INSPIRATION & THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION

Visit this web-site, then post your response here. I challenge you, however, to be charitable in what you write.

McNaughton Fine Art

www.mcnaughtonart.com

I found this painting through a web-site that ridiculed it. The ridicule troubled me but so did the work of the artist - by work I mean both the visual and written aspects. I am not ashamed to be fervently in favor of the idea of America articulated so well in our Constitution.

I do wonder, however, if this piece of work crosses the line between idea and idolatry. The idea of America must not be what one worships.

RESPONSE FROM A FRIEND:

I don't see it as idolatry...I did question his remark that the constitution was inspired of God...but I think it is rather a matter of semantics. The whole painting is symbolic and I think it gives a pretty good picture of where we've been and where we could be going. At least it gives food for thought! Thanks for posting, Craig.

Craig Tavani wrote:

I have wondered myself whether or not "the constitution was inspired of God." This brings into question what "inspiration" means.

I believe right relationship is the means by which God's breath is fully present - one on one, we each are responsible for inspiring the other, like a perfectly functioning lung system. Our first act as a human being, once we are born, is to breathe. Why should the new birth be any different? Breathing is what those born again are called to do - new life, new breath (once choked by sin, now free from death). Breathe in, breathe out - me, you. If our relationship is not right, we slowly suffocate one another.

The letter is dead, the Spirit is life. What is written in the Constitution codifies the freedom that ought to be the atmosphere in which we live and move and have our being. The Constitution does not grant us freedom; freedom is a gracious gift of God to all humanity - this is what is declared in the charter that initiated what became the United States of America. The Constitution must be understood in that context.

Misunderstanding this will choke us to death.