August 28, 2003
Thursday - 12:05 am

When anybody claims that it is unconstitutional for the state to acknowledge God by displaying the Ten Commandments or some other symbol of our Judeo/Christian heritage they are really claiming that our founding fathers, the authors of the Constitution, would have agreed with them.

That notion is absurd, as proven by looking at what the framers of the Constitution and other patriots had to say about the role of religion in our national life.

Take Thomas Jefferson. The opponents of religion in the public square quote a letter he wrote where he mentions an alleged "wall of separation" between church and state. But none of them bother to quote Jefferson's remarks explaining true meaning of the Constitution's First Amendment Establishment Clause:

"I consider the government of the U.S. as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercise. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment, or free exercise of religion but also from the Tenth Amendment, which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the U.S."

That's pretty plain language ­ and as our Lord said "Let him who has ears to hear, hear. Let him who has eyes to see, see."

Another voice that should be heard is Benjamin Franklin's. On June 28, 1787, during the Constitutional Convention where he played a key role, he thundered his conviction that the nation then being founded must acknowledge God:

"I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth _ that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that 'except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest."

"I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service."

So much for separation of church and state this nowadays means separation of state from God.

Listen to John Adams on that aberration of a belief.

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, 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."

And in a more modern sense, listen to these words of wisdom uttered by another great American president - words that could easily be spoken today:

"We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God - and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness."

Those were the words of Abraham Lincoln.

The anti-religious fanatics of the ACLU and others of their ilk who have largely succeeded in driving God out of our public schools should pay attention to what Governor Morris
a patriot and Pennsylvania delegate to the Constitutional Convention had to say:

"Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man towards God."

History and our founding fathers are on Judge Roy Moore's side.

Unfortunately today's courts are not.

mereagan@hotmail.com

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