Swearing in on the Koran—What Do We Really Believe?
Posted on May 25, 2007
Filed Under Worldview |
For years, the courtrooms in America operated under a fairly simple mandate: find out the truth in a dispute and issue a righteous ruling based upon those facts. To highten the motivation for witnesses to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, they were asked to swear an oath before God, often placing their hand upon the Bible to further solidify the higher accountability to which they were being held. Somehow we believed that all of these outward actions would reinforce the reality that behind them stood a Holy, omnipotent God who had declared that it was wrong to bear false witness. To do so put you at odds with the God of the Universe and His character.
North Carolina, typical of other states, had codified this attempt to better insure that the truth the court was pursuing was also an objective of both the witness and the juror. So, for years, the courtrooms in North Carolina operated under a law called “Administration of oath upon the Gospels” in which an individual was to lay their hand upon the “Holy Evangelists of Almighty God.”
Fast forward to today and things have obviously changed. Under increasing pressure in our culture to walk away from our Christian foundations, earlier legislative action in North Carolina had basically watered this down to allow a person to take their “oath” in one of three ways: laying a hand on the “Holy Scriptures”, or simply saying “so help me God”, or by an affirmation without any religious symbolism at all. In itself, this had pretty much stripped the statute of any Christian specificity.
However, that was not enough. The ACLU had been active in arguing that the state’s use of the phrase “Holy Scripture” still favored Christianity over other religions. They wanted the courts to declare the statute unconstitutional or clarify that “Holy Scriptures” means more than the Bible. The ACLU had been unsuccessful until they added a Muslim woman, Syidah Mateen, as a plaintiff in their case. In 2003, Syidah, a witness in a domestic violence case, was denied her request to be sworn in on the Koran.
Yesterday, a North Carolina judge handed the ACLU a favorable ruling, granting the notion that, essentially, if someone wants to place their hand on something that they consider “most sacred and obligatory upon their conscience” then so be it—Koran or otherwise.
I don’t know how much the tradition of placing one’s hand upon the Bible made a witness more apt to tell the truth or not. If someone had motivations to lie, maybe this was insufficient to get them to tell the truth. But I do know this. The action was symbolic of deeper, unifying convictions. Our country was founded upon a firm belief in a biblical framework that was to direct how our lives were to be lived. It defined what was morally right and wrong. It provided the compass and the principles around which our nation and its people united. It was the basis for good law and good social order. It was the standard toward which we strived to have healthy families, recognized political evil, and for which we would defend with our lives and our fortunes.
We are fast becoming a people with nothing to believe in, nothing to agree upon, nothing to fight for. This is exactly what the enemy wants. Without the ability to recognize disease, we will have lost our immunity to infection. Without a unifying standard, we will become individually impotent.
It is suicide.
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9 Responses to “Swearing in on the Koran—What Do We Really Believe?”
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Dr. Del Tackett is president of the Focus on the Family Institute and Senior Vice President to Focus on the Family. He is also the architect and chief spokesperson for Focus on the Family's The Truth Project--a nationwide initiative designed to bring the Christian worldview to the body of Christ.
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I’ve read it reported that the Koranic law states it is OK to lie to non-Muslims. Is this the standard we want in our courts?
I recently spent 13 months serving as the secretary of a federal grand jury in Charlottesville, VA. The foreman often administered the oath to the witnesses by saying, “So help you…” No God, no Bible, nothing at all to encourage the witness to tell the truth, except for the perjury threat of possible prosecution. I was quite discouraged by this, but it was the way it was written up in the handbook, as an alternative way of swearing in witnesses. “To tell the truth, so help you…” Lord, help us all! Our forefathers would roll over in their graves, if they only knew!
Some people today want to change history and the fact that the Bible was a cornerstone for truth and morals in this country. These attacks on the Christian foundations of this country, if not stopped, will lead to the down fall of this great nation. If the mighty Roman Empire could fall, what makes people think that a secular United States would too?
I’ve read where the bible says you aren’t supposed to swear oaths. Is this the standard we want in our courts?
Without the ability to recognize disease, we will have lost our immunity to infection. Without a unifying standard, we will become individually impotent.
Amen Dr. Tackett!
The sooner the body of Christ understands Islam and the need of so many followers of such, who think the scales of justice will turn in their favor by dieing for a ‘godly’ cause, the sooner we can effectively witness, debate, and shed God’s light. Those Muslims who have the greatest sins believe jihad will tip the scales of justice towards salvation in their favor. What a welcomed Truth it would be to hear the story of Christ to those willing to listen in the Muslim community.
Excellent Post. I was going to comment like Ted did. Too frightening what the PC stuff is doing to this country.
I clearly remember being in 5th grade (circa 1979) and learning that America was the great “melting pot.” I understood that to mean that you checked your nationality at the door and adopted American culture and values. Under this premise, we united as countrymen well enough to win a world war, fought on fronts across the globe against mighty enemies with more advanced weaponry. (Esentially, we only won the technology battle on the splitting of the atom. The Germans introduced the first rockets, fighter jets, better machine guns, etc etc.)
Someone once said “United we stand, divided we fall.” Have we forgotten this principle? Well, yes.
I have developed a hypothesis that trial lawyers would be viewed as a similar “brood of vipers” by Christ. Just like the legalist Pharisees that wielded law as their powerful weapon of control, today’s lawyers scrutinize the minutiae details looking for their chance to strike. This has forced our culture onto the defensive, always vigilant for one’s own “liability” as a priority over truth. The end result is that our “justice system” isn’t about true justice anymore, but rather who has the better legalist attorney.
When precedence is set based on previous court cases (where interpretation of the law was the authority instead of a search for the truth), you have a snowball effect. What once was unthinkable, is now certainly possible through the chain of precendence.
May God bring about an honest revival among the members of the ACLU and members of each state bar.
Dr. Tackett,
I dislike posting without sources before me, but I recall that the during the Cold War, the
Communist Party wanted its U.S. operatives to push for a radical interpretation of the separation of church and state. The aim of this drive was simple - to separate us from our moral foundation and thereby weaken us internally to hasten our fall. (How ironic that our godless adversary recognized the cornerstone of our strength and the utility of attacking it. Now we are casually walking away from it.)
The ACLU had a socialist foundation/origin. It seems that some tactics are still being pursued.
The danger with becoming too familiar with great blessings is that we can begin to consider them normal or naturally-occurring. The freedom we enjoy is just such a blessing. But many think that it will endure as it always has (in their lifetime or recent history), not appreciating its inherent fragility when not vigilantly guarded. Similary, we can easily forget (or reject) the fact that this liberty is a gift from almighty God.
Lincoln said it thusly: “But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.”
God warned Israel of the dangers that came with great blessing in Deuteronomy 8:11-20 …when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; when your heart is lifted up and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage….then you say in your heart, “My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.”….if you by any means forget the Lord your God and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish….because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God.”
God blesses abundantly. We become satisified and complacent. We forget the source of the blessing and become prideful. God judges us for our pridefulness.
I pray we not repeat the pattern.
If immigrants desire the blessings of this nation but are not instructed of their true Source, if we fail to diligently instruct our sons and daughters of the One Who both blesses and judges nations, we imperil the future of this nation.
David Gilmore
I find it offensive that someone would believe that I would lie unless I swore on a bible. I believe what Jesus taught about swearing oaths.
He said to simply let your yes be yes and your no be no, anything more comes from the evil one.