For the Last Time, the Constitution is Not Based on the Bible

Like a bad penny, Tom DeLay is back. And because nobody loves a story of false redemption more than the Religious Right, you know he will be doing his best to make his presence felt.

John Hagee, who said recently that “we are a Pagan nation without shame” has been thundering on about divine wrath of course, forecasting doom and gloom for the godless, by which he apparently means people too smart to fall for his shtick:

The Bible says that all nations that forget God are turned into Hell. I assure you that if America continues to reject the way of God, God will lift the hedge of protection from this nation and we’re going to experience a hellish nightmare unlike anything we’ve ever known before. Wake up, America! Let us return to the God of our fathers; the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob.

How do these two intersect? Hagee interviewed Tom DeLay last weekend. Hagee introduced DeLay as “A brother in Christ who has been tried by fire,” who has triumphed over “the world, the flesh, and the devil.”

DeLay told Hagee he had a “conference call with the Lord” and the Divine Dispense of Wealth told him to cash in on his experiences by writing a book. God even gave him a name for it: “Shut it Down” and a topic: a revival of Constitutional principles.

Why Constitutional and not biblical? Silly question, infidel defilers:

“Jesus died for our freedom. And Jesus destroyed Satan so we could be free and that is manifested in what is called the Constitution of the United States. God created the nation and God created the Constitution; it is written on biblical principles.”

For the last time, the Constitution is not based on biblical principles. The two have nothing in common. Ancient Israel and Judah were kingdoms, ruled by kings. When the kings were gone, the Jews were ruled by corrupt high priests. Monarchy or theocracy. Some choice.

I’m pretty sure that is not the fate the Founding Fathers had in mind for America when they penned the United States Constitution.

No Religious Right figure, Hagee and DeLay included, has ever explained how the Constitution can be based on biblical principles without so much as mentioning God, Jesus, the Bible, or the Ten Commandments. They have not explained how the Constitution can be based on biblical principles when it in fact enshrines English Common Law, which owes more to Pagan Roman civil law than the Bible. And let’s not forget the Iroquois influence on the Constitution. Iroquois who were – oops – not Christians either.

Some, like Bryan Fischer make a big deal of the document being dated “in the year of our Lord” but that is just how they dated documents then, an artifact of a millennium-and-a-half of forced conversion. It is how we still date documents simply by writing down a number dated from the supposed year of Jesus’ birth, like “2013.”

Here is Fischer ranting on the subject (it sounds as though he is trying to convince himself):

You go to the end of the Constitution, what do you find? It’s dated from when? It’s dated from the first Christmas! From the birth of Jesus Christ, ‘the year of our Lord.’ So we dated our Constitution, we dated the Declaration of Independence. We dated them from the very first Christmas! In other words, Christmas is IN the Constitution. Christmas is IN the Declaration of Independence. Because those documents are dated from the birth of what the Founding Fathers referred to as ‘our Lord.’ In the year of OUR Lord. All of them said, ‘Jesus Christ is OUR Lord.’ Our history began with the first Christmas. People say, ‘Hey, the Constitution’s a godless Constitution, God’s not in there. There is no mention of Christ.’ Absolutely wrong. It is an explicitly Christian document.

Bryan Fischer is explicitly dishonest. But you knew that.

Fischer also claims because “Muslim students at Trinity University in Texas are complaining about the phrase ‘In the year of our Lord’ on their diplomas,” they are “inadvertently proving that this is a Christian nation in the process.”

To which I can only say Bryan Fischer needs to take a college level course in logic. And in history. And not from David Barton.

All this fuss is, as Shakespeare would say, much ado about nothing. We are locked into this dating system whether we like it or not. We can change B.C. to B.C.E. (Before Common Era) and A.D. (Anno Domini/Year of our Lord) to C.E. (Common Era) but we are still dating from Jesus’ presumed birth. By Fischer’s logic, Portugal, which did not adopt Anno Domini until 1422, was not a Christian nation until that date, which is an absurdity. By Fischer’s logic, every atheist and every Pagan like myself who writes the year 2013 is a Christian. Another absurdity.

While we’re on the subject of things that are not true being true, God told DeLay, “My awakening is beginning.” Better yet, he told DeLay that the former House Majority Leader would play a role in that awakening. Probably in fleecing the flock.

And speaking of wealth transference, I wonder if God told DeLay about his plans for Ted Cruz, already anointed as Money Messiah by his sinister minions on the right, or revealed any plans for former messiahs like Michele Bachmann, who might have a hard time managing her messiah duties from federal prison. Rest assured, if Bachmann escapes prison, she’ll be on stage with Hagee telling us all about her conference call with God (maybe he will break the news to her that her husband is gay).