Will Europe's Problem Become America's Problem?
The current refugee problem in Europe is threatening "the very core of the European Union," said Dimitris Avramopoulos, migration commissioner for the EU, last week.
What "core"?
British scholar Richard Abbott said in 2003 that "the decision to omit reference to God (from the EU Constitution) was no mere oversight," but "a deliberate decision, after considerable debate, to base EU laws upon Enlightenment humanism rather than Europe's Christian heritage."
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"Of course, we have a Judeo-Christian past," acknowledged Michael Barnier, French foreign minister at that time, quoted in a 2004 New York Times report. However, "the constitution is inspired by a heritage that is cultural, religious, and humanist all at once," and thus the document, he said, should be "secular."
The French passion for a godless constitution is especially ironic considering the chaos of its secularist mobocracy during the French Revolution that finally wound up in the lap of an imperialistic tyrant, Napoleon Bonaparte.
Nevertheless, in twenty-first century Europe the secular-humanists won. Article 2 of the EU draft is to its constitutional system what the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence is to the worldview to be implemented by the American Constitution.
The EU Article reads: "The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, liberty, democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights, values which are common to the Member States. Its aim is a society at peace, through the practice of tolerance, justice and solidarity."
How does a worldview that is strictly utilitarian (note, for example, abortion and euthanasia practices in many EU states) and expediency-based (the ease with which cultural extremes become definitive throughout the Union) expect to maintain its freedoms and, at the same time, a secure and peaceful order?
Answer: It can't. Read the headlines that flow from European cities daily.
Richard Abbott identified the crux of the matter in 2003. "Unless values such as dignity, liberty and tolerance are affirmed in the context of a transcendent framework they lack fixed or objective meanings."
So now Europe is in search of a core. Instead all they find is a huge hole Muslim immigrants are only too happy to fill with their faith, its worldview, and anti-democratic values, expressed in their view regarding women, separation of mosque and state, rights of belief and expression, and others fundamental to a free society.
People inside the United States now who are working feverishly to remove God from the core of the nation's foundational worldview should take heed. They should examine carefully why the American Founders planted God's transcendence in the heart of the nation's constitutional system.
The core of American governance is the Constitution, but God is the core of the Constitution, infused through the worldview of the Declaration of Independence. This did not create a theocracy, but it did define certain fundamental principles that helped the framers give shape to the constitutional system.
First was the understanding there is a Transcendent Creator. The state can no longer claim to be absolute. Nothing creates itself and thus humans have a stewardship for blessings like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Second, stewardship means accountability. Everyone, including those who govern, are accountable to the Giver of the blessings of liberty.
Third, the core principle of Transcendence provides a standard for the understanding of the human being. Since people are made in the very image of God there is human dignity and equality of worth the state cannot deny. But, since "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23) there must be a balance of powers, each watching over the other, and the people watching the watchers.
Daniel Webster was aware of the "exceptional" nature of this constitutional government centered on God, and warned that,
"Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world."
What if the Bible, the teachings of Jesus, and the Judeo-Christian worldview had not been the very DNA of the American Republic? When, for example, Samuel Huntington — described as "the most respected political scientist of our times" — itemized traits that gave the United States its success and made it attractive to people throughout the world, he included these:
1. The English language
2. Christianity
3. Religious commitment
4. English concepts of the rule of law
5. The responsibility of rulers, and the rights of individuals
6. Dissenting Protestant values of individualism
7. The work ethic
8. The belief that humans have the ability and the duty to try to create a heaven on earth, a 'city on a hill'
A world without the Bible, without Christians, and without God would mean, in the words of Professor Rodney Stark, "... more slavery, far fewer freedoms, and unchecked disease. Without the moral restraints inspired by God's people, the world would no doubt be an unthinkable worse place in which to live. Even a self-professed relativist can appreciate that. All those who love liberty, or so it would seem, have a vested interest in the continued influence and vitality of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ."
Europe is finding out the hard way what it means to give up that "vested interest". Pray America doesn't have to learn the lesson through such stark crisis.
