I should send this message out everyday to everybody I can. It should be posted in every classroom, every library, and prominently in all our government buildings. If I were really rich, I would put it on billboards all across the country and daily in every newspaper.
The one message that this nation needs to hear is this:
‘Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious
people. It is wholly inadequate to the
government of any other.”
So said John Adams, our second President.
Those people who keep calling for a separation of church and
state miss the point of that First Amendment.
The Founders knew that without religion, this whole freedom thing was
doomed. With freedom without religion, you’re
not going to be able to have enough police to keep order in society.
As that whole quote says: “We have no government armed with power
capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and
religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or
gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes
through a net. Our Constitution was made
only for a moral and religious people.
It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Notice he didn’t even mention gun violence or other serious
evils. They had a moral and religious people,
and those weren’t problems then. The
worse examples that he could give were avarice [greed], ambition, revenge, and
gallantry. Gallantry was a fine quality
but at times referred to certain deceptive behaviors.
The Founders weren’t forbidding government from anything
religious; they didn’t want the federal government to choose which branch of the
religion of Christ was the official one, like in England where the Queen of
England is the Head of the Church of England.
And that is why that First Amendment calls for the free exercise of
religion. It can’t do that unless the values
of [that] religion are consistent with the values of this country.
No, they weren’t establishing the religion of Christ as the religion
of the United States; they were assuming it.
They weren’t worried about people of other religions or even no religion. With freedom of speech and the free exchange
of ideas, they were confident that when people discussed the issues of life and
the existence of God, the religion of Christ would win the day.
Yes, Christians are flawed people, like everybody else, and
some have done bad things and even in the name of the Christ. But no other religion teaches people to love
their neighbors as themselves, do unto others as you would have others do unto you,
that you are created in the image of God, that God loves you such that He gave His
Son to die for you that you might have eternal life, and that if God so loved
you, so you should also love one another.
And, of course, there was always that Thou shalt not kill. And then, know that God shall bring into
account all the deeds that were done in the body. We are accountable to a Supreme Being for
what we do in our lives.
It is the lack of religion that emboldens evil people to do evil
things, people who think that they will not be held accountable to Somebody
Higher than them. Or, it is the lack of
hope in life that God offers people that breeds the despair, the anger, the
loneliness, and the hatred that propels people to do evil things.
Great freedom requires great responsibility, and it is only in
religion, and specifically the religion of Christ, that you get the responsibility
and hope that is needed for great freedom.
