Chalcedon Blog

Can there be a free society, the professed goal of modern men, when God's perfect law of liberty is despised? How free can any society be when it drops God's Ten Commandments, and the whole body of His law? It is no accident that the Western World, no longer Christendom, is moving into statist tyranny. (R.J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law Vol. III, p.48)

Two forms of tyranny are consuming our national dialogue: the increasing tyranny of the state, and the perceived fear of an impending theocracy. Both plaintiffs appeal to the Constitution and a generic concept of personal liberty in their public resistance.

But, is the Constitution a guarantor of liberty? Apparently not. At least not in the pragmatic sense. Therefore, request is made for a return to both the ideal as well as the praxis of the Constitution as the primary means to an American reformation.

However, what is being damned in the discussion is Biblical law--the only true source of liberty and freedom. Why is Biblical law the source of freedom? Because the question of freedom is an ethical, and not a procedural question. Therefore, an appeal to the Constitution as the standard for liberty is like grabbing your wallet to make a phone call. The Constitution outlines procedural policies for the state, and does not declare whether homosexuality or abortion are ethically permitted. The Constitution is designed to restrain the state, not liberate the individual to live licentiously.

The Constitution secures liberty indirectly by restraining the federal government from impinging upon the establishments of the individual states. So, the first line of defense for personal liberty is within one's home state. And, those liberties contained within the Bill of Rights are essentially means of protection against the tyranny of federal encroachment. But, again, these are procedural forms of legislation and not "substantive" forms of legislation that define right and wrong.

The idea that one can appeal to the Constitution in the question of gay marriage, abortion, or pluralism is questionable in that the Constitution does not protect immoral freedom. To better understand this concept we must examine the idea of freedom.

Making Freedom the Absolute

[A] society which makes freedom its primary goal will lose it, because it has made, not responsibility, but freedom from responsibility, its purpose. When freedom is the basic emphasis, it is not responsible speech which is fostered but irresponsible speech. (Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law Vol. I, p.581)

Rushdoony makes a salient point. When freedom is the primacy ethics is pushed aside as secondary. We are not "free" to do what we want. We are restrained at every point—as the old saying goes, "my freedom ends at the tip of your nose." But, the modern idea of freedom essentially makes too much room for irresponsibility, not protection for responsibility.

The modern cause of freedom is an empty pursuit in that it cannot create the utopia humanistic man desires. By granting freedom to his sin man in essence creates a living hell. Freedom must only be sought in terms of an abiding ethical standard:

The cause of freedom is a futile one on anything other than God's terms, His Son the King, and His law our way of life. For men to seek freedom apart from God is comparable to seeking heaven in hell. (Institutes Vol. III, p.48)

This point is demonstrated in the incessant pleas for freedom of speech. The rankled corps of civil rights activists utilize The First Amendment as the go-to text for saying whatever they please—without responsibility, or constraint by Biblical law. But, as mentioned above, the Constitutional provisions only restrained the state from interfering in the affairs of the individual states. The Constitution did not compel states in the establishment of religion or freedom of speech. Those issues were left up to the states to determine.

This is the crux of the war between the states. In the 19th century America was comprised of free states and slave states. The war only broke out only at the imposition of federal morality upon sovereign southern states. The Constitution was not intended to compel the states to national conformity. It was designed to keep Washington out of Alabama. The South had a reason to fight, and with their loss came the rise of American tyranny. The slave question was to be resolved at the state level. Resolution was not come by Northern aggression.

Personal liberties, such as the freedom of speech, cannot be legislated from Washington. Certain states may be more Christian than others, and therefore restrain such transgressions as blasphemy. This diversity of state laws is true today as some states still outlaw sodomy while others see it as a "laymen's proctology." Will Congress then compel states like Texas, North Carolina, and Tennessee to conform to the idiotic Supreme Court ruling that sodomy laws are unconstitutional? Would that in itself be unconstitutional?

Freedom of Speech

By making freedom absolute, as Rushdoony noted, the way is made for mass irresponsibility. This is where we presently suffer most. Freedom of speech is creating a profane culture where all forms of media are awash in foul language, defamation, and blasphemy. These illicit forms of speech are granted freedom because they are granted equality with responsible speech. This is where the Bible is more helpful than the ACLU--who are more concerned with protecting the speech of derelicts than protecting my family from perversity.

The Bible in no way permits such egalitarian liberties. The Scriptures rather restrain speech for the sake of the truth, which is often lost in the national permissiveness of lies and defamation. Rushdoony makes this plain:

The Biblical law with respect to speech is therefore not a declaration of freedom of speech but a prohibition of false witness in court, and of malicious and false statements with respect to men and events in everyday affairs. The distinction is a very important one. The Biblical law gives freedom to the truth, not to false witness in its broadest sense. True freedom of speech rests on the prohibition of false witness. (Institutes Vol. I., 580)

Humanistic freedom of speech is eroding our national morality. So is freedom of the press and freedom of religion. They are all distortions of the Biblical idea of freedom, and are marginalizing the truth by their distortions. The present whining over freedoms is because of a perceived threat to perversity. Man wants to live free and clear of God's law, and he will reshuffle our founding documents to secure that Sadean liberty.

No True Hope in the Constitution

It should be plain that genuine hope cannot be placed in the Constitution. A simple national restoration to 1787 will not secure liberty for our progeny. Although it would be delightful for a season. Our constitutional republic was subverted once, and it can easily be subverted again. The only founding document to return to is the whole Word of God. Human documents, like human systems, are fallible and subject to subversion. Martin Selbrede recently made this point in a personal dialogue in which he stated:

"Man's problem is ethical, not institutional or organizational. Men can be just as sinful in decentralized situations as they can when power is concentrated centrally. Rush made a point of this because to argue otherwise is to concede ground to those who want to manipulate man's environment to improve man's situation, when in fact man's basic problem is sin. Rush taught us to NEVER buy into a metaphysical solution to an ethical problem. This is implicit Manichaeanism."

How true this is. The issue is man's character, which is shaped by his core beliefs. Therefore, our true work is a gospel project where we proclaim the message of salvation and then disciple the nations in terms of God's commandments. This is long-term and not for the feeble Christian. Until today's believer can elevate their perspective beyond the constraints of personal well-being, and their "relationship with Jesus," we are pulling a corpse. Until churches leaders can pull away from the building committee, we are left with the strategy of the fictional "Morpheus" from the Matrix Trilogy: scour the sewers in search of those who might be receptive to illumination--then unplug them from the system. With each convert the systems of tyranny lose a bit of their power supply.

In conclusion, I appreciate those brethren who labor for a return to Constitutionalism because I know many of them embrace Biblical law and the necessity for ethical conversion. I would seek to provoke others who have reduced our national debate to a "War on Christianity," and only see solutions in national conferences and the election of conservative judges. To them I offer this simple reminder that it is "to the law and to the testimony" (Is. 8:20) that we are to return, not the documents of men.