For God, Family and Republic

Psalms 46 (King James Version)
1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
3 Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.
4 There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.
5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.
6 The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.
7 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
8 Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth.
9 He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.
10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
11 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

"This psalm encourages to hope and trust in God; in his power and providence, and his gracious presence with his church in the worst of times. We may apply it to spiritual enemies, and the encouragement we have that, through Christ, we shall be conquerors over them. He is a Help, a present Help, a Help found, one whom we have found to be so; a Help at hand, one that is always near; we cannot desire a better, nor shall we ever find the like in any creature. Let those be troubled at the troubling of the waters, who build their confidence on a floating foundation; but let not those be alarmed who are led to the Rock, and there find firm footing. Here is joy to the church, even in sorrowful times. The river alludes to the graces and consolations of the Holy Spirit, which flow through every part of the church, and through God's sacred ordinances, gladdening the heart of every believer. It is promised that the church shall not be moved. If God be in our hearts, by his word dwelling richly in us, we shall be established, we shall be helped; let us trust and not be afraid."
—Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

These are the words of the Prince of Preachers C.H. Spurgeon, not mine. I admire his writing style and intimate knowledge of the Scriptures.

"Take up the cross, and follow me."
-Mark 10:21

You have not the making of your own cross, although unbelief is a master carpenter at cross-making; neither are you permitted to choose your own cross, although self-will would fain be lord and master; but your cross is prepared and appointed for you by divine love, and you are cheerfully to accept it; you are to take up the cross as your chosen badge and burden, and not to stand cavilling at it. This night Jesus bids you submit your shoulder to his easy yoke. Do not kick at it in petulance, or trample on it in vain-glory, or fall under it in despair, or run away from it in fear, but take it up like a true follower of Jesus. Jesus was a cross-bearer; he leads the way in the path of sorrow. Surely you could not desire a better guide! And if he carried a cross, what nobler burden would you desire? The Via Crucis is the way of safety; fear not to tread its thorny paths.

Beloved, the cross is not made of feathers, or lined with velvet, it is heavy and galling to disobedient shoulders; but it is not an iron cross, though your fears have painted it with iron colours, it is a wooden cross, and a man can carry it, for the Man of sorrows tried the load. Take up your cross, and by the power of the Spirit of God you will soon be so in love with it, that like Moses, you would not exchange the reproach of Christ for all the treasures of Egypt. Remember that Jesus carried it, and it will smell sweetly; remember that it will soon be followed by the crown, and the thought of the coming weight of glory will greatly lighten the present heaviness of trouble. The Lord help you to bow your spirit in submission to the divine will ere you fall asleep this night, that waking with to-morrow’s sun, you may go forth to the day’s cross with the holy and submissive spirit which becomes a follower of the Crucified.

George Washington (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799) was the successful Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army in the American War for Independence from 1775 to 1783. In 1787, he presided over the Constitutional Convention that drafted the current United States Constitution. He became the first President of the United States under the new Constitution, an office to which he was elected, unanimously, and relected to that office, unanimously. He served as President from 1789 to 1797. He was committed to a nationa interest over party interests, and loathed faction.

Related Web Sites of Interest
Archiving Early America - The Life of George Washington
George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens
The Papers of George Washington
Rediscovering George Washington
Smithsonian - George Washington: A National Treasure

One-hundred and forty-two years ago, on February 17, 1864, the C.S.S. Hunley sank in a accident, but not before successfully attacking and sinking a U.S. naval warship. The Hunley was the first submarine to attack and sink a warship, though the sub was also sunk in that same engagement.

It is helpful to capture the background to the Confederate submarine program. In the 1860s, following the secession of the southern states from the Union, and Lincoln's hostility and invasion of those states, the Union possessed a considerable advantage in maritime power. New York and New England were renowned for its shipbuilding industry, thus the Union possessed a decisive advantage of naval power. General-in-Chief Winfield Scott devised a plan in 1861 to crush the Confederacy, and what to strangle southern ports from trade by a naval blockade. This plan was euphemistically dubbed the Anaconda Plan. Thus, the underdog Confederacy hoped to devise ways of breaking the blockade.

"Scott's Great Snake" - The illustration of Union General Winfield Scott's plan to strangle the South with an economic blockade.

Against this blockade, the Confederate strategists sought to innovate combat submarine research, and field combat submarines. The program was pioneered by private investors Horace Lawson Hunley, James McClintock and Baxter Watson.

Confederate inventor Horace Lawson Hunley converted a steam boiler into a submarine. This Confederate submarine could be propelled at four knots by a hand-driven screw. During trials the submarine sank twice during tests in Charleston Harbor killing the crew. In fact, Hunley, the inventor himself was asphyxiated with eight other crew members. Despite this setback, the submarine was recovered, and a new crew was found. To convert it into a combat submarine, it was armed with a 90-pound charge of powder at the end of a long pole projecting from the submarine. The ideal was to simply ram the enemy ship , and the submarine crew would backpedal away from the submarine as quickly as possible thereafter. And on February 17, 1864, the Hunley attacked and sank a federal steam sloop, U.S.S. Housatonic.

Incidentally, the Housatonic was a steam sloop-of-war of the United States Navy, named for one of the rivers of New England, that was launched in 1861 from Boston's Navyyard. It weighed over 1240 tons and was 207 feet long.

The submarine displacement was 7.5 tons, its length was 39 ft 6 in (12.0 m), its beam was 3 ft 10 in, while its propulsion was driven by a hand-cranked propeller, its speed was 4 knots (7 km/h), while its capactiy was 1 officer, 7 enlisted, and its lone armament consisted of a spar torpedo. The Hunley was equipped with two watertight hatches, one fore and one aft, atop two conning towers with small portholes. The hatches were small, measuring 14 by 15¾ inches (356 by 400 mm), which made entrance to and egress from the hull difficult.

The Hunley demonstrated the advantages and dangers attendant to submarine warfare, but inaugurated a whole new era in naval history.

A History of the C.S.S. Hunley from the Naval Historical Center
I won't trifle further with making my own recollection of facts, as the official U.S. Naval Historical Center adequately sums it up. I've thrown in some illustrations and pictures to satisfy the reader's curiosity.

H.L. Hunley was a Confederate submersible that demonstrated the advantage and danger of undersea warfare. Although not this nation's first submarine, Hunley was the first submarine to engage and sink a warship

Privately built in 1863 by Park and Lyons of Mobile, Alabama, Hunley was fashioned from a cylindrical iron steam boiler, which was deepened and also lengthened through the addition of tapered ends. Hunley was designed to be hand powered by a crew of nine: eight to turn the hand-cranked propeller and one to steer and direct the boat. As a true submarine, each end was equipped with ballast tanks that could be flooded by valves or pumped dry by hand pumps. Extra ballast was added through the use of iron weights bolted to the underside of the hull. In the event the submarine needed additional buoyancy to rise in an emergency, the iron weight could be removed by unscrewing the heads of the bolts from inside the vessel.

On 17 February 1864, the Confederate submarine made a daring late night attack on USS Housatonic, a 1,240-ton (B) sloop-of-war with 16 guns, in Charleston Harbor off the coast of South Carolina. H.L. Hunley rammed Housatonic with spar torpedo packed with explosive powder and attached to a long pole on its bow. The spar torpedo embedded in the sloop's wooden side was detonated by a rope as Hunley backed away. The resulting explosion that sent Housatonic with five crew members to the bottom of Charleston Harbor also sank Hunley with its crew of eight. H.L. Hunley earned a place in the history of undersea warfare as the first submarine to sink a ship in wartime.

The search for Hunley ended 131 years later when best-selling author Clive Cussler and his team from the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) discovered the submarine after a 14-year search. At the time of discovery, Cussler and NUMA were conducting this research in partnership with the South Carolina Institute of Anthropology and Archaeology (SCIAA). The team realized that they had found Hunley after exposing the forward hatch and the ventilator box (the air box for the attachment of a snorkel). The submarine rested on its starboard side at about a 45-degree angle and is covered in a 1/4 to 3/4-inch encrustation of ferrous oxide bonded with sand and shell particles. Archaeologists exposed a little more on the port side and found the bow dive plane on that side. More probing revealed an approximate length of 34 feet with most, if not all, of the vessel preserved under the sediment.

The Recovery of the Hunley
In August 2000 archaeological investigation and excavation culminated with the resurrection of Hunley from its watery grave. A large team of professionals from the Naval Historical Center's Underwater Archaeology Branch, National Park Service, the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology and various other individuals investigated the vessel, measuring and documenting it prior to preparing it for removal. Once the on-site investigation was complete, harnesses were slipped underneath the sub one by one and attached to a truss designed by Oceaneering, International, Inc. Then after the last harness had been secured, the crane from Karlissa B began hoisting the submarine from the mire of the harbor. On August 8 at 8:37 AM the sub broke the surface for the first time in over 136 years where it was greeted by a cheering crowd in hundreds of nearby watercraft. Once safely on its transporting barge, Hunley finally completed its last voyage back to Charleston, passing by hundreds of spectators on Charleston's shores and bridges. The removal operation reached its successful conclusion when the submarine was secured inside the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in a specially designed tank of freshwater to await conservation.

All who viewed the vessel said Hunley incorporated an unexpectedly graceful and beautiful design. It is certainly a marvel both for its time period and for modern day researchers. No doubt this small submarine will be the key to unlock many mysteries of a bygone era.

Confederate Submarine CSS H.L. Hunley, suspended from a crane during its recovery off the coast of South Carolina, 8 August 2000. Photographed by Barbara Voulgaris, U.S. Naval Historical Center (public domain).

The Raising of the Hunley
Following the raising of the Hunley, the members of the Hunley crew were given a funeral and buried with full military honors in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 18, 2004. Veterans of the Silent Service of the U.S. Navy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans were involved in the elaborate ceremony, which I have on DVD video. Today, there is a replica of the Hunley at a museum in Mobile, Alabama, and the real Hunley which was recovered in 2000 is held in South Carolina.

Related Web Sites
Answers.com article
Charleston Illustrated
Friends of the Hunley
H.L. Hunley, Confederate Submarine
TheHunley.com

First Samuel Chapter Eight is the clarion statement that my big God doesn't like big government.

The Bible offers lessons from history about the perils of big government statism. The neighbors of the ancient Israelites, the Egyptians enslaved the Israelites at one time. The Egyptians themselves however were practically slaves themselves of Pharoah's socialistic pyramid society. The Pharoah and his narrow clique of priests usually owned most everything.

Likewise, in later times during the period of judges, the stubborn Israelites longed for the autocratic monarchy despite the Prophet Samuel's admonition. Herein in 1 Samuel 8, the Israelites were warned by the prophet of the consequences of their demand. The monarchy embodied prestige for their nation, and they were not content to be a mere confederation of tribes. Though the former loose confederation of tribes were obviously more conducive to liberty and prosperity of the people. The line of messiah of course came through that brief dynasty of Israelite kings.

1 And it came to pass, when Samuel was old, that he made his sons judges over Israel.

2 Now the name of his firstborn was Joel; and the name of his second, Abiah: they were judges in Beersheba.

3 And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment.

4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah,

5 And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.

6 But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD.

7 And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.

8 According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee.

9 Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.

10 And Samuel told all the words of the LORD unto the people that asked of him a king.

11 And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.

12 And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.

13 And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.

14 And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.

15 And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.

16 And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.

17 He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants.

18 And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day.

19 Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us;

20 That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.

21 And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of the LORD.

22 And the LORD said to Samuel, Hearken unto their voice, and make them a king. And Samuel said unto the men of Israel, Go ye every man unto his city.

These selections were from a letter written by Staff Sergeant Daniel Clay, age 27, of the acclaimed U.S. Marine Corps. He was one of ten Marines tragically killed by a roadside explosion in Fallujah on December 1, 2005. Incidentally, one Lt. Colonel Rich Leino serving in Okinawa, Japan brought it to my attention.

This letter if you read it is quite moving. It reveals a young Christian imbued with an eternal perspective. It manifests a realization that life is vapor. Likewise, he writes with courages and conviction that we have conquered death, through faith in Christ Jesus.

I leave aside all political comment about the War in Iraq, and focus on his affirmation of faith. Therein, this young man affirms his love for his country, his family, and foremost his faith in Jesus Christ. He obviously wrote this letter sometime beforehand and kept in safe keeping at his barracks in the event of his death.

(Click the images below to view excerpts, or click here for the whole letter in Adobe Acrobat format.)

Therein, he notes, "[a]s a Marine this is not the last chapter. I have the privilege of being one who finished the race." Here Daniel aludes to the Race of Faith in Hebrews 12:1-2:

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

His father Bud Clay wrote:

Dan was a Christian--he knew Jesus as Lord and Savior--so we know where he is. In his final letter (one left with me for the family--to be read in case of his death) he says "if you are reading this, it means my race is over." He's home now--his and our real home.

The Marine motto is Semper Fidelis, meaning always faithful. While another humble Marine once told me, he is not sure that applies to him, our Lord is Semper Fidelis. For Daniel, he had more than just a blessed hope, but a blessed assurance. "Here is notice! Wake up! All that we hope for is Real! Not a hope! But real!" He fought the good fight and ran the race of faith. He was soldier first and foremost in the Army of Jesus Christ. Godspeed Staff Sergeant Daniel Clay, U.S. Marine Corps.





(Photo Credit: DefenseLink, U.S. Military File Photo)

In my time, I've run across an increasing number of Christians who fancy themselves as advocates of what they call social justice. For example, Ralph Reed, the Christian Coalition chief even mentions it as a laudable goal in his book Active Faith. According to Wikipedia, social justice advocates may concern themselves with The redistribution of wealth, power and status for the individual, community and societal good. The pious phraseology social justice has become a virtual synonym for economic and social equality.

Aristotle opined: "All men believe that justice means equality in some sense... The question we must keep in mind is, equality or inequality in what sort of thing." Nineteenth-century classical liberal conceptions of equality saw equality before the law as the only ideal to be sought after. The pursuit of equality of condition, however, is untenable and incompatible with human nature. Men had "different and unequal faculties of acquiring property," reflected Madison in the Federalist. The diversity of those faculties, and the inherent inequalities by virtue of nature, was why it is important that "the protection of those faculties is the first object of Government." The task of government was thus to set inherently unequal persons into a system of laws that would, as proximate as possible, equal their rights while allowing their innate differences to express themselves. As Jefferson observes, "There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents." (Jefferson drew a distinction between an artificial aristocracy, which was really an oligarchy. Aristos was a Greek word simply meaning the best.) This was a vision for a meritocratic America, or a career open to the talents. In a meritocratic society, individuals as of right should enjoy the fruits of their honest labor and toil, and use whatever faculties and providential blessings to rise as high as the can, insofar as they do not acquire by means of force and fraud. A meritocratic society does not punish success, but allow people to fulfill their talents in the marketplace of ideas, skills and labor.

The insurgent egalitarian ideology underestimates the reality of human inequalities, and never seem to learn the lessons of history raised by equalitarian tyrannies, whether of the Jacobin, Jacobite, or the Leninist variety.

Whereever the pious phraseology social justice rears its head in public policy formulation, it is usually some ideological cover for social engineering and wealth redistribution by the state. As economist F.A. Hayek notes, "The modern tendency to gratify this passion and to disguise it in respectable garment of social justice is developing into a serious threat to freedom." Where social justice has emerged in foreign policy formulation, it has lead to needless foreign aid. Foreign aid and IMF loans really only prop up Third World dictators and kleptocrats that use the aid for their spoils system and to prop up a statist system. Such aid only represses capital formation and stifles the development of free-markets, and undercuts its idealistic and noble purpose.

Where social justice emerges in churches, it has led to the advocacy of an errant Social Gospel. Churches infatuated with the Social Gospel inevitably lose sight of the true mission of the church, in their misguided humanitarian mission. Also, adherants of the Social Gospel could not content themselves in their humanitarian mission with their own resources, so they began advocating redistribution by the heavy hand of the paternalistic state. As H.L. Mencken says, "The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army, by running flop-houses and disturbing the peace."

A reflective political thinker should discard extol for social justice. It is an inherently ideologically leftist term, and the parlance of certain liberal Catholics, Progressives, Greens, Social Democrats, Marxists and other assorted leftists. Christians that esteem social justice, the brainchild of Karl Marx, ought to turn their focus onto a more Biblical doctrine of charity and Wilhelm Roepke's idea of the humane economy. I am not talking of charity through ideological lens of liberation theology, but what charity means commensurate with the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul. Charity is not accomplished by collectivist ponzi schemes, charity is not committed at gunpoint, and charity is not accomplished through coercion.

Related Articles

Social Justice: Code for Communism

• A Constitutional Federal Republic: The United States was framed as a constitutionally-limited republic, which places limits not only on the powers of government but also on that of majority rule. Our Constitution and federal system with its checks and balances and institutional safeguards is perhaps the best framework devised in human history for procuring ordered liberty.
• The Scope of Limited Government: The proper and rightful function of government is to defend the people and territorial integrity of our Union, as well as provide for an equitable, just, and fair administration of justice.
• Ordered Liberty: Ordered liberty requires civic responsibility, and as such citizens of have the duty to stay informed on civic matters, to accept jury duty and exercise prudence in voting. The essence of republican self-government is for each and every citizen to govern themselves in accordance to the Ten Commandments of God.
• A Free-Market Economy: The allocation of resources by the free play of supply and demand is the only economic system that is conducive to the freedom, happiness and prosperity of a nation. The free-market prospers within a prudent civil and legal framework for prosecuting acts of force and fraud, enforcing contracts, and upholding private property rights.
• Objective Moral Norms: There is an objective transcendent moral order, which is ascertainable in the customs, conventions and morality defined by Christian tradition and revealed religious truth. Such objective norms serve to inform and guide civil society while the absence of such norms will lead to the deterioration of civil society and ordered liberty.

For the Christian soldier, we're not fighting against flesh and blood, but against spiritual darkness in high places. Our warfare is spiritual in nature, and Christ has given us his revealed Word and the Holy Spirit to aid us in our spiritual struggles. When we go into battle, we should take up the whole armor of God. Life has its ups and downs, and its storms, and it is often when we're broken and in despair that we recognize our unequivocal total dependence upon the risen savior to move forward and fight the good fight. It's in His strength and not our own that we perservere in faith. Yeshua sustains us.

"...be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, ...

* having girded your waist with truth,
* having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and
* having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace
* taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all
the fiery darts of the wicked one
* take the helmet of salvation, and
* the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;

...praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints."
—Ephesians 6:10-18

"The task of all Christian scholarship—not just biblical studies—is to study reality as a manifestation of God's glory, to speak and write about it with accuracy, and to savor the beauty of God in it. It is a massive abdication of scholarship that so many Christians do academic work with so little reference to God."
—John Piper, The Pleasures of God, p. 298

The Imperial President and the Breakdown of the Rule of Law

by John W. Whitehead
1/2/2006

The “accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands…may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
—James Madison, Federalist Paper No. 47

George W. Bush assumed near-absolute power soon after the September 11, 2001, attacks. Unfettered by Congress or the Constitution, Bush led the “war on terror” abroad and championed both the USA Patriot Act and Homeland Security Department domestically. This, of course, led to the Bush Administration’s demand that presidential wartime powers permit the President to assume complete control over any and all aspects of an international war on terrorism. Such control included establishing military tribunals and eliminating basic rights long recognized under American law.

The recent revelation that Bush authorized the National Security Agency to secretly spy on American citizens, thus violating federal law and bypassing judicial oversight, raises serious questions concerning presidential power—especially since Bush claims that he possesses “inherent” authority to suspend laws during wartime. Chief among them are a decrease in congressional power to influence wartime decisions and a large increase in power for the executive branch, which would effectively set a historical precedent for unlimited presidential powers.

At stake here is the “rule of law.” If the President can simply chart his course and establish his own rules, not being bound by the legislative or judicial branches of the government, he is effectively “above the law.” In fact, he is the law.

Indeed, if the judiciary and Congress have significantly diminished roles during perceived times of war, what rule of law binds the President? The frightening answer is that there isn’t one.

Generally, history has demonstrated that presidential powers have a constant and evolving ebb and flow. The President’s power typically increases dramatically during a time of war and steadily decreases during times of peace. This pattern has had extremely significant consequences through the passage of time.

For example, during the presidency of John Adams, James Madison was shocked out of retirement by what he perceived as an unconstitutional abuse of power. At issue were the Alien and Sedition Acts, which significantly curtailed the rights of foreigners and the press during a time of national crisis. Addressing these laws, Madison, whose words are relevant for today, wrote: “The bill is a monster that must forever disgrace its parents.” He added, “It dispenses with trial by jury, it violates the judicial process…and it bestows upon the President despotic power.” And this is from the framer who, unlike others who feared a powerful president, supported a strong and independent executive leader. Madison summed up his disapproval of the increasingly powerful executive branch, while also understanding its necessity, when he said, “As there is a degree of depravity in mankind, which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust, so there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form.”

Later, it was Lyndon Johnson who expanded the role and powers of the President. In order to escalate the war in Vietnam, Johnson assumed major war-making powers with little regard for the views of Congress, the judiciary or the general public. For instance, Johnson had already dispersed U.S. forces throughout Vietnam well before Congress had even drafted the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of 1964, which gave the president the power to resolve the conflict with any means necessary. Likewise, George H. W. Bush had sent off 550,000 soldiers to the perimeter of Kuwait before conceding a “discussion” with Congress about the decision to go to war.

But undoubtedly the most recent glaring example of swelled presidential war powers is illustrated by President Ronald Reagan throughout the 1980s. Reagan successfully embarked on a trail leading to unfettered presidential power and discretion. Reagan’s decision to send an American “peacekeeping” force to Lebanon was in complete disregard of the War Powers Resolution. Passed in 1973, this resolution requires, among other things, that the President “consult with Congress” prior to making war. Reagan also snubbed his nose at Congress when he attacked Grenada. On neither of these occasions did Reagan consult Congress, inform Congress or even seem to care what Congress thought about his decisions. Strikingly, in addressing his role as “Commander-in-Chief,” Reagan once remarked, “I do not and cannot cede any of the authority vested in me under the Constitution as President and Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces.”

Even congressional and judicial attempts to limit the powers of the President during times of war have failed through time. Therefore, it seems that history, if an adequate and accurate indicator, shows that the President’s “imperial power” is virtually unlimited.

However, a “strict constructionist’s” view of the Constitution indicates that President Bush is clearly exceeding his power. In fact, while there is a clear tension between the legislature and executive built into the Constitution regarding wartime powers, any objective reading forces one to conclude that Congress must, at the very least, be involved in decisions made by a President. The Constitution clearly divides wartime responsibilities among both the President and Congress. For instance, the President has the following responsibilities: receive diplomatic representatives of other nations, appoint (with the approval of the Senate) U.S. diplomats, negotiate treaties (subject to the ratification of the Senate) and be the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Congress, on the other hand, shares in this weighty responsibility in the following ways: authority to declare war, raising of military forces, providing funds for the military and the right to ratify or reject treaties.

From this, it is absolutely clear that the framers did not give the President a vast array of unilateral foreign policy powers. As constitutional historian W. Taylor Reveley III writes, “If we could find a man in the state of nature and have him first scan the war-power provisions of the Constitution and then look at war-power practice since 1789, he would marvel at how much Presidents have spun out of so little.”

The structure of the Constitution simply fails to support the notion that the President, as George Bush claims, has unfettered—or even more than slightly limited “inherent”—wartime powers. A reasoned review of the list of the above powers and the way they were distributed among Congress and the President reveals a blatant synthesis. It is that the President was to be a liaison, spokesperson and principal diplomat for the young republic, while Congress was to “declare,” and by extension “wage,” war. Even the provision describing the President as the commander-in-chief fails to support modern ideas of presidential wartime powers assumed by George W. Bush. This language, on its face, provides the President with the clear and unmistakable power to be the leader of the military—not, as has been done, to bypass domestic and foreign law.

This view of the Constitution is consistent with early documents. For instance, the Declaration of Independence was a scathing indictment of a monarch the framers believed had too much power. Consequently, one of the chief concerns of the framers when they created a constitutional system including separation of powers was to significantly limit the power of the President. In fact, many early Americans feared even the existence of a chief executive. And an executive was only created after the Articles of Confederation were changed and the framers determined that a President was a necessary evil to balance out their ingenious form of government. Even then, the office of President was created with an extremely limited role.

Simply put, if we are to preserve any semblance of the framers’ vision, presidential power must be restricted to that originally intended. However, practically speaking, such a result is very unlikely. Indeed, an increasingly weak and corrupt Congress offers little in the way of curbing executive power. As Jonathan Schell writes: “If Congress accepts Bush’s usurpation of its legislative power, they will be no Congress and might as well stop meeting.”

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.

Today, Saturday February 4, 2006, marks the centennial of the birth of the legendary German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was born in Breslau on February 4, 1906. His father was a prominent German psychiatrist in Berlin; his mother home-schooled the children. He studied at Tubingen, Berlin, and abroad in the United States at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

I bury myself in a very unchristian and immodest way. A crazed ambition, which some have noticed about me, makes life difficult...Then something else happened, something that up to this day has changed and rearranged my life. I came for the first time to the Bible...I had already often preached; I had already seen much of the church, even spoken and written about it - and still I had never become a Christian, but instead was very furiously and unrestrainedly my own Lord...Also I had never prayed, or only very little. I was with utter abandonment entirely content with myself. The Bible has liberated me from that, and especially the Sermon on the Mount. Since that time everything has become different.
A Letter to Elisabeth Zinn, 1936

He was strongly opposed to the Nazi regime, but returned home to share in the suffering of his people, because he believed he had no place in helping in the reconstruction unless he stood alongside them. He founded the Confessing Church and rejected attempts to pollute the Christian church with Nazi ideology or put them church under the thumb of the state. As a leader of the Protestant resistance, he covertly supported the Allies, and believed that Nazi Germany's destruction was the only way to save Germany. He tried to run a seminary of the Confessing Church which was closed by the Nazis. His life reflected the moral dilemma and struggles of believers in standing up to tyranny, and persecution against the church and others.

Bonhoeffer at times become a riddle unto himself, as he tirelessly confronted his own sinful nature, and affirmed the vitality of grace.

Who Am I?
Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cell’s confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
Like a squire from his country-house.

Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders
Freely and friendly and clearly,
As though it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
Equally, smilingly, proudly,
Like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
Struggling for breath, as though hands were
compressing my throat,
Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
Tossing in expectation of great events,
Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, 0 God, I am Thine!

On October 5, 1944, Bonhoeffer was transferred from Tegel to the main Gestapo prison in Berlin in the Prinz Albrechstrasse. Bonhoeffer died April 9, 1945 at the Flossenburg concentration camp. He was executed by the National Socialists after being loosely implicated in the Abwehr plot against Hitler. He was arrested, imprisoned, and hanged. He died with composure and peace.

Though a Lutheran and outside of my Reformed theological tradition, Bonhoeffer will forever remain a hero and a great Christian teacher in my book. I've read his great classics The Costs of Discipleship and Ethics. Few if any books have elicited tears, save the Holy Bible but the The Costs of Discipleship was one of them.

Costly Grace by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace.

Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjack's wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church's inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite. What would grace be if it were not cheap?

Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian "conception" of God. An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins. The Church which holds the correct doctrine of grace has, it is supposed, ipso facto a part in that grace. In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial of the living Word of God, in fact, a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God.

Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before. "All for sin could not atone." The world goes on in the same old way, and we are still sinners "even in the best life" as Luther said. Well, then let the Christian live like the rest of the world, let him himself on the world's standards in every sphere of life, and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin. That is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom sin departs. Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the Cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows Him.

Costly grace is the Gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it costs God the life of His Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon His Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but deliver Him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.

Costly grace is the sanctuary of God; it has to be protected from the world, and not thrown to the dogs. It is therefore the living word, the Word of God, which He speaks as it pleases Him. Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow Him; it is grace because Jesus says: "My yoke is easy and My burden light."