In their effort to make a point, those who discuss law and government and politics for a living often miss the most crucial – the most critical point of all. So, as we celebrate Christmas, this is a good time to take a deep breath and revisit the first principles of America.
We should remember the political significance of Christmas. Now don’t get distracted by arguments that early Christians latched onto a pre-existing pagan holiday to establish the date of Christmas. That may be true, but it is a distraction from what’s truly important. The important thing is the birth of the Savior, Jesus Christ.
The birth of the Savior is the most significant political event in human history. This bears repeating. The birth of Jesus Christ is the most significant political event in the history of the universe.
Why? Well, simply put, it is because liberty does not and cannot exist absent the acknowledgment of the Almighty, Omniscient, Living and Everlasting God of the Bible, whose Son is Jesus Christ — Who created the world, entered His own creation, and sacrificed His life to cover our sins and make us presentable before the Throne of Grace.
For liberty to exist in the world, this acknowledgment of Christ’s authority must exist in the hearts of the people and it must be the operating principle of civil government.
If it is, then peace on earth will prevail. But to the extent that the hearts of the people are distracted and the civil government forgets that it is a ministry of Jesus Christ (look up Romans 13), is the extent that injustice, chaos, corruption, and tyranny will prevail.
Now you may not share the Christian beliefs I’ve just described, but that doesn’t affect my point here because it is indisputable that the founders of American government believed them and established a system of law and liberty based on them.
So, your disbelief in them does not extinguish them. Whatever beliefs you personally hold, please remember that far from violating any law, the acknowledgment of Jesus Christ as the Source of Law and Government is the very first presupposition of American government. It is contained in the Declaration of Independence, which is the organic law of the United States. The Declaration states that there is a Creator-God, that our rights to Life, Liberty, and pursuit of happiness come from Him, and that the purpose of civil government is simply to secure the rights He gave to His creation.
Therefore, celebrating Christmas through Nativity displays, public prayer, sacred song, and all other forms of Christian witness is consistent with and supportive of the American View of Law and Liberty and is the essence of American government.
Publicly celebrating the blessed birth of the Savior of the world is not only lawful, it is patriotic in the purest sense and the most politically correct thing you can ever do.
So with that, we at the Institute on the Constitution wish you a very Merry Christmas this year.
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