OPINION:
In a recent interview, Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said the United States is not a Christian nation but rather one that is “creedal.”
He went on to extol the principles of “equality, inalienable rights and self-rule” as being above any commonly held religious beliefs or consequent moral obligations. More specifically, Mr. Gorsuch said, “[America] was not founded on a religion. It is not based on a common culture, even, or heritage. We’re a creedal nation.”
The fact that one of the supposed “conservative” judges of our nation’s highest court just made such a statement should stun all of us. Why? Because it is simply not true, and anyone with an elementary school understanding of American history should know it.
How could Justice Gorsuch not know that the principles he claims to cherish — such as “equality, inalienable rights and self-rule” — do not just create themselves ex nihilo, i.e., out of nothing? How could he not know that human rights, personal liberty and the right to self-governance must be grounded in something and that their source is the very religion, culture and common heritage he denies?
How could he not know that our Founding Fathers — the ones who wrote, signed and championed the “creed” he says he loves — said the exact opposite of what he claims?
How could he not know that the authors of our nation’s creed told us repeatedly that we, in fact, are a country of common faith and common values and that what binds us together is our Judeo-Christian understanding and respect for the Bible?
How could Justice Gorsuch not know that James McHenry, for example, declared, “The Holy Scriptures … can alone secure to society order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability and usefulness.”
How could he not know that President John Quincy Adams said, “No book in the world deserves to be so unceasingly studied and so profoundly meditated upon as the Bible. [It is] the first and almost the only book deserving such universal recommendation.”
How could he not know that one of our earliest American historians, W.P. Strickland, observed, “Who … will call into question the assertion that this is a Bible nation? Who will charge the government with indifference to religion when the first Congress of the States assumed all the rights and performed all the duties of a Bible Society long before such an institution had an existence in the world!”
How could Justice Gorsuch not know that John Jay (Founding Father and original chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court) said, “The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the Word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue, therefore … to regulate your life by its precepts.”
How could he not know that Jay went further to declare, “The Moral or Natural Law was given by the Sovereign of the universe to all mankind … Being founded by infinite wisdom and goodness on essential right, which never varies, it can require no amendment or alteration.” Lest we miss his point, he concluded by saying, “The Gospel not only recognizes the whole Moral Law and extends and perfects our knowledge of it, but also enjoins on all mankind the observance of it. Being ordered by a Legislator of infinite wisdom and rectitude and in Whom there is ‘no variableness,’ it must be free from imperfection and therefore never has nor ever will require any [change].”
How could any “conservative” justice of any court not know all this?
America’s common religious and cultural heritage is irrefutable. It is the glue that has bound us together for 250 years. It is the source and stability of the national “creed” that Justice Gorsuch so admires.
None of the freedoms and rights he is charged to defend would exist without the very faith and foundation he now sidesteps and denies.
Those who gave their blood and fortune to bequeath to us the liberties Justice Gorsuch now celebrates knew this. They also made it very clear that should we ever forget that we are, in fact, a people bound together by this common faith and common heritage, that our efforts at “self-rule” would fail and our country would fall.
Before the good justice grants any more interviews, he might do well to go back and read a little bit of American history. I recommend he start with President John Adams: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people and is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
• Everett Piper (dreverettpiper.com, @dreverettpiper), a columnist for The Washington Times, is a former university president and radio host. He is the author of “Not a Day Care: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth” (Regnery). He can be reached at epiper@dreverettpiper.com.
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