What I Said at the Camp Meeting

I was tapped to give a short speech for the Benton County Tea Party at an "Old Tyme Camp Meeting" which took place Saturday on the Campus of "Christ Ambassadors" Private School in Bella Vista. About 300 were in attendance.

What follows are the text of my remarks.
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Thank you. It is wonderful to be here in on a campus where young people receive a private Christian education, and surrounded by people who love God and country. While the Benton County Tea Party does not have an official religious confession, it is my personal confession that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, and the rightful Lord and Savior of all Mankind.

This approach is similar to that of the Founders when they drafted the Constitution. The Founders did not write into the text that this was to be a Christian nation, but they DID write into the text that we were founded as a nation of Christians. They did that on page four of the document, just above where they affixed their own signatures. There they testify that it was signed "In the year of our Lord one-thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven". So they did not write into the text that this was to be a Christian nation, but they did write into the text what their own confession was. They document in the Constitution that this country was founded as a nation of Christians.

I suspect that this was because they were better acquainted with the scriptures than even the average Pastor is today. They knew that Christianity is not just a religion, it’s a relationship. An institution, such as a government, can’t be Christian, only the human beings who make it up can be.

So again, in this context, it is great to be among those who love God and country. Really, if you think about it, loving your country is the logical extension of loving your neighbor, for what is the country but all of us neighbors together? And the practical way for love of country to be manifested is to show concern for the integrity of its government. You cannot love the country while remaining indifferent to its government, just as you cannot love a brother or sister in need while you remain indifferent to their affairs.

So if we love our neighbor, and even our own children, then it follows we will have love of country. Now an important distinction must be made here. It is possible, even typical, to have a strong love of country while maintaining a deep suspicion and even disapproval, of the actions of its government. The reason is simple. The government is not the country- we are. We do not exist in order to fund its programs. We do not exist to glorify its officials. Rather, they exist to protect the God-given rights of We the People. At least, that is the way it was intended.

Both scripture and history teach us that when fallen men are in charge of government, it tends to go corrupt over time. Fallen men left in office unchecked produce fallen government. Fallen government does the exact opposite of what government was ordained by God to do. Instead of protecting the rights of the people, the corrupted government becomes the biggest violator of those rights. Instead of protecting the weak from plunderers, the government itself seeks out the most defenseless among us and leads in the plundering. All such plundering is evil, but the most cowardly form of this evil is the use of debt to pay for their outlandish promises. This plunders the most defenseless of all, the unborn and children who will be stuck with the tab, but who cannot vote to defend themselves.

Today, we have fallen government. For too long we have entrusted to organizations whose headquarters are in a distant capitol the sacred job of protecting our liberties. To a large extent, the plunderers actually have better access to the levers of influence in these organizations that we do. It is time to learn the lesson. If we trust some organization headquartered in Washington D.C. to protect our liberties, we will lose them, and deservedly so.

CONTINUED ON THE JUMP.