13 Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme,
14 or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good.
15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men--
16 as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God.
And, of course, that doesn't mean that we, as citizens of a Constitutional republic, cannot petition our leaders and express our opinions. But, we are to have high regard for authority, and, as 1st Timothy 2 says, to pray for them. We are citizens of the United States, and I am proud to be one of them, but I also serve an even higher authority - I am a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, and God calls me, and all of us, to do good, to follow Christ, to honor Him, and to act as He leads.
God wants us to be wise in Him, and to live according to His principles. That can enhance our individual lives and contribute to a more righteous society, if significant numbers of believers are taking that to heart. Here are 2 verses from Proverbs 14:
33 Wisdom rests in the heart of him who has understanding, But what is in the heart of fools is made known.
34 Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a reproach to any people.
Well, apparently there is a judge who has decided that he has had enough of the increased secularism in America. Speaking to a Roman Catholic high school in New Orleans recently, this jurist reminded the audience that the U.S. Constitution does not require the government to be neutral on religion. According to a piece on the WORLD Magazine website, he said: “To tell you the truth there is no place for that in our constitutional tradition,” adding, “Where did that come from? To be sure, you can’t favor one denomination over another but can’t favor religion over non-religion?”
This is no low-level judge, either. It is Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who pointed out that government neutrality in religion is not “common practice,” noting that activist judges began imposing their own rules. The article writer, La Shawn Barber, pointed to one example: the Supreme Court’s ruling in Lemon v. Kurtzman of 1971, where the justices came up with a three-part test to determine whether a law violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. She says that one could argue they made law with this case instead of interpreting the Constitution.
Scalia said if people want strict prohibition against government endorsement of religion, let them vote on it.
Hemingway writes that Kennedy "...and four other justices on the Supreme Court discovered — Kennedy struggled mightily to explain where or how, precisely — a new fundamental right to same-sex marriage. That meant, as Justice Antonin Scalia put it, that 'every State violated the Constitution for all of the 135 years between the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification and Massachusetts’ permitting of same-sex marriages in 2003.'"
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God wants us to be wise in Him, and to live according to His principles. That can enhance our individual lives and contribute to a more righteous society, if significant numbers of believers are taking that to heart. Here are 2 verses from Proverbs 14:
33 Wisdom rests in the heart of him who has understanding, But what is in the heart of fools is made known.
34 Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a reproach to any people.
Well, apparently there is a judge who has decided that he has had enough of the increased secularism in America. Speaking to a Roman Catholic high school in New Orleans recently, this jurist reminded the audience that the U.S. Constitution does not require the government to be neutral on religion. According to a piece on the WORLD Magazine website, he said: “To tell you the truth there is no place for that in our constitutional tradition,” adding, “Where did that come from? To be sure, you can’t favor one denomination over another but can’t favor religion over non-religion?”
This is no low-level judge, either. It is Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who pointed out that government neutrality in religion is not “common practice,” noting that activist judges began imposing their own rules. The article writer, La Shawn Barber, pointed to one example: the Supreme Court’s ruling in Lemon v. Kurtzman of 1971, where the justices came up with a three-part test to determine whether a law violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. She says that one could argue they made law with this case instead of interpreting the Constitution.
Scalia said if people want strict prohibition against government endorsement of religion, let them vote on it.
On The Washington Times website, writer Wesley Pruden quotes Scalia from that New Orleans speech:
"God has been very good to us," he said. "That we won the Revolution was extraordinary. The Battle of Midway [the turning point in the Pacific in World War II] was extraordinary. I think one reason God has been good to us is that we have done him honor. Unlike the other countries of the world that do not even invoke His name, we do him honor. In presidential addresses, in Thanksgiving proclamations and in many other ways. There is nothing wrong with that, and do not let anybody tell you there is anything wrong with that."Not surprisingly, Scalia did not mince words in writing his dissent to the high court's decision affirm a right to so-called same sex marriage. He was stunned by the majority's willingness to subjogate the rights of the people. Mollie Hemingway at The Federalist quoted from his writing (emphasis from article):
Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact—and the furthest extension one can even imagine—of the Court’s claimed power to create “liberties” that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.He took the majority to task, writing: "the majority focuses on four 'principles and traditions' that, in the majority’s view, prohibit States from defining marriage as an institution consisting of one man and one woman. This is a naked judicial claim to legislative—indeed, super-legislative—power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government..."
Hemingway writes that Kennedy "...and four other justices on the Supreme Court discovered — Kennedy struggled mightily to explain where or how, precisely — a new fundamental right to same-sex marriage. That meant, as Justice Antonin Scalia put it, that 'every State violated the Constitution for all of the 135 years between the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification and Massachusetts’ permitting of same-sex marriages in 2003.'"
So, what is a Christian believer to do? We've been talking about how to respond for months now, and the issues at hand concerning gay marriage and religious freedom are not going away anytime soon. In fact, as Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore referenced in his order to probate judges last week not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, 2 Federal circuit decisions and a lower court have already said the Supreme Court Obergefell decision did not apply outside the 4 states involved in the case. And lawmakers in one of them - Tennessee - have filed legislation that declares, according to The Tennessean: "Natural marriage between one (1) man and one (1) woman as recognized by the people of Tennessee remains the law in Tennessee, regardless of any court decision to the contrary." It goes on to say, "Any court decision purporting to strike down natural marriage, including (a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision), is unauthoritative, void, and of no effect."
Well, I think our most powerful weapon is prayer. We can pray for leaders, and also pray for God's mercy on our nation, in which we have leaders who have departed from the Biblical foundations upon which this country were founded. And, there are opportunities to join in united prayer that are or will be available to believers, such as the nightly "Reset Our Generation" virtual prayer call and Franklin Graham's Decision America Tour, at which participants are asked to pledge to seek God and to do His will, perhaps even considering running for office.
Participation is also a key ingredient in charting a Biblical course. We can choose to vote for leaders who line up and reinforce our deeply held convictions. You can vote in the upcoming primary election on March 1st - not only will there be a selection of Presidential nominees in the respective parties, but voters in Alabama's 2nd District also have a Congressional race where there are multiple Republican candidates. Are you following it? It's important who we send to Washington, as well as to the Capitol in Montgomery. By the way, the State Legislature begins to meet in early February, and there most certainly will be legislation calling for expanded gambling - is that really what we as people of faith want to see in our state? Should our legislators approve legislation that calls for behavior that clearly violates Scripture in order to raise revenue? Now is the time to pray and act, contacting your legislator to firmly ask him or her to oppose any gambling legislation.
And, finally, regarding the marriage issue, we have to be conscious to practice the principles that contribute to strong marriages. The institution of marriage is being challenged, and each of us who are married have the potential to provide evidence that reinforces the strength of the institution and contributes to a relationship that reflects the love of God. Marriage - one man and one woman - is God's standard by God's definition, and we do well to uphold it.
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