NOTES ON SPEAKING WISDOM TO THE ERA OF OUTRAGE: GENTLE ADMONITION VS. HOWLING REPROACH Part II

PART II: “THE RESURRECTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS”

SCRIPTURE. “HEARKEN TO ME, you who follow after rightness and justice, you who seek and inquire of [and require] the Lord [claiming Him by necessity and by right]: look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the hole in the quarry from which you were dug.” – ISAIAH 51:1, AMP

QUOTATIONS

MAXIM: “Except for the Creator of all, everything has a Beginning.”

“Originality has nothing to do with producing something ’new’ – it is about seeking the Source, the primordial ground from which you draw and have always drawn your being. It comes about when one works from one’s Origins, it is the dance of the Eternal Return … and is as ancient as the Dreamtime.” – BILLY MARSHALL STONEKING, author of ‘Taking America Out of the Boy,’ 1995; edited

“Everything Starts Somewhere, though many physicists disagree. But people have always been dimly aware of the problem with the Start of things. They wonder how the snow plough driver gets to work, or how the makers of dictionaries look up the spelling of words.” – TERRY PRATCHETT, ‘Hogfather,’ 1996; edited

“‘Roots,’ he wrote, ‘symbolize more than underground strong-arms. Roots are also Origins, the tendrils of a sprouting seed that give rise to Life.” – RIVERA SUN, ‘The Roots of Resistance: Love and Revolution,’ 2018; edited

Selah.

FIRST THOUGHTS

Ever since the president launched his now well known, some would say, infamous “Make America Great Again!” (MAGA) Campaign in 2016, Americans have been mouthing and even shouting this phrase in untold numbers. Even today, in the aftermath of Trump’s resounding defeat in the Election of November 3^rd.

But how many of those ‘patriots’ are fully aware of what lies underneath the presumption of American Greatness? Most folks just think “Flag,” and “Freedom,” and in some cases, “Faith.” I therefore propose this:

THESIS. Most Americans, including most Christians, have no idea of Who or what made America Great in the very first place.

So have I set a pen to this Essay in order to uncover some old books and ideas that provided the Ancient Foundations of this once stunning ‘American Order, as RUSSELL KIRK would come to call it in his brilliant 1974 book, ‘Roots of American Order.’

I shall borrow shamelessly from his prodigious work for the discussion that follows.

ROOTS OF AMERICAN ORDER

Since my Kirk Book is still packed away in old boxes, I shall further rely upon a superb SUMMARY REVIEW BY DR. LEE EDWARDS, Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at the Heritage Foundation, from his essay:

“The Many Roots of American Order,” ‘The Kirk Center,’ May 2, 2009; edited.

THE QUESTION. “What is the Source of America’s strength and endurance? Its abundant, natural resources? Its educated, highly skilled people? Its fortuitous geographical location midway between Europe and Asia? Its national will? Whence comes our limited government, individual freedom, free market system, and fundamental values?”

FIRST PREMISE. “In ‘The Roots of American Order,’ first published in 1974, Russell Kirk provides a convincing Answer: America is not only the land of the free and the home of the brave but a place of Ordered Liberty, which made its freedom and prosperity possible. Using the device of examining five cities—Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, and Philadelphia—Kirk traces the Roots of American Order to long-standing Traditions in human history.”

JEWISH ROOTS. “First came the Hebrews, who recognized ‘a purposeful moral existence under God.’ For the Prophets, the hill-town of Jerusalem was the Eternal City for salvation. Next came the Greeks who strengthened the roots with their philosophical and political self-awareness. Athens was where Western philosophy was born, and from it came the Western views of science and the conviction that all areas of knowledge are within the ability of the mind of men. There followed the Romans, with their emphasis on law and social awareness. Rome was the seat of a great empire, and its political administration and stability echoed down the centuries. The Roots of these cities were intertwined ‘with the Christian understanding of human duties and human hopes’ and were joined by Medieval custom, learning, and valor.”

BRITISH TRADITION. “The first part of the British Experiment took place during what are so often called, erroneously, The Dark Ages. In ‘The Roots of American Order,’ Kirk lists the contributions of the Middle Ages: Our system of Common Law, the essentials of representative government, our language, our social patterns, and the foundation of our modern economy. Too often forgotten today, they illustrate Kirk’s view that Political Order reflects custom, mores, and belief. According to the French political philosopher Montesquieu [‘The Spirit of Law,’ 1748], the only grand change in the art of government’ since Aristotle was Representative Government. And its first sign was the Great Charter, the ‘Magna Carta,’ which the English barons extracted from a reluctant King John. Its lasting Principle is simple and yet profound: The Law is supreme and must be obeyed by all, even the King.”

THE MIDDLE AGES. “The Middle Ages was followed in swift and often chaotic succession by the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Counter-Reformation. Man proposed a ‘New Humanism,’ Kirk writes, driven by ego and enlightenment. Protestant Reformers returned to the stern teaching of St. Augustine: Man loving himself above everything can only be saved by the Grace of God. Out of the Protestant Ethic, Kirk says, came self-reliance, self-examination, endeavor in the secular world, and Democracy. England, thanks to Richard Hooker and others, found a middle path between warring factions on the Continent and passed it on to America: It consisted of law, liberty, and tolerance. But the passage was not an easy or swift one, in part because of the conflicting ideas of philosophers like Hobbes and Locke.”

EDMUND BURKE. “The last Englishman that Kirk mentions, and with obvious affection, is the Anglo-Irish statesman, Edmund Burke. Burke, he says, went far beyond John Locke’s Utilitarian Social Contract to talk of an Eternal Contract between the dead, the living, and the unborn. Burke argued that we all participate in this spiritual and social Partnership because it is ordained of God. Before leaving London and traveling to Philadelphia, Kirk underscores the importance of the Bill of Rights drawn up in 1689 and the fruition of English constitutional development during the preceding four centuries. Much of the language of the English Bill of Rights appears in the first ten Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.”

THE AMERICAN DECLARATION. “The author then takes up the first of America’s founding documents—the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration was a revolutionary document, Kirk says, a Bill of Particulars for going to war against George III, but it was not an open-ended justification of Revolution under any and all circumstances. It was, in fact, primarily a political document, meant to set forth Grievances against the King and the Justifications for the political separation of the Colonies. Among its 27 specific complaints, not one touched on social and economic conditions. The Declaration was a conservative document in that it spoke of changing the ‘Government’ but not the ‘State.’ As Kirk points out, ‘Government’ implied the ministers and other temporary possessors of political power while ‘Society’ meant the establishment civil social order. Still, the Declaration was a radical document in the sense that it reasserted a political autonomy rooted in the North American Continent ever since the landings at Jamestown and Plymouth.”

THE CONSTITUTION. “Eleven years later and now citizens of a new Nation, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia met to revise the Articles of Confederation. They wound up producing a whole new Constitution. It was a practical document, says Kirk, attempting to resolve the conflicting demands of Freedom and Order. Its composition demanded balance, firmness, and yet a willingness to yield because the delegates had to: (a) Uphold Order but not reduce true Liberty, (b) Produce a reasonably strong National Government while not reducing the States to mere provinces; and (c) Provide for an effective Chief Executive who could not, however, become a king or dictator.”

KIRK’S CONCLUSION (1974). “‘Whatever the failings of America in the eighth decade of the twentieth century [1980],’ Russell Kirk wrote years ago in ‘The Roots of American Order’, ‘the American Order has been a conspicuous success in the perspective of human history.’ As he summed up: ‘UNDER GOD, a large measure of Justice has been achieved; the State is strong and energetic; personal Freedom is protected by laws and customs; and a sense of Community ensures.” – 2009, emphasis my own

DK’S NOTE. Having traversed this Short History of the Foundations of American Greatness, you will note carefully the things that ARE still present in the current American Condition, and even more telling, the things that are NOT present.

This is the Vital Key for understanding what Paul Harvey used to intriguingly call, “The Rest of the Story.”

THE LAWS OF NATURE AND NATURE’S GOD

The ‘Rest of the Story’ will begin by reviewing a superb historical essay by author and American Founding scholar, BILL FORTENBERRY, here writing, again, for The Heritage Foundation. I trust you’ll forgive all the direct quotations in the first part of this Teaching, but I cannot hold a candle to their life-long research and wisdom on this important topic:

The Origins of American Greatness.

“WHAT IS THE LAW OF NATURE’S GOD? These famous words form the opening paragraph of one of the most influential documents in all of human history – the American Declaration of Independence. According to this paragraph, the American claim to independence was established upon ‘the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,’ but what did Thomas Jefferson mean by this phrase? Nearly all of the modern historians who have written about this phrase have accused Jefferson and the other signers of the Declaration of abandoning the God of the Bible and erecting a more Deistic God of Nature in His place. But this accusation is entirely false. Jefferson’s reference to the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God had a very specific meaning that was well understood by eighteenth century Americans. To understand what Jefferson meant by this phrase, we need to consider how it was used in the time leading up to the writing of the Declaration.

Thomas Jefferson was a student of Lord Bolingbroke. He first began studying Bolingbroke’s writings at the age of fourteen, and he read them again at the age of twenty-three as he was preparing for a career as a lawyer. Jefferson’s ‘Literary Commonplace Book’ [1928] contains more quotations from Bolingbroke than from any other author, and I do not know of a single historian who has not given Bolingbroke the credit for Jefferson’s famous phrase regarding ‘the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.’ What these scholars keep hidden is the fact that Lord Bolingbroke provided a very specific Definition for this phrase.

In a renowned letter to Alexander Pope, Lord Bolingbroke wrote the following words which were to become the basis for Jefferson’s opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence: ‘You will find that it is the modest, not the presumptuous enquirer, who makes a real, and safe progress in the discovery of Divine Truths. One follows Nature, and Nature’s God; that is, he follows God in His works, and in his Word.’ Here we find a definition from the very individual that all scholars recognize as the source of Jefferson’s phrase. ‘According to Lord Bolingbroke, the Law of Nature’s God is the Law which is found in God’s Word.’ This was the definition which was intended by Jefferson, and this was the manner in which his words were understood by our Forefathers. The Law of Nature’s God upon which our Nation was founded is nothing less than THE BIBLE ITSELF.” – “America’s Foundation,” ‘The Heritage Foundation,’ ret. December 24, 2020; edited

ARE WE LISTENING? To Restate: “The Law of Nature’s God upon which our Nation was founded is nothing less than the Bible itself.” This, this alone is the Lodestone of American Greatness. Keep and preserve it, and we remain Great. Abandon it in sustained Antagonism or Indifference to the God of Scripture, and all is lost. I say again:

America shall be Lost forever. – cf. ISAIAH 28:15 for later elaboration.

THE TEACHING

“HEARKEN TO ME, you who follow after rightness and justice, you who seek and inquire of [and require] the Lord [claiming Him by necessity and by right]: look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the hole in the quarry from which you were dug.” – ISAIAH 51:1, AMP

HEARKEN. From the Hebrew term, ‘Shama’ [שָׁמַע]: “To hear or perceive; to listen intelligently (with attention or obedience; to give undivided listening attention; to heed, to obey; to lend an ear; to have the power [and focused intention] to hear, with great interest; to understand (or grasp); to yield to [what is said]; to announce, summon [or declare]; to get or gain new knowledge; to find the answer.”

FOLLOW AFTER. “From the Hebrew, ‘Radalf’ [רָדַף]: “To run after, chase, pursue ardently; to hunt in order to overtake; follow after; aim to secure; to endeavor to attain to; to strive to reach or gain; to prosecute; to continue [until one has obtained it]; to take and proceed in, without following another;

proceed after or in a like direction; to follow with haste; to follow as an example; to imitate.”

RIGHTEOUSNESS. The key term to our study, from the word, ‘Tsedeq’ [צֶדֶק]: “Rightness, the right thing (whether nationally, morally, or legally); straightness, rectitude; that which is just by weights and measures; ethically right; yielding deliverance, victory, prosperity; keeping Covenant with God; what ought to be; honesty, integrity; decisions (as with a judge) that are made according to the truth and without partiality; not deviating from a standard of fairness; living daily life by such principle; synonymous with ‘Emunah’ [אֱמוּנָה], ‘firmness, steadfastness, fidelity to the truth.’”

SEEK. From the Hebrew term, ‘Baqash’ [בָּקַשׁ]: “To strive after (by worship or prayer); to beg; to aim at in order to practice; to seek the face [of God]; to express desire or demand; to [ardently] ask or request; to make inquisition or enquire; to search out; to beseech, procure; to go in search or quest of; to look for; to search for by going from place to place; to endeavor to find or gain by any means; to seek God, his name, or his face, in Scripture, to ask for his favor, direction and assistance.”

THE ROCK. This important noun from the Hebrew, ‘Tsur’ [צוּר]: “A rock or cliff; large boulder; block of stone; a sharp rock as compressed, figurative of refuge; refers to Almighty God as strength or strong; from a related word meaning ‘House of the Rock;’ in Scripture, figuratively, defense; means of safety; protection; strength; asylum; firmness; a firm or immovable foundation; a large mass of stone forming a cliff, promontory, or peak.”

YOU WERE HEWN. Another vital term, ‘Chatsab’ [חָצַב]: “To hew out or cleave; to dig; to cut or carve (from stone); to split, square or quarry; to make, as with a mason or master stone cutter; to cut with an ax, or other like instrument, for the purpose of making an even surface or side; to chop; to cut; to hack; as, to hew in pieces; to form laboriously; to cut with a chisel; to make smooth; to form or shape with an edged instrument; [by extension, the source from which one is carved].”

COMMENTARY. “‘Look to the rock you were cut from, and to the hold of the pit you were dug from’ (V. 1c). This portion of verse 1 parallels verse 2a, which calls the Faithful to look to Abraham and Sarah. This makes it appear that Abraham is the rock and Sarah is the quarry—and that makes sense to anyone who knows Israel’s history. However, many scholars treat this mention of Abraham and Sarah metaphorically. It is YAHWEH—the Power behind Abraham and Sarah—Who is the Rock … This is the kind of language that fathers and coaches use to motivate young people. These words say, in effect, consider who you are. Consider where you came from—your history. Consider your family name—your reputation and ours. Consider the strengths that you have gained from your family associations. Only if you remember these things can you live up to your potent.” – RICHARD NIELL DONOVAN, ‘Sermon Writer,’ 1997; edited

THE POINT. If America and her Church truly want to ‘Become Great Again,’ realizing that the very request is soiled by Self Interest, we must begin by doing at least Two Things:

FOCUS ON GOD’S DESIRES. Rather than continue our frequent prayers of intercession for ourselves, we ought better to repeat a few lines from ‘The Lord’s Prayer:’ “THY kingdom come, THY will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10, NKJ). It is this sort of Radical Submission, asking God to define “Greatness” for us that will be required for the Church to become Realigned with the perfect Will of the Father. Too, it must be preceded by a desperately needed Public Expression of Repentance that so far, we have not heard from the American Church in the past four shameful and horrendous years.

RETURN TO OUR ORIGINS. The Key for this entire Teaching of course, Found precisely here: To once again, Choose To Stand on the Everlasting Rock. “So trust in the Lord (commit yourself to Him, lean on Him, hope confidently in Him) forever; for the Lord God is an everlasting Rock [the Rock of Ages]” (ISAIAH 26:4, AMPC). It is from this very passage that the classic Hymn, “Rock of Ages,” was written by the Reformed Anglican minister, the Reverend AUGUSTUS TOPLADY, in 1763 and first published in The Gospel Magazine in 1775.

I quote the first stanza, since it neatly captures the wholesale ‘Sheltering’ that America and especially, the Church, simply must Rediscover, if they are going to find that Sense of Mission and Place again, before Time fully runs out.

“Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.”

HIDING IN GOD. I rather love this poignant Commentary from the writers at the ‘Theology of Work Project,’ in a section called, “The High Calling.” Listen to its resonance with today’s Perilous Times.

“Life is filled with challenges and dangers, with failures and tragedies. We who live this life in relationship with God are not immune to suffering. I think, for example, of several close friends who have recently lost loved ones. They are grieving even in the midst of their gladness for what their friends and family members now experience with the Lord. Yet my friends are able to take their grief to God, to share it with Him in the safety of His Presence. They find reassurance, not only in the fact of God’s protection, but also in the reality of His comfort and love. In Him they find rest for their souls. They are, indeed, ‘Hiding in God.’” – Retrieved December 25, 2020; edited

THE KEY TO AMERICAN RESURRECTION

As I have been pondering all these weighty matters for months and years now, I come down to a Single Question: ‘What is it, Lord, that can Restore America and the Church to health once again?’

The Answer was stunning, simple, and enormously challenging.

EPHESIANS 4:25. “Therefore, rejecting all falsehood [whether lying, defrauding, telling half-truths, spreading rumors, any such as these], speak truth each one with his neighbor, for we are all parts of one another [and we are all parts of the body of Christ].” – AMP

REJECT FALSEHOOD! With intentional emphasis, this is the Church’s vital Second Step toward Redemption, following Repentance. From the Greek, ‘Pseudos’ [ψεῦδος]: “A falsehood, untruth; false religion (implying false teachers, doctrines of devils etc.); a conscious and intentional lie; whatever is not what it professes to be; a falsehood uttered for the purpose of deception; an intentional violation of truth; a fiction, in a ludicrous sense; a false doctrine; that which deceives and disappoints confidence; an idolatrous picture of God, or a false god (Romans 1:25).”

SPEAK TRUTH! With the same emphatic remonstrance, it is the counterpart to the full Return of the Church and Nation to former greatness. From the Greek, ‘Alétheia’ [ἀλήθεια]: “Truth, but not merely truth as spoken; truth of idea, reality, sincerity, truth in the moral sphere, divine truth revealed to man, straightforwardness; [In ancient Greek culture, ‘Alḗtheia’ was synonymous for ‘Reality’ as the Opposite of Illusion, i.e. fact]; truth as the unveiled reality lying at the basis of and agreeing with an appearance; the manifested, the veritable essence of a matter; [implies integrity of character].”

COMMENTARY. “[Believers] can do this, first, by ‘putting away Lying’ and putting on Truthfulness. Lying here includes every form of Dishonesty, whether it is shading of the truth, exaggeration, cheating, failure to keep promises, betrayal of confidence, flattery, or fudging on income taxes. The Christian’s word should be absolutely trustworthy. His yes should mean yes, and his no, no. The life of a Christian becomes a Libel rather than a Bible when he stoops to any form of tampering with truthfulness.” – WILLIAM MACDONALD, 1995, ‘Believer’s Bible Commentary,’ 1995, pp. 1938-1939; edited

Now for the painful part.

FORBIDDEN ALLIANCES. The President of the United States has been fact checked into the dust by multiple agencies, and this is what the indisputable Consensus is concerning his truthfulness – or staggering lack of it.

“Donald Trump has made 20,000 false or misleading claims while in office, according to the Washington Post, which identified a ‘Tsunami of Untruths” emanating from the Oval Office. The paper’s Fact Checker column said Trump hit the milestone on 9 JULY [2020], a day on which he delivered 62 such claims.” – LAUREN ARATANI, ‘The Guardian,’ July 13, 2020; edited, emphasis my own

Here is what the Lord would say to the 83% of the Church who is in “Forbidden Alliance” with such a man. Listen very carefully; your life may depend on it.

“For the Lord spoke thus to me with His strong hand [upon me], and warned and instructed me not to walk in the way of this people, saying, ‘Do not call conspiracy [or hard, or holy] all that this people will call conspiracy [or hard, or holy]; neither be in fear of what they fear, nor [make others afraid and] in dread’ …

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers [do not make mismated alliances with them or come under a different yoke with them, inconsistent with your faith]. For what partnership have right living and right standing with God with iniquity and lawlessness? Or how can light have fellowship with darkness?” – ISAIAH 8:11-12; 2 CORINTHIANS 6:14, AMPC

MACDONALD devastates such Dark Alliances with a single sentence: “A Christian should maintain contact with the unsaved in an effort to win them to Christ, but he should NEVER engage in their sinful pleasures or in ANY of their activities in such a way as to lead them to think he is no different than they.” – 1995, p. 1845; edited, emphasis my own

Just what part of this can the Church not understand? A mere child can grasp it.

LAST THOUGHTS

America wishes to be ‘Great Again,’ I get that. And I must presume that the Church wishes to become significant and fruitful again. But here’s the thing: Neither can be achieved through all the Herculean efforts of Man. Not even a little.

An old Standby passage sums it up tightly.

“Except the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; except the Lord keeps the city, the watchman wakes but in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to take rest late, to eat the bread of [anxious] toil—for He gives [blessings] to His beloved in sleep.” – PSALM 127:1-2, AMPC

America continues on an Historic Fool’s Errand by chasing after Quixotic windmills and arcane fables and material wealth of ‘The American Dream’ to achieve her former greatness. Indeed, such sinful pursuit will only lead to accelerated Devastation to both Church and State.

A MORE EXCELLENT WAY. Instead, the Better Path is spelled out quite simply throughout America’s rich history, and in the Scriptures replate with the Wisdom of God about how we became so blessed in the very first place. – cf. 1 Corinthians 12:31

I close, therefore, with the same Call from Yahweh issued first to the ancient Israelites so long ago, and to Americans today.

“Wait and listen, everyone who is thirsty! Come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Yes, come, buy [priceless, spiritual] wine and milk without money and without price [simply for the self-surrender that accepts the blessing]. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your earnings for what does not satisfy? Hearken diligently to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness [the profuseness of spiritual joy].” – ISAIAH 55:1-2, AMPC

CODA. Almighty God is the only ‘Way Back,’ beloved, and the Way Forward. And I think most Christians know that. I do. But what strong grip holds them in Perilous Hesitation? Pride, perhaps. Or ignorance. Mammon. A desire for power. Fear of the wrong god. I am not sure.

But whatever it is, I continue to urgently Plead for them to Return to the Rock from which they were first hewn, that they might be Restored to full fellowship with the King. And to help us Reconstruct the badly tarnished Wall of Witness to a Nation and world.

Ever your servant, DK

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