Thoughts On Justice The Platform Of Peace
By Al Cronkrite The Covenant News ~ August 18, 2007
I (wisdom) walk in the way of righteousness in the midst of the paths of justice. Proverbs 8:20
It has been said that only a just society can peacefully maintain freedom.
Coercion and injustice produce resentment and unrest.
Justice is inextricably entwined with law and not only must a society be governed by just laws but the laws must be understood and obeyed by those living under them.
Since law forms the religious base of society, when government creates diversity, as it has done in the United States, justice is inhibited by a lack of legal cognizance. It is difficult for multi-cultural societies to be just societies. Justice is a two way street, it must be respected by the populace and enforced by those who govern.
In a book entitled “Conspiracy in Philadelphia” Gary North contends, correctly, I believe, that, “The ratification of the United States Constitution in 1787–88 was not an act of covenant renewal. It was an act of covenant-breaking: the substitution of a new covenant in the name of a new god.” (The entire book is available on the Net. Find it here: PDF format).
North explains that of the thirteen colonies involved in the ratification of the Constitution only one, Rhode Island, did not include a Trinitarian confession as a requirement for political office. Roger William’s Rhode Island colony preferred the mantle of neutrality.
The Constitutional convention was conducted in secret by men who were often church goers and who mouthed religious platitudes but at heart were intellectually enlightened.
North writes that the colony of Rhode Island did not send a delegate to the Convention but was successful in imposing its system on the remaining twelve colonies. The Trinitarian God of the Bible was thereby replaced with “We the people….” and the administration of justice was inhibited.
In the late Eighteenth Century, our nation, then as now, predominantly Christian in population, fell under the dominion of a secular document wielded by political officials whose Christian pronouncements often came from pagan hearts.
If the Laws of the Living God had been encoded as the platform of the fledgling United States legal system, they might have offered protection to the Constitution which was designed to protect our freedom. As it happened, justice was thwarted by their absence.
It is generally conceded that in human terms justice is in the eye of the beholder. The incongruity of the human dissection of the concept of justice is glaringly evident in the definition supplied by Wikipedia. Read it here.
Contending that human beings were not created to govern themselves involves grasping the fact that a newly created human mind is bereft of a reference point and unable to anchor itself. When the fledgling mind matures and seeks an anchor, being unable to perceive totality, it is confronted with a morass of viewpoints that defy propriety.
From these pagan minds we get the perspective of animal lovers who are willing to loose money from the pockets of taxpayers to incarcerate men like Michael Vick. We get the men of the Council on Foreign Relations who are sincerely enamored with world government and like the dog seeing the reflected bone in the water, are willing to sacrifice what once was the world‘s most free and prosperous country to realize their own tawdry dream. We get mendacious politicians whose perspective is the acquisition of power. We get acceptance of the homosexual agenda with its extinctive characteristics. We get the ludicrous contention that women should be fighting wars in our armed forces; even when they are unable to get to the latrine without fearing rape. We get pompous politicians who claim allegiance to an exclusive Christian God but contend that the god of Islam and Judaism is the same as ours. The list can go on -----
Perspective is the foundation of opinion. It determines the outcome of thought. The atheistic humanist may use reason as an anchor. College professors often error by vesting faith in the infallibility of human reason. Members of the Council on Foreign Relations might have a humanist perspective involving world government. The ruling class views the world from the top down. Animal lovers appear close to demanding suffrage for beasts. Communists seek revolution, Socialists seek government hegemony, etc.
To add to this dilemma, the sinful tendency to seek to dominate is intrinsic in every individual; one need only watch two children at play to understand the universal propensity for selfish control over ones peers. It should be apparent that when human nature is allowed to mature without discipline and righteous orientation it tends toward the totalitarian evils of a Mao, Stalin, or Hitler.
Wikipedia lists several possible sources of justice: Divine command, natural law, human creation, authoritative command, and mutual agreement. This writer contends that justice is confined to Divine command which is the sole source of progressive righteous results.
When the One True God selects a person He, God, becomes the anchor and that person’s thought changes from the anarchy of self-determination to the solid rock of a loving and righteous God.
United States of America is in the process of having the anchor of the One True God removed and replaced with the anchor of humanistic totalitarianism. This drastic change will void the immutable laws of God and replace them with the tyrannical opinions of men. We can already see a couple of the results of this transition in the acceptance of torture as a means of extracting information from prisoners and the passing of a legal structure with potential to create a police state.
When fathers and mothers advise their children to share their toys they are teaching a Christian principle. When this altruistic Christian principle is not taught the pervasive tendency toward selfish control becomes permanently embedded and a predatory generation results.
Christians believe that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. The dictionary defines wisdom as “the quality of being wise; power of judging rightly and following the soundest course of action, based on knowledge, experience, understanding, etc.; good judgment; sagacity”.
As King David properly perceived, we are conceived and born in sin (51st Psalm) and only when we are endowed with a fear of God can we stand at the open door that leads to wisdom and justice.
Justice is an attribute of the One True God. His Laws, His Commandments, are the core of justice. When created beings eschew the legal structure God has given us in His Word the chaos of evil becomes pandemic and social order fades.
Without justice a nation cannot long endure. Justice is the platform of peace and peace is the platform of prosperity.
Now, dear reader, you may wonder how our government became secular.
Ross House Books recently released a new volume by the late Dr. Rousas Rushdoony entitled “The Cure of Souls” ( Buy the book here. ) Included in the writing are the words to a hymn written by Johann Heermann in the year 1630.
“Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended,/ That man to judge thee hath in hate pretended?/ By foes derided, by thine own rejected,/ O most afflicted.
Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?/ Alas, my treason, Jesus hath undone thee./ ’Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee:/ I crucified thee.
Lo, the good Shepherd for the sheep is offered:/ The slave hath sinned, and the son hath suffered:/ For man’s atonement, while he nothing heedeth,/ God intercedeth.
For me, kind Jesus, was thine incarnation,/ Thy mortal sorrow, and thy life’s oblation/ The death of anguish and thy bitter passion,/ For my salvation.
Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay thee,/ I do adore thee, and will ever pray thee/ Think on thy pity and thy love unswerving,/ Not my deserving. Amen.”
Dr. Rushdoony points to the apt use of the word “treason”. When the citizens of a free nation sin against the Lord by failing to abide by His Laws they commit treason against Him and His government. Citizens who commit treason against God and His Laws might expect that the government they elect will commit treason against the nation and its laws.
Justice, Rushdoony points out, is not only about punishment for crimes but about a way of life ordained by God. He warns about the evils of seeking absolute justice in the earthly realm. The final consummation of justice waits on Christ’s assessment. Mercy and justice are in constant tension and the administration of God‘s legal standard will never be perfect here on earth.
One might correlate the progressive deterioration of government with the progressive deterioration of Orthodox Christianity in the populace. Now, in the Twenty First Century we are handcuffing and arresting seven year old children; gleefully jailing highly intelligent, wealthy and talented heads of corporations; and prosecuting and incarcerating those who market a weed that grows wild. Though our jails are full with more prisoners pre capita than any other nation, the victims of crimes are never repaid and innocent taxpayers are burdened with over $200 billion in annual expenses.
There is still a vestige of Biblical case law in our courts but ponderous legal statutes have filled the codes making criminals of more and more people. The motivation to win cases now overshadows the quest for justice and conviction of innocents is common.
As all this deterioration progresses, an interesting phenomenon is occurring. Multiculturalism, the bastion of political correctness, has been found to have serious faults.
Colleges seek diversity, businesses seek diversity, the government seeks diversity; Wal-Mart shoppers are a result of diversity. It is everywhere in our society. Now that the humanistic social engineers have, to the detriment of our nation, succeeded in creating pervasive diversity and multiculturalism, a Liberal Harvard Professor name Robert Putnam has conducted a conclusive study that refutes his own beliefs. Georgie Anne Geyer in a column with the most unlikely title of “The case against multiculturalism” writes concerning Putnam’s findings
“that the greater the amount of multiculturalism and diversity in a society, the lower the level of civic engagement and shared sense of community cohesiveness. The multiculturalists who have dominated our social thinking for nearly fifty years have got it all wrong…. Immigration and diversity not only reduce social capital between ethnic groups but also within the groups themselves…the problem isn‘t ethnic conflict or troubled racial relations, but withdrawal and isolation.”
In spite of popular contentions to the contrary, human reason conducted in the most brilliant minds is often wrong and the results of the hubris that supports it are frequently disastrous.
This sudden recognition of something many of us knew all along seems to indicate that it was all done on purpose and the effort to destroy our culture has been accomplished and can now be acknowledged as detrimental. Multiculturalism destroys justice.
One need only understand the turmoil human opinion bolstered by human hubris has created and will continue to create in order to realize the dire need to cleave to the immutable legal standards God has given for His creation. With these standards, justice, peace, freedom, and prosperity will replace war, violence, murder, and tyranny.
Conversion to Christ is sterile without obedience to God’s commands. God’s Laws are God’s commands; justice dwells in lives conformed to them.
