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PART FOUR: The Constitution, Slavery and America's Founders
I was recently asked the following about this series in the comments under PART TWO.
"Also, what about the changes in our reality? These principles were set up in a time when our gov't didn't recognize women, or people of color as 1st class citizens. We had to make a change. It's sort of what I call the "We know better now" principle."
The vast majority of our founders believed that the Constitution was inspired by God. Therefore, it has inherently built into it ways to adjust to issues/injustices that the men at the time did disagree with and in addition issues they could not fathom. However, I don't believe that negates the power and thoroughness of that document as it stands. It was built to change but not easily, which is a good thing. When our government moves quickly it often makes mistakes we pay for later.
I challenge those who feel our founders created a document that isn't fit or is out of date for today, and/or that a God inspired document couldn't foresee what the future held and would be able to adapt properly, to do further research.
Starting with the links to these articles:
The Bible, Slavery and America's FoundersA Tale of Two ConstitutionsA Godless Constitution?: A Response to Kramnick and MooreOur society is extremely ignorant of the actual writings of our founders, myself included and I am working on that. I blame our educational systems for this lack of knowledge of our history but that's a whole different topic for another day.
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PICTURE SLIDESHOWS
Coming soon: pictures of the kids!!
One Last Thought From Me
Why not remember this act of love and sacrifice daily rather than just at Easter? Yes, this event is an indescribably joyous one because Jesus did rise from the dead but we should never forget how and why He suffered unimaginably before defeating Death and Hell itself on our behalf. He did so while thinking of you and me. In doing so he personally took on our sin, our pain and a debt we could not pay in order to provide a way to complete forgiveness and redemption. The truth is, either way death is not the end and being a “good person” isn’t a substitution for being truly forgiven.
God tells us that by simply believing Jesus rose from the dead, confessing and turning away from our sin and making the Bible the true foundation of our life, we will be forgiven for our sins and live eternally in Heaven.
As you may know, I am far from perfect and if you have doubts about that I’m sure you can find a multitude of people who can confirm that. I have made countless mistakes and bad judgments and will again in the future despite my best intentions. It is because of this that I am exceedingly thankful I can go directly to God and ask for help, ask for forgiveness and know that God's mercy is new every morning as I continually work to keep my foundation on God's Word. Truly accepting God's love, mercy and a true freedom offered in a life firmly anchored in His Word is something there simply aren't words to describe.
I have to admit that I regularly take that for granted and listening to the words in a song like “Via Dolorosa” is one way to help remind me of the sacrifice Jesus made on that cross. Deciding to live for Christ was without a doubt the best decision I made in my life. Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t solve all my problems and make my life perfect. But I have a peace and hope only God can offer and I know in God’s eyes He sees a child forgiven rather than condemned. Now that I am a parent I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like for God to watch His children exercise their free will when they chose to reject Him rather than embrace the salvation He offers each of us.
Regardless of your feelings on God and Jesus I hope you enjoy the power of the images and music I posted. And thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts about what can be a very sensitive issue.
Posts
7 comments:
Do you really think the actual document was inspired by God? Or that the men who wrote it were inspired by God? I feel like saying the document is inspired by God makes it a lot like the Bible..., that it is infallible. And that makes me uncomfortable. Does that mean that we have a "better" government than other democracies? I am thankful that our Founding Fathers took the time to establish some general guidelines that protect individual rights and freedoms and defined the structure of our government, and that their is an ammendment process.
I read the attached links and I did not mean to suggest that the Constitution is not relevant in today's society--but how do we use this document to deal with today? These links all support your position, but I will have to take time to learn more about other positions on the continuum.
L
I don't believe that the Constitution is infallible. The Bible is a separate issue since I do believe it is the infallible Word of God.
However, I do believe God can "inspire" and help with anything from writing a document to making a decision. Our Constitution has a brilliant foundation and also a way to adjust itself. That is how we use it to deal with today. It is relevant and if something needs changing WE the people have a way to do so.
From another good article... link here:
http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/ChurchAndMinistry/ChurchHistory/David_Barton2.aspx
In part the article states the following, "Our Constitution is a wonderful document. Under it, America has become the longest ongoing constitutional republic in the history of the world. Most Americans believe that our wonderful Constitution governs America, but it doesn’t. I say that because our Founding Fathers themselves said it. During the Constitutional Convention, while they were framing the Constitution, their discussion was best summed up by delegate John Francis Mercer, who declared: "It is a great mistake to suppose that the paper we are to propose will govern the United States."
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First, I would argue with your calling our form of government a "demorcracy" as it is a "Republic." That is if we haven't' screwed it up too bad yet. Something I fear we are already on the road to doing.
Second, yes, I do believe ours has proven to be "better." Name another nation governed under the same document longer than the United States. I refer you to one more quote from the article linked above...
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"...if you think the Constitution governs America, that’s a major league error. Mercer continued, It is not the Constitution, but "[I]t is the men whom it will bring into the government, and interest [they have] in maintaining it, that are to govern them. The paper will only mark out the mode and the form. Men are the substance and must do the business."
"In other words, the Constitution gives us the power to elect our leaders, but if we elect the wrong kind of leaders, the Constitution will be absolutely worthless in their hands."
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I'll quit for now so my response isn't too terribly long.
You also stated, "These links all support your position, but I will have to take time to learn more about other positions on the continuum." I would challenge you to also read the actual writings of those that formed these documents at the time. The best way to understand what they meant is to read what they said.
I am too tired to say much tonight but I wanted to give you a link regarding education in America. Les, you mentioned that principle and while this doesn't exactly address your comment I thought it worth sharing. I will post on this topic in more detail later but it's a good read.
http://christiancitizenship.blogspot.com/2009/02/revisionism-how-to-identify-it-in-your.html
Boy, I have had to work hard to find anything that isn't biased one way or another about this issue of God and our Constitution. I read it myself. It is a fact that the word God is never used within it. I do believe that the general nature of it, thanks to its authors, leaves room for adaptation.
I read articles arguing that the Constitution and its authors were all Christians, I read articles arguing that the whole lot of them were deists. It's true, most all people at the time of our nation's founding were Christians as most people in our country still are. But, I would say that the ideas of the Enlightenment also informed the thinking of these authors. You can learn that from their own writings, too. (of which I've only skimmed the surface).
I honestly don't think we can ever know the entire orginal intent; that's why context, other writings, etc. are so important. But I don't know if they were the best, most transparent authors. I know I don't always nail it when I'm writing. I don't know that literal translations or readings of anything are good enough. I think it's vital to take context and time into consideration.
Oh, and A republic is one form of democracy.
As to teaching about this: I think the biggest failure of my education is that I had to go to Grad. School before I really felt like I was learning to THINK. All the rest is just memorize and learn what teachers want to hear. Therefore, a full spectrum, featuring the religious and philosophical teachings of the time would be most important to educating about the architects of our constitution. The beauty is that there were Federalists who also played a role in writing our constitution, they all compromised and look at what a great framework for government we have!
I need a couple of clarifications. You stated, "The beauty is that there were Federalists who also played a role in writing our constitution, they all compromised..."
Can you expand on that statement. I'm not sure I fully understood what you meant?
Also, I am curious why Grad school was so drastically different for you (when it came to "learning to think") from undergrad?
A perfect example of my often poor, unclear writing! I suppose I should have said that there were dissenting opinions among the founding fathers. They didn't all agree! Their debate and discussion brought us to a Constitution and Bill of Rights that set a good foundation for our nation.
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