Former Secretary of State John Kerry recently made headlines for his remarks portraying the First Amendment as a threat (“Elites stoking war on speech,” Jonathan Turley, Oct. 3).
Democratic politician John Kerry described the First Amendment as a “major block” to the federal government stopping what it deems to be “disinformation” and suggested he hopes — should leftists retain control of the White House — they will “implement change.”
The former secretary of the U.S. Department of State made the bold declaration last Wednesday, during a session of the World Economic Forum focused on “green energy” (beginning at the 45-minute mark). Kerry’s remarks came in response to an audience member who asked what the federal government can do to push back against those who call the legitimacy of climate change into question. His response:
“You know, there’s a lot of discussion now about how you curb those entities in order to guarantee that you’re going to have some accountability on facts, etcetera,” he said. “But look, if people only go to one source, and the source they go to is sick, and, you know, has an agenda, and they’re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence.”
He then admitted his hopes should Democrats succeed in the November presidential election.
“So what we need is to win the ground, win the right to govern, by hopefully winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to implement change,” Kerry said.
The problems posed by the freedom of speech (First Amendment) and freedom of the press, Kerry argued, are unique to democratic systems because there is no singular “truth arbiter.” He suggested that should be the role of the federal government, led by the Democratic Party.
But free speech is not a threat to the public good. Would-be tyrants like Kerry — who want to control everything we do and never face criticism— are a real threat. Listen to this,
“By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation [the United States] will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near” (Testimonies for the Church 5:451).
These are the very people the founders gave us the First Amendment to protect us from.
Observations
If we pay attention, liberals tell us who they are, and right now they are telling us that they don’t like the Constitution, and they don’t like free speech. Consider Jennifer Szalai’s recent article in the New York Times The Constitution Is Sacred. Is It Also Dangerous? She wrote this piece claiming that “one of the biggest threats to America’s politics might be the country’s founding document.”
Here’s something, really important. We’ve been told by the ideological Left that conservatives are a big problem because we pay too much attention to the text of the Constitution.
The argument is saying, “Conservatives are paying so much attention to the text of the Constitution,”originalism, strict constructionism—as it is known. Then they say, “The problem could be avoided if conservatives would just go along with the fact that we ought to have a more elastic understanding of the Constitution,” which means more like Roe v. Wade, for example.
Along with John Kerry’s repudiation of the First Amendment, it’s hard to come up with a story (the New York Times story) which is actually more revealing of the worldview crisis we now face.
As Seventh-day Adventist Christians, we understand this is a little more complex than a New York Times story or a fortune-marriage-ketchup-opportunist-turned-Gaia-votary. This is something that reaches far deeper levels and, frankly, hits closer to home than many people might think. Because when you’re talking about interpreting a text, there are limited ways to interpret it. And it generally comes down to the fact that there’s a conservative and a liberal way of looking at any text.
The conservative argument in every case is going to be, “Well, it comes down to words and phrases and sentences and paragraphs. The text means what the text says.”
And in other contexts, you have liberals who say, “That’s just tying ourselves to ancient prejudices and to ancient texts. We’re a modern people; we need to have modern interpretation of these texts.” We see this frequently from the left in the Church.
And you say, “Well, what does this have to do with Adventists?” It has to do with the fact that when you talk about liberal and conservative, it’s not just about interpreting the Constitution, it’s about how to read and interpret the Holy Bible itself.
When it comes to the Bible, conservatives say, “It is the text that matters.” And conservative believers have affirmed with the church throughout the centuries that the Bible is the Word of God. It is not up to us to reframe it, to re-contextualize it, or to come up with alternative meanings that we supposedly find. Liberals often say they find meanings that are not the meaning asserted by the words, sentences, phrases themselves. Like Roy Gane in volume 33 of Journal of the Adventist Society who claims,
“God required Old Testament ordained priests to be male, but there is no corresponding ordination with a gender restriction in the New Testament.”
In both cases, whether it’s constitutional liberals or biblical liberals, you have people saying, “The text doesn’t have to mean that now. We’re in a different context. We’re modern people, and we need modern interpretations.”
Regarding John Kerry and Jennifer Szalai, it’s important to recognize that the political liberals are running out of runway on weird interpretations. They’re now saying, “What we need is a different text.” That’s a radical statement. This is what a lot of liberals in the theological context are doing as well. “We need a new text.”
Just look at how so many of them have now just stopped arguing about the Bible. They just close the book, and move on to something else like social justice, CRT, DEI, BLM and general wokeness.
By the way, the New York Times article is a liberal scholar who complains about conservatives who have undermined, “Progressive policies while using the soothing language of constitutionalism.”
Dear fellow believers. When you are accused of taking words and sentences too seriously, when you are accused of dishonoring the Constitution or the Bible by saying “It means what it says and that settles it”, you can know their argument has become irrational. This irrationality is becoming all too common, both in the church and without.
Stay sharp, love God, and walk in Truth.
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“When [apostate] Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near.”
