It
has been over one year since the Supreme Court ruled on Obergefell v. Hodges, a decision which granted legal recognition
and moral validation to same-sex “marriage” in the United States. While this decision
was just one of many abuses fueled by the judicial activism of nine unelected
judges, it was also a culmination of sorts in our culture’s ever-increasing
slide into secular humanism over the last several decades. Many Christians marvel
at how we have come to such a place in a nation originally founded on objective
moral and biblical principles. More importantly, they wonder if there is still
a way back. Enter Jenna Ellis and her book The
Legal Basis for a Moral Constitution.
Ellis
is an attorney, professor, and legal analyst who uses her expertise in these
areas to make a persuasive historical and legal case that grounds the authority
of our nation’s Founding Documents in Divine Law, i.e., the discoverable, objective,
unchanging law of God that includes both science and morality. As she explains,
proper constitutional interpretation will be based on reading the U.S.
Constitution in context, interpreting and applying the text correctly, while taking
into account the original intent of the Founding Fathers. This of course
assumes an objective, fixed meaning to the text, a belief many secular
humanists want to replace with the idea of a fluid, changing Constitutional
document possessing no authority higher than man himself. In so doing, secular humanists
undermine their own position by ridding themselves of any adequate grounding
for objective meaning and value judgments, the very things they seemingly wish
to celebrate after the Obergefell
decision. With no universal authority from God, all that is left is man-made government,
and what the government giveth the government can taketh away. Secular
humanists cannot have their cake and eat it too. This is why our Founding
Fathers appealed to Divine Law in securing our inalienable rights, not a social
contract.
If
that’s the case, does this mean Christians should argue for a moral
constitution based solely on the “personal faith” of the Founders? As Ellis convincingly
argues, that would be a mistake. What we need is an objective, legal basis and attempting to establish
Constitutional intent on personal beliefs does not get to the most important interpretative
question when determining meaning: What
does the text say? Unfortunately, this question has taken a back seat in
recent decades due to judicial activism and the misapplication of judicial
review (Marbury v. Madison), whereby the
Supreme Court has usurped power and effectively elevated itself beyond its
originally intended authority and scope into the unchecked, final arbitrator
regarding the interpretation, application, and constitutionality of laws. With
doctrines like judicial review governing our country, appealing to the
“personal faith” of the Founders simply will not win the debate. We need to get
back to the authoritative basis and correct interpretation of the U.S. Constitution,
and this begins by recognizing “that nearly all of the most prominent and
influential Founders were lawyers.”[1]
