Very valid questions, which to answer in a comprehensive way is beyond one man or one essay. However, they are still worthy of discussion and merit our consideration. This blog generally approaches such questions from the religious Christian perspective, this will be no different. It is perhaps the easiest view to look from because of its sheer size and scope of influence upon the nation's formation. To understand the development of American society and its political and governmental systems one has to look into the minds of those who formed it and were willing to be governed by it.
There were no media outlets such as Facebook in 1620 in New England, however, there were sermons. Sermons were the Facebook of the 1620s, the media outlet for public thought and discussion. The average New Englander would listen to something like seven thousand sermons in a lifetime, that's like maybe 15,000 hours of information. We would be foolish to ignore the influence such a volume of information would have on society, especially when you consider there were no competing venues that had any significant audience. It was the public sermon that sparked debate and consideration in conversation with the church member and none church member alike.
It was these minds that developed the ideas of freedom and government that would eventually be formulated and consummated in our Constitutional Government. If you establish two columns of thought running parallel to each other, one church government and the other civil government, you quickly see in the American system the two are extremely similar. It is easy to see the same mind of thought processing their development.
"That which doth make a people a joined people with God, that doth also make a church, and what is that? The covenant of grace doth make a people, a joined people with God, and therefore a Church of God." ~ John Cotton (1636).
A covenant or constitution does make a people, an agreement of ideas of which a people can covenant together to live by does also make a nation. The formation of our government was a natural growth out of the minds of a people so familiar with Church covenant. The Church does not exist because of the Pastor or Elders in leadership, but because a group of people covenanted to live together by the principles they derived from the sacred Scriptures. They then chose their leaders to serve as a means to promote and govern from those principles in their practice of worship.
It seems but a natural course for such minds so familiar in faith and practice to approach a means of civil government in the same way. It is easy to see our people rallying around the idea's being formulated through our Constitution and becoming a people and nation cemented together by that Constitution. Their rules of society were already established by their faith, and the means by which to practice and govern that society were already well established by their understanding of biblical covenanting. A government whose leaders were chosen by the people, given the responsibility to enforce, define, and establish those principles, and yet remain accountable to a faithful execution of that duty was readily in their minds.
It is difficult for us to imagine a system such as the American experience to just come about by chance or luck. It is also just a difficult to imagine a human mind or minds brilliant enough to contrive such a system simply by political theory or the study of human governments. Even if it was possible to achieve such a marvelous feat, selling the idea and establishing it in the minds of people would be an even greater miracle. However, with a culture permeated with thousands of sermons for years and a ready understanding of covenant ideas, the time was right and a people was ready and a nation was born.
Lest we speak to highly of such a system, we must understand it has a great weakness, it is established and maintained by men. John Cotton again states: "It is therefore fit for every man to be studious of the bounds which the Lord hath set. And for the People, in whom fundamentally all power lye's, to give as much power as God in his word give to men. And it is meet that Magistrates in the Commonwealth, and so Officers in churches should desire to know the utmost bounds of their own power, and it is safe for both. All intrenchment upon the bounds which God hath not given, they are not enlargements, but burdens and snares." ~ John Cotton.
If diligence is not given, men will encroach upon and break beyond the limits of power they have been entrusted with. This is true in both Civil and Church government, for it is simply in the nature of man to do so. The checks and balances in the American system of government were not placed there just in case, they were placed there because the true nature of man was all to familiar to them. Sermon upon sermon had been exposited and the true nature of man well examined.
Today the church is almost unrecognizable to the one that instructed the minds of our people in the first century of formation. Our civil government is as much unrecognizable as to the one they formed. The principles have changed, the means have changed, and the understanding of covenantal government is all but lost, leaving us with confusion and division. All of the elements that made it all possible are no longer in place for its maintenance. We are in grave danger in todays society, only a glimpse at the previous thousands of years of human history are necessary to see the levels of which men can and will digress.
We keep hoping for reform, that somehow we can "Make America Great Again", we have forgotten we were not the author of our own history. We were just recipients of a time and place when the minds of men were affected by the Gospel in such a manner it gave birth to civil freedom and government of a most unique form. What we have lost may not be recoverable in our time. It is improbable the nation will ever return to the principles established in its beginning. The states have succumbed to the over whelming power of the Federal Government, therefore they are very limited to what they can do as individual states. The Federal Government has grown beyond the scope of Constitutionalism. It has expanded in size in that there are many entities and created departments which are not governed or restrained by the Constitution. Some are even above the supervision of the branches that created them.
You can listen to most of the Christian media which is broadcast today 24/7 for an entire year, and you will not hear one sermon similar to the sermons heard and discussed during the formation of our nation. The sermons are filled with a man centered message that favors a Narcissistic mind set and blends with our national hopes of prosperity and equality. They are lending themselves to political powers for their restored hope and have forgotten the demands of the true Gospel's call to suffering and self-denial. The true church will not rise up in support of some political entity to reestablish a hope for society. It will do what it always has, preach the Gospel of Christ and live their lives in accordance to His demands in every area of their lives. They will trust in the Providence of God to establish reform in the society through the effects of living and preaching the true Gospel. That is what first gave birth to freedom, it is what alone will maintain that freedom, and that alone will restore that freedom to society.
May the Grace of God be with each of you,
David
