Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 23:54:21 0500
To: Rob Weinberg
From: Frank Grose
Subject: Re: Answers (Re: Question du Jour)
You wrote:
Everyone, repeat everyone, has an agenda. Do not confuse discrediting myth with identifying the truth. There are no absolute truths, certainly not from the mouths of men with an agenda. Don't ever believe anyone who says he thinks he knows the truth but doesn't have an agenda. I've got one, you've got one. They're not the same on this issue, but I doubt that either one of us has cornered the market on "the truth" when it comes to the role of religion in government (or vice versa).
Once again, you have given me wise counsel! I guess we all do have goals and objectives. It just sounds better to call the objectives of those we disagree with "an agenda." However, I do believe God's word is absolutely true. One thing I do is try to evaluate whatever I read or hear. Those with references which I can and frequently do check out for myself are the ones to whom I give more credibility. There are those to whom the truth means nothing. Sometimes some of them will be elected to very high offices. ; )
Even presuming to know what the founding fathers personally believed in leading their own lives is inadequate (although helpful) to understanding their "original intent" in what the constitution was supposed to mean. And even if we could be sure as to their real intent, it begs the question whether or to what degree it should be applied to interpretation of the constitution today. Unlike most, the beauty of our constitution is that it is a "living document." It's interpretation is not immutable.
Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution established our country and laid out how it was to run. I agree that it must be interpreted in light of the present day so long as it doesn't reverse what it has meant up until now. Situational ethics and "whatever feels right today" mentality have no place in the courts. Otherwise, we have an oligarchy. I favor a more strict interpretation of our founding documents. It was this kind of interpretation that allowed America to become a great and prosperous nation. We have a lot of social ills today because God has been banned from the public arena, and the courts have played fast and loose with the Constitution.
I am studying the history of the constitutional convention now in order to judge for myself what the founding fathers said, and hopefully determine what they were thinking and why. But all of it needs to be understood in context, which you and I still don't have (although we're learning).
Great! A worthy course of study indeed. But be careful of the "agendas" of the teacher and the test author. Seriously, you would do yourself a disservice if you did not avail yourself to some of David Barton's material on the subject. He is a Christian, and in his talks, he points out the evidence of the founders' faith in God. He doesn't "push" Christianity. He is a walking history book; an amazing individual. He makes history very interesting.
Getting the amendment through Congress took a lot of political give and take, but even what Congress meant (if we knew) when it sent the bill of rights to the states, is not the final word, because the question then becomes: what did the states who ratified the amendments really have in mind at the state level as to what they thought they were ratifying?
Fortunately the Congress kept records of what they did. Barton has researched the First Amendment drafts that were rejected. Reading those, it is clear that our Founders wanted and tried to ensure that government would not interfere in a person's exercise of his religion. Prayer and references to the hand of Providence is clearly evident in their documents. They had no conflict with prayer and Bible reading in school (or anywhere else for that matter). They just did not want a "state religion."
The minute you take a stand on an issue, you've got a political/social agenda. Calling it the truth won't make it so. I'm not saying it isn't, just be wary of those who presume to know "the truth." Of course it will sound like the truth to you, because you already agree with it, or because it is consistent with what you want to believe. The search for truth is what truly matters. The moment we think we've found it, we're being presumptuous.
Bingo again! I have learned to be more questioning, but I also have to guard against cynicism. We have to accept some things as truth. "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men were created..."
Don't get me wrong. Clearly there is a place for faith, piety, reverence in our social institutions, as many of the founding fathers wrote in their personal and sometimes public writings (although the more public a politician's profession of faith the more suspect Jesus would have found it, no?).
Thankfully, God looks on the heart. Jesus can always tell the genuine from the phoney. Mat 23:25 28 "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. (26) Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. (27) Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. (28) Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." Oh, if He were only publicly pointing out corrupt politicians today!
It's just not the government's role to presume to tell us what that absolute truth ultimately is or how to arrive at it.
"The Government" is the last (well next to the liberal news media) one I'd want telling me what "the truth" is. The credibility of this administration is way down in the negative numbers with me.
I really do enjoy our exchanges.
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