Dismantling Godless Intellectualism

Okay, the title is a mouthful. And it sure wouldn’t work for a political slogan. But we think it is the shortest and meatiest way to describe what is at the core of what is sweeping across America, most notably among the tea partiers.

Tea partiers themselves aren’t centralized enough to have a universal description of what motivates them, and probably very few would nod at our title. But ‘dismantling godless intellectualism’ is what they are doing, and it is why both Democrats and RINOs are in their crosshairs. And should be. It’s also why the results of these dismantling efforts are not to be feared but welcomed.

The founders of America were among the deepest, brightest, well-read and most courageous individuals of their era (or of any era), but they were uniformly humble before God. They may have differed in how they would describe God—they used “Creator” and “nature’s God” and “divine Providence”—and they most certainly would not have fallen in line behind any particular doctrinaire definition of Christ Jesus and his teachings. But a denial of God? A denial of individual freedom and responsibility under God? Never a part of their thinking. On the contrary, they proclaimed to the world as self-evident truth that God endowed man with rights inalienable by government. That’s what led them to establish a Constitution based on limited government, and maximum individual freedom under the Bill of Rights.

Human beings have thrived under these truths and the founders’ gifted thinking. These human beings are called Americans, but apart from living under these founding principles, they have little else in common. They are men and women of every size and shape, and of every race, ethnicity and religion.

But ever since the founding, there has been an element of human thinking that just can’t stand the idea of a power greater than itself, or of individual accountability to such a power. These ideas interfere with our sense of self-importance; they fail to appreciate how we can grow ‘smarter than God’; they hold us back from new phases of ‘enlightenment’ and ‘progress’.

A major undercurrent of this thinking involves a determination to claim a disconnect between ‘science’ and religion. Under this determination, science is the realm of the intelligent; religion is the realm of the stupid. It is science that will lead us forward, and the truly intelligent people know this. Science, in this formulation, is really the accumulation of empirical knowledge and a construct of wisdom without the encumbrances of this God stuff. And the truly intelligent people are those who know that some version of political ‘science’ must surely require the abandonment of the Constitution in favor of giving more power and authority to the truly intelligent, who can then use the levers of governmental power to control and direct the less intelligent and the stupid.

The radical left of Obama, Reid and Pelosi consider themselves the truly intelligent, and they are pursuing a power grab of monumental proportions—a grab that completely steamrolls the Constitution and America’s founding principles. And the Republican establishment, where the RINOs reside, has every bit as much of a belief in itself as part of the truly intelligent as the radical left. They have essentially no humility before God; they also think government as administered by them is the primary answer to all human problems; they just think the levers of governmental power that they pull are more effective than the levels pulled by the left.

We’ve participated in the original 9/12 march, and in several tea party events. If there is a unifying characteristic we’ve observed, it’s a faith in God and not in government, and a love for the America of the founding. What will spring from this characteristic is far more than a shift in which party holds which seats after one mid-term election cycle. It will lead to a radical rollback of the size and role of government. But it will not be a transformation of America; it will be the restoration of America. And along the way, look for a lot of the sacred cows of godless intellectualism—such as the belief in man-made climate control, UN worship, government control of healthcare and housing or any other industry or company, government as the pre-eminent tool of social engineering, ‘Islamophobia’, as well as the entire spectrum of moral relativism celebrated by Hollywood—to take a shellacking.

Our hope is that it will also lead to a resurgence of Christianity. The leftist will quickly protest that such a resurgence would necessarily mean a shift away from the ‘progress’ available through ‘science’. This is nonsense. Consider these quotes, all from the same author:

”Most people say that is it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

When the solution is simple, God is answering.”

The tea partiers know that dismantling the godless intellectualism that has created America’s current problems will not be easy, but they know the framework for the solution is simple. It’s to return to the principles of America’s founding, and to elect leaders who reflect the humility and faith of the founders. As Albert Einstein said, “God is answering.”

Paul Gable

September 29, 2010