The Fate of the Constitution
As people wait for the Court’s decision on ObamaCare, it strikes me that there is something fundamentally wrong with this entire process. The whole county is awaiting a decision from the Supreme Court which will have a major impact, not only on health care, but the election and possibly the future of the country. This is simply wrong. The court should not matter that much.
It does matter because we, as a country, have largely cut our moorings, and it is now left to the court to decide which way we will go. The country as founded in 1776, and organized into a government in 1789, was a limited republic, where power rested with the people. The Constitution and the Bill of Right both enumerated and limited what the Federal Government was allowed to do. The Constitution began with “We the people.”
Understood in this light, the ObamaCare decision is actually a very easy one. The commerce clause limits the federal government to regulating interstate commerce. If not buying something is deemed to be an act, not only of commerce, but of interstate commerce, then the entire principle of the Constitution, one of enumerated powers, is null and void. There would be no practical or perhaps even theoretical limit on what the federal government could do. This is why the oral arguments went so badly for the defenders of the ObamaCare. When it comes to the meaning and intent of the Constitution this should be a no brainer, an easy 9-0 ruling of unconstitutional, where the only real question was how such a law even got passed so as to come before the court.
But rather than a 9-0 ruling of unconstitutional, it will at best be a split decision and the law might even be upheld. The primary reason for this is twofold. The first is that there is a significant group of people who fundamentally reject the government as defined in the Constitution. Rather than a bottom up republic where the most power is vested in the people and the least with the government most distant from the people, the federal government; these people want a top down government. They want a government where power is centralized at the federal level. They want a federal government not only powerful enough, but one that actually does control every aspect of our lives.
Now this, in and of itself, would not be all that bad. After all, the Constitution vested power with the people and contains a provision that allows for the Constitution to be changed. But that brings me to the second problem which is that those who want to change the system do not want to bother with such things as arguing for their positions in the democratic process. Thus for decades they have argued for a new understanding of the Constitution, that of a living document, where the power to change the document does not rest with the people but with judges. Rather than the messy process of submitting an amendment, where they have to convince the country, they have sought change by first convincing judges that they can reinterpret this “living document,” and then asking them to do so.
Thus the ruling on Obamacare will not be 9-0. It will be a split between those who accept the living document view and want Obamacare, or at least a more powerful federal government; those who accept the Constitution as written; and those who are in the middle and could go either way.
When it comes to the fate of Obamacare, in the long term, it really does not matter how the court rules. The election in November will be far more important to the future of health care in America. If Obama wins, the country will move towards single payer, the only real question will be how fast. If Romney wins Obamacare will be repealed, even if it is upheld by the Court. But the Court’s ruling will have a major impact on the role of government and thus the Constitution. Will the original idea of a limited government of enumerated powers get a reprieve, or will it be dealt a death blow. Will we remain a government of “We the people?” Or will we take yet another step towards a government control by “We the Judges?”
Evangelicals and Politics
The recent post at Juris Naturalist, is the sort of thing that drives me crazy. Entitled, Evangelicalism == Christian Legislation, it basically, after a lengthy introduction on Wilberforce and slavery, argues that Evangelicals are too tied to the political process and should instead seek more self-sacrifice in their attempts to deal with societal issues, with the main example being, not too surprisingly, abortion.
A key foundational premise for the author seems to be: “I don’t think morality can or should be legislated.” Thus, all the evangelicals marching in the annual Walk for Life in Washington, D.C., an event that seems to have sparked the post, are misguided as this is not what Christian’s are called to do. We are called to sacrifice, not to legislate.
Now there are a number of problems in this argument, one being that this is not an either/or issue. While I don’t think the particular solution of paying women not to have abortions will work, I agree that the spirit of sacrifice is lacking in the modern church. In fact, many have trouble giving of their abundance, much less anything that might actually be called sacrifice. Thus the question “Where is sacrifice?’ is a very good question and one the church would do well to explore it more deeply.
But that immediately raised a problem in that for the author, sacrifice seems to be only monetary. I have no doubt that many at the march in question sacrificed a lot to be there, including the cost to get there, to be counted as supporting innocent life.
As for the other problems, one that stood out for me was the premise that we cannot and should not legislate morality. While a very common view, this does not change the fact that this view is simply silly. It may sound good on a bumper sticker, but it cannot withstand even the mildest critical analysis.
Now if you agree with the belief that morality cannot/should not be legislated, then simply ask yourself this question: Why do we have laws against murder and theft? For that matter why do we have any laws at all? Virtually every law is either a direct legislation of morality, such as the laws against murder, or an indirect expression of moral values, such as our driving laws being grounded in our value for life, and our belief that it should not be needlessly endangered.
Now lest someone conclude from this that I believe all morality should be legislated, I do not. A key question for people in a democratic form of government is what moral values are considered so important that the power of the state must be used to enforce them.
The author sees legislation, Christian or otherwise, to be “merely another tool for force. “ In this he is correct, though his questioning of whether any legislation “do good, or even do well” is more problematic. Like most things in public life, there is no easy one size fits all answer. In our current era marked by very large, and I would say bloated, government, teetering on the verge of collapse, it is easy to build a case against government action. But the evidence of history is also pretty clear that not enough government can likewise be a bad thing. The difficultly is in finding the right balance.
The discussion over what is the right size for government is a never ending debate that must be fought out and answered on a continual basis. When it comes to abortion, given the central issue of innocent life that is involved, this is as much a matter of legitimate state interest as laws on murder.
Christian involvement in politics is also called for by several other factors, which I will only outline here. The first is that we are to be the salt and light to the world. While I do not believe that these verses are in any way primarily political in their nature, I do not believe that they exclude politics, i.e., that we are to be salt and light, except when it comes to politics.
Second, we are to be subject to the rulers and authorities over us. I do not believe that this duty ceases when the government is a democratic form in which we as citizens have input into the process.
Finally, the period from about 1925 until fairly recently was a period where evangelical Christians largely did withdraw from any active role in our government, though since the 1980s there has been some renewed interest. I, for one, do not think the results of that withdrawal are all that encouraging.
Let me conclude by addressing one of the seeming criticisms the author had of Wilberforce’s efforts on slavery, which by implication he applies to modern efforts to ban abortion; that while it was successful, it was not “a clean win.” While this is true, does this really mean that the effort should not have been made? It is very true that God demands perfection, but he also does not expect us to achieve it in this life. Rather, it is something that we must constantly strive for, particularly in the face of a success.
Prager, Irrationality and Religion
In his latest column, “Mormons Have Irrational Beliefs? Who Doesn’t?” Dennis Prager falls into some common errors concerning the concepts of faith, belief, reason and irrationality. First, let me point out that I do not disagree with all of the claims in his column and those made during the discussion of his column on his radio show, in particular the importance of behavior.
Where I do disagree can be seen when Prager says, “I read and hear these dismissals of Mormonism with some amusement — because everyone who makes these charges holds beliefs and/or practices that outsiders consider just as irrational.” While true, this is completely irrelevant, and in fact only makes sense if one accepts a sort of intellectual relativism.
Unless one is to deny the existence of objective truth, which unless I am really mistaken Prager does not do, what outsiders, or insiders for that matter, think is rational is irrelevant. What matters is what is true. Granted this is not always easy, or at times even possible, to determine. But that we cannot always know does not mean that we can never know. More to the point here, it does not mean that there must be some sort of equivalence in disputed claims where all are “just as irrational.”
A key problem is that Pager, or at least his argument, seems to accept the atheistic view of reason that sees reason as 1) a system of thought and 2) as materialistic, applying only to the natural world. Both views are false.
Reason is simply a tool, a set of principles and practices for eliminating error. It cannot stand alone as a system, but requires a framework in which it can be applied. When atheists say that religious belief is irrational, what they are really saying is that religious beliefs do not fit within their naturalistic understanding of the world. Reason actually has little to do with it. They get away with this because they are conflating their world view with reason, as if there was no difference, and unfortunately many religious people have simply accepted it.
To see this consider one of the examples cited by Prager, and one where I would agree with him; that is the Mormon practice of wearing sacred undergarments. Within the Mormon world view this is perfectly rational. In fact, one could easily argue that it would be irrational to disobey God, or to demand that God always give us reasons that we can understand, as this would put us in the position of judging God. To ridicule this practice is not some indication of rationality, but simply bigotry.
If that was where the claims of Mormonism ended, I would probably be in more agreement with Prager. But their claims do not end there. The core problem can be seen with an example Prager gives of his own “irrational” belief cited to demonstrate his are “just as irrational.” Prager says, “I believe the Torah is a divine book.” The corresponding Mormon claim would be that the Book of Mormon is a divine book.
Unlike other beliefs, these are very foundational, and they are vastly different, not just in their end result, but in theirbacking, and thus their rationality. Both the Book of Mormon and the Torah, purport to be not just religious texts containing religious teachings, but books that are at least to some degree grounded in historical events.
While we cannot demonstrate the historical existence of everything in the Torah, neither can we disprove it, and in fact there is a lot of evidence to support the Torah. However we do not need to demonstrate the validity of the Torah to show the distinction with the book of Mormon.
The Torah fits, at least to some degree, into known history. There is no dispute, for example, that there was an Egypt ruled by pharaohs, and in fact that many of the places mentioned existed. Nor is there any dispute that the Jewish people settled in what is currently Israel. The bottom line is that while one might not be able to demonstrate that the Torah is a divine book, it would be irrational, and just flat out wrong to claim that there was nothing at all historical about its account. Even if a myth, it was myth that drew on at least some history.
But even this cannot be said of the Book of Mormon. It also purports to be a history of peoples, in this case those in the New World. The problem is that not a single New World person, peoples, place, nation or event can be collaborated. At the time Smith supposedly translated this book, this was not necessarily irrational as very little was known. But that is no longer the case. We know a lot about the history of the new world, and the descriptions in the Book of Mormon simply do not fit, and in fact often run counter to what we do know.
Thus there is a vast difference between the two claims. Our ability to know is not binary, but comes in many degrees. Some things we can say are established, such as Obama is currently the President of the United States. Others are not as clear, such as what caused the Maine to explode in Havana Harbor. Still others are probably unknowable, some are unlikely, and some the evidence it pretty strongly against.
The claim that the Torah is a divine book may go beyond what the evidence supports, but it does so into the gaps in our knowledge. It may be a leap of faith, but it is a leap of faith that has a lot of evidence to support it. To believe the book of Mormon is divine may also be a leap of faith, but it is one that not only has no evidence to support it, it runs contrary to what we know, and in fact is pretty clearly false.
The equivalent would be for Prager to hold that the Torah was divine, even though there was no mention in history of an Egypt, Canaan, Philistines, Sinai, Red Sea, or anything else mentioned in the Torah, and in fact some the things mentioned were only introduced into the Middle East much later.
Having said this, I probably should conclude by addressing a related question: how does this apply to Romney running for President, which I suspect was somewhat the background for Prager’s column. As I wrote last October, “The simple answer is that it doesn’t. The Constitution is pretty clear that there should be no religious test for office. The office of the president has no religious function, and therefore the religion of the candidate should be largely irrelevant. It would only become relevant if the candidate chose to make it an important part of their campaign, but this would in and of itself raise red flags. But Romney has not done this, and nothing in his career would indicate that he would.”
Memorial Day
Tom’s father had died a couple of years earlier in an accident, leaving a wife and four children. It was the middle of the depression and times were tough. Tom, being the oldest, worked while finishing High School, to help make ends meet. After he graduated, he joined the military, and after training was sent to Nicholas Army Air Field in the Philippines. There he did what most military people do: perform their normal jobs while periodically being interrupted by various drills.
Tom could see the approaching storm that would become WWII and mentioned this in his letters home. He wrote of how they had received a shipment of fighters, but that they were in crates and needed to be assembled. They were still assembling them when the war started on December 7,1941. The Japanese invaded the Philippines the next day. Tom and the rest of the troops, along with their Filipino allies, fought valiantly. With their base destroyed they, retreated to Bataan.
Roosevelt promised reinforcements, so they struggled to hold out till they arrived. In March Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to leave and go to Australia. Tom and the rest of those left behind continued to fight on, till they could be reinforced. But in the end, there was no way to win. The promised reinforcements were never sent; food and ammunition ran out; and the Japanese force was too strong. Yet still they fought to hold out. Then their positions were overrun, and on April 10, 1942, exhausted, starving, wounded and sick (most had malaria and/or dysentery), they surrendered.
But as horrible as their ordeal had been, the worst was yet to come. The Japanese commander had ordered provisions be set aside for the expected 25,000 prisoners. But he was unaware that the real number of captured Americans and Filipinos was more than 75,000. Nor was he aware of just how bad their condition was. They had held out as long as possible and so when they did surrender were in very bad shape. In short, the provisions he ordered to be set aside were nowhere near what was needed, and the Japanese army command structure did not allow for questioning orders, even to correct mistakes in information.
To make matters worse the Japanese viewed surrender, whatever the circumstances, as a dishonor. Thus it did not matter how valiantly they fought, how long they had held out, or how low they had been on food and ammunition, they had surrendered and did not deserve to be treated honorably. Since there were not enough trucks to transport all the them, what came to be called the Bataan Death March began.
Tom was not one of the lucky few whose guards, realizing how inhumane the situation was, just let their captives go. Even though he was sick, he was forced to march the 30 miles in the blazing hot sun to the rail center. Most had no food or water for the march. There was no stopping, and many were beaten. Many just died on the road; others were shot if they did not keep up. If Tom was fortunate, he would have still had shoes. Many didn’t and their feet burned as they walked on the hot asphalt as it baked under the sun.
At the rail head in San Fernando Tom and other prisoners were pushed into rail cars. Because of the large numbers of prisoners, they were packed in as tightly as possible and in the hot sun, the metal walls of the cars burned unprotected skin. Many lost consciousness from the sweltering heat of the boxcars. Others suffocated in the cramped space. Yet they were packed in so tightly, the unconscious and the dead remained standing until the cars were unloaded at Capas.
Tom survived the trip to Capas. From there Tom was once again forced to march the last eight miles to Camp O’Donnell. Suffering from sickness, starvation, and exhaustion, Tom only lasted five days in Camp O’Donnell, dying on May 18th, 1942. He was 22 years old. Later Private Thomas A. Hushbeck would be posthumously awarded a Purple Heart.
When people ask me what Memorial Day means to me, I think of my Uncle Tom, even though he died thirteen years before I was born. For me it is his holiday, but not his alone. There were the eight who died on Lexington Green in that first engagement of the Revolutionary war, and all the others who came after them to secure our independence, along with those who gave their lives in the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, The Vietnam War, Gulf War I and now the war on Terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq, just to name the major conflicts.
Whenever there was a need, Americans like my uncle Tom have step forward, knowing what may happen. Like my Uncle Tom, many have paid the ultimate price so that we can live in freedom. Many may consider “Freedom is not Free” a cliché, just another slogan for a bumper sticker, but the cost of our freedom was paid by my Uncle Tom, and all the others who have in the past, or will in the future give their lives in defense of this country. It is for them that we fly the flag on this day. It is because of them we can enjoy the time off and relax on this day. They have given all that they had, and suffered in ways we can never imagine so that we might live in freedom. So while I enjoy the day, I will remember them. For they deserved to be honored. and remembered.
The Epistles of John: Living in Truth and Love. 1 John 3:14-15
Week 30: May 13, 2012
John continues building on the ideal that we are children of God, contrasting sin with abiding in him.
Study
14 – We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love one another. The person who does not love[1] remains spiritually[2] dead.
– As is his pattern, John, having given the negative teaching that hating your brother is from the evil one, now gives the positive side: Loving your brother is from God, the one who gives life. We were once dead, but because of Jesus, we have passed from death to life. The indication of this transition is a love for our brother. Without it, we remain spiritually dead.
15 – Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life present in him.
– As he so often does, John now sums up this teaching in very stark terms. While Cain was a murderer, John points out that his is not limited just to murders. His use of Hate (μισῶν) here raises some issues. It seems to be based on Jesus’ teaching in Matt 5:21-22.
“You have heard that it was said to those who lived long ago, ‘You must not murder,’ and ‘Whoever murders will be subject to punishment. ‘But I say to you, anyone who is angry with his brother without a cause will be subject to punishment. And whoever says to his brother ‘Raka!’ will be subject to the Council. And whoever says ‘You fool!’ will be subject to hell fire.
That John speaks of hate instead of anger is easy to understand. Hate it fits context better and what would be true of anger would be true of hate. It also fits John practice of stark contrasts. In the context here, hate is contrasted with loving your brother. Again for John there is no middle ground. He has also just talked about how the world hates Christians (v 13). As such his comments here are aimed more at the world than us. For the world hates us without cause.
– At first the equation of hate with murder may seem like an exaggeration, but it is not such a leap as it may at first seem. We, after all want to get rid of that which we hate. It is also very difficult to treat people that we hate as people. Instead they become labels, and we have in effect murdered there humanity. (See discussion below)
– Murder is the ultimate rebellion against God. Jesus is the Life (John 14:6) and as such, to take life without just cause (i.e., the difference between murder and killing), is the ultimate rebellion against God. It is to ally oneself with the destroyer of life, i.e., Satan.
Questions and Discussion
Verse 15 and its comments on hate generated a lot of discussion, not so much over the prohibition, but rather the related question, of is it ever right to hate? Contrary to a lot of people who quickly answer no, I think this is a very complex question. For many, 1 John 4:8’s statement that, “God is Love” precludes any possibility of hate. But the Bible says differently. In Exodus 18:21 Moses is told to pick “men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain.” So here hating is a good thing. On the other hand we are also told in Leviticus 19:17 “Do not hate your brother in your heart.” This shows up in the common phase hate the sin, not the sinner. This is very true, but also very difficult.
Then there is the issue of people whose very existence seems to be defined by evil. People such as Osama Bin Laden, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and far too many others. Is it permissible to hate them? Again I do not think this is so clear cut, while in theory one could separate out the person from their evil, in these extreme cases this is very difficult if not impossible. The evil is an integral part of who they are. At this point it is important to note that many texts Jesus’ statement in Matthew have the qualifier, “without cause.” Even if “without cause” was not original, it is implied in the style which used hyperbole and stark black and white differences as a way of making a point. After all, no one would take Jesus’ statement that “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away” just a few verses later (Mt 5:29) to be to be a literal injunction to Christians. Then again Jesus says Mat 5:22 that “And whoever says ‘You fool!’ will be subject to hell fire.” In Matt 23:17 he says to the Pharisees, “You blind fools” again showing that Matthew 5 cannot be taken as an absolute prohibition which no exceptions.
Likewise Jesus was at time angry. In Mark 3:5 Jesus in a dispute over healing on the Sabbath “looked around at them in anger, deeply hurt because of their hard hearts.” Then there was the cleansing of the temple. This division between a good anger (anger with a just cause) and bad anger used to be common place. In fact the good anger was called righteous indication.
Finally it is also important to consider that he did not reach out to everyone. While he reached out to many, especially those shunned by the culture, such as the Samaritan woman at the well, when he was taken before Herod, “Jesus gave him no answer at all.” (Luke 23:9) No reaching out, no pleas to repent, just silence.
A large part of this turns on what is meant by hate. If what we mean by hate is an emotion that will control us, then the answer is no. Such hatred in the heart will eat at a person and corrupt their sole. However, if we mean an intellectual attitude, that will depend on the circumstances. Luckily very few will ever have to deal with a person the likes of Herod or Hitler. The far more likely question for us is: Do we really hate evil. Do we have room in our theology for righteous indication? Or are we so busy loving the sinner, that we just ignore the sin?
If you have question or comments about the class, feel free to send me an email at elgin@hushbeck.com and be sure to put “Epistles of John” in the header.
See here for references and more background on the class.
Scripture taken from the Holy Bible: International Standard Version®. Copyright © 1996-2008 by The ISV Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INTERNATIONALLY. Used by permission. www.isv.org
Note: Some places I have modify the text from the ISV version. Passages that I have modified have been noted with and * by the verse number and the ISV text is included in a footnote.
Footnotes:
[1] 3:14 Other mss. read doesn’t love his brother
[2] 3:14 The Gk. lacks spiritually
