment it has demonstrably done so. Thereby the Justices, who are virtually unaccountable, irremovable, and irreversible, have taken over from the people control of their own destiny, an awesome exercise of power." This new second edition includes the original text of 1977 and extensive supplementary discourses in which the author assesses and rebuts the responses of his critics.

[Areopagus]

I have read most of the Schaeffer works - I have them in my library. He is the most right on Christian thinker that I know of in our present era. I believe he advocated civil disobedience by individual Christians. When I mentioned this to my pastors, their eyes glazed over.

http://daveblackonline.com/a_new_barmen_declaration_for_ame.htm

An Americanized version of the “German-Christian” movement has now emerged. The 501c3 boys have emerged victorious! Bring on Bush’s Federal subsidies to “faith-based ministries!” Provide Federal financing and tax subsidies to foundations and corporations who desire to financially empower the World and National Council of Churches! Concurrently subsidize theological chairs for seminary and state university faculties devoted to jettisoning the Apostolic Age for the New Age! Give an implied or expressed Establishment ecclesiastical imprimatur for more governmental subsidies for abortion, stem-cell research, and the fast-track slide to wholesale euthanasia and marital relationships which contradict revealed and natural law--along with the corporate witness of the Confessing Church for the last two thousand years. And follow the trail of the money in both directions to discover the source, genesis and endgame of the agenda of Babylon. The real agenda is as follows: The deity and supremacy of Christ and His Word may be denied with impunity when convenient. The deity of Caesar and State, however, must be affirmed and promulgated at all costs in the New American Empire, including the sworn allegiance of its newly repristinated German-Christian church and clergy to the same. But the witness of a newly formed Confessing Church and an Americanized version of the Barmen Declaration must emerge to oppose it, even unto death.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran pastor and martyr of the Confessing Church, critiqued the institutional German ecclesiastical context in November of 1932. His words apply equally seven decades later to the present American crisis which combines an epidemic of bad theology with sycophantic allegiance to the State and the chieftains of Corporate America:

No one who knows today’s church will want to complain that the church doesn’t do anything. No, the church does immeasurably much, and also with much sacrifice and seriousness; but we all do precisely too many second, third, and fourth works, and not the first works. And exactly because of this, the church is not doing what is crucial. We celebrate, we represent, we strive for influence, we start a Protestant movement, we do Protestant youth work, we perform charitable service and care, we make propaganda against godlessness–but do we do the first works which are the basis of absolutely everything? Do we love God and our brother with that first, passionate, burning love that risks everything–except God? Do we really allow God to be God? Do we leave ourselves and our church to Him completely? If that were the case, things would have to look different, there would surely be a breakthrough [Bonhoeffer’s sermon preached on Reformation Day, November 6, 1932 as quoted in Georg Huntemann’s Dietrich Bonhoeffer: An Evangelical Reassessment (Baker), p. 285].

Thus, for Bonhoeffer, Niemoller, Barth, and the other key players in what became the first synod of the Confessing Church at Barmen in the Ruhr, the final text of the Barmen Declaration of 1934 and its six (6) component articles was designed to reflect the Church’s first works. And the first works of the Church could not be seen in isolation from the necessity of the maintenance of Confession regarding the identity and Lordship of Jesus Christ; this in turn was linked to the Confession of clear lines of demarcation and delineation between Confessing Church and Caesar’s State as expressed by Barth in the clear words and prophetic warning of Article 5, designed as Barmen’s central contradiction of the Deutsche Christen (“German-Christians”) statement at the Braune Synod in Saxony in 1933 which posited a German State linking race, sociology, and political power to an ideology of neo-paganism and the idea of Herrenvolk:

We reject the false doctrine, as though the State, over and beyond its special commission, should and could become the single and totalitarian order of human life, thus fulfilling the Church’s vocation as well. We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church, over and beyond its special commission, should and could appropriate the characteristics, the tasks, and the dignity of the State, thus itself becoming an organ of the State. (See: http://www.german-lutherans-melbourne.asn.au/en/16330e_barmend.shtml.)

The Barmen Declaration saw the statism of the German-Christian movement in clear perspective in 1934. Its witness against neo-paganism and the Totalitarian State must be revived in an American Confessing Church movement in clear opposition to what orthodox Catholic columnist Joseph Sobran wryly observes as the clear trend of today’s purportedly Christian church in America to “. . .not only render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, but to render unto Caesar what is God’s and God’s alone.”

[Areopagus]

From where I sit, law, education, government, and morals are deteriorating so fast (light speed!) that I am already preparing my family for very hard times - which I believe are coming very soon!


http://www.bible.org/netbible/rom1.htm


1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people39 who suppress the truth by their40 unrighteousness,41 1:19 because what can be known about God is plain to them,42 because God has made it plain to them. 1:20 For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, because they are understood through what has been made. So people43 are without excuse. 1:21 For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts and their senseless hearts44 were darkened. 1:22 Although they claimed45 to be wise, they became fools 1:23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings46 or birds or four-footed animals47 or reptiles.

1:24 Therefore God gave them over48 in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor49 their bodies among themselves.50 1:25 They51 exchanged the truth of God for a lie52 and worshiped and served the creation53 rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

1:26 For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged the natural sexual relations for unnatural ones,54 1:27 and likewise the men also abandoned natural relations with women55 and were inflamed in their passions56 for one another. Men57 committed shameless acts with men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

1:28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God,58 God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done.59 1:29 They are filled60 with every kind of unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, malice. They are rife with61 envy, murder, strife, deceit, hostility. They are gossips, 1:30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, contrivers of all sorts of evil, disobedient to parents, 1:31 senseless, covenant-breakers,62 heartless, ruthless. 1:32 Although they fully know63 God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die,64 they not only do them but also approve of those who practice them.65


http://www.bible.org/netbible/2ti3.htm

3:1 But understand this, that in the last days difficult1 times will come. 3:2 For people2 will be lovers of themselves,3 lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3:3 unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, savage, opposed to what is good, 3:4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, loving pleasure rather than loving God. 3:5 They will maintain the outward appearance4 of religion but will have repudiated its power. So avoid people like these.5

[exmarine]

http://daveblackonline.com/a_new_barmen_declaration_for_ame.htm


The Barmen Declaration saw the statism of the German-Christian movement in clear perspective in 1934. Its witness against neo-paganism and the Totalitarian State must be revived in an American Confessing Church movement in clear opposition to what orthodox Catholic columnist Joseph Sobran wryly observes as the clear trend of today’s purportedly Christian church in America to “. . .not only render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, but to render unto Caesar what is God’s and God’s alone.”

Thank you for the links on legal history the Barmen Declaration which I will check out. I appreciate the exchange.

I note that you mentioned Barth in relation to the Barmen Declaration. Karl Barth should be commended for opposing the Nazis, but his "theological existentialism" should be rejected by all Christians as humanistic poison to the soul, as it posits a "non-rational leap of faith" and higher criticism of Scripture. In effect, it represented a radical change in Christian epistemology. It brought the existentialism of Kierkegaard and Sartre into mainstream Christianity. Francis Schaeffer calls it "antitheology." I only mention this in the event that any Christian reading this gets the wrong impression that Barth's theology is orthodox.

On the other hand, Bonhoeffer is a true Christian martyr. In fact, at the Yad Veshem Holocaust Memorial in Israel, he has a tree planted in his memory.