by Randy Pope
During his campaign for president, Barack Obama claimed that he was the candidate that would bring the country together. In his naivete he was right and he was wrong. In one respect Democrats and Republicans have been in total harmony for years. Their harmony has produced nothing but bickering, backbiting and vitriol.
The one thing that Democrats and Republicans agree upon is that there is no objective, transcendent standard for right and wrong. The result of this is that every man decides for himself what is right and wrong. That produces 536 different standards for right and wrong in the nation's capital. Add to this 50 state governments and literally thousands of county and local governments accounting for the plethora of ideas that politicians are trying to form into one whole. On top of all of that these representatives are trying to please the hundreds of thousands of people across the country who themselves have their own idea of right and wrong.
Ever wonder why it takes so much “give and take” in order to develop any meaningful piece of legislation? Have you ever wondered why most bills range up into thousands of pages? You don't have to wonder any more. It is patently obvious. Those who are attempting to formulate order in the land are trying to mold hundreds of thousands of beliefs into one common system. Echoing Charles Hodge, president of Princeton, from over one hundred years ago, “The sufficient answer to all of this is that it cannot possibly be done.”
You may be able to find two systems which are made of standards that are close enough that you could build an ordered society on the similarities. You may even be able to find three or four systems of belief that can be watered down enough to build a society upon together. In that you would have to be very picky about the systems you were trying to mold together. It is a logical impossibility to create a coherent society out of the thousands of diverse belief systems held by the American people.
Ever wonder why it takes so much “give and take” in order to develop any meaningful piece of legislation? Have you ever wondered why most bills range up into thousands of pages? You don't have to wonder any more. It is patently obvious. Those who are attempting to formulate order in the land are trying to mold hundreds of thousands of beliefs into one common system. Echoing Charles Hodge, president of Princeton, from over one hundred years ago, “The sufficient answer to all of this is that it cannot possibly be done.”
You may be able to find two systems which are made of standards that are close enough that you could build an ordered society on the similarities. You may even be able to find three or four systems of belief that can be watered down enough to build a society upon together. In that you would have to be very picky about the systems you were trying to mold together. It is a logical impossibility to create a coherent society out of the thousands of diverse belief systems held by the American people.
When Charles Hodge stated that, “it cannot possibly be done,” he was referring to the clamoring of anti-Christian belief systems to claim equality with the objective, transcendent standards of Protestant Christianity. He opened his comments saying, “No man is molested for his religion or for his want of religion. No man is required to profess any form of faith, or to join any religious association. More than this cannot be reasonably demanded. More however is demanded.” The point being that American society and her institutions were grounded in the principles of Protestant Christianity, which commenced the protection of political, religious, and economic liberty unprecedented in any nation heretofore.
Until the people of America and their political leaders, on both sides of the aisle, begin to commune in the unchanging standards of Biblical Christianity no politician can ever hope to “bring the people together.” The founding fathers did not look within themselves for the morals and ethics to unify thirteen diverse colonies. They stood firmly on the transcendent, revealed law of the creator of the universe.
originally published in The Examiner
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