Review the Legal Basis for a Moral Constitution
It has been over one year since the Supreme Court ruled on Obergefell v. Hodges, a decision which granted legal recognition and moral validation to same-sexual activity "marriage" in the The states. While this decision was just one of many abuses fueled by the judicial activism of ix unelected judges, it was also a culmination of sorts in our civilisation's ever-increasing slide into secular humanism over the final several decades. Many Christians marvel at how nosotros have come up to such a place in a nation originally founded on objective moral and biblical principles. More importantly, they wonder if in that location is yet a manner dorsum. Enter Jenna Ellis and her book The Legal Footing for a Moral Constitution.
Ellis is an attorney, professor, and legal analyst who uses her expertise in these areas to make a persuasive historical and legal instance that grounds the authority of our nation's Founding Documents in Divine Law, i.e., the discoverable, objective, unchanging law of God that includes both science and morality. As she explains, proper constitutional interpretation will be based on reading the U.South. Constitution in context, interpreting and applying the text correctly, while taking into account the original intent of the Founding Fathers. This of course assumes an objective, fixed pregnant to the text, a belief many secular humanists want to supplant with the idea of a fluid, changing Constitutional document possessing no authority higher than man himself. In and then doing, secular humanists undermine their own position by ridding themselves of any acceptable grounding for objective significant and value judgments, the very things they seemingly wish to gloat after the Obergefell decision. With no universal authority from God, all that is left is man-made regime, and what the government giveth the authorities can taketh away. Secular humanists cannot have their cake and eat it besides. This is why our Founding Fathers appealed to Divine Police force in securing our inalienable rights, not a social contract.
If that'southward the example, does this mean Christians should argue for a moral constitution based solely on the "personal faith" of the Founders? As Ellis convincingly argues, that would be a mistake. What nosotros need is an objective, legal footing and attempting to constitute Ramble intent on personal beliefs does not become to the most of import interpretative question when determining pregnant: What does the text say? Unfortunately, this question has taken a back seat in contempo decades due to judicial activism and the misapplication of judicial review (Marbury v. Madison), whereby the Supreme Courtroom has usurped power and effectively elevated itself beyond its originally intended authority and scope into the unchecked, final arbitrator regarding the interpretation, awarding, and constitutionality of laws. With doctrines like judicial review governing our country, appealing to the "personal faith" of the Founders simply will not win the debate. We need to go back to the authoritative basis and correct interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, and this begins by recognizing "that nearly all of the almost prominent and influential Founders were lawyers ." [1]
Why is this important? Recognizing the Founders as lawyers is a hermeneutical key that allows united states of america to correctly interpret the Constitution also as recognize its legitimate source of authority. The Founding Documents of our nation (including the Announcement of Independence and U.S. Constitution) are not just significant works of history or abstruse philosophical reflections with no legal authority. Ellis makes a historical and contextual case that they are decision-making legal documents, with legal authority, written past lawyers using specific legal language (referred to as "terms of art") who sought to preserve the originally intended, objective significant of the text for futurity generations to correctly interpret and apply. Simply if this is true, it means the U.Due south. Supreme Court is not at freedom "to depart from the legal authority and plainly significant of the U.South Constitution, but is under its say-so." [2] By the same token, the U.S. Constitution "is not gratuitous to depart from its legal authorization, and any interpretation in contradiction to its authority is necessarily invalid." [3] This so raises the question, where does the U.S. Constitution derive its authority?
This question of Constitutional dominance becomes key to the correct interpretation of Ramble Constabulary. Ellis argues that reverse to the claims of secular humanists, the Founders did non establish the authority of the U.S. Constitution in a social contract theory whereby man is free to create, enforce, and modify morality and the police in accordance with the will and consent of the bulk. This will always result in a "might makes right" philosophy enforced by an all-powerful authorities Sovereign. Rather the Founders rooted our Constitution in Divine Law which encompasses a universal, objective, discoverable morality that is grounded in the nature and character of God Himself. This means that the human government our Founders put in place will necessarily be limited, having no rightful authority to legislate against or contradict the Moral Law, and that whatsoever constitutional interpretation or statutory law that does so is necessarily illegitimate.
Nevertheless, don't take Ellis' word for information technology. Read what the Founders themselves wrote in the Founding Documents. Hither they explicitly express their rationale and appeal to the only legitimate authority possible: God Himself. For example, the Declaration of Independence specifically refers to Divine Law as its foundational, legitimate authority in announcing the independent political sovereignty of the United States. The Founders appeal to that "which the Laws of Nature and of Nature'south God entitle them" and state unequivocally, "We agree these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with sure unalienable Rights." [4] No mention of a "social contract" here. The purpose of authorities then is to secure these unalienable Rights that God has given each person. Ellis farther unpacks the idea that the Founding Documents form a purposeful hierarchy, establishing the historical and legal context for right estimation as nosotros utilise proper hermeneutics. Divine Constabulary is the authority which the Proclamation appeals to in order to legitimize U.S. secession and which the other Founding Documents ultimately residuum on. The Federalist Papers offering the rationale for the U.Southward. Constitution, the Constitution interim as the supreme police force of the state. Common objections voiced by secular humanists such equally "separation of church and state" and "y'all can't legislate morality" are predictable and answered by Ellis, all of which neglect to recognize the Founders' original intent and the fact that law and morality are inextricably intertwined.
In chapters nine and ten Ellis provides an excellent bout of history documenting our cultural shift away from Divine Law and toward Social Contract Theory. She examines case decisions over the last 70 years which have been instrumental in the Supreme Courtroom'due south usurpation of power through judicial activism, the abuse of judicial review, proof-texting, and eisegesis. The Courtroom has even created new facets ex nihilo such as the "penumbra" (Griswold v. Conneticut) which literally allows unaccountable judges to read between the lines of our Constitution anything they so desire, then insert their own value judgments. Simply Ellis does not simply wax eloquent on the history, legality, and current constitutional and cultural crisis. She also gives united states of america a style forward out of the mess: a Convention of States. And guess what? It's Constitutional and was put in place by our Founders for such a time every bit this.
Commodity V of the Constitution allows a Convention of States to be called if two-thirds of the states submit an application to convene. [5] The idea "is to convene delegates from the states for the specific purpose of proposing amendment(due south) to the U.Southward. Constitution and quelling the constitutional crisis on many key levels." [half dozen] There are five steps to this process which requires 34 state legislatures to submit an application to convene. Proposed amendments include a balanced budget, limiting the use of Executive Orders to enact laws, and term limits on Congress and the Supreme Courtroom. Ellis contends this is the virtually feasible and legally viable solution because only the U.Due south. Constitution can bank check the power of the Supreme Courtroom. But we have to exist involved. We demand to educate: ourselves, our churches and our children. We need to pray. And nosotros demand to engage our fellow citizens, culture, and regime.
As Christians we take to recognize the importance of authorities as a God-ordained institution and desire to come across a return to objective morality and biblical principles. It is vital we understand the current fence and exist able to clear it to others. The Legal Basis for a Moral Constitution not only provides you with the historical, legal, and intellectual resource to defend your view against an ever-expanding secular government, but also a game plan to become involved in reclaiming our Constitution and culture. Christians who hold consistently to the truth of their worldview and utilise its principles correctly find themselves uniquely qualified to be involved in politics precisely considering the Christian worldview is True, and the truth of our worldview permeates every area we properly employ the objective, moral principles establish in Nature, Scripture, and our Founding Documents. We have to exist involved, for the current cultural and constitutional crunch has demonstrated it is our religious freedom itself that is at stake. As attorney David French has stated in an article earlier this year,
If the church surrenders the culture without putting up a truthful fight — without fully exercising its right and obligation to defend its constitutional freedoms — and then it volition richly deserve its legal and political fate. A spirit of timidity does not come from God, but timidity grips the church building. If we don't grow bold today, we'll only accept ourselves to blame tomorrow. [7]
[one] Jenna Ellis, The Legal Basis for a Moral Constitution (Bloomington, IN: WestBow, 2015), 21, emphasis in original.
[2] Ibid., 29, emphasis in original.
[4] Declaration of Independence.
[half-dozen] Ellis, The Legal Basis for a Moral Constitution, 193.
Source: http://lti-blog.blogspot.com/2016/10/book-review-legal-basis-for-moral.html
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