Congress Needs to Grow a Spine and Restore Checks and Balances

In 1607 Jamestown founder Robert Hunt began to set down America’s foundation with these words: 

“We do hereby Dedicate this Land, and ourselves, to reach the People within these shores with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to raise up Godly generations after us, and with these generations take the Kingdom of God to all the earth. May this Covenant of Dedication remain to all generations, as long as this earth remains, and may this Land, along with England, be Evangelist to the World.”

This covenant is still in force. God does not forget, even if we do.

American exceptionalism blusters, “In our prosperity, we shall never be moved.” Ah, but what has godless secularism produced? Red ink as far as the eye can see: racism, injustice, the murder of fifty-five million babies, the advancement of the homosexual agenda, fatherless homes, an epidemic of drugs and crime and the widespread acceptance and usage of pornography, especially among America’s youth.

Lest we forget God’s attitude toward those who oppose Him, we must remember these words: “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord ridicules them” (Ps. 2:4). This laughter isn’t of the friendly sort; as Thomas Adams points out, “Did not God’s smile make Belshazzar to tremble at the handwriting on the wall? Oh, what are His frowns, if His smiles be so terrible!”

Indeed, we cannot and should not oppose the one David writes of in : “The voice of the Lord sounds with strength; the voice of the Lord—with majesty” (Ps. 29:4). Reflecting on this verse, Charles Spurgeon puts it well: “If His voice be thus mighty, what must His hand be!”

More to the point, there can be no reconciliation of opposites, particularly the spiritual and the secular.Therefore, we need to establish if America is a pagan or Christian nation and get on with it—the sooner the better. The peacemakers are ones who are blessed (Matt. 5:9), not the peace “hopers,” the peace “wishers,” or the peace “talkers.” We have to make the peace: either secularism or Christian values are going to reign supreme.

Lamentably, the Bible is no longer the fixed point in which to order and judge society. The standard for measure is now based upon a competition for ideological supremacy and political power rather than virtue and righteousness. But the anointed eye recognizes that righteousness exalts a nation; living sinfully is a shame to any society (Prov. 14:34).

The engine that fueled the forerunners of America was spiritual. As Harold J. Berman points out, “Thus Melanchthon, following Luther’s lead, transformed traditional Western moral and legal philosophy by making not reason but the Bible, and more particularly the Ten Commandments, the basic source and summary of natural law.”

Sir William Blackstone shaped and polished John Marshall, James Wilson, John Jay, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, etc. with his renowned Commentaries on the Laws of England:

“Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being. … And consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for every thing, it is necessary that he should, in all points, conform to his Maker’s will.

“This will of his Maker is called the law of nature. …

“This law of nature, being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times; no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; …

“And if our reason were always … clear and perfect … the task would be pleasant and easy; we should need no other guide but this [the law of nature]. But every man now finds the contrary in his own experience; that his reason is corrupt, and his understanding full of ignorance and error.

“This has given manifold occasion for the benign interposition of divine Providence, which … hath been pleased, at sundry times and in divers manners, to discover and enforce its laws by an immediate and direct revelation. The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the holy Scriptures. …

“Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all the human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these.”

The grandiosity and recklessness of the radicalized, secular United States Supreme Court in the last century is mind-blowing. The Court has birthed a full-scale catastrophe, corrupting 500 years of natural law and threatening America’s long-term, sustainable freedom. Congress has failed to fulfill its historic role to check and balance the judicial and executive branches of government. It’s up to us “we the people” to hold them accountable. 

America has come to her kairos. Spiritually, we need a Gideon or Rahab the Harlot to stand.

David Lane is the founder of the American Renewal Project.