As a nation, Americans have grown accustomed to hearing that we are a democracy. But did you know that such was never the intent of our founding fathers? Our founders had an opportunity to establish a democracy in America and chose not to. In fact, the founders made it clear that we were not, and were never to become, a democracy. The form of government entrusted to us by our founders was a republic, not a democracy.
Many Americans today seem to be unable to define the difference between the two, but there is a difference—a big difference. That difference rests in the source of authority.
A pure democracy operates by the direct majority vote of the people. When an issue is to be decided, the entire population votes on it and the majority wins and rules.
A republic differs in that the general population elects representatives who then pass laws to govern the nation. A democracy is the rule by majority feeling (what the founders described as a "mobocracy"). A republic is rule by law.
If the source of law for democracy is the popular feeling of the people, then what is the source of law for the American republic? According to Founder Noah Webster: "Our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament, or the Christian religion."
The transcendent values of biblical natural law were the foundation of the American republic. Consider the stability this provides: In our republic, murder will always be a crime, for it is always a crime according to the Word of God. However, in a democracy, if a majority of the people decides that murder is no longer a crime, murder will no longer be a crime.
America's immutable principles of right and wrong were not based on the rapidly fluctuating feelings and emotions of the people but rather on what Montesquieu identified as the "principles that do not change."
Benjamin Rush similarly observed: "Where there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community."
In the American republic, the "principles which did not change" and which were "certain and universal in their operation upon all the members of the community" were the principles of biblical natural law. In fact, so firmly were these principles secured in the American republic that early law books taught that government was free to set its own policy only if God had not ruled in an area. The founders understood that biblical values formed the basis of the republic and that the republic would be destroyed if the people's knowledge of those values should ever be lost.
A republic is the highest form of government devised by man, but it also requires the greatest amount of human care and maintenance. If neglected, it can deteriorate into a variety of lesser forms, including a democracy (a government conducted by popular feeling); anarchy (a system in which each person determines his own rules and standards); oligarchy (a government run by a small council or group of elite individuals); or dictatorship (a government run by a single individual). As John Adams explained: "Democracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy; such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit, and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable [abominable] cruelty of one or a very few."
Understanding the foundation of the American republic is a vital key toward protecting it.
By David Barton, nationally known author and public speaker, founder and president of WallBuilders, a pro-family organization which seeks to educate grass-roots society to rebuild America's constitutional, moral and religious foundations.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Jesus is THE Super Man
I am Superman’s pal (sorry, Jimmy Olsen). I know because he’s a friend.
But we didn’t always know each other. By the time I came along, the Superman radio show was a thing of the past, as was “The Adventures of Superman” television show with George Reeves. Even the comic books were on the decline, with the heyday of the Silver Age—most of the ‘60s—behind them. It would take a miracle to bring Supes back to his former glory.
That miracle was the movie. I was eleven years old when we met. It was Christmastime 1978. For my generation worldwide, “Superman: The Movie” was like a religious experience. Even before we knew Superman was an actor named Christopher Reeve or there was a director behind the scenes named Richard Donner—before we could learn all that, more immediately, more simply, more profoundly, we believed a man could fly.
It was epic, mythic, even evangelistic. A heavenly father sends his only son to save the Earth. The movie impacted us in ways we couldn’t describe. It communicated a message that we longed to hear and were desperate to have confirmed, but didn’t yet comprehend why. We were children. Which is why the movie came to mean even more to us as we grew older. For me, it has meant the most in the last few years.
For the time being, we knew it brought people together, especially sons to fathers. Both of them saw in Superman their hero, their role model, what it could mean to be a man—to fight the good fight, to love others openly, to protect and provide. My dad, a super man, sat next to me in the dark and got lost in the vision as well. Both of us fully responding to everything. Neither of us fully understanding why.
After the movie, everyone applauded and we all stood up to go. Because the matinee was so packed, we still stood in our aisle. If not for that, we might have missed it.
Nowadays, not many recall that the “previews” were called “trailers” because they trailed the movie. This trailer was actually part of the original screenplay. The screen lit up again. Before my already overloaded eyes, new images of Superman appeared, images we had not seen in the movie. There were scenes of Clark and Lois in an embrace; the evil trio Zod, Non, and Ursa wreaking havoc; and most shockingly, Clark, having just been punched, with a bloody face! The adventure was continuing. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t wait!
For years I had heard rumors of superficial parallels between Superman and the Super Man, Jesus Christ. Although I'm inclined to find spiritual truth in worldly stories, for a long time I considered this an intriguing idea but one which was merely the opinion of those who chose to read that meaning into the story.
Then, a few years ago, I read a review of "Superman: The Movie" online at hollywoodjesus.com. The article, written by David Bruce, the creator of the Web site, began with the idea that people respond to Superman because he is a Christ figure--but then went on to outline incredible examples of how the gospel story was used as a template for the Superman story. By the time I had finished reading the review; this intriguing idea had graduated to an interesting argument.
Bruce's review spurred me to research that brought startling revelations. For instance, did you know that:
* Superman and his father share the last name of El--the Hebrew word for God. Thus in the Superman story, when "El" the father sends "El" the son down to Earth, "God" the father sends "God" the son down to Earth.
* Superman's earthly parents, Martha and Jonathan, were modeled after the biblical parents Mary and Joseph--and as I later discovered, Mary and Joseph were the original names of the earthly parents in the comics.
* Superman's enemy is a villain called Lex Luthor, a name suspiciously like Lucifer. And both figures are fueled by the same all-consuming, all-corrupting hunger for power and glory, covered in the deception of friendship and lies.
I found these to be just the tip of a Kryptonian iceberg. But, Superman is NOT Jesus Christ; he is a Christ figure, a figure resembling Christ--as we all should be. That said, the story of Superman bears some incredible parallels to the story of the Super Man, Jesus Christ. Similarly, our own story should also grow to resemble that of Christ as we live to follow Him.---adopted and excerpt from "The Gospel According to the World's Greatest Superhero" by Stephen Skelton.
But we didn’t always know each other. By the time I came along, the Superman radio show was a thing of the past, as was “The Adventures of Superman” television show with George Reeves. Even the comic books were on the decline, with the heyday of the Silver Age—most of the ‘60s—behind them. It would take a miracle to bring Supes back to his former glory.
That miracle was the movie. I was eleven years old when we met. It was Christmastime 1978. For my generation worldwide, “Superman: The Movie” was like a religious experience. Even before we knew Superman was an actor named Christopher Reeve or there was a director behind the scenes named Richard Donner—before we could learn all that, more immediately, more simply, more profoundly, we believed a man could fly.
It was epic, mythic, even evangelistic. A heavenly father sends his only son to save the Earth. The movie impacted us in ways we couldn’t describe. It communicated a message that we longed to hear and were desperate to have confirmed, but didn’t yet comprehend why. We were children. Which is why the movie came to mean even more to us as we grew older. For me, it has meant the most in the last few years.
For the time being, we knew it brought people together, especially sons to fathers. Both of them saw in Superman their hero, their role model, what it could mean to be a man—to fight the good fight, to love others openly, to protect and provide. My dad, a super man, sat next to me in the dark and got lost in the vision as well. Both of us fully responding to everything. Neither of us fully understanding why.
After the movie, everyone applauded and we all stood up to go. Because the matinee was so packed, we still stood in our aisle. If not for that, we might have missed it.
Nowadays, not many recall that the “previews” were called “trailers” because they trailed the movie. This trailer was actually part of the original screenplay. The screen lit up again. Before my already overloaded eyes, new images of Superman appeared, images we had not seen in the movie. There were scenes of Clark and Lois in an embrace; the evil trio Zod, Non, and Ursa wreaking havoc; and most shockingly, Clark, having just been punched, with a bloody face! The adventure was continuing. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t wait!
For years I had heard rumors of superficial parallels between Superman and the Super Man, Jesus Christ. Although I'm inclined to find spiritual truth in worldly stories, for a long time I considered this an intriguing idea but one which was merely the opinion of those who chose to read that meaning into the story.
Then, a few years ago, I read a review of "Superman: The Movie" online at hollywoodjesus.com. The article, written by David Bruce, the creator of the Web site, began with the idea that people respond to Superman because he is a Christ figure--but then went on to outline incredible examples of how the gospel story was used as a template for the Superman story. By the time I had finished reading the review; this intriguing idea had graduated to an interesting argument.
Bruce's review spurred me to research that brought startling revelations. For instance, did you know that:
* Superman and his father share the last name of El--the Hebrew word for God. Thus in the Superman story, when "El" the father sends "El" the son down to Earth, "God" the father sends "God" the son down to Earth.
* Superman's earthly parents, Martha and Jonathan, were modeled after the biblical parents Mary and Joseph--and as I later discovered, Mary and Joseph were the original names of the earthly parents in the comics.
* Superman's enemy is a villain called Lex Luthor, a name suspiciously like Lucifer. And both figures are fueled by the same all-consuming, all-corrupting hunger for power and glory, covered in the deception of friendship and lies.
I found these to be just the tip of a Kryptonian iceberg. But, Superman is NOT Jesus Christ; he is a Christ figure, a figure resembling Christ--as we all should be. That said, the story of Superman bears some incredible parallels to the story of the Super Man, Jesus Christ. Similarly, our own story should also grow to resemble that of Christ as we live to follow Him.---adopted and excerpt from "The Gospel According to the World's Greatest Superhero" by Stephen Skelton.
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