Obama’s Divine Right of Kings & The Ground Zero Mosque

When Barack stated Muslims had a right to build a Mosque on Twin Tower scorched earth, he accidentally revisited a key American Revolutionary debate: Does a king have a divine right from God to act as he pleases? Or, were the Founders correct claiming a Natural Law existed over all human decisions, judging each act? This question is the topic of this essay, and will include appearances by the Founding Fathers and favorite writer Locke, versus Karl Marx and Mohammad.

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In the Ground Zero Mosque case, Obama presumes his decisions are correct by themselves, outside of any other authority. But to believe this he rejects the Founder's notion of a "law above human law." So what does Barack put in the place of the Founder's Natural Law? By default, it must be the old medieval Divine Right of Kings theory, stripped of the biblical God and reconstituted on Obama's precious Marxism, or even Islam. For Divine Right is a religious argument for totalitarianism, which under any other name is simple absolutism fitting both Marxism and Islam.

I Divine Right of Kings Versus Natural Law

A. Divine Right

The theory of Divine Right of Kings (timeline) sets leaders above any criticism, where God blesses all decisions. The notion of a monarch as holy emissary of God may be ancient, but the argument that king's had a divine right to act as they pleased developed in Europe to defend leaders against criticism. Historian Cyril Barrett wrote on the Divine Right of Kings:

The doctrine that the right to rule comes from God, and that kings are answerable to him alone... In its extreme form, as stated in Basilikon Doron by King James I, it says that:

1. political power comes directly from God to a hereditary monarch;
2. that monarch has absolute power which cannot be in any way restrained; and
3. anyone who opposes the monarch in any way is guilty of treason and liable to death, and, possibly, damnation.

This idea of Divine Right fits perfectly into any other regime valuing tyranny above all else, such as Islam and Marxism.

B . Natural Law

The idea of a Natural Law develops in Greek Stoic philosophy, later influencing thinkers such as Cicero. The Bible writers also developed Natural Law theory, and over time used by theologians and lawyers to develop modern Natural Law. Natural Law as "law above all rules" has two basic elements. First, a common sense critique of human law, described here: "For the touchstone and voice of natural law was not public authority but private conscience, the individual's right reason, which the Stoics called orthos logos and Cicero ratio recta." The second aspect is as "God's Law," using biblical standards, existing above all human laws as a constant judge of these man made, or "positive laws." Thomas Aquinas, in Summa Theologica, locates all Natural Law in man's reason and God's revelation. And the two aspects of Natural Law are not opposed, but seen to work together in the pursuit of justice. So, Obama's claim the Zero Mosque was acceptable next to the Twin Tower site is an example of merely "Divine Right" thinking, being correct only in the sense that the king has a right to make arbitrary judgments. But his statement fails a Natural Law standard since it lacks inherent common sense, felt justice, compassion, necessity or integration in God's revealed order of the good.

II. History of British Divine Right of Kings

Debate over kingly authority escalated when John Locke, source of many Declaration and Constitution ideas, wrote a devastating reply to Robert Filmer's argument for Divine Right. Locke said all political authority rests in the people, while royalists claimed Kings were beyond criticism, as outlined in Filmer's Patriarcha, of the Natural Power of Kings Asserted (1680). This incensed rule-of-law writers like Locke, Algernon Sidney, and Samuel Rutherford, who penned his massively influential Lex Rex in response. British Divine Right was previously defended by James I (1566--1625). He received a very extensive religious education, including the Presbyterian teaching a kingship was a trust held for the people. James rejected this doctrine, extolling the Divine Right of Kingship in Latin -- Basilikon Doron ("Kingly Gift"). He also lectured Parliament on this. Yet the people definitively put down the Divine Right theory in both the American and French Revolutions. A chilling excerpt from his speech:

Kings are justly called gods, for that they exercise a manner or resemblance of divine power upon earth: for if you will consider the attributes to God, you shall see how they agree in the person of a king. God hath power to create or destroy make or unmake at his pleasure, to give life or send death, to judge all and to be judged nor accountable to none; to raise low things and to make high things low at his pleasure, and to God are both souls and body due. And the like power have kings: they make and unmake their subjects, they have power of raising and casting down, of life and of death, judges over all their subjects and in all causes and yet accountable to none but God only. . . .

Charles I (1600-1649) precipitated the English Civil Wars with tyrannical adherence to Divine Right of Kings. He was captured, tried, condemned and executed for keeping this principle. During this same time many Puritans oppressed by Charles and infamous Bishop Laud fled to America in the interest of free expression of religion.

III. American Revolution: Divine Right Versus Rule of Law

Source and scope of the King and Parliament's authority was a huge issue during the American Revolution. The claim Americans must accept King George III's decisions, whether logical, just or legal, was a source of deep discontent to colonists, eventually sparking the war. George's insistence to do as he pleased with America was a continuation of the Divine Right principle. Infuriating the colonists, who believed this teaching turned them into slaves. The idea for a biblically principled revolution coalesced in Reverend Jonathan Mayhew's sermon of 1750 that Founder John Adams called a "great influence in the commencement of the Revolution." Mayhew was a leading Boston clergyman. His sermon espoused liberty and the right and duty to resist tyranny, titled: "A Discourse concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers: with Some Reflections on the resistance Made to King Charles I." Its classic argument explains the biblical case against the "Divine Right of Kings" in favor of resisting "unjust" governmental authority. Ultimately, the purpose behind the American Revolution was to defeat tyrannical Divine Right theory and replace it with a constitutional rule of law. The basic argument of the Founders for revolution was the idea leaders were sanctified by God only as long as they served the people. But if they became tyrants, they could therefore be removed. As David Barton writes, "For example, Founding Father James Otis explained that the only king who had a "Divine right" was God Himself; beyond that, God had ordained that power should rest with the people (c.f., Exodus 18:21, Deuteronomy 1:15-16, etc.)" Says Otis,

There can be no prescription old enough to supersede the law of nature and the grant of God Almighty, Who has given to all men a natural right to be free; and they have it ordinarily in their power to make themselves so if they please...If both those powers are retained in the hands of the many...the government is a simple democracry, or a government of all over all. . . . [God is] the only monarch in the universe Who has a clear and indisputable right to absolute power because He is the only one Who is omniscient as well as omnipotent.

So the very foundation of the American Revolution was a rejection of the same kind of arbitrary tyranny Barack Obama is trying to resurrect today.

IV. Barack, Islam, Marx & Atheism

Obama cannot be described as a follower of Divine Right of Kings since he does not openly claim religious warrant. But he uses the same absolutist theory of power. His approach is either godless, as an expression of Marxist atheism, or of Muslim despotism. It's not significant whether he's Marxist or Muslim, as both accede to anti-democratic tyranny and reject representative government and civil rights. That Islam and Marxism share a common government goal might surprise some, but history confirms the result.

A. Islam and Divine Right

Islamic ideology results in absolutism. Quranic principles never passed through a Reformation or Enlightenment, and so avoided developing a modern political theory. According to Abdullah Ahmad An-Na'im, in his brave "Islam and the Secular State, Negotiating the Future of Shari`a," (review) the position of Muslim law in Islam means no modern state is possible. This because modern democracies presuppose individual rights and freedoms Islam has, not only never allowed, but could not countenance since they run counter to the Quran and Shariat dictates. For example, only Allah has rights in an Islamic regime, whereas as all other players have mere privileges. An-Na'im advises the only way to bring Islam into modernity is to make Shari'ah an option, not a mandate. Islam, itself, cannot produce a human rights regime, as explained in Ann Elizabeth Mayer's Islam and Human Rights, Tradition & Politics (review). The upshot is if Obama really is a Muslim, as 24% of Americans believe, and as many of his actions seem to convey, he can never support the US Constitution, as it is totally opposed to Shari'ah.

B. Marxism and Divine Right by Proxy

Marxism presents the exact opposite of Islam in its utter denial of God and religion, but a similar despotic theory of government. In Marxism there are no human rights. This is because in Marx's great haste to eliminate religion, he left out the secular equivalent of the Bible's Ten Commandments. So a Divine Right of Marxist tyrants is not only a possibility, but has been the inevitable default result. If Barack is a secret Marxist, this explains his typically arbitrary decisions. While Marxists relentlessly condemn opponents for improper ethics and general immorality, this charge is illusory. Technically speaking, there is no such thing as a "Marxist Ethics," or "immoral" socialist behavior, since no canon of Marxist ethics exists, in fact, to break. Instead, all morality and ethics in Marxism are situational, encompassing categories of desired liberal results-- being "economic justice," and so on. This conclusion is confirmed in books like R. G. Peffer's Marxism, Morality, and Social Justice.

V. Analysis of Obama's Zero Mosque Support

Does Obama's support of a Ground Zero mosque reflect Divine Right or classic American standards? Barack defies America's historic opposition to tyranny and use of Natural Law theory that our Declaration and Constitution are founded upon... Consider these Natural Law sentiments:

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. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness...

No American government can claim to be legitimate that continually opposes the people's will, as Obama's does: Majority Oppose Mosque. Our traditional public policy included strong respect for biblical precepts and common sense. Time and again these elements have paid enormous benefits keeping America on the cutting edge of innovation in economics, science, the Arts, government efficacy, civil freedoms, and defense of democracy throughout the world. But now, American greatness stands at the precipice, in danger of being cast into the abyss to satisfy the whims of a rabble of licentious, uneducated, ill-tempered, judgmental, and wrongly motivated Marxist absolutists.

Obama Loves Abraham Lincoln -- Correct?

For example, what sense does it make for Obama to continually repudiate America's Christian instincts when perhaps 80% + of the population regard themselves followers of Christ? Great leaders, such as Abraham Lincoln, refuse to trash the beliefs of the people, but instead employs them as fodder for rhetoric and an anchor for public policy. Of course, it helps that Lincoln had great respect for Holy Writ. Ponder Lincoln's "House Divided" speech, explicitly based upon Matt 12. Again, consider Lincoln's Gettysburg Address describing the God whom the nation was formed under and defending Liberty, Freedom and Equality. This is an example, in the very best sense, of the effective use of civil religion to fortify and encourage the people with their own wholesome beliefs, as described by Andrew Shanks in Civil Society, Civil Religion. Yet, why continually rub America's nose in Islam? This is not simply ineffective leadership, for outside of openly supporting religious freedom, most Americans in particular believe Islam foments suffering and injustice. But it puts Obama in the ill-advised position of advocating an alien faith to those who not only reject it, but who are now faced with having to see a Muslim religious building constructed on land where thousands of Americans were immolated by radical Islam. One wonders if Mohammad wanted the Dome of the Rock built over the Temple ground similarly to honor fallen Jews? A Mosque built next to a fresh Muslim victim's site rejects Lincoln's dictate in the Gettysburg Address to honor American victims of war:

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

Does it really honor the 9/11 victims for Liberals to insist we build a mosque there, despite the details of their deaths nor any of the sentiments of the victim’s families? Is it not logically absurd to give Islam preeminence to build a mosque next to victims of a Muslim Jihad? No principled American theory of leadership would ever countenance such a move (except perhaps to break the people's spirit). And in his arrogant tyranny, Obama needs to be informed he has no right to arbitrarily dictate anything harming Americans. Further, Barack must stop acting as if he is always right, and never need prove his ideas are sound. Contra, he should simply appeal to common sense and the Natural Law government principles our Republic was founded upon. Barack is, sadly, a mere man of ordinary intelligence whose perverse insights and utter inability to lead seems to create fresh peril daily.

Conclusion: Urgent Response to Obama's Tyranny Must = Impeachment

According to Christopher Wolfe's Natural Law Liberalism, Thomas Aquinas extolled biblical notions of limited government, private property, rejection of tyrants and human freedom by the 13th century, and nothing has bettered these ideas since then. For the inexperienced and absurdly ideological Obama to fatuously pretend "Barack knows best" for Americans, against all of our history, law, religion, instincts, desires and common sense--is asinine. Further, to do so while virtually all his big decisions are imploding around his feet makes him a colossal buffoon, not a leader, in the proper meaning of the term. But it's apparently time for the Divine Right of Obama, being either Marxist or Muslim derived. Most worrisome regarding Barack's catastrophic, despotic "leadership" is a continual habit of making rash decisions, informed by impetuous ignorance, based only on discredited leftist ideology. Can we possibly afford a leader who simply refuses to employ common sense, smugly pretending to have a secret body of doctrines that always succeed, but then pretending he's deaf, dumb, and blind when it all predictably implodes? Is Obama merely clueless, passive aggressive, or an anti-American saboteur who feeds off patriotic misery and finds it sweet? So many of Obama's choices are either transparently illogical, or so purely political -- like refusing to start cleaning up the gulf oil spill to mollify union buddies -- that it defies a common sense explanation. One must hearken back to the failed reigns of the "great" Marxist leaders -- Lenin, Stalin & Mao -- to find similar campaigns of willful stupidity (such as Mao's political famine resulting in over 40 million deaths). Like Barack directing NASA to promulgate Islam. And Obama's apparent pathological indifference to failure well-illustrates his fixation with fact-blind ideological policy. In defiantly rejecting America's historic standards, Barack either does not know America well enough to represent us; or is so vigorously opposed to our convictions he takes any chance to shove his leftism down our collective throats; or he is so deranged he simply cannot birth a logical set of public policy. In any event, as argued here repeatedly (in articles 1; 2; 3 ), the only antidote to Obama's political hari kari is to impeach and remove this very dangerous and diabolically un-American man before his pompous tyranny destroys us all. If not, where will the madness end?