Islam is incompatible with America’s founding documents and system of
government. America is a Constitutional Republic with a constitution that guarantees
certain rights to all citizens, including those who are a minority. She has a representative
form of government in which laws are enacted by legislators who are elected by
the people. Abraham Lincoln described it as a government “of the people, by the
people, and for the people.”
Islam, on the other hand, is a theocracy in which the state and the
religion are merged, and religious clerics claim to rule with authority
directly from God. Wherever Islam is in the majority, the rights of Christians
and other minorities are either totally denied or greatly diminished, and
Sharia Law is imposed upon the masses.
In sharp contrast, America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles and
values, but not as a theocracy. Theocratic
rulers claim a Divine right to rule over their subjects. America’s Founders
held no such grandiose view of themselves or of any human being. They had
rejected the theocratic claims of monarchs, popes and despots, but they had not
rejected Christianity
In the 18th
century, European nations such as Italy, England, and Germany were theocracies
wherein the state and a cultural form of Christianity had been merged. In Italy
and other European states, it was Roman Catholicism that was the state religion
and imposed on the populace. In England, it was the Anglican Church, also
called the Church of England. In Germany, it was Lutheran Church that was
merged with the state.
America’s Founders, for the most part, identified with the mindset of those they called “dissenting Protestants.” Benjamin Franklin referred to his parents and grandparents, on both sides of the family, as “dissenting Protestants.” Virginia was founded as an Anglican colony but according to Thomas Jefferson by the time of the American Revolution, three-quarters of Virginia’s population were “dissenting Protestants (Hyatt, America's Reawakening, 182).
The dissenting
Protestant emphasized the rejection of “power” in the teachings of Jesus and
His emphasis on the equality of all believers. (Matt. 20:25-28; 23:8-11). It
was the teachings of Jesus in these passages that led them to include a ban on aristocracy
and honorific titles in the U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 10.
The dissenting Protestant saw everyone
on the same plane with leaders deriving their right to govern, not from God,
but from the people. The Declaration of Independence declares that Governments
are instituted in the earth to secure those God-given rights of Life, Liberty,
and the Pursuit of Happiness, and those governments, “derive their just powers
from the consent of the governed.”
America’s Founders
insisted, therefore, that civil government should have no power or role in the church,
nor in matters of individual faith and conscience. Freedom from government
tyranny in matters of faith was an ideal that pervaded the thinking of
America’s Founders. This is in sharp contrast to Islam.
The Founders realized that for there to be liberty without licentiousness and freedom without chaos, the populace would have to be governed from within by virtuous values. That is why they all agreed that only Christianity provided the moral values and intellectual underpinnings for a stable and prosperous nation. As President John Adams declared in 1798,
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious [Christian} people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other (Hyatt, America's Reawakening, 168).
Catholics,
Anglicans, and Lutherans eventually came to see the genius of the American experiment
in freedom. Pope John Paul II (1920-2005) understood this and emphasized that
America must never lose sight of her origins. He wrote,
The
continuing success of American democracy depends on the degree to which each
new generation, native-born and immigrant, makes its own the moral truths on
which the Founding Fathers staked the future of your Republic
Yes, America was founded as a Christian nation, but not by a legislative or judicial decree. America was founded as a Christian nation because that was the mindset of the founding generation. America will only remain a Christian nation and enjoy the freedoms that came with that philosophical worldview if there is vibrant, Awakened form of Christianity spreading its sweet aroma throughout the culture.
This article was derived from Dr. Eddie Hyatt's latest book, America's Reawakening, available in paperback, kindle, and audio from Amazon. It is also available from his website at http://www.eddiehyatt.com
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