Judging a nation

Three judges, three abominable decisions within two weeks.

• U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton (Clinton-appointee) struck down a major part of Arizona’s S.B. 1070, claiming, “There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens under the new [law].”
• U.S. District Judge George Caram Streeh (Clinton-appointee) upheld anti-Christian discrimination by Augusta State University in Michigan after Julea Ward was expelled from its counseling program for her religious-based beliefs on homosexuality.
• U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker (Bush-41-appointee, recommended by Sen. Pete Wilson), homosexual judge who struck down California’s Proposition 8, stating that “the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples.”

Beyond these Three Amigos is the greatest affront to our constitutional republic since the confirmation of ACLU’s own Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the 63-37 vote to place Elena Kagan, an even more unqualified and more liberal activist, on our highest court.

Judges – we can’t live with them and we can’t live without them. Ancient Israel discovered that judges had a vital purpose, albeit different than under our Constitution. The most evident truth of that period in their history is that the nation depended not so much on the quality of the judges, but the obedience to God among the people.

After the death of Joshua (recall the walls of Jericho came tumbling down?), Israel’s general condition began a vicious cycle. The primary reason is given in Judges 2:

Then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals, and they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them; thus they provoked the Lord to anger (vv. 11, 12).

Then the Lord raised up judges who delivered them from the hands of those who plundered them (v. 15).

Over the next 325 years, ending when the prophet/judge Samuel anointed Israel’s first king (refer to 1 Samuel 8 to see how that works out!), began a “series of cycles of sinning, worshipping idols, being punished, crying out for help, being rescued by a judge sent from God, obeying for a while, then falling back into idolatry.”

It is really very simple. The further a nation drifts away from the God of our fathers, the greater the dominance of immorality, amorality, worship of false gods and the inevitable anarchy or tyranny produced by our own actions. In the cases of Bolton, Streeh and Walker, we the people chose the presidents and senators who chose the judges.

We the people made the above-referenced decisions through our proxies.

Like Israel, the root problem here is not the reprobate 63 senators who voted to destroy the Constitution, but the reprobate citizens who elected them by their vote or their absence. More to the point are the majority of God-fearing, Bible-believing Christians and pastors who have not shown up on game day far too often or at all.

In addition, when the well of potential jurists is so badly polluted by liberal, post-constitutional and post-Christian trained attorneys from law schools reflecting those values, it becomes much more difficult to find judicial prospects who go against that grain.

I pray that we are at the “crying out for help” or repentance phase. With the escalation of amoral anarchy birthed by the absence of transformational truth from the Bible coming from our nation’s pulpits for so long, we had better be.

Over a quarter century in the trenches of the battle for Judeo-Christian values in culture and government proves my commitment to that mission. However, it is abundantly clear that if we do not reignite the historic power of the church as God’s instrument of change through the bold, uncompromising preaching of His word – all our political action, tea parties, etc. will fail.

The great news is that when Israel was in dire straits, God did not go find a megachurch pastor, television evangelist or best-selling author to lead his army.

He went to those like Gideon, who described himself as the “least in Manasseh (the smallest tribe), and I am the youngest in my father’s house” (Judges 6:15).

He had earlier raised up Joseph, the youngest son of Jacob, after allowing him to be sold into slavery, to save the nation.

He found the youngest son of an obscure man named Jesse, a shepherd boy, to raise up to become Israel’s mightiest king.

Gideon led God’s army, Joseph served as right-hand man of Pharaoh and David both ruled and fought. Compare those to our current “take the least confrontational path” leadership in most of the churches today. Pastors, it’s time to step up and put it all on the line.

Our government, including our judicial branch, will ultimately reflect the spiritual and moral condition of the majority of the people. When the power of God once again becomes evident in our homes and churches, it will also manifest in our choices of governing leaders.

Then we will have the joy of placing judges like the Three Amigos and Kagan where they belong – back in private practice.