Happy 4th of July

Today it didn’t take long for my head to explode. The newspaper did it, below the fold, front page, Oregonian, 6/29/10 a headline reads “High Court extends right to own guns”. The explosion was not caused by the content of the decision. The explosion was caused by the framing of the headline.

There’s an old ‘trick’ question: “Have you stopped beating your wife?” Yes? No? You cannot answer that question without justifying its assumption, i.e. that you are beating your wife. Likewise, the headline rests on, expresses and perpetuates an assumption so titanically wrong that it ………. makes my head explode.

The Fourth of July is coming up. It falls on a Sunday this year and I’m preaching a sermon dedicated to the subject. It’s a real sermon, i.e. it will be about God and His revealed truth. But I’ll be approaching it via the historical circumstances surrounding the birth of the country. “A firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence” is the theme statement.

The good people at Trinity Fellowship are kind enough to pay me a salary which permits me, among other responsibilities, to study. Of course, the main thing I study is the Bible. But since good preaching requires relevance, illustrations, etc. I also study culture, ideas and the like. In preparing for this sermon I’ve been studying the American Revolution, in particular the Declaration of Independence (from which the line “A firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence” is taken).

Frankly, I haven’t learned anything new. But I have been stunned by the magnitude of what I’ve encountered. Imagine that you knew something stunk but you hadn’t actually smelled it for a long time. You could explain the stink, describe how bad it smells and why it smells so bad. You could blog on the stink, etc. Then you experience the smell and go “Whoa!! I knew that stunk, but I’d forgotten how intensely and obscenely it stinks!” It’s been like that. I’ve long known that the narrative of the American Revolution has been spun to downplay the biblical foundations and spiritual motivations of the participants. I know how the game of history is played. But spending time reading the documents, the diaries, the letters and the proclamations causes one to realize how stunningly and grotesquely it is spun. But I’m starting to drift, that’s for the sermon, back to the headline.

The assumption the headline illustrates is just one example of how profoundly things are misrepresented. But this particular distortion is about the very essence of the Revolution, thus the aforementioned head explosion.

Question Where do my rights come from?

Answer From my Creator. He endows me with them and they are unalienable.

Question What is the role of government? Why does government exist?

Answer To secure these rights.

These simple assertions are so clear, obvious and unmistakable that the Founders specified them as ‘self-evident’. No reasoning, no argumentation, no support. Just ‘Duh!’ Now, the Declaration does not exhaustively enumerate the rights with which the Creator endowed me. It just says “Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The Constitution contains what is called the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments). It’s here the Founders sat down and spelled out (not exhaustively but a ‘top ten’ list) the unalienable rights with which my Creator endowed me. The second one reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Still with me? Good. I’m not trying to make your head explode. I’m just stabilizing mine with this venting. Now let’s parse “High Court extends right to own guns”. Any common sense reading of this would infer that the right comes from the Court (which in its supreme wisdom has decided to ‘extend’ it).

Where does the right come from? It comes from the Creator!! And it’s unalienable (cannot be revoked, rescinded or infringed). Moreover, the court, far from ‘extending’ the right, is simply a branch of a government whose sole reason for existence is to secure such rights. How bassackwards can it get? And the worst of it is many people can’t even see the paradigm shift. They read such a headline and think it’s good (or bad) that the court ‘extended’ the ‘right’. Just like it’s good if you’ve stopped beating your wife and bad if you haven’t.

I’ve been profoundly moved by renewing my acquaintance with the Founders, their circumstances and beliefs. The only thing that really keeps my head from exploding, or permits me to carry on (having reassembled the pieces) is something the Founders had. And by the grace of God may I grow in it, a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.

Happy 4th of July!