THE CHRISTIAN BILL OF RIGHTS
“I deserve better!” “They owe it to me!” “It’s my right!” The world of the Twenty-first Century is filled with demands of entitlement. From religious expression to bedroom privacy, the plurality of our world voices its insistence on personal and social rights. Not a day seems to go by without a news story about some group declaring that they have been abused or ignored or violated because they did not receive what was due them. We have become a culture of complainers.
This problem is much deeper than the legal application of personal protection. It begins from a political philosophy that views Man as an independent self-governing creature. It is not a problem that has recently arrived on the scene. The roots of our current explosion of clamoring demands began with the formation of the idea of “inalienable rights” in the Constitution itself.
The doctrine of inalienable rights implies that Man has entitlements simply by virtue of his existence. We have defined these entitlements broadly as “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Under our philosophy of government, we have used this platform to expand the idea of inalienable rights to include all sorts of diverse behaviors and beliefs – ownership of weapons, freedom to desecrate our national symbols, expressions of behavior that redefine basic morality. We could catalog one situation after another where the legal extension of this philosophical position has resulted in incredible affirmation of moral depravity. It has apparently become a “right” to do whatever I want as long as I don’t get caught.
Unfortunately, despite efforts to the contrary, this situation will not improve. The reason that we can look forward to only deeper and more disturbing decisions supporting actions that conscience tells us are intolerable is not found in “bad” laws or politically correct Supreme Court justices. We are only witnessing the inevitable logical results of a faulty foundation. It is the foundation itself that contains the tragic flaws that will continue to produce the disintegration of morality on the basis of “rights”. As surprisingly as it may seem, that faulty foundation is our own Constitution.
The Constitution makes explicit the presupposition that Man has rights by virtue of his existence alone. No one seems to give much thought to this position. After two hundred years, we have come to assume its validity as though God endorsed it. I do not believe it would take a Nielsen poll to determine that most Americans think that this principle is Christian. We may wish to think that the framers of the Constitution were Christian men of principle who incorporated a high view of human worth into the documents that formed this nation. But that is fantasy. It re-writes history to suit our own moral conscience. The men who framed the Constitution were Deists. They were certainly religious, but they did not generally believe in a God of imminent domain. They did not see God as a participant in the everyday affairs of the world. They viewed God as the Divine Watchmaker, the creator of a mechanical universe – a God who set everything in motion and then retired to his heavenly realm while commanding men to take over the daily operation of the universe. In particular, they believed that the exercise of God’s will was to be found in the concept of Law. In this regard, these men were thoroughly Greek, not Hebraic or Christian. This difference makes all the difference.
Consider the implications of the philosophic belief that Man has certain rights by virtue of his mere existence. The God of the fathers of American society saw Man as the center of the operating universe. God was there, all right, but God was far in the background, personally uninvolved with politics, society and corporate existence. God belonged in heaven and in the inner hope of personal believers, not in the organization and execution of society. Church and state were separate not only technically but also philosophically.
This Deistic belief is essentially an extension of Greek philosophy. Regardless of the affirmation “In God we trust”, the real operating principle behind the American mentality is “Man is the measure of all things” – a statement coined by the Greeks. It is this concept that stands behind the idea of inalienable rights.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the concept of Law. Since the Greeks did not believe in a supreme deity who was both Creator and Ruler of the universe, their highest source of authority was Law. For the Greeks, the Law represented the will of the State, expressed in its rules and regulations for the good of its citizens. Law was the epitome of what was valid in the world of men. Developed from the concept of what was “proper”, Law defined the social and personal boundaries under the rubric of “what is good for living”. Without a Supreme Deity to determine the true value of behavior on a scale superior to the world of human beings, Law has no higher appeal than the consensus of the State. And if Man is the measure of all things, Law is no more than the measure of men by Man.
One of the most highly prized concepts of Greek thinking was freedom. In the Greek world, freedom meant absence of constraint and independence of action. The only constraint that a Greek citizen allowed was the constraint of Law, and that constraint was voluntary, based on the idea that the State required order as a function of social life. No Greek citizen could ever imagine that he was a “slave” to any absolute sovereign. This fiercely supported concept of freedom is combined with the idea that Man is the pinnacle of creation, the only being capable of rational exercise of self-regulation to arrive at the concept of “inalienable rights”.
An inalienable right is nothing more than an expression of my desire for self-regulation and personal freedom. Originally envisaged as qualities belonging only to citizens, America has extended this idea to encompass every living man, woman and child (although the verdict on yet-to-be-born human beings is still in debate). Since self-regulation and personal freedom acknowledge no other authority, matters of law always become matters of “what is best for the State”. Under the banner of inalienable rights, there is no higher morality than the will of the people. And that, of course, is always subject to a vote.
Consider the difference in the Biblical view. Man is a created being, entirely dependent for his moment-to-moment existence on the grace of God. God is not simply the issuer of the Law; God is the personal representation of Law itself. He is not under the Law as the President of the United States is under the Law (although apparently there are notable exceptions to this idea). God is the Law. Therefore, there is no appeal to any statute, court or vote beyond His edict of right and wrong. In fact, it makes no difference at all if you don’t happen to like what God says. You are not asked for your opinion. He is the Creator and the Owner of everything created, and that includes you and I.
Since our very existence is completely dependent on His grace (which He fortunately extends in great measure), we have no inalienable rights. We do not deserve something just because we were born (no right to “life”). We are creatures under His authority (sorry, no “liberty”). We exist at His good pleasure and for His purposes, not for our pleasure (opps! there goes “pursuit of happiness”). Our circumstances are of His design.
Nevertheless, our loss of inalienable rights under the Hebraic-Christian concept of God’s sovereignty does not mean that we are exempt. We do not have “rights”, but we do have obligations. There is a big difference. A “right” must be based on merit. A “right” has a foundation in some principle that appeals to value. The Hebraic concept of Man places extremely high value on our being, but it is a value that comes from God’s recognition of our place in His creation and His decision to put us there. It is not an intrinsic value. My value to God is priceless, a much higher value than the one found in the Greek concept. But my value stands within the framework of God’s purposes and assignments. It is not a birth-right.
In Hebraic thought, an obligation is simply an assigned responsibility. I do not have to have “rights” to exercise responsibilities. Responsibilities are God’s marching orders to His creation. And God has assigned quite a few responsibilities to Mankind. In their most basic form, they are given to us as commandments covering our religious, social and personal duties. We can ignore them, of course. But we cannot appeal them. There are no legal technicalities with God. He knows exactly what He expects and He allows no excuses. So, ignorance or ignoring will transport us to the same place – in serious trouble with the Owner.
In a universe governed by a Supreme Authority whose character is utterly holy, my behavior is measured by His standard. Suddenly my constant complaint about mistreatment, discrimination or abuse finds a new focus. Am I fulfilling my obligations to uphold the only Law that matters – His Law?
This change in perspective eliminates all debate centered in the concept of “personal freedom”. Decisions become much simpler when there is no room for negotiations. Do not murder. Do not steal. Do not commit adultery. Do not act in ways that promote taking what someone else has (that’s “covet” for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term). Honor your parents. Respect, honor and worship the God who made you. Commit yourself to these values and you will be aligned with the Judge of the universe. Stand in opposition to these values, assert your “right” to personal freedom, and you will find yourself on the very short end of the stick when its time to measure up.
It is to our great detriment that we are not a nation based on belief in the Hebrew God. Nor are we a Christian nation since all of these Hebrew concepts about God are merely amplified and strengthened by Christ. No, we are a nation of Greeks – in thought and in practice. And we will continue on the path that the Greeks trod centuries ago until we collapse under the weight of the measure of Man. We cannot rewrite the Constitution to put the real God back into our foundation. But we don’t have to. What we have to do is change our minds about what we believe – soon.
