Approaching the End of the American Republic

Feb 20, 2008 07:52

We are approaching the end of the American Commonwealth. To be fair, the establishment of the Union facilitated the in-gathering of the Protestants. The State encouraged building the technological infrastructure and built the military means of defending the country. In other words, the State facilitated American's physical redemption. But now the State is the greatest obstacle to America’s spiritual-intellectual redemption.

The State was intended to give Americans security and national dignity. But security and national dignity alone cannot satisfy the spiritual-intellectual needs and yearnings of the American People. The Colonists who established the State did not aim high enough; we see the consequences: America is the most insecure nation on earth, and thanks to the inane and cowardly behavior of some of its recent presidents and congressmen¸ America has not a stitch of national honor.

The decadence started long before the civil war. Not only was the structure of the Union poorly designed, but its Constitution signed by men familiar with Declaration of Independence tacitly denied the Confederation.

It took the execution of over 100 Messianic Christians from Waco Texas before it occurred to some religious Americans that the Federal State is the enemy of the American People, of the Nation, of which the State should be the servant, not the master. But the sovereign state is an idea going back to Machiavelli. It seems our religious colonist may have studied political science, but had lost too much influence to prevent the constitutional rat from making itself a home in the states.

What can be done? The problem confronting America transcends political science. We are dealing with a theological problem. The first thing needed is conceptual clarity, and don’t expect this from politicians or from those whose immersion into politics corrupts their religiosity.

The very idea of Judeo-Christian States is a contradiction in terms. So is Christianity and politics--at least modern politics. Politics is rooted in the struggle for power or egoism. This is far from the humility of Moses, Israel’s greatest leader and teacher.

Although democracy affirms human dignity, it is now steeped in vulgarity. The only solid foundation of human dignity is the Torah concept of man’s creation in the image of God, without which there can be no ethical and rational constraints on democracy’s permissive freedom and leveling equality. But God has no public space in the secular democratic state.

Democracy means the sovereignty of the people. But Judaism and Christianity teach the sovereignty of God. Hence, we need to educate a generation that believes in the sovereignty of the people under God--once taught in the United States. Who is teaching this in the schools today?

In the meantime, serious Christians and Jews should prepare to assume power when the State collapses, as it eventually will. They must now develop plans for reorganizing the Judicial, Legislative, and Executive branches of government--first by returning all authority to the states, and then working back from the states toward a new constitution that removes the defects that alarmed Patrick Henry.

Written to the tune of, Toward the Fourth Commonwealth, by Prof. Paul Eidelberg
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