By Ding Guevarra on April 14th, 2007
It’s disheartening but true!The clashes are in COURTS and CLASSROOMS. Two crucial places where law is interpreted and applies and where the next generation comes out. Both will give shape and substance to the kind of thinking and believing they posses and will endorse… by interpretation of law and by Creator-less education.
It’s amazing and confounding at the same time that The National Archives, the repository of this nation’s most important documents, upon walking into the building, you’ll see an image of the TEN COMMANDMENTS that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. A silent but undenying influence to formation of our system of laws today.A muted presence borne by history , its meaning, frozen by times !
But let us go to some of its valuable documents stored. Example, the Declaration of Independence. the Founding Fathers believed that our rights as human beings come from God,not from the king or the state. It contains four references to God: as LAWMAKER ( “the laws of nature and nature’s God”) ;as CREATOR (”endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights”) ; as SUPREME JUDGE (”the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions”); and as PROTECTOR (”the protection of Divine Providence”)
Certainly, of course, the Constitution of the United States starts with these words: “We the people” expressing the consistent belief that each person’s fundamental rights come from God and barring the idea that states or government were sources of freedom and liberty.
The Bill of Rights or the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution states on the first amendment that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,or prohibiting the exercise thereof.” Again, an acknowledgment of Creator- God. The fact that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison,two of the principal authors of the First Amendment (also our third and fourth presidents) both attended church services in the Capitol building signify the coverage of this amendment…the observance of religion in both private and public spaces. During Jefferson’s presidency, church services were also held in the Treasury building and the Supreme Court
The National Archives may not be a battlefield like the courts and schools today, but I strongly felt that the documents it contains,primarily,The Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights are indestructible proofs of the conviction of the Founding Fathers to forge a nation “under God”. Benjamin Franklin says it all “God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice,is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid ?”
Where is God in America? Hey, He is “in” but not “of” the National Archives documents.
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