Far greater minds than I have grappled with this question.  C. S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain comes readily to mind.  It seems natural to man to believe that, if there is a God and He is good, He  would not allow us to suffer.  The corollary is that if there is suffering there is either no God or, if there is a God, He is not good.  This appeals to our sense of fairness but as any parent knows, our sense of fairness is warped at best.

I can well remember the times when my kids were young and they would respond to some decision I’d made with “that’s not fair!”  My response was always the same and it ultimately had the desired effect.  “I can give you fair but I promise you won’t like it.”  You see our view of “fair” is generally that we get what we think we deserve.

Of course, any Christian with the slightest understanding of grace knows that if we got what we deserve, we’d spend eternity in hell.  The Bible is quite clear on this point.  Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  Romans 6:23 goes on to say that the wages of sin is death.  So let’s not fool around with the silly notion that it is unfair for us to suffer.  That is simply an unsupportable proposition.

Still, the Bible teaches that “God is love” (1 Jon 4:8) so why would a loving God allow us to suffer.  Here the mistake we make is that we judge what God does or doesn’t do based on our own human experience and expectations which is a fundamentally flawed approach to the question.  When we come to the realization that God is God and we are not, we also realize that we have no basis for complaint.

The classic biblical text dealing with this question is Job.  For those not familiar with the story, Job was a man who followed God in all that he did.  He was also a prosperous man with a large family and lots of land and livestock.  He would be considered rich in modern parlance.

Satan is standing before God’s throne and God begins to brag to him about His servant Job and Satan replies that Job is only faithful because God has blessed him.  He claims that if God removes His protection from Job, Job will curse Him.  So God gives Satan permission to go after Job.  The only restriction is that Satan cannot harm Job’s body.

So Satan destroys all of Job’s wealth and kills all his children, leaving him with only his wife and destitute.  At this point most readers unfamiliar with the story will be responding with how unfair all this is.  Our sense of justice is offended by this story.  How could God do such a things as to allow all this to happen to Job?

But the story doesn’t end there.  Job, in fact, does not curse God.  Rather, Job praises God, which is apparently quite annoying to Satan but pleasing to God.  So Satan makes another charge.  He claims that Job is still faithful because God has protected his health and that if God removes that protection, Job will curse Him.

God again gives His consent to Satan, this time allowing him to take Job’s health but not his live.  Those who were offended before are really offended now!  Job ends up with boils all over his body, sitting in ashes and scraping his sores with pieces of broken pottery.  At this point in the story Job’s wife comes to him and tells him to “curse God and die.”  How’s that for support from your wife?

While there are certainly people today who have suffered losses as great as Job’s, we don’t find many of them in America.  Indeed, the struggles we normally face pale in comparison and yet we feel we’ve been treated unfairly by life and by God.

The rest of the story of Job consists mainly of some conversations between Job and his friends about why all this happened.  Job’s friends believe that God is just and would never allow all this to happen to Job unless he somehow deserved it so Job must have some unconfessed sin in his life.    Job resolutely denies this but he remains faithful.  He struggles with the “why” but he never curses God.  He does, however, make the case that he did nothing to deserve what has come upon him.

In the end God joins the conversation.  For those with an overblown sense of justice and fairness, the desire is to hear God explain Himself.  You think that God now needs to justify His action.  But that is not what God does. Instead He asks Job questions designed to make him realize that he is in no position to question God’s actions at all!  Questions like “where were you when I laid the foundation of the world?  Surely you were there!”  The bottom line is that God is sovereign and is under no obligation to explain Himself to anyone.  He created us and is free to do with us as He pleases.

So where does that leave us?  For many this isn’t a very satisfying resolution.  We still want our notion of fairness, justice and love.  We want to live happy lives free of worry and struggle.  We want to be free to do what we want without consequences.  And therein lies the answer.

Our desire, at its core, is to be free of God and that is the very definition of sin.  We are hopelessly bound up in rebellion against God.  Even as Christians we need to be constantly reminded that we are dependent on God for everything.  For some this is a hard pill to swallow.

My own experience has been that it is normally through the struggles in my life that I grow.  Just as you can’t build up muscle mass without regular exercise, you can’t really grow in faith without regular struggle.  At bottom, struggle is good for us as Christians.  It forces us to rely on God instead of ourselves because we are driven to the realization that we are helpless without Him.

Struggles and suffering will inevitably lead us in one of two directions.  Either we will look to God for strength and our every provision or we will shake our fist at God and sink deeper into despair.  It’s a pretty clear cut choice.

I can’t claim that any of the struggles in my life have been comparable to what Job dealt with.  In that sense I don’t really know what suffering is.  But I know that God has always been faithful in my struggles and He has always brought me through them and focused me more on Him.  I have good reason to believe that He will continue to do so, even if the struggles become much greater, because He has demonstrated His faithfulness in the past.  It doesn’t matter if the particular struggle makes sense to me or not.  What matters is where I place my trust.  Do I rely on myself to overcome or do I accept that God has all the power and I am powerless and totally dependent on Him?

Mom went in the hospital for surgery this morning.  The purpose of the surgery was to repair a hole in her bladder but while they were in they planned to go ahead and also repair a hernia that was really giving her some trouble as well as  one or two other things.

You have to understand that my mom is not a good candidate for surgery.  Today was the 38th major surgery of her life.  Because of all these surgeries she has a lot of scare tissue that makes doctors reluctant to operate on her unless it is absolutely necessary.  She also has a lot of health problems that make her less than a good candidate for surgery.  So it takes a lot for her doctors to decide to cut her open.  They would not have done so today if not for the hole in her bladder that was confirmed several weeks ago through a cystoscope.

She was in surgery about three hours this morning and all went very well.  It went so well, in fact, that they did not have to do anything to her bladder.  According the surgeon, her bladder had spontaneously healed itself!  He said he’d never seen anything like it.  He could see where the hole had been just a few weeks ago but it was completely healed.  Of course, since they were already in, they went ahead and did the other repairs they would never had opened her up for without the hole in her bladder.

This surgery was planned but not scheduled for almost two months.  Indeed, it drug on for so long that I was beginning to become annoyed about it.  I could not understand why, if this was so serious and had to be done, it was taking so long for it to actually happen.  The answer to that became clear to me today.  Here is what I believe.

God knew the doctors would not operate on mom for the hernia or the other problems alone but He, in His infinite wisdom, wanted them to anyway.  Now He could have done any number of things, including simply healing her other problems, but He had other plans.  He allowed this hole in the bladder to cause this surgery to take place.  But He also caused the delays to give her bladder time to heal first, which does not happen under any circumstances the surgeon was aware of.  The result of all this was mom got the other problems repaired and God was glorified because of the clearly miraculous healing of her bladder.

Skeptics will come up with all manner of objections.  Why didn’t God just heal everything?  Why didn’t He do something else entirely.  They will claim I am delusional or worse.  But the fact is, we can never fathom all the reasons God has for doing what He does.  I don’t know why He didn’t just heal everything but I know that what He actually did and what actually happened brought glory and honor to His name and that is what it’s all about!  Praise be to God and God alone!

The visit was actually pretty funny at points.  The doctor called me his poster child because of the level of improvement.  In fact, he’s apparently had discussions with the drug company about me.  Obviously he believes the treatment is entirely responsible for for all this.

I don’t want to minimize the value of medical treatments in general or this treatment in particular.  Indeed, I consider myself to be incredibly blessed to have ended up at this particular doctor who had just recently completed a small set of trials sponsored by the drug company with this treatment.  In my mind it is nothing short of a miracle that, of all the doctors I could have seen, I saw this doctor.  That is God at work my friends!

But I also know, based on other things the doctor has said over these last several weeks, that my results are not typical.  He always expected some improvement but I don’t believe he ever expected to see the level that occurred in just two days.  When he saw me on the Friday after the treatment on Wednesday, he was incredibly excited over the improvement in my visual acuity.  In fact, he was a lot more excited than I was because I wasn’t also experiencing improvement in visual field.

The bottom line is this.  I don’t know how much more improvement I’ll see or even if I’ll see any more improvement at all.  I do know that God has worked in miraculous ways already and I expect He will continue to do so!

I’m a fan of Rush Limbaugh and I’m not ashamed to say so but I don’t always agree with him.  For example, I don’t share his optimism when it comes to this country.  Rush is convinced that America is so great that no President and no Congress can bring it down.  I believe America has been a great country but we’ve lost much of what made us great.  Would I like to see us regaini that greatness?  Of course!  Do I think we can do so?  I don’t know.

We’ve gone so far down this road.  I argued before the election that the rate of change was slow enough that most American’s didn’t notice the slow march left and that, perhaps, what we needed was an acceleration of that march so that the American people would wake up and take notice.  I predicted that Barach Obama would be an even worse President than Jimmy Carter and it took a Jimmy Carter to get a Ronald Reagan.

Well, we got Obama and he and the Democrats are moving at breakneck speed to turn back any and all conservatives gains over the last eight years.  They are taking advantage of the current economic situation to shove through every liberal project they’ve saved up for the last 20 years.  I now few that they will take us so far that even a conservative resurgence in 2010 will not be able to turn us back.

It’s true that conservatives across the country are becoming more and more active but it’s also true that many Republicans in Congress have learned nothing from the last two elections.  The current omnibus spending bill working its way through the Senate is a case in point.  Even Alabama’s Richard Shelby, along with several other Republicans, is supporting the bill that is stuffed with pork.

The future of America looks pretty bleak to me.  But, as I’ve been saying to people around me for a while, regardless of what Obama or the Congress do, I am consoled and lifted up by the fact that God is still in control.  That doesn’t necessarily mean a rosy future for America or Christians but it does mean that God will walk with us through whatever is to come.  I believe, for example, that God will use what’s coming to strengthen His church and that can only be a good thing.

For far too long the church in American has been virtually indistinguishable from the surrounding culture.  There’s been little to no cost to claiming Christ here and we’ve grown fat and complacent.  That’s not healthy and I believe God will use what’s coming to change it.  It may be a painful process but it will be worth it.

Everything Christians beleive is under attack in America today.  I believe it won’t be too long before Christians will be actively persecuted in America.  If you think that can’t happen here, ask yourself what things are true today that a few years ago you said couldn’t happen in America.  No friends, it can happen it if we continue on the road we’re on, it will happen.  But remember that the church is strongest where it is persecuted.  That is true the world over.

We are approaching a time where Christians will truly have to “count the cost” and many will decide the cost is too high.  Those who are willing to pay the cost will grow stronger.  That will purify the church and make it stronger.

I’m sure many reading this will take me to be a complete crackpot.  I can live with that.  But one thing I’ve learned over the last few years is that political philosopy, as important as it is, won’t save us.  I’ll be involved in the political process and I’ll work to elect solid conservatives but I will not place my faith in that process.  When I do that I am always disappointed.  Only by keeping my faith in God alone can I stay focused and positive in the face of a deteriorating future.  Because no matter what’s ahead in America, I know that God will be with me and my family and He will provide what we need.  Only then am I no longer bound to circumstances to determine my joy.  I can be joyful regardless of the circumstance.

So I’ll be writing again here but it won’t just be the same old political analysis.  Yes, the analysis will be there but it will be filtered through the lense of God’s power and control over everything.  I hope some will appreciate that perspective.  Many won’t be that’s okay.

Thompson spoke for about 25 minutes and covered a lot of ground. In a speech of that length you can either cover one topic with some depth or you can skim the surface of a lot of topics. Since there was no overriding theme, Thompson chose the latter. What follows is my account of Thompson’s comments today.

Senator Thompson had quite a few quotable moments. The first was in his recounting of his visit with Former Prime Minister Thatcher and her relationship with Ronald Reagan. Referring to the accomplishments of the two Thompson said “strength doesn’t cause wars, strength prevents wars.” He then recounted how following the end of the cold war the US cut defense spending by more than 1/3, military development by 50% and allowed our intelligence operations to languish, particularly our human intelligence capabilities. He pointed out that through numerous attacks on our assets around the world we did little to nothing until 9/11 and the war in Iraq.

Thompson showed a real grasp of the situation we face in Islamic fascism. He said that our enemy sees this conflict as having already gone on for a hundred years and they are prepared to go another hundred if necessary. He said that people just don’t understand or appreciate that fact. He went on to say that in previous conflicts the country always pulled together but now partisan politics takes precedence. A big applause moment was when Thompson talked about the sons of two friends who are serving in Iraq and have re-upped. He said they had hope and optimism and he wasn’t going to give up hope so long as they held it. Thompson said we need leadership to bring us together, implying that he can provide that leadership.

In the subject of illegal immigration Thompson agreed that it was dividing our party but he expressed optimism that the party would get past it. He emphasized that the resolution had to come from consideration of what was best for the country, not what was best for either party. He said that thousands of illegal immigrants are not Mexicans and that is a grave risk to national security. Thompson said that we could not hope to protect our country until we secure our borders and he flatly said that the current immigration reform bill is not what is best for this country. He rightly pointed out that we got the same promises in 1986 that we are getting today and there is no reason to believe them now. He also pointed out that the US grants one million green cards per year now so claims that we are taking an anti-immigration stand are unfounded. In another quotable moment Thompson said “we welcome legal immigrants and this is home to all of us but we get to decide who comes to our home.” Thompson said the government can’t handle the backlog of four million legal immigrants waiting on processing now so how can they possibly handle 12-20 million more?

On the question of taxes Thompson said that low taxes benefit everyone but the tax and spend types want to divide up a static pie instead of increasing the size of the pie so everyone gets a larger piece, precisely Reagan’s position. He did not endorse the FairTax but he did say that we are bankrupting the country, the government and the economy and that waiting to fix the problem hurts everyone.

In a great moment for religious conservatives Thompson, referring to the Declaration of Independence, said that our rights come from God and not from government. He went on to say that our founding fathers knew what they were doing when they set up our federal form of government with separation of powers. The implication seemed to be that we’ve strayed far from that ideal now. While not expressly mentioning abortion or assisted suicide, Thompson emphasized the sanctity of human life.

Thompson said we need a new coalition of people coming together for the good of the country. The clear implication was that he could build that coalition. That is exactly what Ronald Reagan did. He built a coalition of people from both parties, not in government but in the electorate. Reagan won two landslide victories by convincing democrats to vote for him.

I’ve often said this country is floundering because no leader has been able to cast a vision that the people caught hold of. Bush seems to understand the threat from Islamic fascism but he has utterly failed to articulate that to the people in a way that grabs their attention. There have been a lot of comparisons between Reagan and Thompson, not the least being they are both actors. Some have pointed out that Thompson is not like Reagan in the sense that Reagan has a long history of conservative intellectual thought and writing. Thompson clearly does not have that.

There is, however, one comparison that really works and that is the ability to communicate. Reagan could cast a vision and so can Thompson. On all the issues I’ve heard him speak on Thompson has been on the right side. He certainly was today. He may not be the conservative intellectual Reagan was but he has that long missing ability to communicate in a way that is at once understandable and compelling. He has the ability to cast a vision. I believe that he can bring in a lot of Democrats and that could easily turn the tide, not just in the election but also in terms of moving this country forward as a people with a common vision for the future. Unless this country gets behind a strong leader who is willing to do what it takes, we are in for a very difficult and painful future. As Churchill said, “sometimes it isn’t enough to do your best, sometimes you have to do what is required.” We, as a country, must be willing to do what is required if we expect our future to look anything like our past. It is my belief that of all the Republican candidates, Fred Dalton Thompson is far and away the best man to cast the vision for this country.

As an ending note let me relate my brief exchange with Thompson today. There was a large crowd of people who wanted to meet Thompson and shake his hand and I was in the middle of it. When I finally got the chance I extended my hand and Thompson took it. He has a real man’s handshake. His large hand wrapped around mine with a firm grip the way a man is supposed to shake hands, not bone crushing but you know you’re shaking hands. I told him that a lot of people were really excited at the prospect of him running and I was one of them. He smiled and thanked me. Then I told him that all those people, including myself, were going to be really disappointed if he decided against running. He grinned real big and said, “so will I.”

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NOTE: I recorded Thompson’s speech on my cell phone. The audio isn’t the best in the world and there is considerable background noise but it you can hear what Thompson had to say. The format is a peculiar cell phone format and I can’t find a way to convert it to mp3. I’m thinking about uploading it anyway since Real Player will play it but I’d prefer to convert it to mp3 so everyone can use it. If you know a good way to convert it, please let me know. Alternatively, if you have the ability to convert it I’ll be happy to send it to you for conversion if you’ll send the converted file back. Just let me know.

UPDATE:  Thanks to Orlando the file is now in mp3 format.  To listen to it click here.

Technorati : Fred Thompson

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I mentioned in the comments of the Christian Dilemma post that I was going to write about the Social Gospel Movement. A movement that began in late 19th century, the social gospel teaches that Jesus can’t return until social justice and equality are achieved on earth through human effort. Various offshoots exist that may or may not relate to Jesus return but that still focus primarily on social justice, equity and other social problems.

Proponents of the Social Gospel and its variants tend to believe that people are poor because the rich have exploited them. Phrases such as “on the backs of working people” are common. The belief seems to be that any equitable system would ensure that everyone has pretty much the same thing. Indeed, most efforts appear to be geared more toward punishing those who have more rather than enriching those who have less. Little emphasis or thought seems to be given to exactly how the poor became poor in the first place.

I need to start off saying I don’t believe that we can achieve much of anything of lasting importance on our own. The notion that mankind can achieve some sort of utopia with our own effort is contrary to scripture and contrary to human nature and all of human history. To date, every Utopian thinker has been demonstrated to be wrong.

Lest anyone think I am just biased against anyone who happens to be classified as poor, let me say I understand that there are those who fall into poverty through little or no fault of their own. A woman whose husband leaves her with no means of support or whose husband dies are possible examples. Life for someone like that can be very difficult. Still, people in such situations have options. In the short term those options may not be very appealing but they still live in a society with class mobility. With the proper determination they have the power to change their circumstances. They also need and deserve help from those around them and as Christians we have an absolute obligation to provide help.

On the other hand, it is my heartfelt belief that most of the poor in this country are poor by choice. That is not to say they woke up one day and thought, “hmm, I think I want to be poor.” Rather, they simply refuse to do anything to raise themselves up. Manual labor is “beneath” them and there are plenty of jobs their “dignity” won’t let them do. How their “dignity” lets them take handouts rather than earn an honest living is beyond me.

Scripture has much to say about poverty. Following are but a few passages.

Prov 14:21
Whoever despises his neighbor is a sinner,
but blessed is he who is generous to the poor.

Prov 14:31
Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker,
but he who is generous to the needy honors him.

Prov 19:17
Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the LORD,
and he will repay him for his deed.

Prov 20:13
Love not sleep, lest you come to poverty;
open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread.

Prov 21:13
Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor
will himself call out and not be answered.

Prov 23:21
for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty,
and slumber will clothe them with rags.

Prov 28:19
Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread,
but he who follows worthless pursuits will have plenty of poverty.

Ezek 16:49-50
49 Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.

Matt 25:37-40
37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

Luke 3:11
11 And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.”

Acts 20:35
In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

James 1:27
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

James 2:15-16
15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?

1 John 3:17-18
17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

From these and other passages it is inescapable that we, as Christians, have a duty to help the poor. I have never argued otherwise. But many of these passages also indicate that some poor are responsible for their own plight.

I argue that as Christians we have a duty to ensure that what “help” we provide, as far as we can determine, is actual help. In other words, I believe we have a duty to make sure we aren’t actually making matters worse.

It would be simple if all we had to do was give some cash to whatever poor person crossed our path. We could do that without giving much thought to the matter. Knowing nothing about their situation we may be helping them to continue the behavior that got them into poverty in the first place, whether alcoholism, drug abuse, gambling addiction, etc.

The point I’m making is that we cannot escape our responsibility to be “our brother’s keeper” by simply throwing money at them. At root, their problems are not financial, they are spiritual. Money isn’t the solution to our national problems and it’s not the solution to an individual’s problems either.

You may suspect, based on everything I’ve said so far, that I believe I have it all worked out. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m struggling with this issue. I just believe that ignoring the poor or throwing money at them are equally unproductive approaches. Somehow we have to engage the poor on an individual basis and offer help that really helps. And I’m convinced that sometimes that will involve things that the individual may not appreciate at the time.

For example, I’ve run across a panhandler asking for money for food. When I offered to buy him a meal, he declined. He didn’t want the meal, he wanted the money. I wasn’t willing to just hand him money but I was more than willing to feed him. He wasn’t too happy with me but he did see that I cared enough to take him somewhere and buy him a meal. I don’t know if that ultimately made any difference or not.

I’m reminded of the commercials that say “friends don’t let friends drink and drive.” Have you ever tried to take the keys away from a drunk friend? If you have you know that often they are not appreciative in the least. They may become belligerent and combative. They may scream and yell at you. If you are more concerned about them being mad at you than you are about their safety, you may give in and let them drive. If you do that, whose best interest are you looking out for? True love requires that we think about what’s best for our brother, not how it makes us feel.

The same reasoning, I would argue, applies to everyone, poor people included, who is doing things to make their own situation worse, not better. In the end you may not be able to help them. That’s the rub. In the end, people have to be willing to help themselves before they can receive help. Just like forcing a drunk into rehab isn’t likely to get them sober, attempts to help people who will not accept any responsibility for their situation are unlikely to be truly helpful. They may make us fell better about ourselves but who is being helped then?

So I still don’t arrive at ready solutions. The panhandler on the street is still panhandling and my offer of a meal didn’t change that. I may see him again and if he approaches me I will offer again to feed him. Who knows, maybe he’ll take me up on it next time and I’ll get a chance to sit down with him over that meal and get to know him. Perhaps then I’ll be in a better position to give some real help.

So while Huckabee favors President Bush’s capital gains tax cuts, he also wonders if his faith “confuses Republicans who are only concerned about how we preserve wealth.” He is for a flat tax while also advocating increased funding for arts education, No Child Left Behind, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, and an enlarged government role in preventive health care.

This, it seems, is the logical extension of “compassionate conservatism,” the bane of true conservatives. President Bush has surely had evangelicals on board with him when it comes to his pro-life stance and tax cuts. But every conservative I know laments the fact that Bush and the Republican Congress presided over the largest expansion of the federal government since LBJ with dubious items like No Child Left Behind and the Medicare Prescription Drug benefit.

As a Christian I am all for carrying out Christ’s desire for us to care for the poor. Where I differ is in the approach. First, I think Jesus directed His intentions at individual Christians and churches, not governments. One look at how (in)efficiently governments handle social programs is all one needs to understand why.

The government itself warns individuals to check out charities before contributing to them to ensure that most of the money collected actually goes to the purpose for which the charity exists. When more than 50% or money raised goes to overhead, it is generally a bad idea to contribute to that charity. Well if the government could approach 50% efficiency I’d be astounded. Charity should be the work of legitimate charities who are equipped to do the job, not the government.

While America is the most giving nation on earth, Americans are hampered in their ability to give because of confiscatory taxes. Churches and other charities have less to devote to helping the poor because their members have less to give. Add to that the compelling notion that we don’t need to give to charities because the government will take care of the poor and you have a problem. Huckabee’s stint as governor is a case in point. In oder to pay for his compassionate conservatism, he had to increase taxes. He went from being “one the best governors in America to one of the worst.”

President Bush, Mike Huckabee and others like them are not conservatives. They don’t seem to understand what a conservative is. And, in my view, they have misinterpreted the scriptural mandate to feed the poor. I agree with Huckabee that when we prevent a baby from being aborted we need to be concerned about the life that child will have. I part company with him on how that should be approached. Using the government as the vehicle for assistance relieves the Christian of the responsibility for providing assistance. And unlike most charities, government assistance too often comes without accountability which amounts to no help at all because it often encourages the behaviors that caused the need in the first place.

Generally speaking conservatives, whether Christian or not, have a desire to help those who genuinely need help. But Conservatives understand that help should be provided in the most efficient way possible. At the least that allows for more people to be helped and if it’s done properly, those who really need help will not continue to need help in perpetuity.

Matt 25:34-41says:

34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
ESV

What we have to understand is that this is a call to individual Christians. It is not a call to enact government programs. It is a call for individuals to voluntarily give of their treasure to help others. It is not a call to take anyone’s treasure against his will in order to help others. Charity is only charity when it comes voluntarily from the heart. And “help” provided by a faceless institution will never be the equal of help provided by loving individuals providing that help because they love their neighbor.

The First Amendment, as it relates to religion, says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” There is nothing in that text that elevates the first section over the second. The establishment clause merely prohibits the Congress from establishing a state religion, something the founders had great reason to fear considering the Church of England was the reason many had emigrated to America in the first place. Moreover, the free exercise clause would appear, at least to the average person, to prevent Congress from doing anything that might prevent religion in the public square. Alas, secularists have succeeded in getting the courts to see it otherwise.

We now live in a country that prohibits, in most cases, the display of Christian religious symbols of any kind on public property on the basis that doing so amounts to “an establishment of religion.” We live in a country where the mere fact that a person holds religious beliefs, if those beliefs are Christian, is grounds to disqualify him from holding public office in the eyes of many. We are told that politics and religion have nothing to do with each other the two should be kept entirely separate. And we are told that the founders, people like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson never intended it to be any other way.

The obvious question is, does the historic record support such claims or are they simply spurious claims designed to sidestep the truth in favor of a society preferred by the elites? Fortunately these are questions that have answers that can be found by simply looking at the historical record. And it seems to me that Thanksgiving is, perhaps, the most appropriate time for doing so.

On October 14, 1789, George Washington signed the Thanksgiving Proclamation. Here is the text of that document.

General Thanksgiving
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By the PRESIDENT of the United States Of America
A PROCLAMATION
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WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houfes of Congress have, by their joint committee, requefted me “to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to eftablifh a form of government for their safety and happiness:”

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and affign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of thefe States to the fervice of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our fincere and humble thanksfor His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the fignal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpofitions of His providence in the courfe and conclufion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have fince enjoyed;– for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to eftablish Conftitutions of government for our fafety and happinefs, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;– for the civil and religious liberty with which we are bleffed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffufing useful knowledge;– and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleafed to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in moft humbly offering our prayers and fupplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and befeech Him to pardon our national and other tranfgreffions;– to enable us all, whether in publick or private ftations, to perform our feveral and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a bleffing to all the people by conftantly being a Government of wife, juft, and conftitutional laws, difcreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all fovereigns and nations (especially fuch as have shewn kindnefs unto us); and to blefs them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increafe of fcience among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind fuch a degree of temporal profperity as he alone knows to be beft.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand feven hundred and eighty-nine.

(signed) G. Washington

(Note: The above resolution is the orginal text, complete with old English spellings and letters. It is somewhat difficult to read but it is readable.)

The very first statement in this proclamation says, “it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour.” Whatever other founders may have thought, Washington clearly believed that it was the duty of every person to believe in and worship God and that it was the work of God that was responsible for the American success. He also claimed that his proclamation was at the unanimous request of both Houses of Congress. So the holiday we celebrate tomorrow is the result of a proclamation of one of our founding fathers, George Washington.

One of the strongest arguments the secularists use is the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli. This treaty says, “The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion.” This treaty, ratified during the administration of George Washington would appear to rule out the notion that the United States was founded on Christian principles. As with most writings of the past, however, one must have some idea of the context in order to grasp the meaning. In this case, the context was a treaty with a country used to dealing with governments that were absolute theocracies. The Muslim world, then as now, was replete with theocratic Islamic governments. According to Jenn Sierra:

This statement is found only in the Arabic first version of the treaty of Tripoli, and probably was not found in the English translation…it was not included in the either the Arabic or English versions of the treaty written a few years later.The best answer I have read thus far to this argument is a lengthy and excellently-researched article by James Patrick Holding, called Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Flub? He concludes by saying, “The essential message would be that America was not a Christian theocracy, or a state where the church had political power, as the religious authorities in Muslim nations had power — which is something no one argues for America…

So it would seem that what initially appeared to be one of their strongest argments turns out to be no argument at all unless taken completely out of its historical context. Of course, secularists seem to have little objection to doing just that to make any evidence say more than it actually says or other than it actually says.

Even Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the most secular of all the founders, turns out to be less that the outstanding witness the secularists would have us believe. Jefferson’s statement to the Danbury Baptist, the origin of the commonly used “separation of church and state” mantra in use today, is taking out of context and demonstrably twisted to mean something other than what it meant. Jefferson was assuring the Danbury Baptists that what they and others feared would not happen, that is, there would be no official state religion to worry about suffering persecution under.

Christopher Levenick & Michael Novak, writing in National Review in response to an article in The Nation by Brook Allen entitled Our Godless Constitution, point out some interesting facts about Jefferson:

She claims that “in modern-day parlance” Thomas Jefferson was “a secular humanist” – indeed, “not a Christian at all.” It’s a strange claim, especially since, not three sentences before, she quotes Jefferson’s letter to Charles Thomson, in which Jefferson adamantly insists, “I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus” (emphasis Jefferson’s). Presumably Jefferson was privy to the content of his own beliefs, but Allen seems to think she knows better.

(snip)

Thomas Jefferson shared this sentiment entirely, as when he famously wondered whether “the liberties of a nation [can] be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but by his wrath?”

Indeed, many of our founding fathers expressed the view that our form of government could only survive in a society that was moral and had religion as the basis of that morality. Levenick & Novak have more to say on that subject:

John Adams likewise held the opinion that republican government required religious practice, as when he wrote as president: “We have no government armed with power of contending with human passions unbridled by morality or religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Such thinking runs throughout the whole of American political life, from Washington to Lincoln to Roosevelt to Reagan, and up to the present day. It is a tradition from which President Bush has not deviated.

Other common arguments of the secularists include:

1. The claim that the Constitution never mentions God – False, God is mentioned in the enactment clause of Article VII.
2. The Declaration of Independence rarely mentions God – Allen claimed only two mentions but there are four. Excluding the list of grievances against King George III, God is mentioned in virtually every paragraph!
3. Little mention in the Federalist Papers – If you exclude all mentions that do not use the word God, it is indeed few. However, the framers rarely refereed to God as God. More typically they used language like Divine Providence and such references are numerous in the Federalist.
4. Claims that Madison was critical of Christianity when he was really critical of state religion.
5. Claims that Washington rarely refereed to God in his writings when in fact he did so often.

The list goes on in every case, the secularists either misstate the facts, ignore the facts or twist the facts. It is inescapable that, for the most part, the founders were religious people who believed that God had specially blessed this country and that, indeed, without that blessing this country could not have been created. Many, and perhaps most, believed that Christianity was essential to the future survival of America and stated so often.

We do indeed have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving day but we also have much to be concerned about. It has been said that America is now a post Christian nation and I tend to agree with that statement. If that is true, there is little reason to expect that God will continue to bless this country as He has in the past. I am not in the boat with those who are quick to call every bad event God’s judgment. I believe, however, that without God’s blessing, the American experiment is not likely to continue its great success.

Below is a copy of the original Thanksgiving Proclamation that ran in the Massachusetts Centinel on October 14, 1789.