Perhaps you have not been paying attention over the last few weeks and months, or maybe you are one of the masses who just do not care. However, in case there is a glimmer of interest, you need to know that there is a dramatic and real constitutional crisis facing our nation that has tentacles that will reach far beyond what many may think is possible.
While the U.S. Constitution, our nation’s basic document, intended to create co-equal branches of government ripe with checks and balances to offset extraordinary power in any individual segment, the reality of that aspiration has never quite been accomplished. For many years, the judiciary was seen as the stepchild of the other two branches. Then, there has always been tension between the administrative and legislative branches, with the legislative bodies historically taking the more powerful position. The Great Depression and World War II gave us a much more robust presidency under Franklin Roosevelt that has continued to this day. Then it was Chief Justice Earl Warren, a Dwight Eisenhower appointee, who presided over SCOTUS from 1953 to 1969 and led the charge of revolutionizing the power of that body.
Now, we find ourselves as a nation with a real power struggle amongst our branches of government, which is predominately pitting the presidency of Donald Trump against the judiciary of Barack Obama and Joe Biden. The legislature is almost in a neutered state. It cannot bring itself to be effective because of the inner turmoil of liberal vs. conservative and an additional dose of civil war even within those two separate factions.
Ironically, the very individual that the Democrat/Ultra Left Wing hates the most is a creature of its own design. Their “monster” of Donald Trump would not even exist in his present powerful state if the democrats had tended to their own business and monitored their own actions for greed, excess power, and morality. Executive Orders are not the best way to navigate a democratic republican form of government. But when a system of government becomes so broken, its use may become necessary to correct the wrongs of the anarchical power of disruptive activity. Make no mistake, though, what power is granted to Mr. Trump now will also be available to the next president, who may be of an entirely different stripe than he. At its rawest form, a runaway presidency and/or judiciary and a stalemated legislature are the base formula for developing an autocratic government that surely none of us want to see come to pass in America.
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So, where did we deviate from the intended norm set out in our Constitution? You do not have to look far to discover at least some symptomatic causes. First of all, the polarization of our political and cultural world seeped into our government in a mighty way. This, in and of itself, at times caused the legislative body to become hamstrung. At a minimum, the “making of sausage” is not a pretty sight, but when you add the vicious, vociferous, and sometimes violent division, then practical compromise is reduced to a vague memory. You need not go back more than 20 to 30 years to discover that, at one point, there was little significant difference between our political parties. Though there certainly was a good deal of rhetoric, there was also a tradition of working together to reach some sort of compromise that might actually benefit the country as a whole. That simply is no longer the case in our nation.
Secondly, there has been a kudzu vine of bureaucracy layered upon itself within our government that does not do much more than perpetuate power in its cluster of nameless faces. It has steadily grown larger and larger through the years as it was fed. Regardless of the origins of the invasive species, the result is that our lives are being determined to a great extent by an unelected, uncontrolled, and often parasitic hoard of unseen minions of mischief.
Though these manifestations are certainly problematic, the root cause of the downturn of our country goes even further than simply the melee that seems to be constantly rearing its ugly head between the Republicans and Democrats. If you want to trace the political roots of the constitutional conundrum that we now face in America, you will find it in the birth of the concept that our U.S. Constitution is a “living, breathing” document that yields itself to changing interpretations and importance based-on the culture then existing. In other words, the culture, or sub-culture, decides what issue they want to support and thereafter begins to bend the written document’s meaning to their desired preference of opinion. This low view of our founding document carries with it the concept that there is, therefore, no absolute truth, but only the whims of whatever faction is in control at the moment. Governance then becomes nothing more than one group trying to gain power to force its opinion on the other group before the second group can return the favor by gaining power first. It is a dangerous rabbit hole to try to traverse as a people. America is a nation of laws that emanate from the solid written word of our Constitution. Those grand words applied at its inception, and they apply to our government and civilization today in just the same manner. We, as a people, cannot and must not seek to manipulate our greatest document to suit the fantasies of some obscure minority if this “government of the people, by the people and for the people shall long endure.”
Finally, one more serious issue facing the United States is the main root cause of our precipitous situation. The founders of our great country, who gave us our original Constitution and Bill of Rights, understood that Americans could not stand as free people without the morality wrought by faith in God. While our governmental entity was never intended to be a theocracy (in fact there was a fear of that form of government), Christianity and its moral base were certainly intended to be our conscience. Since the 1960s America on the national level has been intentionally erasing the God line of ethics and morality that was, and still should be, the bedrock of our people. Not only has this God line been under attack in the marketplace, but all too often it has fallen prey to destruction by some within the church as well. Without a return to the biblical worldview that our forefathers deemed so necessary, this nation that we love dearly will become nothing more than a footnote on the pages of time.
At Southern Evangelical Seminary (SES) we sense the peril of the precipice upon which America stands. Through the momentary jeopardy of our imperilment, we also trace the hand of God that brings the surety of His sovereign protection for those who call His name. Because of this blessed assurance, SES will not be “trusting in the chariots” of America, but we will be true patriots of this great nation by continuing to call her people into the absolute truth found only in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For Southern Evangelical Seminary, there is simply no other course of action than to be steadfast in this eternal truth.
After a successful career as a lawyer and judge, Judge Phil Ginn retired as the Senior Resident Superior Court Judge for the 24th Judicial District in North Carolina. Throughout his 22-year judicial career, he had the privilege of holding court in almost 50% of the county seats in North Carolina. Currently, Judge Ginn serves as the president of Southern Evangelical Seminary (ses.edu) and is a regular contributor to Christianity.com and The Washington Times. Judge Ginn has also been featured on Fox News, CBN, Newsmax, Decision Magazine, The Christian Post, Townhall and many others.
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