The rejection of the religious world-view of the founders is not a theoretical matter; it is a central theme in American Progressive leftist politics.
On September 15th President Barack Obama addressed the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Mr. Obama quoted the Declaration of Independence, as many Presidents have done in the past. This particular presidential invocation of the Declaration was extraordinary, not for what it contained but for what it omitted.
Here is the actual section from which Mr. Obama drew his “version”:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. (text)
Referencing our foundational documents creates continuity. Linking the past and present is an important part of what any national identity is all about.
Americans today are still connected to Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Washington, Monroe, Revere, and all the rest. This important cross-generational connection is reiterated and reinforced when their stories are told, their words are spoken and we enjoy the freedoms that their efforts wrought.
Our Founders credited God as the source from which their ideas and promises of liberty and justice sprang. For post-modernists this association between our Founders and their Judeo-Christian conception of God is an unfortunate one to be downplayed.
Mr. Obama delivered the quote above but removed the reference to “the Creator”. This ridiculous and offensive revision of the Declaration of Independence by the President must have a purpose.
It is reasonable to expect that President Obama as a “Constitutional expert” is familiar with the entirety of the Declaration of Independence. It seems a reasonable assumption that Mr. Obama (and all of our national leadership) know our foundational documents well. It is more likely that Mr. Obama made a purposeful decision to remove “the Creator” from the quote.
The President’s removal of God from the Declaration of Independence is reminiscent of his flubbed inaugural Oath of Office. Because of a “misstep” on either Obama’s part or the Chief Justice’s (John Roberts) the inaugural oath taken in public was considered invalid and a second oath was required.
The first time the oath was administered, Mr. Obama’s hand rested on the same Bible used by Abraham Lincoln for his first inaugural (1861).
The second oath was taken by Obama not in public, but in front of a pool of reporters. By then the Lincoln Bible had already been returned to its safe-keeping at the Library of Congress. The second Obama oath of office was considered successful, but no Bible was present.
The denial of God in 2010 is a radical departure from the language that candidate Obama deployed on the campaign trail in 2007 when he said in an interview,
My job is to try to draw a connection between the values that I express to the church and the challenges and issues that we face in politics. … I don’t think there’s anything wrong with expressing faith in the public square and I think there’s nothing wrong with public servants expressing religiously rooted values. (MSNBC, 10/08/2007)
Which “religiously rooted values” could motivate the removal of God from a key Declaration of Independence quote? How is the removal of “the Creator (God)” from the Declaration of Independence an “expression of faith”?
Observers cannot know what is in another’s heart but we can speculate as to purpose. The purpose here is to deconstruct and minimize the Judeo-Christian foundations of the country so that a secular, political, anti-intellectual, faith-based worldview (post-modernism and multiculturalism) can grow.
It is no matter to those on the Left and in Utopian circles that the people of the United States revere Revere, Adams, Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Hancock and all the Founders and believe, in large measure, in what they espoused.
Utopian foundations are built upon two concepts:
- a totality of equivalence to promote “getting along,” and
- control (statism); for when #1 invariably fails.
The public revision of the Declaration of Independence by Mr. Obama is an important, illustrative event.
Mr. Obama’s delivered version of the Declaration quote is this:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed… (pause) with certain inalienable rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Once more – The Declaration of Independence from which the President quoted correctly reads:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Progressives remove context because history and common sense do not support their Utopian worldview of radical equivalence and control.
The central theme of the Declaration of Independence quote which Mr. Obama revised is not that man has certain unalienable rights, but that the Creator endowed mankind with certain unalienable rights. “Rights” do not come from nowhere; the Founders believed that they originated with God. Jefferson wrote that these “truths” are “self-evident.” In 2010, these truths are entirely malleable and can be, apparently, whatever one wants them to be.
The idea of “nation” has always been about the elevation of our fellow citizens above all others. As parties to a nation, we are supposed to prefer our fellow citizens, and work for one another. If we are not for ourselves, who then will be for us? Because it is presumed within a national community that one’s nation is superior to others (viz., exceptional) then national identity is antithetical to post-modernists and multiculturalists.
Multiculturalists do not believe that any nation, society, culture, or worldview is better than any other. This aversion to comparisons based upon quality or any other measure is demonstrative of the failure of multiculturalism, its absurdist utopianism, and its moral and intellectual emptiness.
Progressives are religious people. Their religion does not include God – it is an entirely political, though heavily evangelical, worldview built on the religious model. For such people, classic concepts of God (such as those of the Founders, and the majority of the American people), religion, and morality are all impediments to their utopia-of-equivalence.
Progressive anger stems from a rejection of a Jewish/Christian religion-based worldview. The removal of God from the Declaration of Independence quote by Mr. Obama then has a context into which it can be placed.
Leftist denial of the origins of the United States and the strong Christian religious views of the Founders falls within the bloody tradition of 20th century utopian movements. It is however entirely fraudulent.
Post-modernism is essentially a post-religion, and rejectionist, worldview. Those politicians who talk of Christianity, God, (Judeo-Christian) religion and the importance of morality, are rejected by the Left as obsolete and obstructionist. This rejectionism is inclusive of both the past and present which tends to explain the removal of God from the Declaration of Independence by Mr. Obama.
While they will invariable deny any religious motives those on the Progressive Left are among the strongest evangelicals in the country. They see Palin, O’Donnell, and Bush as regressive throwbacks because they invoke Christian concepts in their public utterances as did our Founders and many of our political leaders who followed, including Lincoln.
If one were to suggest to a Progressive leftist that he/she is a religious zealot the response will most likely be derisive laughter, followed by anger. The denialism and moral confusion in the Progressive Left is clear to most observers but not at all to them.
The Founders’ concept of a nation built upon Christian and Jewish moral ideals now stands in direct opposition to both Leftist Utopianism and Islamic expansionist supremacism (Islamic Utopianism).
Global jihadism fundamentally challenges the Progressive concept of a post-religion world, while classic American concepts of freedom, liberty, and Judeo-Christian religion-based morality stand in opposition to it. That Progressives ally themselves with Islam is indicative of the moral and intellectual failure of the Left.
Progressives are disillusioned with American society because it has not “evolved” past religion.
God and morality are contrary to Progressive concepts of Utopia. It is bizarre and dangerous that Progressives show no such reticence to the religiosity, cruelty, brutality, misogyny, hyper-violence, and intolerance of Islam.
Progressives believe that the path to Utopia is open – the Founders and their spiritual descendants stand in the way. This is the key to Leftist Utopian hatred of those who do not agree with them.
Religion and faith have always been the motivators of human civilization and the main drivers of the flow of history; Progressive wishful thinking, willful ignorance, and utopianism do not change this.
There are few in the American political scene as evangelical about their faith-based, anti-intellectual views as Progressives. The source of their great frustration and anger is that the target audience finds their message both unattractive and irrational.