Two Hundred Years of Entropy It Really Began At The Beginning
By Al Cronkrite The Covenant News ~ June 13, 2005
It is hard to find value in the deliberate dumbing down of America. However, the availability of non-fiction literature is better than ever - and at a lower cost. Excellent books are often available directly from libraries selling for between $1.00 and $3.00. Apparently no one is reading non-fiction.
My wife loves the Dollar Store almost as much as the Chinese love providing it. She helps the disadvantaged Chinese by regularly buying their products. I must confess to an occasional venture in that direction myself but for me the biggest bonanza the store has offered is in their book department. I have purchased several non-fiction books that make excellent reference sources. My latest is a book written by Kenneth W. Starr, eminent attorney and Independent Counsel in the Clinton years, entitled First Among Equals, The Supreme Court in American Life. The front flyleaf prices it at $26.95 American and $39.95 Canadian. One dollar at the Dollar Store.
In view of an upcoming Supreme Court hearing on a New Hampshire ruling involving parental-notification of juvenile abortion which was overturned by a United States Court of Appeals decision in Boston, Starr's book is of particular interest. Planned Parenthood v. Casey struck down a Pennsylvania decision that a wife must notify her husband before obtaining an abortion determining that it might jeopardize women in abusive relationships. The Boston US Court of Appeals used this as a basis for striking down a New Hampshire law requiring parental-notification for minors seeking abortions. The New Hampshire law has not yet gone into effect but the decision against its use in certain cases will be argued before the Supreme Court.
In First Among Equals, Starr lays out a platform for his discussion of the Court by recalling the early battles that proceeded what is in place today. President George Washington and President John Adams were Federalists while Jefferson supported states rights.
Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth resigned in late 1800. Jefferson had won the election and Adams was finishing his Presidency. In what became known as the "midnight appointees" Adams rushed through nominations of Federalist judges to the lower courts and replaced Ellsworth with brilliant Virginia Federalist John Marshall. Starr writes "no other appointment in history had the enduring impact of John Marshall's".
Marshall's most famous decision was a result of an insignificant case involving the authority of William Marbury to be commissioned as Justice of the Peace in the District of Columbia. In that case, Marbury v. Madison, Marbury sought to use a writ of mandamus (means required to or not to, take a certain action) to secure his commission. "Invoking the mandamus provision, William Marbury filed a petition in the Supreme Court to mandamus the incoming secretary of state, James Madison, to deliver the justice-of-the-peace commission..."
Chief Justice Marshall ruled that the congressional Judiciary Act of 1789 under which Marbury was seeking the writ of mandamus was not included in Article III of the Constitution and that congress could not legally add additional categories; thus he refused to consider Marbury's petition. Marshall's analysis was: "If a statute passed by congress is inconsistent with the Constitution, then the statute must be set aside. Otherwise, ordinary legislation would render ineffectual the very law that sets up Congress and the rest of the government - the Constitution." This portion of Marshall's decision was "strict construction". However, his conclusion that judges are to determine the law of the land set the court above the other two branches of government. He "established the fundamental role of the judiciary in a constitutional democracy - to interpret the Constitution finally and authoritatively, even when one of the other branches of government (or both) had come to a contrary view".
Marshall's career was marked by a quest for centralized power. In 1824 the Gibbon v. Ogden case resulted in a broad interpretation of the meaning of the word "Commerce" using the Constitutional authority to regulate commerce as a means to vastly extend the court's dominion. In another instance Marshall ruled against the State of Maryland when they decided to protect their state banks by levying a tax on the National Bank. In this case, McCulloch v. Maryland, the federal government was clearly upheld over the state.
Though Jefferson vehemently apposed these decisions believing each branch of government was to be co-equal his opinion was not taken up by the congress and the decision to allow high court tyranny stood.
Marshall's contention that the Court was responsible for interpreting broadly the statutes of the Constitution and then making that interpretation the law of the land may have set the stage for the flagrant misinterpretation that goes on today and for the lack of remedial action from the congress.
An interesting simile between the development of the nation and the development of the Christian religion occurred in these early years.
As the Supreme Court's battle for centralized control progressed with powerful men debating the merits of man-made laws, the human influence in the Christian Church grew exponentially.
During the Eighteenth Century the ministries of George Whitfield and John Wesley set a precedent for what was to come in America in the Nineteenth Century. Wesley was an avowed Arminian while George Whitfield was a Calvinist. At one point they split over theological differences but in the end Wesley gave a eulogy at Whitfield's funeral. Both held successful emotion filled outdoor revivals.
In 1800, as lame duck President John Adams was packing the courts with Federalists, revival swept into three small congregations in Logan County Kentucky. Muddy River, Red River, and Gasper River were populated with criminals fleeing justice. Some were murderers; others horse thieves, robbers, and counterfeiters. The area acquired the nickname Rogues Harbour. In June 1800 over four hundred members of Presbyterian Pastor James McGready's congregation from "Rogues Harbour" gathered with five additional ministers for a camp meeting that was to last several days.
On the final day "a mighty effusion of God's Spirit" fell on the people "and the floor was soon covered with the slain; their screams for mercy pierced the heavens."
Following this successful meeting McGready organized another camp meeting in July. This meeting was marked by an even greater success drawing 8,000 attendants from distances of 100 miles. Near the close of a stirring sermon at a large evening meeting
"the cries of the distressed arose almost as loud as his voice. After the congregation was dismissed the solemnity increased, till the greater part of the multitude seemed engaged in the most solemn manner. No person seemed to wish to go home - hunger and sleep seemed to affect nobody - eternal things were the vast concern. Here awakening and converting work was to be found in every part of the multitude; and even some things strangely and wonderfully new to me".
A theologically vapid emotionalism marked the progress of Christianity during the nineteenth century and carried forth into a mid-Twentieth Century revival as well.
As law at the Federal level succumbed to the power of interpretation, the Christian Church succumbed to the pragmatic power of pietistic evangelism. In both cases significant core principles were lost.
In the Church the orthodox God-centered concepts of Calvinism were replaced by a layer of human dominion that tugged at the sovereignty of the Creator and, even worse, the core doctrine of obedience fell to a misplaced zeal for evangelism. As time has gone on what seemed like subtle and insignificant error decimated the church by weakening orthodoxy and facilitating dissent. American Christianity has been weakened and splintered by the whims of thousands of pastors and the selfish demands of their congregants.
Similarly, the fervor for centralized Federal power, which to some seemed necessary at the time, planted the seeds for progressive assaults on individual freedom and opened the door to conspiratorial initiatives.
Both the American Government and the American Christian Church failed to make the Christian God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the pre-eminent consideration in their affairs. Both centered their attentions on the creature rather than on the Creator.
Freedom of religion allowed Polytheism to became an intrinsic part of the Constitution. Religious pluralism and Balkanization are synonymous and humanist attempts to create a world religion are efforts to restore a religious exclusivity that should have been vested in Christianity.
It was a lawless quest to rise above the law that allowed the Supreme Court to become arbiter over all of government. When law must be interpreted by the esoteric opinions of humanist judges and can no longer be read and understood by the common man righteousness becomes remote.
Emotion is God given and properly a part of our religious life. However, the emotion of conversion, which in America has become the finale, is truly only the beginning of the Pilgrim's journey. God seeks obedient followers. Each time ancient Israel returned to God, The Law was resurrected and read aloud. Conversion was from disobedience to obedience. When obedient, God's chosen people enjoyed victory in war and when war was over were blest with peace and prosperity.
These Old Testament blessings did not come from the anarchic pietistic individual guidance that is common among American Christians but rather from obedience to the clearly delineated Laws God gave to Moses. Christians are saved by Grace and live a forgiven life through the sacrifice of The Savior, but without Law, obedience is elusive and Christianity loses its ability to impact the social order.
Lacking the immutable tenets of God's Laws our Supreme Court has now become infected with the foreign law germ and the latest initiative is to heed the laws of other lands.
In a recent Report, Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum decried the decision of the Supreme Court in Roper v. Simmons. The case involved the hideous murder of a women whose home was invaded by two seventeen year old boys who were then found guilty and sentenced to death by a Missouri court. Their death sentence was overturned by the votes of Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Stevens, and Souter citing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (not ratified by congress) and an international trend set by seven countries (Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Nigeria, Congo, and China) that have banned juvenile capital punishment.
Currently, in Florida, a seven year old boy murdered his baby sister with a 2 x 4. Officials are understandably concerned about charging a seven-year-old with murder.
God's Laws are to be enforced according to the action and the intent of the perpetrator; not by his or her age, emotional state, or mental condition. Mercy is recommended and is an option of the court. Nevertheless, there a eugenic quality to God's Laws that needs to be upheld.
When law is controlled by human opinion Ms. Schlafly's dissent may be entirely correct but it is only her opinion and that opinion is as valid in the five humanistic justices as it is in Ms. Schlafly, also, the judges have the power to carry it out.
Since American Christianity has shunned its legal mooring and lost its worldview, humanistic laws have depleted its hegemony. The pagan worldview is to rule the world with their arbitrary laws. God wants to rule the world through willing obedience to His loving statutes. He has the only legitimate claim.
Man was not created to govern himself and when he undertakes that task, he enters a state of perpetual deterioration.