In a recent speech, President Obama enunciated upon the Statue of Liberty. In so doing, the representative purpose of the monument was grossly distorted. In the oratory she was re-interpreted or re-defined as a veritable "statue of immigration" as opposed to being a "statue of liberty." The President reinforced this misguided emphasis by interpolating an excerpt from Emma Lazarus' poem The New Colossus (written in 1883).
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
His salient thrust, arguably, was to portray the Statue of Liberty (and thus America) as nothing more than a welcome mat to one and all around the world.
The Statue of Liberty, of course, commemorated the Declaration of Independence. This was a quintessential expression of liberty and freedom. The gift of the statue from the French was designed to represent the light of liberty and freedom moving outward into the rest of the world, not a resounding invitation to those interested in immigration. In fact, she was originally called Liberty Enlightening the World. She incontrovertibly stands as an icon of liberty and freedom, not immigration.
Rush Limbaugh's comments on this maleversation of the President are poignant, "The torch is not to light the way to the United States. It is to light the way to liberty to the rest of the world. Lady Liberty is carrying the light of liberty to the rest of the world. It is not a beacon for immigrants to get to this country because they're tired, they're poor, they're huddled, hungry, or thirsty. The President of the United States has joined the chorus of those who have purposely misrepresented the Statue of Liberty--making it out to be the statute of immigration, misrepresenting Emma Lazarus--and it's just an outrage how wantonly open the destruction and revision and redefinition of the great traditions and institutions that define this country is taking place now, at the hands of this regime." (Bold and italics mine)
Why is this worthy of note you may be inquiring. Well re-read the last sentence of what Limbaugh opines. He has given cadence to one of the most disastrous and dastardly practices of our day and time; REVISIONISM. As I alluded to above, the President was revising America's history in the obvious distortions and misrepresentations interspersed throughout his speech en toto. This is significant because of the implications of such concerted efforts. When you attempt to redefine or revise historical actualities you are aiming to redefine or revise the memory of those actualities. Those memories are what give the present meaning and purpose. The culture America enjoys and knows today is directly related to the historical consciousness of its people. In other words, those historical actualities are what mold and shape the culture of its environs. Revisionists, such as the President, are aiming to change the culture of America by redefining and revising its memory. The most effective way to change a culture or national milieu is to change its memory and in so doing its mind. The farther a people distance themselves from their history the farther they remove themselves from who they are. As Heraclitus asserted, "to not know what happened before you were born is to remain forever a child." National progress and maturation has ceased due to loss of memory. This effect is very much analogous to Alzheimer's disease.
This reminds me though of what has been more substantially forgotten within the borders of these United States. The memory of our Judeo-Christian moorings have receded into the most obscure corners of our nation's consciousness. The lions share of our countries foundational documents were forged within the fires of God's word, THE HOLY BIBLE. Yet, the name of God has been removed from our educational institutes, the Ten Commandments have been removed from our courthouses and the public domain so forth and so on. Much like Israel demanding a king in place of God who was their King, America has transposed Christ and His church with civil government which has led and is leading them astray.
This has resulted not from the success of secular society per se or the city of man (a distinction popularized by St. Augustin of Hippo). Instead it has resulted from a memory loss within Christendom. The warp and woof of a nation's culture reflects the culture of the church (the City of God), or lack there of. The church of our day is far removed from any sense of historic meaning. The historicity of Christianity along with its inextricable essential meaning has been divorced from present culture and consciousness so much so that the contemporary church has morphed into something foreign to her antecedent tradents. More pointedly, the church has lost its memory of historic scripture and its meaning in the same way America has lost its memory of her history, particularly her historic charters which were, as noted above, born from scriptural precedent and principle. This is evinced by the many exponents of America's revisionism who are presently postulating that the Constitution is more or less a living document (judicial activism et al) while the current President maintains that the Bill of Rights is a list of negatives. This is revisionism at its most abominable pinnacle. Again the culture reflects the church.
Much like America in general, the church has been suffering from her own form of revisionism dating back to its theological inception within the Germanic revisionist schools vis a vis source criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism (redaktionsgeschichte). In as much as these traditions have some value to understanding and interpreting scripture they have contributed to an assault on Holy Writ that has devolved into post modern trends to handle scripture as a living document devoid of historically intrinsic meaning derived from those recorded actualities very much akin to the Barthian historisch. Subsequently, many church practitioners have taken a liberty to redefine and revise scriptural precedent to better suit their subjective and experiential preferences, comforts as well as conveniences.
The God of sacred scripture is the God of history as He sovereignly governs all things providentially. He divinely saw fit to inspire men within the context of historical actualities to transcribe truths that were later canonized by way of sovereign governance as an absolute charter for the church not subject to liberal revisionists and their sinful demagoguery.
Can there be any question why our politicians are intrepidly attempting to revise American history and her governing charters when the church has sordidly and contemptuously revised her history and her governing charter the HOLY BIBLE. When the church returns to scripture in purity and is governed by it, as Christ the King who is her head reigns, the repugnant efforts of "heathen kings" within our governments ranks to revise and redefine will collapse on their heads.
Recall the historical record of the kings of Israel. After Israel said, "appoint for us a king to judge us like all nations," thus rejecting God as king over them (I Sam. 8:6-7) a kingly caste emerged. King David ascended to the throne and was a man after God's own heart. Israel enjoyed peace and prosperity as a nation the likes of which they would never enjoy again to this date. However, when Solomon occupied the throne a trend began to precipitate. Each king in succession was to, "keep the charge of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his rules, and his testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses," (this charge is interspersed throughout I Kings). As each king succeeded after Solomon, this charge became noticeably absent from memory. The "Book of Moses" or the "Book of the Law" eventually was lost and "heathen kings" of sorts, prevailed as Israel waned. (During this history Israel was divided into two: the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom, the temple was broken and Israel and Judah were in a state of disrepair. Their governing charter in the form of the Book of the Law had faded from memory.
However, during King Josiah's reign the Book of the Law was recovered and reform followed (II Kings 22-23:27). He re-established, "the words of the law that were written in the book," (II Kings 23:24). He did not seek to revise or redefine the book of the law. Instead he gathered all the elders of Israel and Judah, "and he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant," (II Kings 23:2). Subsequently, "all the people joined in the covenant to walk after the Lord and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul to perform the words of the covenant that were written in the book," (II Kings 23:3).
The revisionism coursing through the citadels of American politics and government will fall only when the revisionism, both practical and theological, coursing through Christendom is jettisoned.
The church abroad needs to covenant "to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book." She needs to return to what Huldrych Zwingli described as a "bibliocracy" and then maybe, the Lord willing, America will return to the principles of the constitutional republic she was founded to be as opposed to the democratic populism that is increasingly espoused.
Credo ut Intelligam
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