Liberty and the Judeo-Christian Tradition

Liberty and the Judeo-Christian Tradition

By

James Scott Trimm

There are those among the “Religious Right” who call themselves “Conservatives” but who believe that the role of the “Religious Right” is to utilize the power of government to constrain the behavior of others to conform with their own views of Judeo-Christian values. 

This philosophy often finds itself allied with the Law Enforcement lobby.  While I absolutely support our law enforcement officers, the Law Enforcement lobby often advocates for legislation that weakens our rights, especially in regards to the second and fourth amendments.  

In this blog, I hope to show that this is a misguided view that is actually itself at odds with true Judeo-Christian values.

The foremost of true Judeo-Christian values is freedom or liberty.  This point was well made by Rose Wilder Lane (Daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder) in her monumental work Discovery of Freedom.  Wilder pointed out that the root of authoritarian government control is the worldview of ancient paganism:

“The pagan view of the universe is that it is static, motionless, limited, and controlled by an Authority. The pagan view of man is that all individuals are, and by their nature should and must be, controlled by some Authority outside themselves.”

-Rose Wilder Lane (Daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder) Discovery of Freedom page 3; 1943

Wilder pointed out that unlike the pagan worldview, the Judeo-Christian worldview emphasized that men are free:

"With reason, the Old World hates the Jews. Four thousand years ago, a Jew said that men are free. Two thousand years ago, a Jew preached that men are free. In medieval Europe, the Jews came from Spain, knowing that men are free. That knowledge will destroy the whole Old World concept of the universe and of man, it will break up the foundations of Old World nations and States, and shatter the very basis of their subjects' lives.

So they are afraid of the Jew. They ward him off; they shut him out; they build walls around him; they kill him. Their actions show that they are afraid.

And who leads these attacks ? A tyrant. Wherever tyranny is strongest—in 15th-century Spain, in Czarist Russia, in Nazi Germany—attacks upon the Jew are most mercilessly atrocious.

All over the Old World, again and again, for two thousand years, hatred of the Jews has flared up. It is always the hatred that comes from fear, and always—every time, in every instance—it is begun and fostered by men who are afraid of the knowledge that men are free."

-Rose Wilder Lane (Daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder) Discovery of Freedom pages 79-80; 1943

She went on to elaborate on the teachings of Yeshua (Jesus of Nazareth) as emphasizing such freedom:

The maker of human destiny is the individual. Here, within each living man and woman, is the self-controlling energy that makes this human world. Each person has the responsibility for what this world is.

So Christ spoke to the individual. He spoke of the God of Abraham, the God that is Rightness, and does not control any man but judges every man's acts. ...

Christ spoke of the real nature of human beings, of the freedom, the responsibility, the dignity and the power of the individual. Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, (and shall not doubt in his heart) he shall have whatsoever he saith.

-Rose Wilder Lane (Daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder) Discovery of Freedom page 80; 1943

These facts were not lost on the Founding Fathers.  In the story of America's beginnings, a particularly interesting chapter is that of imagery suggested by Benjamin Franklin for the Great Seal. In August 1776 Franklin recommended a depiction of a scene described in Exodus, where the Assembly of Israel confronted Pharaoh in order to gain their freedom. He suggested:

Pharaoh sitting in an open Chariot, a Crown on his head and a Sword in his hand, passing through the divided Waters of the Red Sea in Pursuit of the Israelites: Rays from a Pillar of Fire in the Cloud, expressive of the divine Presence and Command, beaming on Moses who stands on the shore and extending his hand over the Sea causes it to overwhelm Pharaoh.  "Motto: Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God."

This suggestion recommended by the first committee for the reverse side of the Great Seal. Thomas Jefferson liked this motto so much, he later used it on his personal seal.  Thomas Jefferson suggested a similar scene for the front of the Great Seal:

The children of Israel in the wilderness, led by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

The Founding Fathers clearly recognized a parallel between the American Revolution and the deliverance of Israel from the Tyranny of Pharaoh.

The parallel with the American Revolution are obvious and these parallels were not lost on our founding fathers. Benjamin Rush, in his editorials denouncing the Tea Act, wrote:

What did not Moses forsake and suffer for his countrymen! What shining examples of patriotism do we behold in Joshua, Samuel, [the] Maccabees and all the illustrious princes, captains and prophets among the Jews.

It was in this spirit that John Adams and John Hancock declared:

We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus!

(April 18, 1775)

It was for this reason that the Declaration of Independence reads:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. . . whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive to these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The philosophy of the Religious Right using government to compel behavior at the expense of rights and liberty gave birth to Prohibition and Sunday Blue Laws and is a philosophy best left on the trash heap of history.

In fact it was this very type of thinking that originally gave birth to early 20^th Century Progressivism and eventually evolved into modern big government Liberalism. 

The Founders understood well that our rights and therefore our liberty are a gift from the Almighty.  It should be the goal of true Conservatives not to constrain people’s behavior with the power of government, but to protect the rights and liberties with which we have been endowed by our Creator.