https://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=7&article=1690
Cockeyed Conclusions About Connecticut
In
the wake of the horrifying rampage in Connecticut that left 20 children
and six adults shot to death, reactions from the anti-Christian media
and liberal politicians are exactly what you would expect: “We’ve got to
get rid of the guns!” Never mind the fact that murder goes back to the
beginning of the human race when Cain killed his brother—without a gun.
Guns have been around only a few hundred years; people have been killing
each other for thousands of years. You do the math. If there were no
guns—clubs, rocks, and sharpened sticks would do the job. Building a
bomb or setting the school on fire would accomplish the same or worse.
Shall we outlaw rocks, sticks, matches, and fertilizer?
Legion are the emotional, irrational explanations that have inundated
the Web: “Adam Lanza and his mother both spent time at an area gun
range” (Thomas, 2012); “Technology has rendered the 2nd Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution obsolete” (“Adam Lanza’s…,” 2012); “New York
mayor demands action on gun control” (“Connecticut…New York…,” 2012)”;
“Connecticut Governor calls for a federal framework for gun control
laws” (“Connecticut…State’s…,” 2012).“Time to get rid of the guns!”
(Mackey, 2012); “The gunman had hundreds of rounds of ammunition!”
(“Connecticut…Gunman…,” 2012); “The mother and father are Republicans”
(Swain and Sanchez, 2012). Even the National Rifle Association missed
the point when it announced, “The N.R.A. is prepared to offer meaningful
contributions to help make sure this never happens again” (“NRA News
Release…,” 2012). As if money can fix morality.
Interestingly, regarding the propriety of citizens having free access
to guns, prominent Founder Thomas Jefferson approvingly quoted (1926, p.
314) from the celebrated Italian jurist, philosopher, and politician,
Cesare Beccaria’s 1764 treatise,
An Essay on Crimes and Punishments, words which are hauntingly prophetic of our present predicament:
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Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794) |
The laws of this nature are those which forbid to wear arms, disarming those only who are not disposed to commit the crime which the laws mean to prevent.
Can it be supposed, that those who have the courage to violate the most
sacred laws of humanity, and the most important of the code, will
respect the less considerable and arbitrary injunctions, the violation
of which is so easy, and of so little comparative importance? Does not
the execution of this law deprive the subject of that personal liberty,
so dear to mankind and to the wise legislator? and does it not subject the innocent to all the disagreeable circumstances that should only fall on the guilty? It
certainly makes the situation of the assaulted worse, and of the
assailants better, and rather encourages than prevents murder, as it requires less courage to attack unarmed than armed persons (1983, p. 91, emp. added).
Yet, as American society’s Christian moorings continue to erode, and
immoral human behavior rapidly replaces traditional American values, the
left continues to trot out their insane assessments and godless
“solutions”—completely missing the
only explanation and the
only
solution. If only Americans would take the time to reread their Bibles
and go back to the Founding Fathers to see the clear and unmistakable
explanation for our predicament. This is not rocket science. It is not
that difficult to see with clarity what is happening.
The Central Issue and Solution
The fact is that the Creator of the human race is the sole Author and
Source of objective morality. Otherwise, moral distinctions would simply
be the product of the subjective whims of humans. Morality would thus
legitimately vary from person to person and country to country. One
society might decide to legalize pedophilia while another might make it
illegal—and both would be “right” in the sense that each person would be
free to formulate his own moral standards. The result would be complete
and utter social anarchy in which every person would be equally free to
believe and behave however he or she chooses. Sound like America? What
has happened?
How can such profound change come over an entire civilization?The
Founders of the American Republic anticipated just this social
scenario—and even described the circumstances under which it would
occur. The Founders predicted that if Americans do not retain an ardent
commitment to the moral principles of Christianity,
civil society will wane.
Consider the following prophetic voices. In the 1811 New York State Supreme Court case of
The People v. Ruggles,
the “Father of American Jurisprudence,” James Kent, explained the
importance of punishing unchristian behavior, when he wrote that
Americans are a “people whose
manners are refined, and whose morals have been elevated and inspired with a more enlarged benevolence,
by means of the Christian religion”
(1811, emp. added). The gentility of the American spirit has
historically been contrasted with those peoples “whose sense of shame
would not be affected by what we should consider the most
audacious outrages upon decorum” (1811, emp. added).
The Founders understood that the Bible presents the only logical and
sane assessment of reality: an objective standard, authored by the
Creator, which exists for the entire human race—what Thomas Jefferson
identified as “
one code of morality for men whether
acting singly or collectively” (1789). That standard resides within the
confines of the Christian religion as articulated in the New Testament.
Unless human civilization gauges its moral behavior according to that
objective, absolute framework, moral and spiritual chaos in society will
be the end result—even if all the guns in the world were dumped into
the ocean. In the words of Charles Carroll, a signer of the
Declaration of Independence: “Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time;
they, therefore, who are decrying the Christian religion,
whose morality is so sublime and pure...are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments” (as quoted in Steiner, 1907, p. 475, emp. added).
Yet, for some 50 years now, Americans have been pummeled with the
humanistic notion that morality can be maintained in society to the
exclusion of Christianity. With almost prophetic anticipation, the very
first president of the United States—the Father of our
country—anticipated and addressed this sinister misnomer. After serving
his country for two terms as president, George Washington delivered his
farewell address to the nation, articulating forcefully the key to
achieving security and protection for our lives:
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality
are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of
patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human
happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The
mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to
cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with
private and public felicity. 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. It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.
The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of
free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with
indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric? (1796,
pp. 22-23, emp. added).
Declaration of Independence signer Benjamin Rush stated: “[T]he only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid
in religion. Without this there can be
no virtue, and without virtue there can be
no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments” (1806, p. 8, emp. added). Dr. Rush further stated:
We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of
establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government, that
is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by the means of the Bible.
For this Divine Book, above all others, favors that equality among
mankind, that respect for just laws, and those sober and frugal virtues,
which constitute the soul of republicanism (pp. 112-113, emp. added).
Dr. Rush also insisted:
I wish to be excused for repeating here, that if the Bible did not
convey a single direction for the attainment of future happiness, it should be read in our schools in preference to all other books, from,
its containing the greatest portion of that kind of knowledge which is
calculated to produce private and public temporal happiness.... By
withholding the knowledge of this [Christian] doctrine from children, we
deprive ourselves of the best means of awakening moral sensibility in
their minds (pp. 100,105, emp. and bracketed item added).
Over the past 50 years or so, the liberal establishment has convinced
society that evil actions are merely the result of “disturbed,”
“mentally ill,” and “genetically predisposed” people who are not, in the
final analysis, responsible for their behavior. But both the Bible and
the Founders insisted that a failure to fill one’s mind and thoughts
with pure, righteous, virtuous concepts found in the Bible inevitably
leads to a confused mind, a reckless lifestyle, and harm to society. In
his scathing repudiation of Thomas Paine’s
The Age of Reason,
Continental Congress president Elias Boudinot insisted: “[O]ur country
should be preserved from the dreadful evil of becoming enemies to
the religion of the Gospel, which I have no doubt, but would be introductive of the dissolution of government and
the bonds of civil society”
(1801, p. xxii, emp. added). Dr. Benjamin Rush added his blunt
observation: “Without the restraints of religion and social worship,
men become savages” (1951, 1:505, emp. added). Noah Webster stated: “[R]eligion has an excellent effect in repressing vices [and] in
softening the manners of men” (1794, Vol. 2, Ch. 44, emp. added).
The Founders believed that, should Christian principles be jettisoned
by Americans, manners would be corrupted, and social anarchy and the
fall of the Republic would naturally follow.
Declaration signer
and “The Father of the American Revolution,” Samuel Adams, issued a
solemn warning in a letter to James Warren on February 12, 1779: “A
general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely
overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common
enemy” (1908, 4:124). In his inaugural address as the Governor of
Massachusetts in 1780, Founder John Hancock insisted that both our
freedom and our very existence as a Republic will be determined by
public attachment to Christian morality: “
Manners, by which not only the freedom, but
the very existence of the republics,
are greatly affected, depend much upon the public institutions of
religion and the good education of youth” (as quoted in Brown, 1898, p.
269, emp. added). The words of
Declaration signer John Witherspoon are frightening: “Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and
corruption of manners make a people
ripe for destruction”
(1802, 3:41, emp. added). In contrasting the general religion of
Christianity with Islam, John Quincy Adams likewise explained:
The fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion, is the extirpation
of hatred from the human heart. It forbids the exercise of it, even
towards enemies. There is no denomination of Christians, which denies or
misunderstands this doctrine. All understand it alike—all acknowledge
its obligations; and however imperfectly, in the purposes of Divine
Providence, its efficacy has been shown in the practice of Christians,
it has not been wholly inoperative upon them. Its effect has been upon the manners of nations.
It has mitigated the horrors of war—it has softened the features of
slavery—it has humanized the intercourse of social life (1830, p. 300,
emp. added).
We are a blind and hard-hearted people if we refuse to recognize the
truth and validity of these observations. Fixating on guns, and other
peripheral issues, sidesteps the eternal reality that when a society is
organized and geared to respect God and His Word, aberrant behavior will
still occur,
but it will be far more infrequent that what America is now experiencing.
Though mocked, ridiculed, and hotly denied, the truth remains that
Connecticut, Columbine, and a host of other tragic occurrences America
is experiencing, are the result of banishing God from our schools, our
government, and our civic institutions. It is the natural result of
teaching three generations of Americans that they owe their ultimate
origin to rocks, slime, and soup which produced them over millions of
years. It is the result of over half of Americans no longer attending
church. It is the inevitable result of demeaning the Bible in
universities and the corresponding loss of respect for inspired writ as
seen in the failure of most Americans to read and study it. As the
ancient prophet Hosea, in quoting God, forcefully declared many
millennia ago concerning another nation: “My people are destroyed for
lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you.... Because you have
forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. The more they increased, the more they sinned against Me;
I will change their glory into shame” (4:6-7, emp. added).
A good summary of the attitude of the Founders regarding the key to a
tranquil, nonviolent society is seen in an “election sermon” preached by
Chandler Robbins before the joint assembly of government officials of
Massachusetts on May 25, 1791 which included the Governor, John Hancock
(the first to sign the
Declaration of Independence), the
Lieutenant-Governor, Samuel Adams (the “Father of the American
Revolution”), and both houses of the state government. Robbins
articulated the widespread sentiments of his fellow citizens that now,
more than two centuries later, sound haunting and eerily prophetic:
Our advantages for happiness as a people are great, almost beyond a
parallel, bounteous Heaven has, with liberal profusion, poured his
blessings upon our land, has given us a name and distinction among the
kingdoms of the earth, we are spread over a great continent, so that…“we
make a WORLD within ourselves…. We enjoy the divine WORD—are favored
with the glorious privilege of the GOSPEL OF CHRIST. Indeed, there seems
to be nothing wanting, to complete our character and our happiness as a
community, but the spirit and practice of real religion. The want of this, it must be acknowledged, has the most threatening aspect upon our nation. The diffusive and rapid progress of declared infidelity
and deism, of licentiousness and skepticism, the disregard of divine
institutions, the practical contempt of the gospel of our Salvation,
the awful dishonor, which, with unblushing confidence, many have openly
cast upon the ETERNAL SON OF GOD, whom we are commanded to “honor as we honor the FATHER,” because he is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person.” In fine, the torrent of immorality, profaneness and impiety, which daily increased among us, exhibit but a sad presage, if persisted in, of impending miseries on our land. It is, in the nature of things, impossible it should eventually go well with a people of the above description, and who remain impenitent and unreformed…. It is manifest therefore, that righteousness alone can truly exalt our nation—that
RELIGION is the only basis, on which true happiness can be founded,
either in communities or individuals. Let this then, be the object of
universal concern (pp. 5-51, italics and caps in orig., emp. added).
A sizeable percentage of our politicians and citizens don’t get it. Yet
the truth is so simple and plain, echoed in Robbins’ allusion to
Proverbs 14:34—“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to
any people.” Mark it down: as more and more Americans lose their
connection to the nation’s spiritual and moral roots—the Christian
religion—the more our nation will be plunged into the nightmarish
onslaught of events like the one which occurred in Newtown, Connecticut.
CONCLUSION
It is fully to be expected—it is absolutely inevitable—that as society
expels God and Christianity, civility and morality among the people
decreases. As people abandon Christian morality, more laws must be made
to restrain their evil deeds. As more laws are made to restrain a
lawless people, the less freedom those people enjoy. I repeat: Morality
and religion are absolutely necessary to achieve and retain freedom.
Once Americans abandon the Christian moral framework, they will
inevitably clamor for more prisons, more security forces, more screening
devices, and yes, fewer guns. But these “solutions” are merely
temporary band aids that will not fix the problem and, in actuality,
create more problems. The truth is that only two options lie before us,
pinpointed in the 1840s by the Speaker of the U.S. House, Robert
Winthrop: “Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a
power within them or by a power without them; either by
the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by
the Bible
or by the bayonet” (1852, p. 172, emp. added). Observe: Americans have
banned the Bible from the public square and have opted for the
bayonet—more government control and fewer freedoms.
What was going on in that child’s life that would enable him to so
conduct himself? Not the existence of guns! The Left does not want to go
to the root of the problem—because their very philosophy and belief
system has already dismissed God and Christian morality as irrelevant,
if not harmful. They recoil at the thought of promoting self-restraint
and strict Christian morality. Hence, to them, the problem
must lie elsewhere. (Although, they are perfectly happy to blame God for the killings.) But this 20-year-old boy was not
born
with the propensity to kill children. Even his suspected autism is not
responsible for the violence. His attitude and behavior was developed
and nurtured during his formative years.
His training, experiences, and personal choices made him who he became.
Not his genes, not the presence of guns in the world, not visits to the
gun range, and certainly not the existence of “Bible-thumping, right
wing radical Christians.” The Bible plainly teaches that a stable home
environment, with both biological parents present nurturing their
children in the principles of Christianity, are the most effective aids
to producing successful, productive, law-abiding citizens. The Founders
wholeheartedly affirmed this approach to life and realized that the
societal environment most conducive to producing stable citizens and a
happy country is one that is based on and rooted in the moral principles
of the Bible. Yet this boy’s personal life very likely possessed
features that contributed to his degeneration to a “debased mind”
(Romans 1:28), even enabling him to kill his own mother by shooting her
in the face (Swain and Sanchez, 2012). This was a troubled child, to say
the least. His troubled condition did not arise from the presence of
guns. Until America faces the reality of what creates the increasing
numbers of troubled children, society will continue to reap the
consequences.
REFERENCES
“Adam Lanza’s Weapons” (2012),
New York Post, December 18,
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/adam_lanza_weapons_NU2tb0tIf9hNsOCZkPJ1XP.
Adams, John Quincy (1830),
The American Annual Register (New York: E. & G.W. Blunt).
Adams, Samuel (1904-1908),
The Writings of Samuel Adams, ed. Harry Cushing (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons).
Beccaria, Cesare (1983),
An Essay on Crimes and Punishments (Boston, MA: International Pocket Library,
http://books.google.com/books?id=InuKBpD_
21YC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Cesare+Beccaria,+An+Essay+on+Crimes+
%26+Punishments&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TkzTUJ-ZNIH88gScxoGoCg&ved
=0CDQQ6AEwAA).
Boudinot, Elias (1801),
The Age of Revelation (Philadelphia, PA: Asbury Dickins),
http://www.google.com/books?id=XpcPAAAAIAAJ.
Brown, Abram (1898),
John Hancock, His Book (Boston, MA: Lee & Shepard Publishers),
http://www.archive.org/details/johnhancock00browrich.
“Connecticut School Shooting: Gunman Had Hundreds of Rounds of Ammunition” (2012),
Chicago Tribune, December 16,
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-connecticut-school-shooting-victims-20121216,0,5491415.story?page=2.
“Connecticut School Shooting: New York Mayor Demands Action on Gun Control” (2012),
The Telegraph, December 17,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews
/northamerica/usa/9751633/Connecticut-school-shooting-New-York-mayor
-demands-action-on-gun-control.html.
“Connecticut School Shooting: State’s Governor Calls for Action on Gun Control” (2012),
The Telegraph, December 17,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews
/northamerica/usa/9751905/Connecticut-school-shooting-states-governor-
calls-for-action-on-gun-control.html.
Jefferson, Thomas (1789), “Letter to James Madison,”
The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes, ed. Paul Leicester Ford,
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mtj:@field(DOCID+@lit (tj050135)).
Jefferson, Thomas (1926),
The Commonplace Book of Thomas Jefferson: A Repertory of His Ideas on Government, ed. Gilbert Chinard (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press).
Mackey, Robert (2012), “Dec. 18 Updates on Connecticut Shooting Aftermath,”
The New York Times, December 19,
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/latest-updates-on-connecticut-shooting-aftermath/.
“NRA News Release on December Press Conference” (2012), The National Rifle Association of America,
http://www.nrablog.com/.
The People v. Ruggles(1811), 8 Johns 290 (Sup. Ct. NY.), N.Y. Lexis 124.
Robbins, Chandler (1791),
A Sermon Preached Before His Excellency
John Hancock, Esq., Governour, His Honor Samuel Adams, Esq.,
Lieutenant-Governour, the Honourable the Council, and the Honourable the
Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, May 25, 1791 Being the Day of General Election (Boston, MA: Thomas Adams),
http://openlibrary.org/works/OL1743074W
/A_sermon_preached_before_His_Excellency_Jonh_sic_Hancock_Esq.
_governour_His_Honor_Samuel_Adams_Esq._.
Rush, Benjamin (1806),
Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical (Philadelphia, PA: Thomas & William Bradford).
Rush, Benjamin (1951),
Letters of Benjamin Rush, ed. L.H. Butterfield (Princeton, NJ: The American Philosophical Society).
Steiner, Bernard (1907),
The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry (Cleveland, OH: Burrows Brothers).
Swain, Jon, and Raf Sanchez (2012), “Connecticut School Shooting: Adam Lanza Was Assigned Psychologist,”
The Telegraph, December 17,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/
usa/9750422/Connecticut-school-shooting-Adam-Lanza-was-assigned-
psychologist.html.
Thomas, Pierre, et al. (2012), “Connecticut School Shooting: Adam Lanza and Mother Visited Gun Ranges,”
ABC News, December 16,
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/connecticut-school-shooting-adam-lanza-mother-visited-gun/story?id=17992396.
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http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/817/69415.
Winthrop, Robert (1852),
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The Works of the Rev. John Witherspoon (Philadelphia, PA: William Woodard).
Why
would anyone believe that the Bible is the Word of God, having been
transmitted through men who were supernaturally guided by God? Because
the evidence so indicates. One of the proofs of Bible inspiration is
predictive prophecy. Men committed to writing detailed predictions that
pertained to events several hundred years into the future. One such
example is the prophecy recalled by the writer of the book of Hebrews in
which he quotes from Psalm 40. He places the words in the mouth of
Jesus, applying the prediction to Jesus’ incarnation and sacrifice on
the cross. His citation is taken from the Septuagint version rather than
the original Hebrew:
If
you do not want to accept that God exists, you have to be able to
explain the existence of the Universe without Him creating it. If He is
not in the equation, then either the Universe created itself or is
eternal—there are no other options (Spencer, 1882). The popular theory
today, of course, is the Big Bang Theory, which posits that the Universe
created itself. Recall that in 2014, science magazines, journals, and
media hailed the discovery of gravitational waves that supposedly proved
Big Bang inflation (