Fore

By Wayne B. Holstad

      There are many good books written by well-known legal scholars and historians that discuss the most critical legal issue of our time - the ongoing secularization of American law. Many of these books clearly support the fact that America was established as a Christian nation.
      An honest review of history reveals there really is no legitimate dispute that the founding fathers were Christians who wanted to build a government based on Christian principles. Theirs’ was the great political experiment that had never before been tried. Arguments to the contrary are simply without merit. The source documents are clear. Too many history teachers have misled us in an effort to convince us that America’s first governments were secular in nature.
      In 1992, I began leading a class at a local church with no ambition to do anything other than relay what others had already said and published about the subject. I quickly found that I had smart students who asked tough questions, and that drove me deeper into the subject. Since it became obvious to them that we had long since left behind our Christian legal moorings, they wanted to know exactly where and when we went astray. They asked about the theological and philosophical roots of particular legal issues. They wanted to know how the Court should have rendered certain decisions differently from their eventual rulings. During the next three years, I attempted to answer these questions as part of my Sunday lectures.
      Much of what I relayed to the class was based on research from my own cases. I saw that those commentators whose work I reviewed as preparation for the teaching sessions were right when they showed us that things were wrong. I also saw that modern judges have a difficult time understanding how the founding fathers’ beliefs are still relevant.
      It became obvious that the Court’s new separation of church and state doctrine is the foundational problem. But to simply criticize the Court, whose members are generally well meaning and as churchgoing as their critics, is shortsighted and simplistic. On the other hand, by simply saying America needs to acknowledge God or remember her Christian heritage also fails to answer the root question.
      As an attorney, I pose the issue as a legal question: Which is the controlling factor, the First Amendment or the First Commandment? For instance, there is nothing in the Ten Commandments about diversity, not literally or in the “penumbra.”
      If God’s law means anything, it must be supreme. The Common Law was mostly rooted in God’s law. James Madison expressly stated that our constitutional law was to be based upon the Ten Commandments. Sam Adams said that our rights are based upon the New Testament.
       Many of the cases in which I have been involved argue that God-given rights be respected — a First Amendment issue — and not mandated. As Christians, we see that our rights draw legitimacy from the breath of God; we see rights that appear contrary to God’s law as political, illusory and short-lived.
      I learned that the Supreme Court’s current definition of separation of church and state is purely political. The rights to speech and beliefs are still fundamental and can be protected in court because of the First Amendment. It is the ability to encourage correct behavior and restrain sinful behavior that is at issue.
      And so, after many lessons where I related historical facts and taught legal principles inherent in both the practice and the adjudication of law, I arrived at the conclusions that follow. I hope that you will find them useful as together, we work to preserve liberty for our posterity and ourselves.

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