Do The Ten Commandments Belong in American Life Today?

Selected Excerpts from The 10 Offenses: Reclaim the Blessing of the Ten Commandments

By Dr. Pat Robertson

Recalling America’s Religious Roots

History shows that those who founded the United States consciously intended America to be a Christian nation, guided above all else by the truths of the Bible. The fundamental principles of the laws and liberties of this new nation were found in the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament and the Sermon on the Mount of the New Testament.

Revisionist historians have tried to blur the facts of history, but the documented evidence of our origins it too powerful to suppress. It was a Christian American that opened its arms to the world and guaranteed what we now pledge as “liberty and justice for all.” It was the spiritual, moral, and ethical teaching of Christianity that brought about our unparalleled prosperity as a nation.

Having begun this new land with a prayer meeting, these first permanent English settlers to America reboarded their boats and sailed up a large river that they named the James. In a protected harbor . . . they founded a settlement called Jamestown.

The central and largest building constructed for the tiny settlement was a church where all of the settlers worshipped God, observed the sacraments of their Christian faith, and were taught to obey the commandments of God. The concept of “separation of church and state” would have been unthinkable to them because their Christian faith and their civic government were as one. There concepts of life, freedom, and ordered liberty were framed principally by the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament and the Sermon on the Mount of the New Testament. Without dispute, the United States of America began as a nation of Christians and as a Christian nation framed by the commandments of God.

In short, it was clear to the wise leaders at the founding of the United States that the fear of God and the restraining hand of God’s commandments prohibit people from murder, theft, adultery, immorality, perjury, and rebellion by the young. The generations of those who laid the legal, economic, and moral foundation of this land knew well the warning of King Solomon, who had written, “Without a vision of God, the people run amuck.” (Proverbs 29:18, author’s translation). Without such a vision of a Creator—of ultimate reward and ultimate punishment—only martial law and armed restraint can prevent anarchy and mayhem.

It may stun some Americans living at the beginning of the twenty-first century that only 112 years ago, a unanimous decision by the United States Supreme Court declared that “this is a Christian nation.”

The First Amendment—As Originally Intended

James Madison of Virginia, who studied theology at Princeton University under the great minister statesman John Witherspoon, was asked to draft ten amendments to the Constitution in a fashion not unlike the Ten Commandments of Moses. These amendments, later knows as the Bill of Rights, began with the First Amendment, which says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . “ Clearly the First Amendment was a restriction on Congress, not the states or any individual or group of individuals.

After numerous attempts to draft language prohibiting the establishment of a national church, Madison wrote, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” He clearly meant a state church where ministers drew salaries from the government, bishops serve in the legislature, and people are taxed and otherwise burdened to support the established church’s buildings, employees, and activities.

On entering the newly formed House of Representatives, James Madison, who had written the First Amendment, served as chairman of the committee to choose a paid chaplain to open each session of the House with prayer. Madison, who knew better than anyone the constitutional prohibition against an “establishment of religion,” clearly did not feel that using public funds to pay a Christina chaplain to lead the Congress in prayer in any way violated the prohibition.

Nor did the vote in the first Congress to appropriate funds to pay for the printing of twenty thousand Bibles to send to the Indians violate the First Amendment. Nor did the use of the Capitol Rotunda for Christian Sunday worship services appear in any way to establish a religion in contravention of the First Amendment.

There has never been a constitutional mandate for the “separation of church and state.” Such language simply does not appear in the United States Constitution. It was the stated belief of our nation’s framers and founders that the body politic received positive benefits from the religious life of its people and, therefore, religion was to be endorsed and encouraged at every level of government. Congress opens with prayer led by government-paid chaplains. The Supreme Court opens its daily session with prayer. Christianity and its customs were interwoven into every facet of the life of the United States of America from 1607 until 1947, a period of 340 years.

Yet in 1947, in a case entitled Everson v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court lifted a phrase from a letter written by a man who had not participated in the drafting of the United States Constitution, stated in an offhand manner that government should keep its hands off the free exercise of religion. This personal letter, written in 1804 by Tomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Convention, certainly did not have the force of law, nor could it approach in validity the commentaries of Supreme Court Justice Story or the majority decision of the Supreme Court in the Trinity Trustees case. Yet the Supreme Court, 340 years later, lifted a phrase from that letter—“wall of separation between church and state”—and used it to promulgate a radical new doctrine of constitutional law mandating an absolute separation of not just church, but also religion, and state. Now by its own authority, never authorized by Congress, the courts transferred a prohibition against the congressional establishment of a national church into a prohibition against any religious acts of the state governments or their agents. In fact, before the court had finished its absurd course, it even prohibited the state of North Carolina from printing a prayer for safety on its road maps.

Religion in America Today: Under Attack

Many Americans in education, law, medicine, psychology, the arts, and the media seem to have an agenda to erase God and biblical morality from our nation. Why are they offended by the Ten Commandments? The answer is painfully obvious: They perceive any system of moral absolutes that defines or restrains their choices as antiquated and oppressive. Dangerously limiting their rights. Simply put, the Ten Commandments represent absolute truth, and that cramps their style. But to those who understand their deeper meaning, the Ten Commandments are unbelievable blessings that provide safety, security, peace of mind, and a life free form many troubles.

During the past two hundred years, oppressed Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and Jews have flooded into America because our Christian culture respects their individual liberties and offers endless opportunities, just as our founders intended. What other culture in the world shows such respect for each individual’s rights? Why allow liberal court justices, unthinking legislatures and fiercely secular organizations to destroy our nation’s greatest and most compelling fundamental treasure—our spiritual foundation? Pluralism thrives in America as a result of our Christian heritage, not in spite of it.

As survey after survey reveals, God’s commandments are not an offense to the majority of God-fearing people. They are only an offense to a minority of powerful men and women pushing their own secular, libertarian agendas.

And what of tomorrow?

Epilogue

No nation in history has survived which legitimized sodomy and gross sexual excess. No nation in history has survived when its leaders plundered the patrimony of future generations to ensure their own continuance in power. No nation can survive which refuses to pass on its history, traditions and moral standards to its young. No nation can survive which cannibalizes its unborn for its own pleasure and convenience.

If the past is any guide, we know that a righteous God will not hold back His judgment forever. A great nation can slowly be destroyed by pervasive moral decay. We sow the seeds of our own destruction, or God Himself can strike sudden devastating blows—violent earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes, massive flooding, extended drought, widespread disease, even the impact of an asteroid. Or God can raise up fierce enemies who delight only in destruction and death.

Knowingly or unknowingly, the ACLU, the National Abortion Rights Action League, Planned Parenthood, the National Organization of Women, the Gay-Lesbian Alliance, the American Atheists, Marxists, People for the American Way, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the advocates o political correctness in education, and all of their allies across the land in Congress, the state legislatures or the media, are hastening he destruction of the United States of America and the freedoms and lifestyle we all enjoy.

So what must we do while there is still time?

First, we must appeal to the One who the patriarch Abraham called “the judge of all the earth.” He is higher than any government of man, any Congress of man, any President of man, and certainly higher than any court of man . . . .

Secondly, it is essential that moral reformation begins with each of us. It is hardly adequate to attend rallies protesting the removal of the Ten Commandments from public buildings if we are breaking the commandments in our private lives. . .

Third, we must sound a note of outrage at the actions of the federal courts. . .

Finally, if all else fails, our efforts may have established sufficient moral outrage in our nation that he Congress and state legislatures will once again take back the power given them under the Constitution.

Excerpts have not been compared to final text of The Ten Offenses. Please check with final text.