The ArchAngel Institute is dedicated to advancing the Natural Law as the cure to the ailment that is killing Christendom.  Our mission statement (upper right hand button) presents this in length, and our programs and projects all have in common a Natural Law focus.

One does not have to be Catholic to affirm the Natural Law.  Martin Luther and almost all of the Protestant Reformers taught the Natural Law.  As our series on Elena Kagan demonstrated, American law was based upon the Natural Law.  Mormonism, Masonry and even Moslem teaching also affirms and builds upon Natural Law.

Until recent generations the Natural Law was unquestioned.  Since the 1960’s Natural Law has been questioned — and ever overthrown in our social order, with disastrous result.   Nowhere is this rejection of Natural Law better recognized than (more…)

The following (in red)  is more text from Deacon Keith Fournier’s essay on the need to embrace the Natural Law as the cure for our national apostasy.  This is the same Natural Law that animated our nation’s birth (in the Declaration of Independence and almost every state’s constitution).  Note that Christ is not – simply cannot be – divorced from this explanation of the rightful foundation of our social order since we find ourselves standing in Christendom – the geopolitical fruit of the Christian faith.  This Christian-faith informed Natural Law is the only wooden stake that can pierce the rapidly metastasizing cancer (more…)

Bill O’Reilly recently aired an  interview with Glenn Beck that was seemingly designed by the Fox News Network to delineate the marketing niche difference between Bill and Beck. In that interview (click the arrow below to play) Beck refused to state that same sex marriage was a threat to the stability of our social order. He also demurred on the question of legalized childkilling.  O’Reilly challenged Beck as not being a true “culture warrior,” but then revealed weaknesses in his own foundation.

It seems that O’Reilly bases his culture warring on social custom and social custom (tradition) alone. We must, he said, uphold the values of our history.  He did not specify any font for those values, or any standard outside of history from which to judge those values.

Glenn Beck countered a vague, general “faith” as the key to values, but then rendered all spirituality equal, regardless of religion (as long it was nonviolent, which the OT certainly was not).

Here, don’t just take my spin on it …. watch the interview yourself:

Both great televangelists (more…)

Some reading our recent posts might think we stand against SCOTUS nominee Elana Kagan simply because she is a liberal Jewish progressive instead of a conservative Christian traditionalist.

That would be an erroneous conclusion.

The Roman Senator Cicero was not a Christian traditionalist.

We could support Kagan, without reservation, if Elana Kagan were a Cicero.

Elana Kagan is no Cicero, as she more than aptly demonstrated before the Senate when questioned by Senator Coburn. (Click here for her testimony.)

Cicero died more than 40 years before Jesus Christ was born.  He was a great Roman statesman who stood in the tradition of the great Roman Republic — the political association that inspired more than a few of this nation’s Founding Fathers, as well as our governmental structure and architecture.

Cicero is a father of these United States.

According to W. Cleon Skousen, in his 5000 Year Leap, ““To Cicero, the building of a society on principles of Natural Law was nothing more nor less than recognizing and identifying the rules of ‘right conduct’ with the laws of the Supreme Creator of the Universe.”

This is not what the nominee Kagan believes, for she is no Cicero.

Like Martin Luther King, Jr., like the Founding Fathers, like statesmen of the past 2000 years (minus the past 40 in this country, that is), Cicero believed that law was not merely the statutes of the most powerful government entity in the land.  That is positivism.  That is Kagan’s view.  (See previous posts for a definition of positivism.)

Cicero believed that the true law was written Above, and reflected below via “right reason.”

Cicero penned the following:

This is the third post in our series about the SCOTUS nominee that Senator Richard Lugar plans to approve for the High Court.

In her testimony before the Senate, Ms. Kagan uttered these revealing phrases: “I don’t have a view of what are natural rights, independent of the Constitution” and “I think you should want me to act on the basis of law … which is the Constitutions and the statutes of the United States.”

These views reveal Ms. Kagan to be no Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

Consider his opinion, written from a jail cell, on the law behind the law:

One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.” Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust….

I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws.

http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

The Reverend Martin Luther King. Jr., thus articulated the American view of law better than almost anyone else ever had.  He remains a great icon of the Left to this day.  They almost venerate his very image.

Yet they, most all, like nominee Kagan, like the Indiana Board of Law Examiners (click), like Dr. Steven Ross (click), like Charlotte Westerhaus (click), deny the very core of the good Reverend’s teachings.

While this tea party activist celebrates the Reverend and his teachings, both.  (Click)

(Such irony)

The nominee Elana Kagan knows of no law above federal law.  For this reason the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. would have found her unacceptable as a jurist.

So should the Senate.

So should Senator Richard Lugar, unless he, too, rejects the Natural Law foundation of our Constitutional Republic.

I (Bryan) doubt Ms. Kagan will be crushed to be told this.  A Blackstone Fellow is a member of the Blackstone Fellowship,  a fraternal organization attached to the ADF (Alliance Defense Fund).  This Fellowship originated in the fertile mind of one of my mentors, Bruce Green.  He envisioned it, launched it, built it up and then turned it over to others. Bruce is a man’s man, a great Christian leader looked up to by all persons of good will who know him.   He taught me much about litigation and honor in our years together, and I miss him much.  Bruce was Chief Counsel of AFA, VP of ADF, the founding dean of Liberty University School of Law and, as stated, the founder of the Blackstone Fellowship.

His story – from “Ponyboy”  (disaffected youth in East Texas), to Bible College and Dallas Theological Seminary, into the Presbyterian Eldership and Church courts, to a member of Regent University School of Law’s founding class, to federal district court, to AFA, to ADF, to the Continuing Anglican Tradition as a deacon, to Liberty University — and then into the Roman Catholic Church and back to East Texas in the spirit of the Southern agrarian movement is unique, inspiring and rarely told.   I am proud as a Technicolor peacock to state that Bruce W. Green is on the ArchAngel Institute’s Board of Advisors –  (Christian media looking for a great interview?  Contact Bruce via this website.)

Enough about Bruce.  Let’s talk about the SCOTUS nominee that Senator Richard Lugar plans to approve for the High Court.

In her testimony before the Senate, Ms. Kagan uttered these revealing phrases:  “I don’t have a view of what are natural rights, independent of the Constitution” and “I think you should want me to act on the basis of law … which is the Constitutions and the statutes of the United States.”

Sir William Blackstone was one of England’s greatest jurists — as well as America’s.  Which is quite a trick since (1) he never came to America and (2) he never much cared for the American cause.  Even so, his Commentaries on the Laws of England were used to educate generations of American attorneys, pretty much all up to the Civil War.   According to Wikipedia, “the United States Supreme Court quotes from Blackstone’s work whenever they wish to engage in historical discussion that goes back to the era of the nation’s founding, to illuminate the legal and intellectual culture that helped to shape the intent of the Framers of the Constitution).”

If Sir Blackstone had been asked his view of the law he would not have started or ended with the law of his monarch.  He would have instead replied like this:

Dropping back a century before Sir William we find another great English jurist. According to Wikipedia, “Sir Edward Coke (pronounced “Cook”) (1 February 1552 – 3 September 1634) was a seventeenth-century English jurist and Member of Parliament whose writings on the common law were the definitive legal texts for nearly 150 years.”

Sir Edward Coke answered the question about the true foundation for the law in this way in a reported decision that is now 400 years old:

Calvin’s Case, 77 Eng Rep 377 (1610)

The nominee Elana Kagan does not agree with Sir William Blackstone or Sir Edward Coke.

It is unlikely that such a legal opinion would have allowed her to become an attorney  in any state of our Union until the 1930’s.

We have come a long way, baby.

Source for quotes:   Professor Charles Rice’s (also delighted to report that he is on the ArchAngel Institute’s Board of Advisors) 50 Questions on the Natural Law (click)

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

When asked by Senator Coburn (R-OK) about her view of inalienable, God-given rights in the context of the Declaration of Independence, Elana Kagan ran like a scalded dog from the question.  By so asking Senator Coburn  got Ms. Kagan on the record as to her view of what “law” truly is:

KAGAN:  Senator Coburn, t-t-to be honest with you, I — I — I don’t have a view of what are natural rights, independent of the Constitution.  And my job as a justice will be to enforce and defend the Constitution and other laws of the United States.

COBURN:  So you wouldn’t embrace what the Declaration of Independence says, that we have certain God-given, inalienable rights that aren’t given in the Constitution? That they’re ours and ours alone and that government doesn’t give those to us?

KAGAN:  Senator Coburn, I believe that the Constitution is an extraordinary document, and I’m not saying I do not believe that there are rights pre-existing the Constitution and the laws, but my job as a justice is to enforce the Constitution and the laws.

COBURN “Well, I understand that.” As a justice you’re going to do this and do that, but, “Well, I’m not talking about as a justice. I’m talking about Elena Kagan. What do you believe? Are there inalienable rights for us? Do you believe that?”

KAGAN:  Senator Coburn, I — I think that the question of what I believe as to what people’s rights are outside the Constitution or the laws, that you should not want me to act in any way on the basis of such a belief if I had one or –

COBURN:  I would want you to always act on the basis of a belief of what our Declaration of Independence says.

KAGAN:  I — I think you should want me to act on the basis of law, and, uh — and that is what I have upheld to do if I’m fortunate enough to be confirmed is to act on the basis of law, which is the Constitutions and the statutes of the United States.

SO,  the “law” stops, the nominee Kagan assures us, at the federal statutes and Constitution of these United States.

This view is called positivism.  If you do not understand that term try these posts for help.

http://www.archangelinstitute.org/natural-law-or-legal-positism-that-is-the-question/

http://www.archangelinstitute.org/how-goes-the-conflict-between-the-natural-law-and-positivism-in-america/

It can be extrapolated that Solicitor Kagan would not have had the juridic foundation to resist the Nazi rise to power in Germany, that is, the rule of the Reich would have been where the law stopped in that social order for her.  She would have clicked her heels and sieg heiled with the best of the National Socialists given her worldview.

It can be extrapolated that she would have had no problem enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act before and after Dred Scott.  She would have ordered the slaves back to Ole Mississippi with the zeal of Justice Roger Taney given her legal philosophy.

It can be extrapolated that she would have been a Tory in the days of the Founders, for she could not have located a law higher than the King’s.  She would send Nathaniel Hale to the gallows to give up his one life — all  in the name of law and order –  given her jurisprudence.

By so stating her allegiance to mere positivism she has repudiated the view of law of the Founding generations.  By so refusing to pledge allegiance to the Declaration of Independence Kagan has revealed herself as no Thomas Jefferson.  Nor is she an Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

In better days of the Republic Kagan’s refusal to pledge allegiance to the very philosophy forming the bedrock and spiritual core of our nation would render her unfit to be the town dogcatcher.

In postmodern America it is a badge of politically correct honor.

… to be continued

If you have not yet made one of our Tuesday night classes on legal foundation of Christendom this Tueday night is the time to start.

In the first week we looked at Jerusalem and Athens as influences on the legal foundations of America.

We met Founding Father Dr. Benjamin Rush and constitutionalist Russell Kirk.

In the second week we looked at Rome as an influence on the legal foundations of America.

We met Founding Father John Adams and constitutionalist W. Cleon Skousen.

Tomorrow night we look at the Natural Law through the teaching of constitutionalist Charles Rice.  And we will look at the writings of yet another Founder.

Read some of Rice’s book 50 Questions on the Natural Law, What it is and Why we need it before coming if you can.  (Defining Natural Law)

Class starts at 7:15 p.m. at the downtown public library in Fort Wayne, meeting room B.

Demographic Winter is showing in the same room at 6:15 pm.

Elana Kagan is likely to soon go on the High Court — without a natural law jurisprudence.   Does this matter?  What are the alternatives?  If you are not certain then come tomorrow night to learn the answers as Dr. Rice would give them.

We have ordered our series on the natural law so that it can be read first post to last post below.  It ends with a Halloween example of the natural law in the news.  Here is another of those:

By MARIA CHENG (AP) – 1 day ago

LONDON — British scientists begin a new study on Tuesday to consider how human DNA is used in animal experiments and to determine what the boundaries of such controversial science might be.

Though experts have been swapping human and animal DNA for years — like replacing animal genes with human genes or growing human organs in animals — scientists at the Academy of Medical Sciences want to make sure the public is aware of what is happening in laboratories before proceeding further.

“It sounds yucky, but it may be well worth doing if it’s going to lead to a cure for something horrible,” said Robin Lovell-Badge, a stem cell expert at Britain’s National Institute for Medical Research, and a member of the group conducting the study.

At a media briefing in London, Lovell-Badge said there were two main types of experiments: altering an animal’s genes by adding human DNA or replacing a specific animal sequence with its human counterpart.

***

Two years ago, controversy erupted in Britain after scientists announced plans to create human embryos using empty cow and rabbit eggs.

***

Scientists said they are now trying to determine where the line should be drawn on experiments that use human material in animals. At the moment, the regulation on how much human DNA can be put into an animal is vague.

“We are trying to work out what is reasonable,” said Martin Bobrow, chairman of the group conducting the study. He and others said they recognized people might be nervous about experiments where animals were given human features or brain cells.

David King, director of Human Genetics Alert, an independent watchdog, said he was not convinced such experiments were warranted. “This is a classic example of science going too fast,” he said. “If you cannot firmly say exactly what it is you’re creating, you should not do it.”

Full article here