Of Fists and Flags

Recently I spent an evening with what was almost entirely a large group of black Christians as they honored Jesus Christ utilizing a variety of art forms--vocalists, dance, musicians, expressive speeches all carefully crafted to bring Christians together in worship. I was there to support my daughter, who was performing with a group of teenage dancers--all white. No matter. We were Christians!

 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

As the evening drew to its finale, the organizers brought together all the performers on stage. As the performers assembled, the scene unexpectedly shifted to a political one. Not knowing what was to transpire, the performers had been told to "follow the lead of the organizers at the front" and they dutifully did so. They were marched back and forth across the stage as the screen in back displayed various scenes. There were images of blacks with hands raised saying "hands up, don't shoot" mixed with an image of Martin Luther King Jr. melded together with Barack Obama walking together, hand in hand, down the National Mall.

My surprise began to turn to outright anger as this display ended with all the performers stopping and raising their clenched fists forward. This symbolic act was one I instantly recognized as hearkening back to this:

This was the old Black Panther Party--a group known for advocating militant action in pursuit of its political goals.

How could this be?!  The sight of these teenage white girls with fists raised in solidarity with violent black protest was outrageous.

As the program ended and hugs and congratulations were extended all around, I grew more reflective. I knew the young, black Christian girl who had organized the event. Her heart was filled with love for Christ and her mixing of King (non-violent protester) with the Black Panthers (violent protesters) told me she did not understand the symbolic nature of that raised fist. In discussions afterwards, I realized many others did not understand the fist as well. That symbol was for me completely offensive but to others it meant something different.

This got me to thinking about another symbol that is currently wreaking havoc across America:

For me, this symbol represents self determination, a long ago fight by people I identified with, whose attempt to become a nation failed. The sight of that flag for me brings thoughts of valor on the battlefield, honor, self-sacrifice.

I have no doubt what that symbol would represent to that group of black Christians and it is completely different than mine.

It would likely conjure up images of blacks dangling from trees on ropes, being water hosed, or the KKK.

Symbols are powerful things and their meanings are different to different people and can change over time. We live in this world and must pay attention to it, but as I age, more and more what is seen in this world fades and what is unseen grows brighter as spoken in the old hymn:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
  In the light of His glory and grace.

Blacks need to replace the clenched fist with an upraised open hand.

Whites need to replace earthly flags with heavenly ones.

If we as Christians are to fulfill the prayer of Jesus:

"I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. "

then we must not let our eyes rest too closely on things of this earth, but instead:

"Let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith."

#confederateflag #blackpanthers

Golden Triangle of Freedom

"...land of the free and home of the brave..."

How many times have you heard those words sung as you rise from your seat with heart stirring?

The great thinker Augustine argued that the best way to define a people is by their "loved thing held in common," or what it is they altogether love supremely. Is there any word that would define the common American love better than freedom? When this erupted on the international scene 239 years ago --

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

the world changed and Americans' passion for freedom has never really vanished. Sadly, as any formerly star struck lover can tell you, time has a way of unraveling the most intense of emotions. How can our love affair with freedom continue? What must be done to sustain our love affair indefinitely?

The modern day Alexis de Tocqueville, Os Guinness, has considered this question deeply and suggested for this American passion to endure, three things are required. A three pointed triangle, if you will, in which all three support one another in a never ending enduring state.

Here are the components of this non-ending triangle:

1. Freedom requires virtue
2. Virtue requires faith
3. Faith requires freedom

and so on infinitely.

The first of these seems self evident and difficult to deny. Virtue, that old word which means high moral excellence, is truly indispensable. Who watching in recent years the wild rioting in the streets have not despaired over the ruinous effect of low morals?

It inevitably follows that, in order to avoid chaos, laws must be passed and enforced to counter bad behavior. Freedom, then, is diminished. As Benjamin Franklin said so long ago:

"No longer virtuous, no longer free; is a maxim as true to a private person as a commonwealth."

As virtue decreases, laws increase, and freedom declines.




The second point of the triangle, that virtue requires faith of some kind, was something quite clear to the Founders of America. Listen to these words from George Washington in his Farewell address in 1796:

"Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? 

And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

If there is only a view of life as dust to dust, and you are presented with an opportunity to commit a crime in which you believe you can get away with (thus avoiding any lost respect or pain from punishment), then, truly, why not? Conscience? No worries. That is simply the product of social and cultural conditioning, moderns tell us.

In contrast, religion provides an eternal view in which our actions in this life have repercussions in the next.

As faith decreases, virtue decreases, laws increase, and freedom declines.


The last point of the triangle, faith requires freedom, was also readily apparent to the Founders. They were coming out of centuries of bloodshed, the many Wars of Religion and the painfully slow realization that faith needed to be free. As James Madison stated in his monumental work, "Memorial and Remonstrance":

"We hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth that religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence."

State mandated religion would only stifle faith, not encourage it. This realization they enshrined in the first clause of the First Amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion..."

They also understood that for faith to flourish, it must not be restricted in its exercise. We have witnessed in the past century the debilitating effect severe restrictions on the exercise of religion had in the Soviet Union and the eastern bloc. East Germany to this day is still significantly more atheist than West Germany. Faith struggles to flourish in a society that does not grant it the freedom to actively work in the public square.

"...or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

As freedom decreases, faith decreases, virtue decreases, laws increase, and freedom declines.


As I wait to witness the annual fireworks display this July 4,  I am feeling like a popular blogger who said recently:

"These patriotic holidays are becoming more reflective than they are celebratory. I feel like a divorcee on his wedding anniversary. I’m thinking about what once was, rather than rejoicing over what currently is."

I believe that faith and virtue are declining in America and thus, slowly, is freedom. 

“From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia...could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher.

As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.”-Lincoln

Brewing Storm

Peering through a window, I watch as the trees begin to bend and the leaves start to fall. As I step outside to take a look, I'm immediately greeted by wind and the realization that nature is stirring.

Retreating inside, I sit and continue to read the oral arguments in the case Obergefell v Hodges.

This is the gay marriage case currently before the Supreme Court. When argued back on April 28th, Justice Scalia inquired of the attorney asking the Court to mandate gay marriage:

"Is it conceivable that a minister who is
 authorized by the State to conduct marriage can decline
 to marry two men if indeed this Court holds that they
have a constitutional right to marry?"

This query roused the liberal members of the Court who quickly denied such a thing and attempted to douse this line of questions concluding with Justice Breyer saying,

"It's called Congress shall make no law respecting the freedom of religion..."

I suspect a wry smile may have been present on his face. He supports religious freedom, as long as it is within the four walls of the church that is--outside... not so much. He was, after all, one of the justices who voted in Christian Legal Society v Martinez (2010) to stop a college Christian society from amazingly trying to exclude those who did not hold Christian beliefs.  This resulted in Justice Alito saying,

 "I can only hope that this decision will turn out to be an aberration." 

Unfortunately, I don't think so.

As is often the case at oral argument, questions asked are designed to lead the conversation a particular direction and maybe, just maybe, gain an undesired admission.

A few moments later, Chief Justice Roberts pulled the conversation back:

"Counsel, I'd like to follow up in a line of questioning that Justice Scalia started. We have a concession from your friend that clergy will not be required to perform same ­sex marriage, but there are going to be harder questions. Would a religious school that has married housing be required to afford such housing to same ­sex couples?"

When pressed further by Justice Alito, after stammering around a bit in a vain attempt to avoid the question, the attorney finally made the undesired admission:

" it's certainly going to be an issue. I... ­­ I don't deny that.  I don't deny that, Justice Alito.  It is... ­­ it is going to be an issue."

The irreverent question asked by Scalia had produced its desired result.

Outside my window, I see the trees bend just a little further.

A storm is brewing.

Just the Rain

Flowing, flowing

across my lips

endlessly streaming





Just the rain





Rise up, rise up

the path is before you

the affliction is behind





Just the rain

Walk on, walk on

the salt is deceiving

the pain is deluding




Just the rain

The Open Box: Bush v Gore Revisited

"The most perverse misuse of the Equal Protection Clause I've seen in my 40 years of law."

Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law Professor on the Bush v Gore decision

In the crashing aftermath of the landmark Bush v Gore decision in 2000, a case in which the Court effectively picked the President by a 5-4 margin, entirely along partisan lines, many were enraged. How could the five justices completely ignore their openly avowed conservative principles and, in bold, hypocritical fashion, render a decision based simply on power?

How could this be?

Many of us are familiar with the old metaphor of "Pandora's Box". Based on Greek mythology, it was a story of a woman named Pandora who possessed a box that contained all the evils of the world. Unable to restrain herself, she cracked open the forbidden box. Suddenly, out flew these demons, and try as she may, they could not be put back in the box.


                                                    Today the phrase "to open Pandora's box" means to perform an action that may seem small or innocent, but that turns out to have severely detrimental and far-reaching consequences.

You see, what happened in Bush v Gore cannot be explained unless you go back in time, back to the days when well meaning justices, thinking of equity in their day, quietly lifted the lid to the forbidden box.

In the Bush v Gore decision, interestingly the Court only relied on four prior decisions. (One other was mentioned in a perfunctory manner). These decisions were:

Gray v Sanders (1963)
Reynolds v Sims (1964)
Harper v Virginia Bd. of Elections (1966)
Moore v Ogilvie (1969)


All of these decisions were during the era of Chief Justice Earl Warren, a man determined to make things right--even if that meant departing from the Constitution. Justice indeed was achieved but did the end justify the means?

Each of these cases were voting rights cases in which people were unjustly denied proper voting rights. From giving unequal voting power to rural counties, to improper apportionment, to an inability to register, to finally an improper formula for electors. In each case, Warren's Court was clearly achieving justice by invalidating those state laws. All based on the famous dictum stated in the first case, "One Person-One Vote", a concept that has since become ingrained in the conscience of American society.There was only one problem:

Voting rights had been left to the states.

A dissenting justice, Frankfurter, quoted Representative Bingham, the author of the 14th Amendment (while going through the entire history of the voting rights):

"To be sure we all agree, and the great body of the people of this country agree, and the committee thus far in reporting measures of reconstruction agree, that the exercise of the elective franchise, though it be one of the privileges of a citizen of the Republic, is exclusively under the control of the States."

The Warren court had run roughshod over the rights of states and left behind the Constitution. What did the means matter? Did not the end result of justice for the voter justify it?

In a somber warning, Justice Harlan said this in dissent in Reynolds v Sims:

"What is done today deepens my conviction that judicial entry into this realm is profoundly ill-advised and constitutionally impermissible. As I have said before, I believe that the vitality of our political system, on which in the last analysis all else depends, is weakened by reliance on the judiciary for political reform."

Let's return now to 2000. Though accused of departing from their conservative principles, there is one legal principle held by all justices of every judicial stripe.

A legal principle by which judges are obliged to respect the precedent established by prior decisions. If Courts flip flopped back and forth from session to session society would have no firm footing upon which to live lives. Courts will reluctantly depart from this principle only rarely. Conservative jurist Scalia has said he will follow precedent, even if unconstitutional, if it involves a new legal principle that has been "generally accepted by society". (p 412 Reading Law)

Who would deny that "one person one vote" has been generally accepted?

The "Pandoras" on the Court in 2000 desperately tried to put the ghosts back in the "state" box. Witness their vain attempts:

"When questions arise about the meaning of state laws, including election laws, it is our settled practice to accept the opinions of the highest courts of the States as providing the final answers."-Stevens

"The extraordinary setting of this case has obscured the ordinary principle that dictates its proper resolution: Federal courts defer to a state high court's interpretations of the State's own law. This principle reflects the core of federalism, on which all agree. "The Framers split the atom of sovereignty. It was the genius of their idea that our citizens would have two political capacities, one state and one federal, each protected from incursion by the other." Ginsburg

Really?

 They were about 40 years too late.
The demons could not be returned to the box.

"Many liberals were brought up to believe that whatever happened to the other branches of government, the Supreme Court belonged to 'us'. It was 'ours'. Bush v Gore demonstrated the harm in empowering the courts to become actively involved in solving the nations's political problems--a harm liberals ignored as long as the solutions were ones they favored."

Dershowitz-Supreme Injustice (p 196)

#bushvgore

Broken Together

What do you think about when you look at me?

I know we are not the fairy tale you dreamed we would be

You wore the veil, you walked the aisle, you took my hand

  We dove into a mystery

How I wish we could go back to simpler times

Before all our scars and all our secrets were in the light

Now on this hallowed ground, we've drawn the battle lines

Can we make it through the night ?

It's going to take much more than promises this time

Only God can change our minds

Maybe you and I were never meant to be complete

Could we just be broken together?

If you can just bring your shattered dreams and I'll bring mine

Could healing still be spoken and save us?

The only way we'll last forever is broken together

How it must have been so lonely by my side

We were building kingdoms and chasing dreams and left love behind

I'm praying God will help our broken hearts align

I won't give up the fight

Please--Let's be broken together

Casting Crowns

Hey, Jude!

The Book of Jude is only twenty-five verses long, yet so rich !

Theological conundrums, strange angelic tales of yore, a beautiful, oft overlooked prayer, and stern warnings for apostates with expressive little poetic denunciations.

Listen to his little series of similes, directed at the apostate teachers and infused with unexpected vividness:

They are like clouds carried along by the wind, but bring no rain.











They are like late autumn trees stripped clean of leaf and fruit, pulled up by the roots and completely dead.






They are like wild waves of the sea, with their shameful deeds showing up like empty foam.













They are like wandering stars, for whom God has reserved a place forever in the deepest darkness.

He closes his short epistle with a wonderful, short prayer. 

Clear your throat, muster up your best radio voice, and say this aloud:

"Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forevermore. "

Amen and amen.