Bill Lockwood: Democrats: The Anti-God Party of Karl Marx?
by Bill Lockwood
Several recent agendas pushed by the Democrat Party indicate that they are not only the anti-America Party which pushes for Open Borders and a larger socialist confiscation/redistribution program than already exists, but are aggressively adversarial when it comes to belief in God. From chiding judicial nominees who believe in God to removing ‘so help me God’ from oaths—the Democrat Party is adopting the mantle of atheism.
Sen. Cory Booker, for example, recently asked judicial nominee Neomi Rao if she believed that same-sex relationships were immoral. Rao has been nominated to be on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She would replace Brett Kavanaugh if confirmed.
Booker pressed her. “So you’re not willing to say here … whether you believe it is sinful for two men to be married, you’re not willing to comment on that?”
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) asked Amy Coney Barrett, “Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?” in a 2017 hearing. Barret was then a nominee for the 7th Circuit Court. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said to Barrett in that same hearing: “The dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern.”
Brian Buescher was nominated to be on a district court in Nebraska. His membership in the Catholic Knights of Columbus was something that brought out the hostility of Democrat Senators Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Kamala Harris (D-CA). The thought patterns of these prominent Democrats is obviously that any sort of Christian belief is a hindrance to public service.
Removing “So Help You God”
Next, as reported by The Hill, the newly-minted Democrat-led House Committee on Natural Resources is seeking to have the words “so help you God” removed from the oath cited by witnesses who testify before the panel. The proposal was originally obtained by Fox News.
The rules proposal states that witnesses that come before the committee during its hearings would be administered the following oath: ‘Do you solemnly swear or affirm, under penalty of law, that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth [so help you God]? According to Fox News, the “so help you God” phrasing is in brackets in red in the draft and indicates that the words are slated for removal.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) probably summarized this Democrat-led move with the best critique: “It is incredible, but not surprising, that the Democrats would try to remove God from committee proceedings in one of the first acts in the majority…They really have become the party of Karl Marx.”
Art. VI. Sec. 3–No Religious Test
Some may suppose that these godless Democrats are in line with the Constitution at Art. VI, sec. 3 which forbids a “religious test” for public officers in government. But this is ignorant of the meaning of the Constitution.
Article VI of the Constitution gives Americans several General Provisions. One of them involves an “Official Oath” that is to be required of Senators and Representatives and all “executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states.” They shall be “bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution, but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
First, there is to be an ‘oath’ of office. What seems to have escaped the modernist anti-theism approach is that the very nature of an oath assumes that the one giving that oath believes in God. By definition an oath is a solemn “calling upon God to witness the truth of what one says.” In effect it is to say: If I am not telling the truth then I call upon God to strike me down or to punish me
This is why Washington, when taking the first oath of presidential office, added “so help me God.” In the Old Testament an oath was to be taken in God’s name for the same purpose. To “take the Lord’s name in vain” (Exod. 20:7) then, is making a profession in “God’s name” and failing to live up to that profession. Primarily, this involved a legal oath. By extension the command meant “You shall not use the name of God, either in oaths or in common discourse, lightly, rashly, irreverently, or unnecessarily, or without weighty or sufficient cause” (Matthew Henry).
Obviously, by the flippant and irreverent manner in which Americans misuse the name of God has muddied their thinking about Deity and the very nature of an oath. And none are more confused than the Democrats who press for an “oath” without realizing the nature of it.
Second, the oath is itself is a recognition of God. James Iredell, a Justice of the State Supreme Court of North Carolina (1751-1799), during the founding period, commented on Article VI in the following manner.
According to the modern definition of an oath, it is considered a ‘solemn appeal to the supreme being, for the truth of what is said, by a person who believes in the existence of a supreme being and in a future state of rewards and punishments according to that form which will bind his conscience most.’ It was long held that … none but Jews and Christians could take an oath; and heathens were altogether excluded…Men at length considered that there were many virtuous men in the world who had not had an opportunity of being instructed either in the Old or New Testament, who yet very sincerely believed in a supreme being, and in a future state of rewards and punishments…. Indeed, there are few people so grossly ignorant or barbarous as to have no religion at all.
We have reached the point at which the “barbarians” are now running the government from the Democrat side. Iredell explained further pertaining to the oath:
…it is only necessary to inquire if the person who is to take it [the oath] believes in a supreme being and in a future state of rewards and punishments. If he does, the oath is to be administered according to that form which it is supposed will bind his conscience most. It is, however, necessary that such a belief should be entertained, because otherwise there would be nothing to bind his conscience that could be relied on; since there are many cases where the terror of punishment in this world for perjury would not be dreaded.
Third, what then of the No Religious Test? Article VI also states that “there shall be no religious test.” Many of the colonies were established by groups of people who subscribed to certain tenets of various faiths—that is, branches of Protestantism (see Thomas Norton, The Constitution of the United States, 183-84). Their state oaths would automatically exclude at a state level those who had contrary views.
But when it came to the federal government these same delegates insisted that it had no jurisdiction over religious matters. They were particularly fearful that a “federal test might displace existing state test oaths and religious establishments” (David Barton, “A Godless Constitution?: A Response to Kramnick and Moore,” Wallbuilders.com). In other words, the framers believed that religion was a matter better left to individuals and to their respective state governments, not to the federal government. No religious test primarily referred to the various exclusive doctrinal tests at the state level and kept the federal government in a neutral position.
However, whether one believed in God or did not subscribe to general biblical principles was far from what was intended in Art. VI, sec. 3. The idea that America might one day become a “godless state” as the current Democrat Party embodies was not in the framer’s minds. As Richard Dobbs Spaight (1758-1802), a representative from North Carolina to the Constitutional Convention, put it: “I do not suppose an infidel or any such person will ever be chosen to any office unless the people themselves be of the same opinion.”
This is what makes the comments of the Cory Booker’s and Dianne Feinstein’s so distasteful. They are not even in a “neutral position.” Their anti-God agenda, which is reflected across the board in the Democratic Party, is open hostility against Christian principles. Little wonder then that the socialism of Karl Marx appeals to them. It begins upon an atheistic platform.