A Political Pause

With all the hoop-la surrounding the Republican National Convention and the gearing up for the Democratic National Convention, it is a good time to pause, breathe, and think instead of just responding to the well scripted speeches, timely pictures, and emotion grabbing music.  Can we pause for a minute and THINK?

This nation was founded upon the Biblical principle of freedom, a long held Baptist principle of conscience.  As Dr. B.H. Carroll explains:

This follows from individual responsibility. If one be responsible for himself, there must be no restraint or constraint of his conscience. Neither parent, nor government, nor church, may usurp the prerogative of God as Lord of the conscience. God himself does not coerce the will. His people are volunteers, not conscripts. As has been stated, the prevalent theory in the days of the Reformation was: Whose is the government—his is the religion. Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, signed by his grandfather, the great Henry of Navarre. Calvin burned Servetus at the stake. Luther loosed all the hounds of persecution upon the Baptists in his day. Holland, the little republic that tore her lowlands from the ocean flood, and for eighty years, by pike and dike, repelled the Spaniard with his Inquisition, did herself destroy her greatest statesman, John of Barneveldt, and banish her great historian Grotius for conscience sake. Henry VIII, in England, and his successors, delighted to persecute for conscience sake. John Knox, of Scotland, so tarnished his great name. The Congregationalists of New England and the Episcopalians of Virginia alike denied freedom of conscience to their fellowmen. There was not a government in the world that allowed full liberty of conscience to all men until a Baptist established the colony of Rhode Island.

At a great dining in England John Bright asked a Baptist statesman beside him: "What special contribution have your people made to the world?" "Civil and religious liberty," replied the statesman. "A great contribution," replied John Bright. Bancroft, in his history of America, declares: "Freedom of conscience, unlimited freedom of mind, was from the first the trophy of the Baptists." On November 5, 1658, these Baptists thus instructed their agent in England: "Plead our case in such sort as we may not be compelled to exercise any civil power over men’s consciences; we do judge it no less than a point of absolute cruelty." In their petition to Charles II they thus urged: "It is much in our hearts to hold forth a lively experiment, that a most flourishing civil state may stand, and best be maintained, with a full liberty of religious concernments." And so when their charter came it provided: "No person within the said colony, at any time hereafter, shall be in any wise molested, punished, disquieted or called in question, for any difference in opinion in matters of religion; every person may at all times freely and fully enjoy his own judgment and conscience in matters of religious concernment." And the charter of their great school, now Brown University, has a clause of equal import, a thing unknown at that time in the chartered schools of the whole world.

Freedom of conscience in our day, especially in this country, is a familiar thing. It was not so in earlier days. Pagan, Papist and Protestant ground liberty of conscience into powder under the iron heel of their despotisms.

You see, freedom of conscience is one of our most sacred freedoms.  The Baptist preacher, John Leyland spoke to James Madison about this most sacred freedom.  Our nation may have never been what it was had it not been for this meeting.  The result of this meeting was James Madison's promise that a Bill of Rights would be introduced by him and would begin with these words:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievance

Citizens would be guaranteed the freedom of conscience, to believe what they believed, to worship and live how they believed was right.  The freedom was guaranteed to use speech and press to say what they felt was right, and to petition the government when things were not right.

The result was a zealous, revived, soul winning group of believers who began to worship and serve the Lord in a land that guaranteed this right.  Thousands were saved.  Churches were planted at an astounding rate all across this country.  As a whole, our American fathers before us feared God, worked hard, and built a nation hardly rivaled in history.  We enjoyed what Gov. Chris Christie called last night, "An American Century".

Now today, the conservative choice of topics are abortion, gay marriage, the economy, and such.  We have become what our Baptist forefathers fought against.   We want a government that will legislate righteousness.  We want to vote for the man that will make a law that sodomites cannot marry.  We want a man that will see to it that government has the authority to tell us what is morally right and wrong.  Conservatives have become the "yang" to a welfare society.  We desire a government to take care of us morally.

Let me be clear.  I am entirely against abortion.  I am entirely against gay marriage.  I am entirely against frivolous spending.  But, it is not the government that has failed, it is God's people.  When we quit being a zealous people, revived, and soul winning and discipling others in the Word of God, our nation began to forget God.  We see the same pattern God warned Israel about in Deuteronomy 8:

"Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day: Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwell therein; and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied, then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the LORD thy God...and thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth."

I agree that our President was wrong when he said to small business owners, "You didn't build this."  But I also disagree with most conservatives in their "We built this".  No, God blessed us! He blessed a people who were bless-able.  He built this nation upon a people who feared Him, because they learned this from a people who were commissioned by Him.

Beware my conservative friends for voting in men who will legislate morality, for a day will come when a not so conservative will be in authority and it will have been us who gave them the keys to morality.  What then, when it is legislated that we cannot preach against abortion?  What then, when it is legislated that man and woman are not allowed to marry in a church with out giving that same right to sodomites?  What then, when it is legislated what is right and what is wrong?  Oh, we will cry out; but it will have been us who gave them this authority.  It will have been us who gave back all that our Baptist forefathers fought for.

We get all riled up when welfare checks are given to people who can, but will not work.  Then we, a people too lazy and luke warm to fulfill our great commission, want a government to take care of us morally.  It won't work!  We will pay for this unwise choice.  No wonder our Lord said concerning a nations blessing:

"If my people, which are called by name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then  ill I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." -2 Chron. 7:14