Dr. Robert Lewis Dabney saw the aftermath of the Civil War as a loss of liberty for all generations. He understood that the Old South was fighting for much more than their own Christian liberty--they were fighting for Christian liberty in its entirety. And it was a battle whose fallen shared much with the blood spilled of Christian martyrs throughout history.

This is anathema to modern man who decries an impostor of the Old South--a Frankenstein creature derived from the creative minds of the Southern Poverty Law Center--as a generation of cruelty that received its due. But ask a Confederate soldier why he fights, and 9 out of 10 will not mention slavery. They were fighting for a constitutional republic of free states. Therefore, their loss has evolved into our tyranny. As Dabney says, mankind has a tendency to destroy its benefactors:

"[I]n the endeavor to save the liberties transmitted by our fathers, we did what we could. And in proof of this justifying plea, we can point to the forms prematurely bent, and the heads whitened by fatigue and camp diseases, to the empty sleeves, and wooden legs, and to the Confederate graves so thickly strewn over the land. Our apology is, again, that while we were contending for the rights and interests of the civilized world, nearly the whole world blindly and passionately arrayed itself against us. Such was the strange permission of Providence, that we, while defending the cause of all, should be slandered and misunderstood by all. But why should I say this fearful dispensation was strange? when we see that from the days of the Christian martyrs until now, mankind have usually resisted and sought to destroy its true benefactors. So it was; we had the world against us."

Dabney saw clear to the true nature of the cause. And like the testimony of the writer of Hebrews, Dabney stood in judgment of his own generation:

For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them... (Heb. 8:7-8)

America, or should we say "humanity," was not capable of sustaining a free republic. Self-government would give way to a centralized authority and that by force. The fault was with man, and it remains so. Even today, only a dedicated minority are lifting up a standard against the growing despotism in these United States.

Even in 1882, Dabney's words were timeless. The following citation requires no revision in order to speak forthrightly to our generation:

"Each state must be a republic, as distinguished from a monarchy or oligarchy, but in all else it was to be mistress of its own internal forms and regulations. The functions of the general government were to be few and defined, its expenditures modest, and its burdens in time of peace light. Such was the form of government instituted for themselves by our free forefathers; and well fitted to their genius and circumstances as communities of farmers, inhabiting their own homes, approaching an equality of condition, and having upon the whole continent no one city of controlling magnitude or wealth.

"But this century has seen all this reversed; and conditions of human society have grown up, which make the system of our free forefathers obviously impracticable in the future. And this is so, not because the old forms were not good enough for this day, but because they were too good for it."

The old forms are too good for us because our hearts are hardened by the deceitfulness of sin; and the burden of self-government is more than we can bear. Until the great reconstruction begins with our hearts, minds, and personal spheres, we shall in no way transform this nation. And in light of this, I do not see how winning the debate over whether America is a Christian nation solves anything. Nor do I understand how the discussion of "church and state" addresses the true nature of our problem.

The true Christian society would see a minimal state in which the question of church and state would be nearly moot. The present debate over church and state is only such because both sides assume statism, i.e., a large centralized civil government teeming with political positions to fill. One side wants them filled with Christians while the other does not.

We have this because we are spoon-fed a detrimental diet via media and education from both Christian and non-Christian sources. And this what you receive when a people serve the god of mammon; or as Dabney says:

"Literature is a commodity, money buys and sells it. Let the genius of an Addison, a Bolingbrooke, a Junius, a Macaulay, all be combined on the one side, with all the richest resources of historical learning to publish the political truths which happen to be unpopular without a great capital; and let commercial capital give its support to the pen of the most ignorant demagogue to propagate the crudest absurdities in which capital supposes it has a selfish and corrupt interest, you shall see the wisdom of true statesmanship, embellished by all the graces of scholarship consigned to an unread obscurity in this country, while the vulgar stupidities of error shall visit every table and claim every eye. Mammon wills it so, and Mammon rules."

Didn't I tell you Dabney was far more relevant than the one-dimensional Reformed popularizer?