The Dignity and Calling of Work R. Albert Mohler, Jr. September 3, 2021 Labor isn't just a secular issue. It is a biblical issue. The history of Labor Day goes back to the federal holiday, basically put in place in 1894 as a part of the growth of the Labor Movement in the United States. By the way, the earliest Labor Day celebrations were on May the 1st, the date that was set by the second international and what became the communist party. You can understand why in the United States it was moved to a September observance in the fall at the end of the summer, marking the summer holidays by end as much as Memorial Day does generally in the beginning. But as you're looking at this, you also need to recognize that it is right to honor labor, it is right to honor human work and the dignity of human work. We need to recognize that the Bible itself does so, with the dignity of human labor made very clear even in the opening chapters of Genesis, even in a fallen world after the curse of Genesis 3, human labor is still recognized as a good thing if now a more arduous reality. It's also important to recognize that during the Protestant Reformation, one of the great practical insights brought from the biblical recovery of the reformers was the understanding of the Christian and calling vocatio, vocation. The fact that every Christian has a calling to a particular contribution to society and to the church. The famous statement made by Martin Luther is that the milkmaid milking a cow is doing a work that is just a much a calling as a minister who is ministering in a church. We live in a time of cultural tumult in which many people are losing their understanding of the dignity of work and the calling of work. And even many Christians are losing the understanding that every single one of us has a vocation, that God has a purpose for us. He gives us particular gifts putting us in a particular place at a particular time for us to do something which we alone particularly can do and must do for His glory. It's an unavoidable irony that in order to honor work, Americans take a day off. But that just points to the fact that it is the day off, that is the exception rather than the rule.
The U.S. System of Government Cannot Survive Without Belief in the God of Abraham ‘Who Let God Into the Legislative Chamber?’: The Secular Left’s God Problem by R. Albert Mohler, Jr. Linda Greenhouse, veteran Supreme Court reporter for the New York Times suggests that America is in big trouble because in the words of her opinion piece that ran in Sunday's newspaper, "God Has No Place on the Supreme Court." At one point in the article, she asked the question, "Who let God into the legislative chamber?" Well, she brings two branches of government into her concern here, but the Supreme Court's at the center of her concern and of course, the background to this is the fact that several states have been legislating quite successfully in terms of defending unborn human life. Linda Greenhouse, by the way, is a complicated figure on her own. I've discussed her on The Briefing at length. She wrote a memoir about her years serving the New York Times as its lead reporter for the Supreme Court. It turned out that she had been an activist for abortion during the time that she was covering the Supreme Court. Of course, that would have been considered something that would break judicial ethics, even by the standards of the New York Times during that era. But nonetheless, the New York Times continues to use her, and she is quite useful to the political left in the United States in making arguments. But we really need to take a look at this argument, again, the headline, "God Has No Place on the Supreme Court." So what's at stake here? Well, Linda Greenhouse is arguing that so many of the efforts to defend human life are essentially theological efforts. Therefore, they violate the separation of church and state. Therefore, they violate the principle of secularism. Therefore, they have no place in American political life and American political discourse, whether in the legislative chamber or in the Supreme Court or other federal courts. She complains about the fact that in May of this year, the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, and signing into law the Texas bill limiting abortion on a Senate Bill 8. She complains that the governor said, "Our Creator endowed us with the right to life, and yet, millions of children lose their right to life every year because of abortion in Texas," said the governor. "We worked to save those lives." What was the governor's grave error in Linda Greenhouse's judgment? He mentioned God. He suggested that our right to life is given to us by our Creator. Now, hold that thought. The obvious question is where does she think the governor got that? It would be called the Declaration of Independence. She complains that a Republican state senator in Arkansas, Jason Rapert, declared his support for a ban on abortions saying, "There's six things God hates and one of those is people who shed innocent blood." Again, what was the legislator's error? Mentioning God. Linda Greenhouse warns that a theocracy is replacing America's constitutional order. She writes, "I could go on, but these examples are sufficient to raise the question for those of us not on board with the theocratizing of America. Who let God into the legislative chamber?" She actually makes that statement and then asks that question. She answers the question she asks, "Who let God into the legislative chamber?" Her answer, "The answer is that we did. Our silence has turned us into enablers of those who are now foisting their religious beliefs on a country founded on opposition to an established church." And of course, it's not just legislators and governors. That would be now two branches of government that would be Greenhouse's concern. She's predominantly concerned with the Supreme Court. That's that third branch of government. She's very concerned about Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Barrett has also run afoul of Linda Greenhouse's playbook. Why? It is because, and here's the interesting thing, back when she was a law professor at Notre Dame, argues Greenhouse, "The university's Faculty for Life, of which she was a member, unanimously denounced the university's decision to honor then Vice President, Joe Biden, a Catholic, with an award recognizing outstanding service to church and society." Greenhouse continues, "The group's objection was to his support for the right to abortion." The statement from the Faculty for Life group said, "Saying that Mr. Biden rejects church teaching could make it sound like he is merely disobeying the rules of his religious group, but the church's teachings," said the statement, "bout the sanctity of life is true." So that's the offense: claiming that the sanctity of human life is based upon the fact that it is true. And you'll notice the Faculty for Life statement that was so offensive didn't even, at least as quoted in this article, mention God. It just mentions that the sanctity of human life is true. Greenhouse then writes, "Justice Barrett's personal religious views are, of course, her personal business, but her support of this aggressive public intervention into a matter of public concern was fair game for questions or should have been. It remained, however, far under the radar during the unseemly sprint to her Supreme Court confirmation." Greenhouse expresses her frustration in this section, "Religion is American society's last taboo. We can talk about sexual identity, gender nonconformity, and all manner of topics once considered too intimate for open discussion, but we have yet to find deft and effective ways to question the role of religion and a public official's political or judicial agenda without opening ourselves to accusations of being anti-religious." Well, we can simply answer Linda Greenhouse by saying the reason it is impossible to want such a tax without being considered anti-religious is because you are being anti-religious. Greenhouse's heroes are basically Roman Catholics who oppose the teaching of the Roman Catholic church or at least do not intend to apply the moral teaching of their own most basic religious convictions. She heralds John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential campaign for saying that he's a candidate who happens to be Catholic, insisting that his Catholic identity would basically have nothing to do with his politics. Now, that was in 1960, 13 years before the Roe v. Wade decision concerning abortion. Of course, there was no response from President Kennedy to the abortion issue, but there was from New York Democratic governor, Mario Cuomo, who went to the University of Notre Dame in 1984 and basically argued for the role of a Catholic politician who would operate in violation of Catholic conscience on these issues. But again, one of the questions that Linda Greenhouse asked is, "Who let God in the legislature?" Well, just go look at the United States Capitol and you will find Christian references in the artwork, even in the architecture, in the artistry of that building. Go to most state capitals, you're going to find something very similar. And when it comes to the Supreme Court of the United States, go to the Supreme Court building in Washington, DC. You will not find just one representation of Moses and the 10 Commandments. You will find multiple references, both in the interior and the exterior of that famed building in Washington, DC. And when you ask based on the American experiment, "Who let God in," well, basically, the founders of this country did, even in their most basic statement, the Declaration of Independence, which spoke of those rights that are endowed by the Creator, those unalienable rights. They don't come from nowhere, said the American founders. They come from the Creator. Linda Greenhouse is worried about a lurch into theocracy. As a theologian, I have to say that is certainly not much of a real danger in an increasingly secular United States of America, but it does show you that the media elite and the political left in the United States see theocracy with any vestige of theology. And by the way, the Creator who endowed us with an inalienable rights, as referenced in the Declaration of Independence, is not an anonymous Creator. No one would have believed that in 1776. No one who's intellectually honest can suggest that now. It's also extremely important that we ask the fundamental question: if God is excluded from this equation, if there is no Creator allowed in the discussion, then where exactly do we ground human rights? From where, from whom did those rights come? And furthermore, understand that it is impossible, in purely secular terms, to ground human rights in anything other than thin air. If those rights are not endowed by our Creator, then they're granted by some government or they don't exist at all, or they're just there for some legislature or some judiciary to make up. But that, quite frankly, is exactly where the secular left now stands with rights existing only in thin air for so long as they exist for now.
A Society Convinced that Human Rights Are Granted by the Government Is a Doomed Population A House Built in the Air: A Secular Age Subverts any Secure Morality R. Albert Mohler, Jr. The Briefing 09/30/2021 How many laws are actually theological in nature? How many laws look back to a theological worldview for their grounding? What about legislating morality? Is that right or wrong? When does a moral principle become a statutory law that invokes the question as to whether or not it is constitutional? Well, these are huge questions these days. They're not entirely new. Some of these go all the way back to the American founding, but they are certainly urgent now. And this was made very clear in a recent column at the Washington Post by Kate Cohen. The headline is this, "If they're going to keep passing religious laws, we're going to need exemptions." Kate Cohen is writing a bit tongue in cheek here. She's being a bit sarcastic. She's writing about the fact that there are so many people who are claiming religious exemptions to certain laws. She doesn't like it. She writes this, "A person can claim a religious exemption to the equal opportunity clause as required in all federal contracts." Now, that is not an absolutely blanket reality, but nonetheless, just consider the fact that when you think about title nine coverage of institutions, higher education institutions, those institutions are told they cannot discriminate on the basis of sex and that means male or female. There is that old language coming back to us. But as you think about this, you have theological seminaries, you have Christian institutions that limit some admissions and some programs to men rather than to women based upon theological qualifications for ministry, biblical understandings of ministry. And she is saying, that's an exemption and thus it ought to be suspect. But again, remember, she's writing a bit tongue in cheek. She says that in some states, religious believers can object to and claim an exemption to the requirement that a child be immunized to attend public school. In her view, she says, "This thing is crazy. Obviously not everyone agrees with every law, but that's the bummer about living in a society." She writes, "In a democracy, if you feel strongly enough, you can set about finding like-minded people and try to change the law." Or she says, "If that doesn't work and you truly believe it's a sin to say, fill contraceptive prescriptions than A, don't be a pharmacist or B, risk getting fired, wouldn't God," she asks, "appreciate the gesture?" Later she says, "Martyrdom is supposed to be hard." In other words, Christian believers, just take it on the chin. Now we're going to come back to that basic analysis that she offers, but the tongue in cheek part comes where she says, "If religious people can opt out of secular laws they find sinful then maybe the rest of us should be able to opt out of religious laws we find immoral." Okay. That sounds interesting. Where is she going with this? Well here is what she writes, "That's right immoral. We act as if religious people are the only ones who follow a moral compass and the rest of us just wonder around like sheep in search of avocado toast." But she says, "You don't need to believe in God or a particular religious tenents to have a strong sense of right and wrong." She says, "I'm not a believer, but I have beliefs, strong, sincerely held beliefs such as," and here's where you get to the very essence of her arguments, "such as," she says, "a seven week old embryo, which is a week too old to abort. According to the Texas law is not a person. It's the blueberry sized potential for a person." Well, if you're looking for the clash of worldviews, there it is. And in this case, the clash of worldviews is over the reality of what is. Indeed Christians would say, who is a seven week old embryo? But you'll notice the argument she's making in this article. And she goes on to give other illustrations. The point is this, there are secular laws and there are laws that are explained only by some kind of religious morality. The secular laws well, they should be accepted by all people. And the religious people should simply come to terms with the fact that if you live in a democracy, you're going to have to live with those secular laws. You have no right to bring your religious worldview into any public policy or legislation. Now, what's our response to that. Number one, in one sense, we can say, tongue in cheek, satirically, good luck with that. Good luck to finding any way to have an adequate moral structure that is completely without reference to God. Now for one thing, you could say, well, let's just take those laws and principles and legal standards and moral judgments that come from the history of Western civilization. Let's just call them something secular like the common law or positive law. We just came up with these laws, but how are you going to explain why these laws are right or wrong? Well, the left, the secular left, for a number of decades in the United States has been arguing that the only justification for a legislation must be a publicly accessible secular logic. There must be a purely secular rationale. Well, here's a big problem. When you look at a nation like the United States, especially in its history, but even now, the moral judgments of the people who democratically make up the United States of America, those moral convictions are profoundly not secular. They come from somewhere. That's where Christians understand that those moral judgments, those moral principles, what a society believes is right and what a society believes is wrong that judgment comes from somewhere. It isn't developed merely in secular terms, as an experiment as if trying to build a house in the middle of the air, it doesn't work. But notice something else just in terms of her argument. As I said early on, she says obviously, not everyone agrees with every law, but she says, that's the bummer about living in a society. Then she says this, "In a democracy, if you feel strongly enough, you can set about finding like-minded people and try to change the law." Well, Ms. Cohen, that is exactly what happened in the state of Texas in the law that you find so objectionable. The Christians in that case, the citizens of Texas actually followed the very process you call for. That law was not imposed by some kind of religious authority in Rome or in Wittenberg or in London, or for that matter in Beijing or anywhere else. It wasn't imposed upon the state of Texas and furthermore, as you look at the democratic process in Texas, there is no doubt that through the legislative process, a duly elected governor, that law, which this columnist finds so objectionable came through what is unquestionably, a democratic process, a constitutional process, but we should appreciate Kate Cohen's candor here. She really does set out for us. A good deal for us to think about very helpful consideration. Later in the article, she says, "Around the country, people are claiming religious exemptions from mandates that they be vaccinated. They want to opt out of laws that seek to protect their health and that of their neighbors." But then she goes on to say, "Surely people should be able to opt out of a law that forces them to risk their health." She says, "Let's call it an unreligious exemption or no," she says, "since there are plenty of religious folk who object to the Texas law, let's call it a rational exemption." Well again, here is where you see a part of the secular conceit. A part of the modern secular conceit is that secular people operate out of a very clear sense of logic that should be compelling to everyone. And if anyone such as religious believers disagrees with that rationality, they are being irrational. Or you might say even sub rational. In this case, she goes on to write, "Rational exemptions could be used for religion-based laws with which people strongly, sincerely disagree." She says, "Again, for example, a law that values the life of a quarter inch embryo more than the life of a person carrying that embryo." Now let's just think for a moment. She is arguing here that if you are going to state as a matter of law, that an unborn human being, whether a zygote or an embryo or a fetus, whatever stage, if you take her argument seriously, she's making the argument that it is simply a religious imposition to declare the personhood of that unborn human being because there is no secular basis for it. Well, let's just follow her logic. We'll then when does a secular basis for defending human rights and human dignity begin? Does it begin at birth? What's the qualification? What makes a human life after birth actually worthy of the sanctity and dignity of life and thus its protection? How do you decide why human beings have such dignity? Where does that dignity come from? And is that dignity something that human beings achieve? Are there certain hallmarks, like consciousness, ability to use language, ability to anticipate the future, ability to create and to enjoy social relationships, are those necessary markers of personhood? Well, let's just note. And here we need to note very chillingly that that argument has already been made. I did not draw those criteria out of thin air. Those are the very criteria given by Princeton bioethicist, Peter Singer, in explaining why it should be legal under some, indeed many circumstances, to practice, not merely abortion, but infanticide, to kill living, born human beings. On what basis would he make that argument? He says, and he's very blunt about this, and remember he teaches bioethics at Princeton University. He is very blunt about the fact that there are certain pigs that have a higher consciousness and mental ability than certain humans. He says there are humans who are in a state such that they are not linguistic, they are not able to anticipate the future, they do not have a web of social relationships therefore they are not bearing any kind of inherent dignity that needs to be respected. They are life of some form, but they are not human persons who demand legal protection. And here is where Christians have to understand that there is a huge problem. And that is, given the metaphor I used before, that attempting to build a merely secular ethic is like trying to build a house on a foundation of air. A house being built simply up in the atmosphere. The impossibility of that is clear. But as you think about it, you come to understand that if you are going to try to create an entirely secular system of laws, an entirely secular moral structure for a society, an entirely secular defense, even of something like human life and human dignity, you are in very big trouble, that kind of logic is what inevitably leads to the kind of medicine you saw during the Weimar Republican Germany. And later the so-called Nazi doctors. Again, you heard me use this phrase, Lebensunwertes Leben, life unworthy of life. You had the German argument. Yes, it's life of some sort, but it's not human life. This is not a human person. This might be even a potential human person, but it's not an actual human person. Whether you say that that potentiality is an actuality, the moment of birth, or if you say that that potentiality is truly an actuality only when there is the achievement of certain kinds of qualifications, such as the ability to use language, to anticipate the future and to develop social relationships. But this gets back to another fundamental question and Christians really need to think about this. Of course, secular folk need to think about this. They don't really want to think about this. They don't want to really answer many fundamental, moral questions. They undoubtedly, many of them actually live very moral lives in terms of a conventional morality and their lifestyle. And they'll say look, atheist could be good people too but the question is, how does atheism have any clue what good is? You might come up with a merely human calculation, such as utilitarianism. Good is what leads to the greatest enjoyment for the greatest number of people but frankly, that turns out to be an extremely thin morality. It's a worldview that doesn't actually defend human life.
(This exemplar from Robert Barnes touches on a number of topics worthy of discussion with upper-grade students...) Religious Exemption Request Exemplar Taking this vaccine violates my conscience for at least three reasons: First, the use of aborted fetuses in either the development or production of these vaccines, or both, when my religious beliefs require that I respect all human life, including fetal life, and not knowingly profit from harm to fetal life; Second, the invasion of my body with foreign toxins when my religious beliefs require I treat my body as a temple, and not to knowingly desecrate it; And third, the coercion against informed consent of this vaccine when my religious beliefs require all medical treatment be conditioned upon informed consent. This is a matter of life and death, and of respect for all human beings and all human life in the world—a core matter of right and wrong, and essential to my very being. I cannot violate my conscience on such a core matter of my morals and the beliefs that guide me and govern me, formed by religious beliefs and as instructed by my religious tenets. I have never knowingly taken any vaccine, or any medicine, developed or produced with aborted fetal cells, that invaded my body with foreign toxins, or that were compelled against informed consent. The violation of informed consent is a matter of religious conscience; what the Nazi doctors did was morally wrong and spiritually offensive, and participating or partaking in such invasive, coerced medicine at any time offends the very core of my conscience. I cannot consciously disrespect human life, and the core of what makes us human and the dignity it requires we treat ourselves and our fellow human beings, even if it might medically or financially profit me to do so. Some things are not for sale; my conscience, formed by the core of religious tenets, is one of them.
The American Public School System at the Federal Level Was Created to Propagandize Children Against Christianity How Did the Public Schools Become Such a Battleground? The Real Roots of the Crisis R. ALBERT MOHLER, JR. THE BRIEFING 10/14/2021 Who should decide what is and what is not taught in America's public schools? That's been a raging debate in the United States, especially over the course of the last several decades. And by now it's clear there are two very different answers to that question. One side says that all the decisions about curriculum, all the decisions about what is and is not taught to our children in the public schools should be left to the professional educators, to the educational class, to the educators' guilds, to the associations of teachers, to teachers' unions, and others. They should decide what is taught. The argument here is that the teachers' colleges and the prestigious universities should be at the front of the development of policy concerning educational curriculum. The argument is that this is something for professionals, it is for government bureaucrats, and for experts to figure out. The second argument is very different. The second answer is that there are two groups whose views ought to be paramount. We start with parents. The first argument is that parents should have the first responsibility and the major right to decide what is and is not taught to their children. After all, they are their children. The second part of this answer is that there is another party to be considered here, and that is the local community. Now just remember this, the idea of public education in the United States began with the idea of a common school under the control of a local community. Now, that means a local school board. And as you think about the origins of the public school movement in the United States, the idea is that the local community would be in charge of its own public school. That the local community would hire the teachers, hire the principal, establish the school, take care of the curriculum. There would be local accountability, according to the understanding, the convictions, the culture of the community, when it came to the community's public school. That principle of local control of the public schools was paramount in the history of American public schools as a project. The idea was that the school would best serve the community if it is answerable to the community. And even now you'll find people who just assume that some principle of local control is appropriate for the public schools. But we have to note that the federal government and government agencies and bureaucracies and regulations have been encroaching upon the very idea of local control of the public schools. Federal mandates that come with spending have had a great deal to do with the fact that much of educational policy in this country is now no longer set by any local school board, it is set either by government or by some kind of professional guild, by some kind of professional association, or under the control, or at least negotiation with, teachers' unions. Well, as we think about this, we need to understand that one of the patterns that is evident here is the increasing control by elites of the entire system of the culture. And the educational elites are among the most powerful of the elites. Now, one of the figures we need to understand in the transition of the public schools away from that idea of a local common school to something of a national project, we have to understand the role of John Dewey. Back in the opening decades of the 20th century, John Dewey, a pragmatist philosopher, he didn't believe in the very existence of objective truth, John Dewey proposed the professionalization of the teaching profession, and more importantly, he proposed the common schools as an engine for creating a common culture in the United States. Now, you say, "A common culture in the United States? That seems to make sense. Don't we want a common culture?" But what John Dewey was talking about is, as he phrased it himself, separating the children of this nation from the prejudices of their parents. In other words, establishing a common school project in order to create a common culture of a common citizenship that would basically separate children from the prejudices of their parents, and let's make it clear, John Dewey meant first and foremost the religious prejudices of parents. Wanted to free children from that context of the local home, as where they would learn citizenship in the common culture, and instead put them under the control and under the influence of a regime of experts. And these experts would help to separate children from the backward worldviews of their parents. Now, John Dewey was also one of the founders of the humanist movement in the United States. He was avowedly secular, he was indeed an atheist. And when he talked about a common culture, even a common creed, it was a decidedly non-theistic creed. John Dewey pointed to the increasing population of the big cities in the United States. And then he pointed to what was even evident then, and that is the fact that there was a political, cultural, moral distinction between the more cosmopolitan coasts and the American heartland. He was eventually instrumental in creating Teachers College at Columbia University. And of course, he was the main ideologist behind the idea of the public schools as an engine of social transformation in the United States. John Dewey pointed to those cities with their growing populations and he said, "How in the world are we going to have a common culture if you have these Irish children who are basically being taught by Irish parents? You had Italian children with Italian parents." But let's be really clear, he was talking more than anything else about the fact that these were Irish Catholic parents. And you had German Lutheran parents teaching their children Lutheranism. And it was just a matter of John Dewey arguing that if we're going to have a common culture, we're going to have to have a common school system, basically with a common understanding of the teacher, professionalizing the profession of teaching, and we're going to have to have something like a common curriculum. And remember, he actually talked about the development of a secular common creed. Now let's be really clear, there are some wonderful, faithful Christians at work at every level of the public schools, teaching, serving as administrators and principals. There are parents who are deeply involved in the public schools. There are many of Christ's people in those schools, both as children and as those who are in the teaching ranks and amongst the professionals. But here's the point, increasingly the entire curricular structure of those schools, increasingly the regulatory structure that governs those schools, increasingly the governing authorities who are the deciders about those schools, are those who are operating from a worldview contrary to biblical Christianity, increasingly hostile to biblical Christianity. Now, when you think about Dewey's idea that the public schools should help to separate children from the prejudices of their parents, just think about the modern ideology of sex education. It's often packaged as so-called comprehensive sex education. In other words, it's about a lot more than biology and human reproduction. It's actually about immersing children in an ideology of sexual liberation. Now, there are states that have opt-out provisions, advance notice for parents. Even in a state like California, there's actually a legislative mandate that the schools give an advance word about this kind of sexuality education so that parents can exercise an opt-out for their children. But you can notice that the educational elites aren't going to put up with that. For instance, as we've seen in California and elsewhere, you have the schools repackage much of this LGBTQ agenda and other aspects of the sexual liberation movement, you have it repackaged as health education. Therefore, there doesn't have to be any advance notice and there doesn't have to be any acknowledgement of a parental opt-out provision for children. And as I say, this is taking place in some states, it's taking place even in some major cities and school systems in the American Midwest, in the heartland. And you say, "How is that? How does that happen?" Well, for one thing, you've got an incredible amount of pressure coming from the teachers' unions and from the professionalization of the teaching society. It has become its own guild. And it is overwhelmingly liberal. Just look at the position statements, just look at the convictions of groups such as the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association. Consider the allied professions, such as librarians, we've discussed on The Briefing. How the fact that that particular profession... Again, there are some conservative librarians, there are some Christian librarians, but the profession itself is becoming, and increasingly so, avowedly secular and joining the moral revolutionaries, especially when it comes to LGBTQ issues. Just remember Drag Queen Story Hour. That ought to tell you exactly where the profession is headed. But Christian parents, Christian citizens need to recognize that it isn't just a matter of sex education, or even sex education repackaged has health education, it's about the entire curriculum. It's about how history is taught. That's why there are so many controversies right now about critical race theory and how history is to be understood and taught. And it's about other issues. Just consider the role of evolution in public school education. Consider the fact that there is no aspect of the curriculum that does not impinge at some point upon the Christian worldview. At some point, Christian conviction, biblical conviction is impacted in some way in every dimension of the curriculum.
Where Do We Draw The Line Between Legislating Theologically And Legislating A Theocracy? — Dr. Mohler Responds To Letters From Listeners Of The Briefing Next I want to turn to a question sent in by Jeff, he asked, "Where would you draw the line between a government legislating based on theological conviction and a theocracy?" Well, Jeff, again, a very smart question. Let's think about it for just a moment. And by the way, we could take a long time trying to unpack all of these. I'm going to try to offer a succinct answer that will help us to at least start thinking along the lines of these important questions. A theocracy is a government, which is officially theological. It has an official theological commitment, and that means something else. That means that the theocracy is involved even in establishing right worship. Now, that's the clearest definitional distinction between a government that legislates on moral principles that have to be tied to theological truth and a theocracy. In a theocracy you have the very dangerous mix of the priesthood and the politicians in such a way that even the worship of what must become an established religion becomes a matter of government control and government interest. You also have the fact that in a theocracy, there is often, a classic theocracy there is often a situation in which someone dares to speak for God into the government. That's not what we're asking the government to do. That's not what Christians seeking Christian influence in politics and in legislation are seeking to do. We are actually asking our government to offer acknowledgement of and respect of what is pre-political. That's exactly what you see in the declaration of independence. Where we understand the fact that there is a dignity, there are rights that are endowed by our creator. They're unalienable rights. Now that's theological in some sense. That's the point we often try to make on The Briefing. But it is not the establishment of a theocracy in the sense that there is not an argument for those very same principles that is offered on the plausible grounds of government respect for what is pre-political. That does not mean a specific theological commitment. And that gets back to something else that's really important theologically and that is, that our hope for government is for a government that will demonstrate the power of and the acknowledgement of, and a respect for common grace. We are not asking for a government that seeks or presumes to operate on the basis of special grace, supernatural grace. The job of the church is the gospel. The job of the government is the maintenance of order. The maintenance of order is rested upon calm and grace, natural revelation, even as natural rights are cited, invoked in the declaration of independence and in our founding philosophy as a nation. A government's respect for an acknowledgement of common grace is not to transform that government into a theocracy. A theocracy is when the government is based upon the authority or the presumed or claimed authority of special grace or special revelation. That's a very different thing. It is by no means an accident that the prevailing moral understanding of all of these issues, including the pre-political that is to say what precedes politics and politics can't change. There is no doubt that the inheritance of Western civilization is based upon a Judeo-Christian inheritance. There is no doubt about that and there should be no embarrassment about that. But what we're pointing to here is the fact that what we are calling upon the government to do is to respect what is made known to us by common grace and then to let the church be free to preach the gospel. [Duxon's Personal Note: Special grace, in Reformed theology, is the grace by which God redeems, sanctifies, and glorifies his people. Unlike common grace, which is universally given, special grace is bestowed only on those whom God elects to eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ.]
The Separation of Powers in the United States of America (The following information is excerpted form the transcript of R. Albert Mohler, Jr.'s podcast from October 18, 2021.) The United States's constitutional order is predicated upon a separation of powers. As you know, three different powers. And they are all given constitutional responsibility. The separation of powers is based upon a Christian understanding of sin, and thus the danger of concentrating too much power in a single branch or even two branches of government. Learning from previous examples in self-government, the United States struck out in its founding era on the course of inventing what the founders called a new order of the ages. And having learned from parliamentary systems and from autocracies, from monarchies, the founders of the United States put together a system of self-government, a constitutional system that included the executive branch headed by the president, the congressional or legislative branch in which you find the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, and then the judicial branch, the judiciary. And at the very top of that, the Supreme Court of the United States. Now, of the three different branches of government, it is the Supreme Court that was expected to be the most quiet, the least controversial, the most out of the public eye. The Supreme Court stayed that way for most of its history, for most of our nation's constitutional history until the second half of the 20th century. But in the second half of the 20th century, the Supreme Court began to take on for itself the establishment of policy in effect legislating from the bench. It's a virus by the way that hasn't been limited to the Supreme Court. Federal courts at every level have basically involved themselves in what the constitution's founders would have understood to be legislative functions, the establishment of policy. How did that happen? Why did it happen? Well in the second half of the 20th century, the legislature increasingly didn't legislate. That's certainly true now. Just look at all of the debate over various bills in Washington, DC. Legislators have decreasingly legislated. They have instead mostly talked about legislating. And when it comes to big controversial issues including the issue of abortion, the Supreme Court and the federal courts have basically just taken the issues on as if they have the authority to do so. This has been described as the judicial user patient a politics. But in that second half of the 20th century, a debate that had been basically hidden in the academic world began to come right onto the public stage. That was the debate over how the constitution is to be read. And that means that there is now a basic divide in constitutional interpretation between those who understand the words and the text of the constitution to be binding and those who argue the constitution should be understood as a so-called living document. That current living judges should be free to interpret the constitution according to contemporary needs, not bound by the words and the grammar, the syntax of the constitution and its text. Now, this isn't an entirely new argument. As I say, it had basically been an argument that was known to the political elites and discussed in academic circles, but it exploded onto the public square when the Supreme Court began to hand down any number of decisions that divided the American people. Why is the Supreme Court deciding these issues? Well, those who hold to the idea that the courts should be an engine for a progressive change in the United States, well, they generally argue that the constitution is a dated document, and that in order to meet the needs of a modern and quickly expanding, we can say vastly expanding government and people, that constitution is simply going to have to be reinterpreted. Conservatives would come back... And I'm going to argue that conservative position. Conservatives would come back and say, "No, the constitution only makes sense if it is a matter of words and sentences and binding textual authority." And furthermore, the constitution has within itself a provision for amendment. If the constitution needs to be changed, there is a process whereby the constitution can be amended. The answer, say the conservatives, is not to just begin to free yourself from the words and sentences the text of the constitution because there would be no limits upon that progressivist impulse. Rather, the answer is summon the kind of political courage and build the kind of political support to amend the constitution. But the left has been getting away with making its basic changes in society without in most cases, the vast majority of cases, even coming close to proposing an amendment to the constitution. Rather, they've been using judges simply to interpret the constitution in a way that's independent of the text. Now, as I offered so many times in the past on The Briefing, just keep in mind that liberal constitutional interpretation has a great deal in common with liberal Bible interpretation. The higher critical method of understanding the scripture, or even more so, the kind of postmodern interpretation that says, "Look, we really aren't bound by texts. Texts are just ancient artifacts, or at least they are the voices of the dead. We need not pay those texts any particular kind of heed. Certainly, we should not invest in those texts authority." But let's just point out our constitutional order is only and will endure only as a constitutional order if the text of the constitution and the authority of the constitution is honored.
Incompetent Democrats Now Blaming Americans for Their Mess from The Washington Times by Tammy Bruce It was inevitable. So desperate to deflect responsibility for the disaster leftist policies are vomiting up onto American society, the only thing liberals can do now is blame us for the calamity they have caused. The supply chain catastrophe, the empty shelves across America, and the chaos unfolding in service industries are all now the fault of spoiled, clingy Americans. Jeff Bezos’ blog, colloquially known as The Washington Post, launched the new narrative that everything is fine except for whining, selfish Americans. A columnist called Micheline Maynard insists the solution for that problem is for American consumers to lower their expectations. “Time for some new, more realistic expectations,” she writes. The problem is, we simply need to get used to “inconvenience.” The Soviets did that really well. It looks like the left has a new model for us! Ms. Maynard leans on an Atlantic article also blaming the American consumer for what our ‘experts’ have foisted upon us, “For generations, American shoppers have been trained to be nightmares. … The pandemic has shown just how desperately the consumer class clings to the feeling of being served.” We’ve gone from deplorable, racist, White supremacist terrorists to whiny, scary, clingy, selfish shoppers. Just like “climate change,” we are the perfectly malleable distraction for whatever the latest Democratic indoctrination requires. The Reader’s Digest version of this new and desperate Democratic Party narrative is easily reduced to, “Just shut up and take it.” This has been the sentiment of idiot leftists and their enablers the world over for generations. When incompetence and malevolence result in predictable and obvious disasters, just blame the victim! You know, it’s like we all tripped and were rude enough to fall onto the Democrats’ knife. Our current Biden debacle of a lack of workers, debilitated ports, scores of cargo ships stranded off the east and west coast of America, and inflation across every sector, including food, housing, energy, are not the result of “the pandemic,” they are the unnatural result of disastrous decision making by human beings. These are the tiny tyrants who don’t care enough to think about the harmful impact of their irrationality or do think about it and get excited. Vaccine mandates, implemented by the federal government on sectors they control, and a public pressure campaign encouraging private business to do the same, is resulting in firings, layoffs, and mass resignations. Whether it be nurses and others in the medical field, law enforcement throughout the country, our military, the service industry, restaurants, pubs, etc., Americans are being convinced that going to work is complicated, political, invasive, and even dangerous. The Biden administration talking points sure have made the rounds amongst the Journo-list class. The Washington Post screed is getting a lot of attention, but it’s not a one-off fever dream. Axios couldn’t wait to blame the unwashed hoi-polloi for what the establishment is doing to us. Their headline? “Unruly customers threaten economic recovery.” They want you to know that “increasingly violent and combative customers” are causing workers to quit, making the workplace something to avoid, ergo making the economic recovery more difficult. It’s not the Biden administration causing all this damage, it’s you complainers about what Mr. Biden is doing that’s the problem. So just shut up and take it! It is a remarkable lack of empathy infecting everyone determined to keep the Democrats protected from the results of their incompetence. White House press secretary Jen Psaki, one should know that it is her job to at least make it appear as though the White House cares about what’s going on, decided that that just wasn’t important anymore. When she was asked about the supply chain disaster that continues to unfold, impacting the delivery of all manner of consumer goods, Ms. Psaki decided to mock the situation. “The tragedy of the treadmill that’s delayed” was her immediate, snarky reaction. It is also a reminder of how completely out of touch every single person involved with the Biden administration truly is. For some reason, the Democrats and their media enablers have devolved into a gang that comfortably enjoys ridiculing and mocking anyone expressing concern about the increasingly frightening and challenging condition of American life that the bureaucracy itself has created. Funny how that works. The United States is the economic engine of the world. To accept the collapse of our economy and industry due to feckless little bureaucrats and self-important politicians condemns the world as a whole to inevitable economic and social collapse. Only Americans can stop that from happening. And we can, just like how we stopped the world from destroying itself twice over in the 20th century due to the same cancerous machinations of men and women who also didn’t give a damn about the aftermath of their madness.