I am the pastor of a small church in Conway, Arkansas. It is the City of Colleges, or Roundabouts, and whichever you choose is fine. I want to see the best for the city and the people that live in it. I am a concerned citizen with a child that is in the school district’s band program. We love families whose children are in the school district and there are teenagers from the Conway School District that attend our church services. My concern is deep enough that when boys were going to be using women’s restrooms and pornographic books were to be housed in the school library, I felt an obligation to go and speak.
And here I speak again. There are numerous reasons for the Ten Commandments to be plastered on the school walls. And not least of which is the fact that America is a Christian Country. If you read my blog, you may know that I have argued for the Ten Commandments to be placed in schools already.
Our society let a bunch of pagans prance around and make up rules for a while. They did this without any foundation. They just followed their wicked hearts wherever it led them, even to the point of mutilating the genitalia of children. However, this doesn’t mean that we aren’t a Christian country. It just means that we ignorantly let the heathen have more control than he ought for a few hours. The time for stupidity is over and we will go back to normalcy again.
ACLU representative Heather L. Weaver responded in that same article,
“Today’s order ensures that our clients, and all Conway students, will no longer be forced to submit to government-imposed scriptural displays as a condition of attending a public school…Public schools are not Sunday schools, and they must comply with the First Amendment.”
Sometimes I wonder why a Christian country would ever give a microphone to a pagan. Good grief, what a mess!
It All Depends on What the Definition of Public Is
What does the public part of public school mean? What is that part of the word for?
Out of curiosity, I looked up the definition of Public. And here is what I found.
“of, relating to, or affecting a population or a community as a whole.” dictionary.com
Merriam Webster’s definition was interesting, because it points out the very same thing repeatedly. I will simply use the definitions that are pertinent to our conversation, otherwise this could get laborious, monotonous, and far too laquatious for any sort of advantageous discussion.
“Of relating to, or affecting all the people or the whole area of a nation or state.”
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“Of or relating to a government.”
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“Of, or relating to, or being in the service of the community or nation”
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“Of or relating to people in general: universal”
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: of or relating to people in general : universal
Just because something is “public” doesn’t mean that every single person must be happy about it. In fact, that almost never happens.
A pedophile might be unhappy that he can’t live near a school. But no one would complain that it is not for the “public” good. His desire does not outweigh the desire of the public or the community as a whole. And I know of no one who desires to see police hiding at the new Soccer Complex gate, but we also know that his public service probably saves lives.
Similarly, a public school does not exist for the happiness of every individual student. It exists for the public as a whole. And the decision to take any reference of our country’s Christianity out of the schools is a terrible mistake that harms the public.
The pagans drove this bus for far too long. Now the oil’s leaking and smoke is rolling out of the motor. The Christians are looking around, asking if this is what we wanted to have happen. The obvious answer is clear. Tell the driver to stop crying. Have them sit on the floor while we figure out everything that you did wrong.
But the bus driver doesn’t want to lose control.
America’s Deep Christian Heritage
In 1980 the Supreme Court ordered that the Ten Commandments be taken out of classrooms. Stone v. Graham ruled that there was no secular basis for the Ten Commandments to be in the classrooms, so they had to be removed. But the problem with this ruling is that America was not founded a secular nation. This nation, this public is a country that was founded a Christian country and that never changed. It never was secular, so there is no logical reason to favor the secular.
I wonder if Judge Brooks knows where American Law came from. Does Brooks believe that it just fell from the heavens? Does Brooks believe that the foundation for his practice was began by Native Americans that smoked peace pipes and plunged tomahawks into the backs of other Native Americans’ heads? It is thought that the most violent era of America was before the colonists came to America, is that where Brooks believes American Law came from?
No, that traveled by boat from Christian England.
English Common Law
America didn’t make things up and vote on how every law would be adjudicated. We built upon our past. If you look up the first Supreme Court cases, you will often see that British Common Law was used as the reason for their decisions.
And here is where things get very interesting. It doesn’t take much digging to see the influence of the Bible and the Ten Commandments on British Common Law. And this influence extends to American Law as well. A fun exercise for those that like to dig into these things is to look at Blackstone’s Commentaries on British Common Law and see all the references to the Bible as the reason for certain laws to be in place. A handy tip is to use the “find on page tool” on your web browser. It’s four books long.
Sir William Blackstone originally published this commentary over English Common Law between 1765-1769. It was published by Clarendon Press at Oxford. They are free to read here. They were considered for a long time to be the primary work that described the development of English Common Law that helped to shape American Law. And in his introduction he wrote of how the laws of England came from what God revealed in nature or Scripture,
The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found in the holy scriptures. These precepts, when revealed, are found upon comparison to be really a part of the original law of nature, as they tend in all their consequences to man’s felicity. But we are not from thence to conclude that the knowledge of these truths was attainable by reason, in it’s present corrupted state; since we find that, until they were revealed, they were hid from the wisdom of the ages. As then the moral precepts of this law are indeed of the fame original with those of the law of nature, so their intrinsic obligation is of equal strength and perpetuity. Yet undoubtedly the revealed law is (humanly speaking) of infinitely more authority than what we call the natural law. Because one is the law of nature, expressly declared so to be by God himself; the other is only what, by the assistance of human reason, we imagine to be that law. If we could be as certain of the latter as we are of the former, both would have an equal authority; but, till then, they can never be put in any competition together.
William Blackstone, Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England: Introduction
For Blackstone, British Common Law was founded on Natural Law (How God created the world) and in the precepts of God’s Word (revealed law is how he words it). And this formed the basis of the laws of the state. As crazy as this sounds, it was rather uncontested for a very long time.
I hope that I haven’t lost you yet, because I have more to say. This may have sent me into a rant that I never complete. But the point is that you can’t understand the basis for American Law if you don’t have an understanding of the Bible. And in the Ten Commandments there is a condensed statement of God’s Law.
If you want to raise a bunch of uneducated pagans, then take all references from Scripture away from them.
If you want to raise a bunch of people that think that it is simply mob rule that creates laws, then take all references of Scripture away from them. It didn’t work too well in the autonomous zones of Portland. and it won’t work anywhere else either.
Removing the Ten Commandments is a quick way to help the population lose any sense of where this country has come from and its very foundation.
Holy Trinity v United States
What a title! And how often have I worried that America was headed into a direction that made this bring fear to my heart. But that’s not what this was about. This was a case that went before the Supreme Court.
It was a Supreme Court case about immigration policy from 1892.
An 1892 court case here in America concerning immigration points this out rather plainly. The case is Church of the Holy Trinity vs United States, you can still look up the case. Holy Trinity was a church that hired a pastor from overseas, but immigration law made this illegal. So the church sued the state and won. You can still look this case up. It is interesting. But after delivering the decision, the opinion went on to make many declarations of how America was a Christian nation.
Here are a few excerpts. You can go read it for yourself here.
If we pass beyond these matters to a view of American life, as expressed by its laws, its business, its customs, and its society, we find every where a clear recognition of the same truth. Among other matters, note the following: the form of oath universally prevailing, concluding with an appeal to the Almighty; the custom of opening sessions of all deliberative bodies and most conventions with prayer; the prefatory words of all wills, “In the name of God, amen;” the laws respecting the observance of the Sabbath, with the general cessation of all secular business, and the closing of courts, legislatures, and other similar public assemblies on that day; the churches and church organizations which abound in every city, town, and hamlet; the multitude of charitable organizations existing every where under Christian auspices; the gigantic missionary associations, with general support, and aiming to establish Christian missions in every quarter of the globe. These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation. (Church of the Holy Trinity vs United States)
1892 was over 100 years after the American Revolution. And here, Justice Brewer points out the Christian nature of the country at that time. But he doesn’t stop there. This is what he says after he makes the historical case for America being a Christian country. As I’ve pointed out previously, this is 116 years after the American Revolution and 133 years before today. (I’m not very smart, so I had to use a calculator to figure that out.)
In a brilliant flurry of historical events he cites these as proof.
- The commission to Christopher Columbus
- The first colonial grant made to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584
- The first charter of Virginia, granted by King James I in 1606
- Subsequent charter by King James I in 1609 to the same colony
- Subsequent charter by King James I in 1611 to the same colony
- The Mayflower Compact of 1620
- The language of the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut 1638-1639
- William Penn’s charter of privileges to the province of Pennsylvania in 1701
- The wording of the Declaration of Independence
- Every constitution of the then 44 states contained language that revered Christianity and assumed its influence over human affairs.
- He specifically cited Illinois, Maryland, Indiana, and Mississippi to illustrate this beautifully
- Our own Constitution’s allowing the President to take Sunday’s off for vetoes, etc.
- Deliberative bodies in the United States open in prayer to Almighty God and, at least for a while, observed Sunday as a day of worship and rest.
And he does all this in 16 pages. It’s worth the read.
There is no doubt that America was a Christian country. As Justice Brewer argues here, it was Christian in its founding and all through its founding. This remained for over 100 years. And this was never overturned.
Again, the pagans may scream a lot, but it doesn’t mean that they are correct.
Getting Back to the Word “Public”
The public is not, as we saw earlier, about every single individual within the community. The public is the community. In other words, it is about the community as a whole.
Just because Pagan Peggy and Heathen Henry get frustrated about the Ten Commandments being on the wall does not mean that they should not be on the wall. In fact, it is the case that these people need to know what is said in the Ten Commandments because the country that they live in is a Christian nation.
Pagan Peggy needs to understand that the laws of our country should come from a place higher than her felt needs. And Heathen Henry needs to understand that the laws of this country should come from a place higher than his burning desires.
And both of them should be taught, as citizens of a Christian country, to live in accordance with the morality taught in the Scriptures. Because I have argued this a lot elsewhere, I will stop here but link to a few articles at the bottom of the page.
Concluding Word
I want to close by saying that taking the Ten Commandments, prayer, and the Bible out of schools was a mistake. I didn’t always think this way. But after giving more thought to the Christian heritage of this country, I was swayed the other way. And I hope that many other people are due to this writing.
I hope and pray that the city that I live in will be able to teach children their heritage. I hope and pray that I will live in a city where the people understand their Christian heritage, where the laws come from, why the laws exist as they do, and why the country has prospered as it has for so very long.
I hope and pray that Public Schools will work for the public good and not the destruction of the public. And I hope and pray that people like Judge Brooks eventually see that or at least that someone with more sense will slap this decision down.
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