The Author of Liberty or Not?
By Steve Farrell

Is God the Author of Liberty, or not?

A valid, and need I say, vital question.

But in this age of secularism, humanism, and socialism, just try mixing God and government in the same breath and get ready for the snickers, sneers, hisses, and guffaws for daring to exercise one’s free speech as regards this off-limits, dangerous, homophobic subject.

Yet the right to free speech and freedom religion is ours, and the question, a must for all to at least consider.

Seven years ago, the dean of a Social Science Department scolded me in big red letters, highlighted by a big with emotion lecture, for infusing God and morality (via quoting the Founders) into a paper that laid the historical foundation in a group discussion on ethics in American government.

The report was “very well written,” he condescendingly noted, “but inappropriate! No American university would accept your approach as valid!” The grade, a GPA destroying D minus.

I had no doubt about his assessment of America’s universities. (1) Admittedly, I half expected the unfair grade from this ‘ethical’ liberal who put political prejudice ahead of academic honesty. I was, after all, outspoken in class, hard-hitting in my school newspaper columns, and decidedly Christian and conservative. Here was his big chance to make an example of me, to frighten others into submission. He took it.

And it hurt, and he won, or so he thought.

But what of it? Early on, I decided that when it came to ‘getting ahead,’ my religion and morality would come first, and so I would be honest, come hell or high water or D minuses.

Pooh! on his humanistic ethics! “Thou shalt not bear false witness,” is an uncompromising command from the Deity—not something to be abandoned to appease such professors, politicians and other weak-kneed reprobates, nor to settle scores, and teach Christian conservatives lessons.

With ethics, however, you can do far worse, and not think twice about it. Because with ethics, the ends justify the means; utilitarianism outbids God-given rights; morality (if the word hasn’t been outlawed) mutates into relativism; and so we have the kind of religion the mass murdering French and Communist revolutionaries practiced—and in full fellowship, the secular religion of the American courts, where without conscience men and women abandon their oath of office, to promote perversity and socialism, the very things at odds with our way of life, because ‘it’s ethical.’

And so it is.

That’s why we need something more solid to steady the ark of liberty than ethics, something that can stand the test of time against the unremitting onslaughts of crisis, propaganda, social change, and wars, something that will not give in, nor give up, something that feels no necessity to succumb and adapt and support the loudest voice, the strongest arm, or the golden calf opportunity.

George Washington knew what it was, and so do you.

“Providence has connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue.” (2)

Virtue, that is, to Higher Laws. Thus,

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” (3)

He knew it. He saw and felt God’s miraculous hand aiding the colonists throughout the revolution and guiding her in the establishment of the best constitution the world had ever known.

In his First Inaugural Address, he noted:

“No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency; and in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their united government the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities from which the event has resulted can not be compared with the means by which most governments have been established without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage.” (4)

With that in mind, he understood that “it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States … and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge.” (5)

He was turning over the watch care of the nation to the Being whose right it is to preside, who was “the Great Author of every public and private good.” (6)

And why did he say this?

“These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed.” (7)

He believed it. He believed it with every fiber of his being. And why should you or I or any haughty and wicked instructor or government official or supposed patriotic legal organization take it upon themselves to suppress the truth about America, from the very mouths of the men who founded this nation?

“In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness—these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.”  (8) He noted in his Farewell Address.

That is the truth about the issue. No greater enemy of the state is there than those who labor to hide from man a view of whence cometh freedom, or who likewise labor to subvert the moral codes and Higher Laws that the very Author of our Liberty has laid down to keep us free.

Until we come to grips with this, and do and say more then we do and say presently (as is our right and duty, regardless of personal cost), one wonders how much we deserve to be called “citizen,” “child of God,” “honest, and moral man.”

Contact Steve

Meridian Columnist Farrell is associate professor of political economy at George Wythe College, press agent for Defend Marriage (a project of United Families International), a pundit at America’s News Page, NewsMax.com, and author of the highly praised inspirational novel, “Dark Rose.”

Footnotes

1. His assessment seems to be generally true of the university system, and less true of a sizeable (minority) corps of individual professors, who do their best—in an atmosphere increasingly hostile to faith, morality, the Founders, the Constitution, and capitalism—to be honest.
2. Washington, George. “Farewell Address.”
3. Ibid.
4. Washington, George. “First Inaugural Address.”
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. “Farewell Address.”