"A Troubling Omission"

(originally "The Seven Virtues: Introduction")

Sermon, July 2, 2000

Every July 4th, we celebrate the anniversary of the signing of our nation's Declaration of Independence. I've pointed this out before, and I'll probably point it out several more times before I retire, but our Declaration of Independence is, first and foremost, a statement of the foundational principles that define our nation's heritage. The Declaration presents these principles and draws out their political consequences. "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." Now, that is a statement about human rights, to be sure, but the Founding Fathers were making a more important statement. They affirmed that the fundamental premise of life and justice and freedom and dignity in this land is the existence and the authority of God. The Declaration of Independence states the fundamental premises of this nation's life, and puts at the very heart of our national identity not the existence of rights, but the existence of God. This is the fundamental premise of American moral principle and American identity. The purpose of government is to protect these inalienable rights given us by God, and no government is just or legitimate if it systematically violates those rights or ignores them. According to the Declaration, the necessary prerequisite for human rights, and the whole idea of government based on the consent of the people, is respect for God's authority, God's laws, God's institutions. Our founders, the men and women who launched the great experiment in liberty we enjoy to this day, had a vision of freedom. It was not a vision of unrestrained licentiousness and stupid self-indulgence. In was not even a vision of freedom under the rule of human law. Their vision of freedom was based upon the fear of God, respect for His law, and the honoring of His divine institutions for the human race.

With all that said, the celebration and commemoration of the Declaration's signing will be somewhat marred or muted for a large portion of our population this year. For that matter, the celebration of the holiest of Christian holidays, Easter, was also significantly marred or muted for a large portion of the American public ... by a predawn raid on a private home by heavily-armed agents of the federal government on the Saturday before. I think all of you know the story. Last Thanksgiving, then 5-year old Elian Gonzalez was found tied to an inner tube off the coast of Florida. His mother and ten others had drowned after the sixteen-foot motorboat they used to flee Cuba capsized. These eleven people willingly risked death on a desperate voyage to liberty. Like so many refugees from totalitarian regimes who are now Americans, they were more than likely drawn by the principles of our Declaration of Independence that each individual has God-given inalienable rights, including the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I'd like to read excerpts from the news report in Thursday's Wall Street Journal: "The custody battle over Elian Gonzalez ended this week, as the six-year-old, his father, and other family members traveled to Cuba aboard a chartered jet just hours after the Supreme Court refused to hear a final appeal from the boy's Miami relatives. -- Asked at a White House news conference about Elian's return to Cuba, President Clinton said, "If he and his father decided they wanted to stay here, it would be fine with me." The president added, in his opinion, Juan Miguel Gonzalez was determined to be "a good father, a loving father, committed to the son's welfare. And we upheld here what I think is a quite important principle, as well as what is clearly the law of the US. Do I wish it had unfolded in a less dramatic, less traumatic way for all concerned? Of course I do." -- Texas Governor George Bush said in a written statement, "I am saddened when the land of the free sends a young boy back to communist Cuba without a fair hearing in family court."

Many news reports tell us that Attorney General Janet Reno was merely "enforcing the law" when she ordered the predawn raid with masked, machine-gun toting federal agents into a private home in the midst of negotiations with the "defendants." According to the administration, one crucial "law" being violated by Elian Gonzalez' Miami relatives is that a father must be given custody of his son.

Somehow left out of all these statements about "the law" is the law's caveat -- that custody is granted to the father unless the father is determined unfit (by, for example, demanding that his son be subjected to a machine gun raid or a communist dictatorship. As reported by the New York Times, Juan Miguel not only allowed a huge, heavily armed federal SWAT team stage a military-style assault on his son in the dead of the night, he insisted upon it. I'll also leave aside numerous other allegations from the Cuban-American community about the fatherly fitness of Mr. Gonzalez). But forget about the caveat for now. Let's just consider the initial presumption that a father gets custody of his son. The law may indeed be clear, at least to this extent: Traditionally, historically, and even in recent times, that "law" refers only to legitimate children. Now, you have to dig pretty deep in today's media publications to find this out, but Elian is Juan Miguel Gonzalez illegitimate son. Elian was neither born nor conceived when Juan Miguel was married to his mother. Nor did the father ever bother to rectify Elian's bastardy. According to the New York Times, Elian's parents were divorced in May 1991; Elian was born December 6, 1993. This "loving father" basically impregnated his former while they were divorced, most likely while he was "courting" (or married to) his present wife, and the record seems to show that he never bothered to take any steps to fulfill the responsible, lawful, traditional, religious...and decent...duty of legitimizing his son's bastardy. Indeed, historically, common law gives such fathers very few, if any, rights with respect to children they conceive out of wedlock. "The law" cited so frequently by the administration, again, pertains to legal, legitimate fathers; in a series of somewhat recent cases, Florida's Supreme Court took an especially dim view of the legal prerogatives of fathers who sire illegitimate children. If Elian's case had been brought to family court, as it should have been and as Gov. Bush lamented it had not, Elian would be more than likely celebrating our nation's signing of the Declaration affirming the divinely-given unalienable rights of all people, and would more than likely be joining with the Cuban-American community in applauding our government's consistency in upholding and defending those rights. However, such is not the case.

There are many, many disturbing facts about this case, and many, many other disturbing allegations, which trouble me as a citizen and as a father of a six-year-old boy.

However, this pulpit is to be used to proclaim the Word of God, and the principles therein; it is never to be used as a political platform. One of the less overtly obvious things about this whole case, which troubles me to no end, is something that is entirely appropriate and necessary to declare from this pulpit. It is something that should trouble all who take their stand on law, tradition, the integrity of families, and the truth of revealed religion, as well as all who believe with our Founders that the fundamental premise of life and justice and freedom and dignity in this land is the existence of God, the authority of God, His eternal law and divine institutions. Is marriage considered a consequential institution anymore? Is the divinely ordained institution of marriage between a man and a woman of any consequence in our land? Do we uphold the sanctity of this divinely ordained institution or not? Does anyone in the press, the administration, or the Church care or even notice that the full weight and authority of our nation's federal government basically gave Juan Miguel all the legal rights of legitimate fatherhood when he in fact seemingly never bothered to assume the responsibilities ... the responsible, lawful, traditional, religious, and decent duties ... of legitimizing his son? The silence on this matter in the press, the media, the courts is deafening! The silence on this matter by the National Council of Churches ... as well as their sycophantic advocacy and financial involvement in Elian's forced repatriation ... is also appalling; for that matter, all the eroding attacks in our nation on God's design for the institution of marriage between man and woman, from the Supreme Court in Vermont to the raging debates that continue on the floor of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), are alarming, disturbing and very troubling ... but that's almost another sermon. In a word, marriage matters! It matters to God and it should matter to us. The church must, must, MUST do all in her power to proclaim the gospel of grace and forgiveness, yes; but the church also must, must, MUST do all in her power to uphold the authority of God, His good laws and His divine institutions. If we fail to do either, we cease to have a reason for existing ... and we only contribute to the undermining of the foundational pillars of this nation's existence.

The Founders were virtually unanimous in their view that only a faithful, virtuous people could remain free. As John Quincy Adams wrote in 1775, "It is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. A patriot must be a religious man." Following the Constitutional Convention in 1789, he said our Constitution was "...made only for a moral and religious people [who submit to the laws of God] and wholly inadequate for the government of any other." As we celebrate once again the signing of the Declaration of Independence, let us be reminded of the basic logic permeating that document: Reverence for God and His institutions is not just a matter of private religious faith; reverence for God and His institutions is the foundation of freedom, justice, dignity and citizenship in our republic. Without that foundation, the superstructure of freedom will surely crumble and eventually collapse like a house of cards.