I always find “Imprimis” published by Hillsdale College
intellectually stimulating. The most recent issue _The
Constitution and American Sovereignty_ by Jeremy Rabkin may
be found here: http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis.asp.
As the title suggests it dwells on political rightful
authority. Jeremy opens with sovereignty defined loosely as
“a political community without a political superior”. From
there he mentions the first scholarly study, _Six Books of
the Republic_ written in the late 16th century by Jean
Bodin. The King of France took on political sovereignty
apart from the papal Roman church. It wasn’t a true
separation of church and state because Bodin “insisted on
the monarch’s general obligation to respect the law of
nature and the law of God”. Jeremy goes on to give Bodin’s
thoughts. “His main practical point was that the government
must be strong enough to protect the people’s rights, yet
restrained enough not to do more than that.” It’s
interesting that this is the only function of civil
government mentioned by the apostle Paul in Romans chapter
13. The civil servant, as God’s servant, is to distinguish
between good and evil and punish those who practice evil
deeds. Paul didn’t address what deeds should be punished by
the State and which should not. This was because he knew
the Old Testament had already covered that ground.
This same concept of “separation of church and State” was
reiterated in our own Declaration of Independence. The
point both Bodin and Our Declaration recognized was that the
King, Congress, State, etc. really didn’t have full
political sovereignty. There were limits they must not
cross, which were defined by God Himself. In other words,
only God is the True political sovereign. Jeremy doesn’t
quite get to this conclusion. I’m not sure if he didn’t
like it or what his reason was for not following this simple
logic.
Jeremy then discusses our Federal Constitution. The United
States is a Federal republic where the rule of law
originates in a written document. Our Constitution is no
exception. As Jeremy reminds us “it describes itself
unambiguously as ‘the supreme Law of the Land'”. Every one
of the 50 state Constitutions mentions God in some way or
another as the political sovereign but our Federal
Constitution does not. In fact, in Article VI paragraph 3
it is strictly forbidden to require a religious oath of any
federal official. I think this weakness in being definitive
about the Sovereign God caused our Federal Constitution to
loose clout as being the “supreme Law of the Land”. Our
Declaration of Independence still rings clear and True about
the just cause of the founders of our country. The
Constitution however is becoming a — yawn.
Jeremy goes on to mention economic treaties, and national
conglomerates as detracting authority (sovereignty) from our
Constitution. He concludes with Constitutional sovereignty
giving way to “the notion of some hazy international
standard of conduct that everyone in the world can somehow
agree upon and then enforce on strangers”. I agree with
Jeremy. Unfortunately this is true but he doesn’t address
this built-in weakness of our Constitution, nor does he
mention the most blatant attack on the Constitution’s
sovereignty — the lack of a full-form birth certificate of
our president.
Jeremy concludes his article by mentioning that Bodin “the
first theorist to write about sovereignty understood
witchcraft as a fundamental threat to lawful authority and
so finally to liberty and property and all the other rights
of individuals”. Jeremy simply reminded the reader once
again, without saying so, it’s a question of submission to
God’s sovereignty in all areas of life.