The Bible And The Constitution

The population of the United States is roughly 330 million, of which 77% are affiliated in some way with Christianity. In the United States today, the two most revered texts are: The Bible and The United States Constitution. The Bible is the moral compass for a vast majority of the population and The Constitution is the supreme law that defines and governs the United States of America. Both documents have long, storied histories but the question is: should they be held as sacrosanct and inviolate?

The Bible is a collection of stories, letters and accounts of the relationship between God and man. It has chronicled the evolution of God from a judgmental and punitive entity to the understanding and forgiving God of today. It is a collection of different writings, by many authors, who are believed, by many, to be inspired directly by God. Over the thousands of years in which the Bible has been comprised there have been many rewrites. In its current state, The Bible is the highest selling book in history at five billion copies sold. It is believed, by most Christians, to be divine in origin… The Word of God.

In the past, The Bible was used as the reasoning behind persecution, torture and killing. Law and social outrage took that power away from those who used The Bible for this perverse purpose. In modern times, The Bible has had a large influence on much of society. Some laws are derived from the Ten Commandments that, condemns certain acts such as murder, theft and lying and for most people in this country it defines good and bad behavior. However, while it implicitly influences behavior it is not law. Most of the transgressions defined by The Bible are not unlawful and carry no legal consequence. We do not imprison people for missing church on Sunday or having an affair. Quite simply, although it is without a doubt the most widely revered book in the history of mankind, anyone, without fear of legal consequence, can choose to simply dismiss The Bible as fantasy. The fact that it is a choice to believe in The Bible makes its sacrosanct stature acceptable.

The United States Constitution is a document that was ratified into existence in 1788. It bound the original thirteen separate states together into The United States of America. It was written and ratified by men who are now considered to be the “founding fathers” of this nation. The Constitution defines the branches of government, establishes the rights of citizens, and creates a menu of rules and regulations to control all situations that can arise in society and government. It is the highest law in the land and it is the measuring stick for all other laws and activities that occur in society. But beneath the eloquent prose of The Constitution lies the negotiation and compromise of the original thirteen states. In order to form the United States, all the thirteen states had to agree to give up a portion of their sovereignty.  Many compromises had to be made to achieve agreement and ultimately ratification.

Benjamin Franklin is considered by most historians to be one of the great minds of his time. He is one of the most recognizable of the “founding fathers”. At the time of ratification of The Constitution he said this: "There are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them." He would accept the Constitution, “Because I expect no better and because I am not sure that it is not the best”. He knew at the time that the document had problems born out of the nature of comprise. He accepted The Constitution to create a nation.

The claim has never been made that The Constitution is word of God. It was designed and written by smart, but flawed men, 230 years ago. It should not be held as sacrosanct by the citizens of this country. It should be updated and rewritten to reflect, not compromise but a modern nation, formed and ready to define itself in the present.

When the constitution was ratified, the United States was vastly different in every conceivable way than it is today. How is it that anyone can say that they know what men were thinking more than two centuries ago about issues that we have today? The world we live in today has the threat of global war, the internet, emancipated slaves, the fight for the equalization of women, the car, the cell phone, the airplane, the computer, the automatic weapon, the nuclear warhead, space travel, and antibiotics to name a few of the thousands of things that did not exist at the time of the ratification of The Constitution. In the United States today we have real decisions that need to be definitively made. We have societal issues: guns, the right to choose, and free speech. In the administration of government: elections, powers of the president, the legislative branch, term limits, and the electoral college can all be rationally questioned. The judicial branch has become extremely political. A condition that the original drafters were expressly trying to avoid. Not in direct connection, but still within the concept of jurisprudence; juries, punishment and the state of prisons in this country are all problems that need to be addressed. All these issues are directly influenced by The Constitution; a very old and a very antiquated document.

The following argument, if measured in the view of the inviolate nature of The United States Constitution, will be soundly rejected as blasphemous. I ask that you step away from that view for a moment and allow the logic of the statements to have your attention.

Why did the original drafters of The Constitution make the President the Commander and Chief of the armed forces? Because they knew the first President was going to be George Washington and he was the general in charge of the armed forces. Does anyone believe that the presidents of today, most of whom have no military experience, are qualified to be the Commander and Chief of the greatest military in the history of the world?

Why do we have the House of Representative and the Senate as our Legislative branch? It was a compromise to get small and large states to ratify The Constitution but what is its real purpose now? The Legislative Branch is now truly governed by political parties not states of origin. Could the “founding fathers” have foreseen a state like California being represented on an equal basis as Rhode Island in the Senate? Could these two legislative bodies be reduced to one? Would this make the Legislative Branch more efficient?

The Supreme Court has become hyper-political. It is in direct opposition to the intentions of the framers of the constitution. They did not anticipate that their document, our Constitution, would still be in use and that we would still be trying to figure out “what they intended” two centuries in the future. If we were to draft a new Constitution we would no longer have to wonder what was intended. Our future lives would no longer be at the mercy of the  next "political" appointment to the Court. We will have decided. We will know.

It is not my position that The Constitution, which formed this nation, is anything less than extraordinary. It was a ground breaking document which gave real definition to freedom. In fact, it is the Constitution that gives the citizens of this country the right to choose to believe that The Bible is the word of God. The Constitution gave birth to The United States but is time for us to grow into the potential which it made possible. We are a nation which now must define ourselves with intellect and innovation. We are the most intellectually capable people in the history of humankind. This is no longer a time when we can sit and wonder what others might have done or intended for us to do. The moment is here for self-determined action. To believe in us, in the now, and to make changes in our fundamental makeup; to let history guide but not determine our future.