Easter Sunday is not just a religious holiday. It is a celebration of a factual event upon which the prior scope of human history is understood and the rest of human history follows. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most significant event in human history, because it actually happened. Because it is true, the only question that remains is whether or not each of us, individually, chooses to believe the facts of this event and that Jesus is who he claimed to be: God in the flesh.
Romans 3:23-26 and indeed the entirety of the gospel of Christ proclaim this truth:
This truth is what every person who recognizes this fact celebrates on Easter Sunday. Christians (literally meaning those who follow the truth of Christ) encourage others to recognize truth and answer truthfully who Jesus is, proclaiming him to be God, as he is in fact. Conservative Christians understand this truth to be the foundation of everything in human existence — including the answers to political questions.
Matters of faith and the answer to the ultimate question — Who do you say Jesus is? — are foundational and naturally lead to a second question, perhaps the ultimate political question: What do you say government is or should be? We cannot accurately answer the second question without correctly answering the first.
In an increasingly politically and religiously diverse America, we have been sold the idea that the political questions of government are completely separate, rather than being dependent on, foundational truth and moral authority. Even many evangelicals have bought into the idea of “separation of church and state,” and who I say Jesus is (God, or merely another good teacher, or a complete heretic) should be discussed only within the walls of church because my answer only matters to the church. So when it comes to government, politics, social issues, and American life, who cares who I say Jesus is?
However, the Founders saw these questions of who we say Jesus is and what we say government is as inextricably intertwined. For government to have any legitimate basis for authority, it must have a moral standard. It must have a particular stance on the question of where we derive our morality from. In other words, who do we say Jesus is? Is he God? Is he our moral lawgiver or not? Where do our rights come from? Government, or our creator?
The Founders did not separate the question of moral authority and the question of political authority. The Declaration of Independence shows how inextricably intertwined our Founders understood these questions to be. In fact, they began with a unanimous statement and truthful recognition of the moral basis of law and political governments:
Before the Founders ever contemplated an American system of government, before they answered any political questions, before they argued over federalism, they answered the question of who God is. And they unanimously recognized that government is subordinate to a moral authority. That life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are only possible with a truthful recognition of who God is.
Our political debates in the past 60 years have sought to excise God and objective moral truth from the public square, to expressly not answer the question of who God is. To argue that the question of God is irrelevant. We have sought to divorce these two important questions and answer the political government questions in an amoral vacuum. And we are in a mess. We are attempting to answer moral legislative questions, religious liberty questions, and basic civil rights questions without first recognizing from where our rights are derived.
Our Founders also recognized that a government built upon this answer of who God is must, like God himself allows, recognize religious liberty. God does not compel belief in him. He offers his truth to us, which is the Gospel that Easter celebrates. The Founders also recognized that true liberty and pursuit of God requires answering this question of who God is on an individual basis. This is why our first freedoms are so essential.
Because of this, the Founders understood that in order to preserve true individual liberty while also preserving a legitimate government (including law that has an objective basis for measuring the difference between good and evil), government must also protect religious liberty and freedom of conscience for all.
We can disagree on the best answer to political questions because we do have that freedom and liberty. But rational responses must have a legitimate, objective moral basis and we cannot separate the questions of who God is with the questions of politics and government if we are honest. We must answer the political questions in light of our response to who God is. To conserve our constitutional republic, to keep it, as Benjamin Franklin said immediately after the Constitutional Convention, means we must recognize our government’s source of legitimate, objective, moral authority.
Our Founders answered this question for our government. We as individuals must still answer it for ourselves. On this Easter Sunday, who do you say Jesus is?
Jenna Ellis (@jennaellisorg) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is an attorney, a fellow at the Centennial Institute, a radio show host in Denver, and the author of “The Legal Basis for a Moral Constitution.”
