The degenerative....

That the Smithsonian as an institution pulled its support is really indicative of society today. That scientists centuries ago had no problem putting science and theism on the table at the same time is historical. That we cannot do so today is degenerative or retrograde.

(Todd Peterson in Christianity Today)

The worst offenders as far as following the subpagan tendency of rebellion against transcendence often seems to be the American Judiciary and oddly enough, mainline American churches too. It's not that they explicitly deny theism, yet they separate it from anything having to do with real life. They might say that this sort of separation is what the American Founders wanted. Yet it wasn't, which is why modern pagans come to a position that would make the theism of the Declaration of Independence and numerous state constitutions "unconsitutional." How can all of this be unconstitutional, didn't the Founders know of the contradiction? For that matter, the Constitution is also "unconstitutional" based on the version of separation adhered to by the ACLU because unlike political documents of the French Revolution it followed the old expression "In the year of our Lord..." which places God as sovereign over time.

Unfortunately, the American universities in which the American judiciary is being educated apparently do not have professors that teach American history nor basic civics for that matter. Given that, we have a Judiciary which will argue that the same sort of admission that God is sovereign* to be found in the Constitution itself is unconstitutional. The curious thing is that textual degenerates want to pretend that they are in agreement with the Founders. That may be because the foresight and wisdom that the Founders had through text is still apparent to most Americans.

I should note that even if people try to follow the diktats of those who rule by textual degeneracy it will not be possible. If the texts of a textual degenerate are static then such a person has lost their power to dictate by their own will whatever decision they will. Decisions are made to be an impossible maze of principles and concepts that cannot be defined clearly so that the petty tyrant can rule by their own will alone. Example: Kansas tried to set up a display of the Ten Commandments and historical documents in a historical way to follow what seemed to be the rules of the Court, only to have it struck down. That's because increasingly the Court rules the way it will rule. It is not making rulings based on principles and the veneer of principle it places on its decisions becomes thinner and thinner.

Do people wonder at how acrimonious and political the nomination process has become? Many things are the fault of Congress, yet that is not one of them, not entirely anyway. Instead that comes about because the Court politicized itself more than it had in the past and not because the Congress suddenly politicized the Court beginning in the 70s. There were some political decisions before too, yet the Court brought the new politicization on itself by making more numerous political decisions based on its own will or its perception of the people's will. In a political decision it exchanges the legal for the political instead of making legal decisions based on the text written to limit and define its decisions. Rejecting limitation, it now sets itself up as having the authority to define the very text intended to limit its own decisions. The Courts want to make the decisions that they will make and so what brings together all the disparate legal confusion created by political decisions are that they increase the power of the Judiciary.

The surest foundation the Founders could create in having a written Constitution has indeed become a "thing of wax," just as Jefferson said it would.

* (E.g.: "...under God..." in the pledge or "In the year of our Lord..." in the Constitution or "...endowed by their Creator..." in the Declaration.)