As the “Respect For Marriage Act” moved through the Senate, aided by spineless GOP, who caved to the Dems, my generation understands this is another sign of our shifting cultural and moral landscape, knowing the consequences of its end, if drastic measures aren’t enacted soon. A growing number of younger citizens, who’ve assiduously contemplated the erosion of individual Liberty, reach similar conclusions, realizing one mustn’t ignore the obvious any longer. Sadly, others remain in their hermetically sealed world of obdurate denial. What are they waiting on? Time may be our greatest adversary.
Anyone who’s astute of our current moral dilemma, and the precipitous slide toward decadence, must reject the flagrant hue and cry, “Don’t over-react, history runs in cycles…it will return.” One would be forced to ignore the plight of the Roman Empire, that discovered a human god, Caesar Augustus, “divinely appointed” was a poor foundation and Rome rotted from within. This grand experiment called a Republic is precarious and vulnerable to mischief as the Founders solemnly warned.
If one was to conduct a survey, asking American citizens, “What’s the towering moral problem of the day?” One may anticipate a wide range of responses, depending on one’s target audience. A vast majority of Liberty minded Christians would likely place the slaughter of the unborn near the top of their list. Serious students of our recent history would conclude that for decades we’ve battled symptoms. A recent opinion survey inquired, “What’s more dangerous to our Republic than fifty million radical secularist?“ One answer stood out, “Ten million lukewarm Christians who’ve ignored their calling to be salt and light.” Others might say our crumbling economy, or external threats from China and Russia. Globalist might vote for the imminent threat of global warning. Patriots would include the Feds as an ominous internal threat.
Liberty-minded people are adept at assailing secularist for their foul agendas, and relentless attacks upon First Principles. Yet, too often we behave like Cervantes’ idealistic, chivalrous Don Quixote, jousting at windmills, while the real battle rages just beyond the tip of his spear. Unlike the former Alfonso Quijano, whose battle was mostly mental, turned errant knight, we cannot sit this one out. Our cause’s noble and just. Stakes are too high to cower and retreat. It’s simple: report for duty ready for battle. All furloughs are cancelled.
One may legitimately criticize secularist for their surreptitious job of describing our glorious Founding history as “nominally Christian, primarily secular event, and, at best, a majority Deistic movement.” That knee-jerk response began as a faucet’s trickle, is now a torrential flood, washing away most vestiges of Biblical Christianity, from our Founder’s heritage. Sadly, as more scholars with Christian credentials abandoned the academy, secularists filled that void, and, with rare exceptions, liberals and secular elites dominated education, news outlets, social media, politics and public agencies at the local, state and federal levels. Even in mainline denominations and seminaries, liberalism jettisoned orthodox Christian doctrines years ago, denying the faith that once was the linchpin of our Republic.
Sir William Blackstone, English law scholar, argued that English common law had its roots in God’s law. His influence was immense on our Founders, such as Thomas Jefferson’s appeal to the “law of nature and nature’s God” in the Declaration of Independence, a reference to Blackstone’s thought. H.L. Mencken, deservedly labeled “The American Nietzsche,” a consistent critic of religion, in an essay in 1926, “Equality Before the Law,” declared, “The debt of Christianity has always been underestimated…Long centuries before Rousseau ever heard of, or Locke or Hobbs(sic), the fundamental principle of democracy were plainly stated in the New Testament, and elaborately expound by the early fathers including St. Augustine.”
Mencken could see it. Blackstone could see it. The Founders could see it. The early church fathers like Paul and Silas could see it. One who’ll honestly examine our history will see it too. Religious Liberty is Biblical. Regrettably, many of our foot soldiers, who formerly extolled and defended absolutes in our moral realm are now AWOL or dead. While we’ll need more adherents, our sieve must strain for solids, not gelatin. It’s incumbent that we recruit a new generation of bare-knurled Christians and co-belligerents who are fearless, willing to engage in this battle and mentor other like minded citizens to do likewise.
In the political process, we’ll need more Liberty minded citizens engaged in the 2024 elections, especially at the local level, to elect virtuous, moral citizens, who understand, like our Founders, that men corrupt institutions, not the reverse. These rare individuals must acknowledge that Biblical Christianity, and ancient Judeo/Christian edifices are the remedies for these ills, and vote in like manner. Few liberty minded Patriots followed Trump as a statesman. He’s raw, outspoken-but no pretentious politician. His unswerving support from Evangelicals again in 2020, was reminiscent of the Moral Majority’s ten year influence, from 1979 to 1989, and backlash against President Carter’s Pro-choice platform, embracing former Tinsel Town star, Ronald Reagan. Trump’s the most ardent supporter for the defense of the unborn to occupy the White House, since Roe v. Wade. There’re no angels running for office, as Madison observed, “If men were angels no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” (Federalist Papers No. 51, p. 322)
One must demonstrate wisdom in elusive entanglements that hamstring us for years, as wicked as they are, that we abhor. Last week at the NCSD Trustee meeting, that climaxed the year long fight over two pornographic books in libraries. It ended with a board policy that didn’t remove of the books, as many Liberty minded citizens had hoped. Bureaucratic chicanery.
Trustees capped the student age of 17 for access, with parental permission as a safe-guard. The emphasis of the meeting, with public comment, was more about safeguarding the LGBTQ student community from being bullied, or marginalized. One counselor spewed hyperbole that the eminent danger is that marginalized students will be subjected to what Hitler did to the Jews. A Casper lesbian clergy, who rejects Scripture’s veracity, threatened if they removed the books, the Bible must also be removed, using the Genesis account of Lot and Sodomites, as her erroneous proof text that the Bible is pornographic. Bible in the library? Doubtful.
Rather than focusing on what’s academically sound for students, once again the plight of the LGBTQ students was dominant. It was gut-wrenchingly tragic to watch one student approach the mic, morbidly obese, and unrecognizable as to gender, bragging to be “Trans” while mom stood applauding. For generations such behavior was abnormal, it now demands the public to “normalize” it, while failing to distinguish licentious Liberty from virtuous Liberty, in an obvious ploy to shame those in opposition, who believed otherwise. It wasn’t imprudent-but spineless.
It’s paramount to know one’s legitimate sphere of expertise and influence to specific causes that upholds Liberty in the process. One must know God’s call is certain and unambiguous. We must go to the heart of the battle-to stem the tide of the erosion of our individual God given Liberty, and the corollary unrelenting defense of the unborn-as a bulwark against the ultimate violation of their individual Liberty, standing against tyranny in all forms. We must enlist co-belligerents along the way. Our struggle isn’t against flesh and blood. It’s an eternal vigil. This isn’t a call for a theocracy, any more than de Tocqueville understood that the union of Liberty and religion must co-mingle to perpetuate virtuous Liberty.
Reinvigorating Founders’ Biblical principles of Liberty must be our focus. To do so requires our acknowledgment that the Sovereignty of God is the basis for good government. To those who would recoil at this statement, secularist admit that whoever is sovereign in any realm, determine who governs. For decades it was palatable to their cause, until we insisted it be so in ours. Because it isn’t so actually, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be so, according to our Founding documents. True Liberty emanates from the acknowledgement of God’s right to reign over our Republic, and the affairs of men. He’s the absolute source of Truth and Liberty.
Our pursuit must be singularly focused on virtuous Liberty if we’re to prevail. We must exercise discipline. Samuel Adams insisted it was wicked and unnatural, to allow those great fruits of virtuous Liberty to languish by apathy or neglect. We’ve been too easily beguiled and distracted by peripheral issues of less gravity. Our artifice must be wiser. Let’s remind ourselves, this calling is in force as long one has breath. What do you think?
Mike Pyatt’s a Natrona County resident. His email’s mikepyatt44@gmail.com
