Re-Uniting the States

By Matthew-John Calvin

Ever since the election of the morally challenged Bill Clinton in 1992, extreme elements in both political parties have been driving deep wedges into America. Re-Uniting The States explains the most troubling issues that are dividing Americans, and charts a path to moderation, compromise, and agreement that will restore bipartisan harmony and fulfill the vision of the brave Christians who won independence for America and gave us a world-leading structure of democratic government. Our revolutionary Founders and our visionary Framers of the Constitution relied upon proven Christian principles, and author Matthew-John Calvin shows us how we can learn from their original concepts to guide America securely onto the safe middle of the political road that they originally charted for our blessed nation.

Re-Uniting The States also expresses concern about the extent of political and judicial power being exercised by Roman Catholics and Jews. All should bear in mind the wise words of Abraham Lincoln: “We should be too big to take offence and too noble to give it.” The Founders of this nation and the Framers of the Constitution were firmly committed to advancing Protestant Christian principles, but they were equally determined to welcome to America persons of all faiths and beliefs, so long as they understand and support the values that are the foundation of America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: Sep 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781489724717

Matthew-John Calvin

Matthew-John Calvin is a retired newspaper editor who dedicated his long career to a small midwestern city, serving his readers with his deep knowledge of history and his persistent commitment to applying the lessons of this nation’s Founders and Constitutional Framers. He was always holding public officials to account and resourcefully marshaling community resources to resolve many challenges without the heavy hand of government. He has been known to preach when invited; his favorite lesson focuses on the Parable of the Talents.

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Copyright © 2019 Matthew-John Calvin.

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Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

ISBN: 978-1-4897-2472-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-2473-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-2471-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019912975

LifeRich Publishing rev. date:  09/23/2019

This book is dedicated to all Americans

who know and respect

the Ten Commandments

and

the teachings of Jesus Christ.

As so clearly stated by George Washington,

religion and morality are indispensable

to the success of this blessed nation,

and are woven into our

Constitutional foundation.

HARMONY AND UNITY

It is the harmony of the diverse parts, their symmetry, their happy balance; in a word it is all that introduces order, all that gives unity, that permits us to see clearly and to comprehend at once both the ensemble and the details.

–– Henri Poincaire, French mathematician, 1854-1912

Politicians should learn from composers. In great music, we embrace a range of voices, but channel their range into a common goal. Harmony is the essential enrichment of what is presented to the audience as the unity of all the performers on our diverse instruments.

–– distilled from an after-work conversation by symphonic musicians, 2018

In writing this book, I was seeking the path to unity for the people of our very divided nation, but realized upon completion that part of the solution is to recognize the role that harmony plays in achieving sustainable national unity. In a choir, the diverse voices of soprano, alto, tenor, and bass come together to create a richer, more rewarding sound than is possible with simple unison.

I love the rich language of the King James Version, but was surprised when I could not find the word harmony anywhere in the KJV. I also enjoy my well-worn 1953 copy of the Revised Standard Version, and appreciate its choice of words to begin Romans 12:16. We should, indeed, "live in harmony with one another. That phrase captures the purpose of this book better than the more restrictive language that is used in the KJV to begin Romans 12:16: Be of the same mind, one toward another."

–– Matthew-John Calvin

CONTENTS

Help for Thoughtful Americans

Acknowledgements and Disclaimers

Preface

Chapter 1     Liberty and opportunity; religion and morality

Chapter 2     Faith affects election outcome

Chapter 3     Stay in the useful part of the road

Chapter 4     An even-handed approach to government

Chapter 5     Balance the right to life

Chapter 6     The true right to bear arms

Chapter 7     A nation of immigrants

Chapter 8     Defeat prejudice and bigotry

Chapter 9     Comprehending the news media

Chapter 10   Understand the Supreme Court

Chapter 11   Sexual politics on a slippery slope

Chapter 12   Making sense of LGBTQ

Chapter 13   The example of Roy Moore

Chapter 14   A right to affordable health care

Chapter 15   Purge ignorance from policing

Chapter 16   Higher education brings prosperity

Chapter 17   White-collar crime is a serious problem

Chapter 18   America is going to pot

Chapter 19   Speak American, but learn other languages

Chapter 20   Prospering through fair trade

Chapter 21   Keep the government operating – but limited

Chapter 22   Military exceeds Founders’ vision

Chapter 23   End gerrymandering; make voting convenient!

Chapter 24   Refine our phraseology

Chapter 25   Tweak the Electoral College

Chapter 26   Too much political experience versus too little

Chapter 27   True peace and justice for Israel and Palestine

HELP FOR THOUGHTFUL AMERICANS

Americans need to re-unite around the original Christian values that are the foundation of our Constitution, in order to bring us together in respectful liberty and enduring strength.

The purpose and determination of the Founders who declared independence and won a bloody war, and of the Framers who persevered to set down a Constitution for sustainable democracy, are deeply rooted in the Protestant Christian experience. It was the Puritans, Quakers, Calvinists (Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Dutch Reformed, and Huguenots), and Lutherans seeking true freedom of religion who built the foundation of America. Even the Episcopalians cut their ties with the Church of England to also become Protestant.

Protestant churches are bastions of Scriptural common sense, meaningful congregational involvement, and independent thought; they are the very essence of America.

In the 1990s, the godless hedonism of Bill Clinton and the pseudo-religious extremism of the opposing Republicans set America on the path toward the deep division that now bedevils the world’s most powerful nation.

A nation founded on Calvinist theories of democratic governance now has its most important decisions made by a Supreme Court that has no members who were raised in a Protestant church.

Christians built and expanded America on a doctrine of tolerance that enthusiastically embraced immigration, but its government is now dominated by extreme politicians who have little tolerance for opposing views.

This is not a religious book, but does not shy from celebrating this nation’s deep roots in the Christian faith. It provides useful information for all thoughtful Americans who want to heal the deep divisions in our country. It confronts the difficult issues such as abortion and immigration with hard facts and consensus-building ideas. It concludes with a bold plan to bring lasting peace to the Holy Land.

This book is especially useful for Christians – and most notably Protestants – as we strive to re-build and re-unite America around the principles that inspired the Founders and Framers to achieve independence and a system of government that has endured through more than two centuries of challenge and change.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND DISCLAIMERS

This is not a legal or academic text. It is written and edited in journalistic style, without footnotes for ease of reading. Facts have been comprehensively researched, but their accuracy cannot be guaranteed. Readers are advised to check for themselves if they doubt the veracity of anything contained herein.

This book provides clues, ideas, guides, incentives, and inspiration to help Americans work together to build a broader consensus in political debate than has existed in this country for three decades.

The author acknowledges the excellent work of the Pew Research Center, and recommends that readers use its resources for themselves. There is no cost to use its work, which is readily accessible at www.pewresearch.org. The Center is located at 1615 L Street NW, Suite 800, Washington, D.C. 20036.

For research, the author made extensive use of Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, and there are a few direct quotations as well as paraphrasing from that source. There is no cost to use Wikipedia’s work, which is readily accessible at en.wikipedia.org, and all users are encouraged to make donations to support its continuing work. Readers are cautioned that Wikipedia is written and edited by anonymous volunteers, and its published information can be in error despite the large number of people who monitor and correct its content. Wikipedia’s published information is subject to change at any time, so a quotation that appears in this book may no longer be the same if you look for it on Wikipedia. The author used facts and quotations from Wikipedia with caution, and included them only when he believed the facts are accurate.

Many people have assisted the author in completing this book, but special mention is owed to a highly-qualified individual who carefully proofread, and offered corrections for, the entire manuscript. Thank you to Dr. Sylvan Catwell, who earned master’s degrees in both theology and engineering, and a doctorate in history. He is the senior elder and principal preacher at the Gospel Hall in Ellerton, St. George, Barbados. He is an accomplished organist, an experienced author and editor, and also a Justice of the Peace for the Government of Barbados.

PREFACE

Ever since the election as president of the morally-challenged Bill Clinton in 1992, extreme elements in both political parties have been driving deep wedges into America. This book examines the most troubling issues that are dividing Americans, and charts a path to moderation, compromise, and agreement that will restore bipartisan harmony that we need to Re-Unite The States. It is a path that can re-establish the vision of the brave Christians who won independence for America and gave us a world-leading structure of democratic government.

Our revolutionary Founders and our visionary Framers of the Constitution relied upon proven Christian principles, and this book shows us how we can learn from their original concepts to guide America securely onto the safe middle of the political road that they originally charted for our blessed nation.

The author expects to be criticized for some of the elements of this book, especially the expressions of concern about the extent of political and judicial power being exercised by Roman Catholics and Jews. All of us would be wise to bear in mind the words of Abraham Lincoln: We should be too big to take offence and too noble to give it.

The Founders of this nation and the Framers of the Constitution were firmly committed to advancing Protestant Christian principles, but they were equally determined to welcome to America persons of all faiths and beliefs, so long as they understand and support the values that are the foundation of America.

Chapter%201.jpg

CHAPTER 1

LIBERTY AND OPPORTUNITY; RELIGION AND MORALITY

The nation we call America is a conservative country, in the best sense of that root word CONSERVE. An overwhelming majority of the citizens of the world’s leading democratic nation believe in God, duty to family, defence of freedom, self-sufficiency, hard work, the Christian ideal of caring for the poor, and the never-ending struggle to rise above the sinful nature of humanity.

The deeply-divided condition that now bedevils America is a worrisome deviation from the principles that motivated a risky revolution to forge the world’s greatest democracy. When our Founders named this nation the United States of America, they truly believed that our people would always be united in our fundamental beliefs. John McCain (1936-2018) was a war hero, a respected Senator, and a formidable contender for president. He described the challenge succinctly in a speech in May 2017: I’d like to see us recover our sense that we are more alike than different.

America’s national character includes a passionate dedication to individual liberty, which means no one is forced to believe in, or practice, the same principles of personal life that motivate the majority. This nation’s citizens are free to range from being apocalyptic survivalists who shun anything described as progressive to being godless hedonists who endanger their own lives with hazardous and excessive behavior – as long as they keep it to themselves and are not a burden on the taxpayers.

The United States of America is a unique nation founded upon the principles that motivated millions of desperate, disadvantaged, and determined people to leave their old countries to start life anew in a land of opportunity where they believed they could worship God in their own way – without any interference by the coercive power of a monarch, dictator, or other form of government that denies the basic rights of individual citizens, and without being subject to the decrees of a Pope or Archbishop.

The need to supervise and discipline anyone who exercises governmental authority is an essential American characteristic, but so is patriotic obedience to the rule of law. America was founded upon the teachings of Christ. In Matthew 22:21, Jesus said, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s. In Romans 13:1, For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.

The Constitutional Framers of America were all God-fearing, Bible-knowing men who sought to build an enduring structure of Government that would never again allow a single person to exercise the power of Caesar, but would instead elect representative citizens to ensure the nation’s defence against tyranny, and to honestly exercise civil authority according to Christian principles.

There can be no true liberty without a functioning civil authority, but keeping that civil power to a minimum – which includes fighting corruption and abuse of power, and resisting excessive or unfair taxation – is a never-ending struggle for defenders of democracy.

A strong foundation based on Christian principles

America was established as a Christian country. Our Founders – and especially the Framers of the 1787 Constitution – all believed in God, and that the teachings and example of Jesus Christ provided the principles upon which democratic civilization must be based.

Christian ideals drove these men. The Scriptures, most notably the Ten Commandments and the recorded words of Jesus Christ, were their foundation. Scriptural references do not appear in the Constitution because it went without saying in 1787 that these were – and always must be – the principles of America.

Much of the enduring strength of America is due to the deep thinking of John Calvin, a Protestant leader who never set foot in America, but whose influence on the Christian faith is as significant as the work of Martin Luther and other pioneers of the Reformation. Christ gave no specific guidance for secular government, but Calvin delved deeply into the teachings of Jesus to set forth principles that became essential elements in the American Constitution. The separation of church and state – and the submission of citizens to the authority of their democratically-governed state – provided the Christian foundation for the believers who built the world’s most successful nation.

Here is a summary of Calvin’s political thought:

The aim of Calvin’s political theory was to safeguard the rights and freedoms of ordinary people. Although he was convinced that the Bible contained no blueprint for a certain form of government, Calvin favored a combination of democracy and aristocracy (mixed government).

He appreciated the advantages of democracy. To further minimize the misuse of political power, Calvin proposed to divide it among several political institutions like the aristocracy, lower estates, or magistrates in a system of checks and balances (separation of powers).

Finally, Calvin taught that if rulers rise up against God, they lose their divine right and must be deposed. State and church are separate, though they have to cooperate to the benefit of the people. Christian magistrates have to make sure that the church can fulfill its duties in freedom. But nobody can be forced to become a Protestant.

Excerpted from Jan Weerda, Calvin, in Evangelisches Soziallexikon, Stuttgart (Germany) (1954), and Clifton E. Olmstead (1960), History of Religion in the United States, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.

The Constitution of 1787 established three equal branches of government to provide the checks and balances that Calvin described: the Legislative (Congress, which itself had two elements), the Executive (Presidency), and the Judiciary.

The aristocratic elements include both the Presidency and the Senate, neither of which the Framers entrusted to popular vote, as well as the Judiciary, whose members are appointed for life unless impeached. The Framers initially granted substantial power to the state legislatures to choose both the members of the Electoral College and the Senators.

Subsequent well-meaning reforms to increase the power of the popular vote have skewed the Framers’ intensively-debated structure. The result is a system of electing the president that was intended to respect the popular vote, but can have a result that is contrary to the choice of the people.

Protecting the people from Popes and Archbishops

Religious freedom was the strongly beating heart of the new nation.

The Americans who risked their own lives to win the Revolutionary War – and then sat down to make their achievement as permanent as possible – were overwhelmingly Protestant Christians. In 1787, only about 1% of newly-independent Americans were Roman Catholics.

While all Christian immigrants from Europe would be welcomed to help America grow and prosper as a nation, religious denominations would be constitutionally prohibited from having any established role in government. That is what the Bill of Rights, in the First Amendment to the Constitution says: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Simply and clearly, a nation of Christian believers was protecting freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. The Bible-believing Protestants who created American democracy were seeking to ensure that no Pope or Archbishop or any other religious leader claiming superior authority could exercise any power over others through legislation or executive authority.

It is dangerous liberal folly to read the Constitution as prohibiting any role for Christian principles in the governance of this nation. To do so would establish godless hedonism as the national religion!

Religion and morality are indispensable

The Founders and Framers understood the sinful nature of humanity. They focused their efforts on creating a system of democratic government that would limit, control, and self-correct the inevitable tendencies of mortal men to use government power corruptly, or in ways that are unrelated to the essential functions of the state.

They assumed that most individuals would find their personal discipline through the version of Christian faith that each citizen chose to follow. They believed that Christianity, as a force of moral and ethical guidance, would flourish at the grassroots level if it were totally free from top-down authority.

The Scriptures would provide the constitutional foundation for individual Americans, while a non-Scriptural Constitution would define and regulate the structures of democracy.

The institutions of government would be strictly secular, but their effectiveness would arise from the honesty and commitment of the vast majority of America’s first citizens – people overwhelmingly influenced by Christian principles.

George Washington put it succinctly in his Farewell Address in 1796, a published letter in which he stated that religion and morality are indispensable to what he called political prosperity.

To effectively promote private and public happiness, Washington strongly advocated for religion and morality to be woven into the constitutional fabric of America. He asserted that the nation’s morality depends upon continued maintenance and growth of religion, without which the concept of a popularly-elected government might not be sustained and would not flourish. From the Farewell Address:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice?

Washington also argued convincingly that the government of the United States must ensure the diffusion of knowledge throughout the nation. His clear position was that the purpose of a democratic government is to enforce the opinion of the people, but such opinion must be well informed, hence the need for public education. However, he also asserted that refined education alone cannot enhance national morality without a strong application of religious principle. Also from the Farewell Address:

And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

Forbidding the establishment of religion

The simple but clear principle of separation of church and state was a major departure from governance in Europe, where established churches in almost every nation dominated the exercise of public authority. Positions of power were typically restricted to persons who passed the type of religious tests that are expressly forbidden in Article VI of our Constitution.

The only Constitutional references to religion – in Article VI and in the First Amendment – were placed there in 1787 to guard against the authoritarianism that drove so many people away from Europe. The Founders and Framers feared religious dictators as much as they absolutely opposed any form of royalty, dictatorship, or authoritarianism in secular government. The Roman Church was as much an enemy of American liberty as the British Empire.

One of the keys to America’s success is the combination of deep Christian faith with a vigorous defence of personal liberty. The Founders and Framers were motivated by a compelling morality based upon religious principles that rose above the type of formal religion established in Rome, a difference that can be summed up simply thus:

Morality means doing what is right regardless of what you are told.

Religion means doing what you are told regardless of what is right.

Of the 55 participating Framers of the Constitution, 29 were Episcopalians, members of the Church of England, which is not surprising because of the English dominance of early settlement in the Colonies. After Independence, however, this group remade itself as the Protestant Episcopalian Church of the United States of America. They would not endure any form of dictatorship by a foreign Archbishop.

The other Framers were mostly members of the Calvinist Protestant denominations (Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Dutch Christian Reformed), as well as Methodists and Lutherans – the leading groups of Protestants who were settling and building the new nation. There were only two Roman Catholics at the gathering in Philadelphia, and there was one God-fearing professed Unitarian, the well-respected 82-year-old Benjamin Franklin, who famously saved the Constitutional Convention from early collapse with a call to prayer and a three-day recess for calm reflection and a fresh start.

The Framers sought to ensure that no Pope or Archbishop would have any secular power in America. This is what really differentiated America from Europe.

It is essential today to recognize that the Founders and Framers were overwhelmingly Protestant Christians, and that the Constitutional separation of church and state was an important part of their faith-based philosophy of public governance.

It is logical and obvious to anyone who has seen how government has grown too big and too inefficient: The best way to protect the Christian faith and allow it to flourish is to ensure that the church is not run by, or for, any institution of government!

It is only the establishment of any religion that the Constitution forbids. The principles of Protestant Christianity are woven into the fabric of America. The Founders and Framers assumed that America would always be a Christian country. It would grow and prosper by welcoming immigrants from Europe who shared their vision and values, and they assumed that Christians would predominate as immigrants – and they expected the Protestant perspective to always be paramount.

The Capitol served the needs of the church

For anyone who still doubts the essentially-Christian foundation of America, and the true views of the Founders and Framers, a simple reading of the history of the U.S. Capitol should settle the matter.

When the original Capitol building opened in 1800, there were few, if any, suitable places to worship in what would become the great city of Washington. Church services were thus held inside the Capitol, and one of the strongest supporters of those services was the great libertarian himself, Thomas Jefferson, who attended services faithfully while he was president.

Jefferson was also one of the strongest proponents of the formal separation of church and state. Clearly, it was only the authority of church leaders that needed to be separated from the state. Otherwise, Jefferson saw a need for the state to provide a