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June 21, 2007
Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10281
RE: Response to a June 15, 2007 Editorial
ATT: L. Gordon Crovitz – Publisher
Paul E. Steiger – Editor at Large
Paul Gigot – Vice President, Editorial Page Editor
James Taranto - Editor of the OpinionJournal.com
On Friday, June 15, 2007 in the Weekend Edition Opinion Journal page W-11 of the Wall Street Journal appeared an article by Mollie Ziegler Hemingway entitled: “The decline of the Sabbath in America: Less praying, more working and playing.”
As the leading daily newspaper covering U.S. and international business and financial news with more than 2 million circulations worldwide through your U.S., Asian, and European editions, this letter is written out of deep concern.
Your newspaper has presented Sunday-keeping and Sunday closing laws from a perspective that is one-sided. We should welcome an intelligent, healthy discussion on issues that will affect both the morality and economy of this nation.
As an ordained minister of the Gospel for more than 50 years and as a World War II Veteran, I feel it is both my spiritual duty to qualify the statements made regarding Sunday-keeping and my civic duty to forewarn of the dangers of the coming Sunday laws.
Sunday Laws from a Legal Perspective: Religious or Secular?
One only needs to look at modern history to find out the true nature of Sunday laws.
“The earliest recognition of the observation of Sunday as a legal duty is a constitution of Constantine [the first Roman church-state emperor] in 321 A.D.” Encyclopedia Britannica, Ninth Edition, Article “Sunday.”
Constantine was responsible for the first Sunday law. In Constantine’s day, Rome’s official religion was sun worship – the cult of Sol Invictus [Invincible Sun] and Constantine was its head priest. As an ambitious politician and life-long pagan wanting to unite his empire, he instituted Sunday by law as a day of rest for both the Christians and for the pagans who worshiped the sun god. The purpose was to get the pagans or the unchurched to come to church. And what better way than through a legal enactment.
Constantine decreed on March 7, 321 “Dies Solis” [day of the sun] as the Roman day of Rest: “On the venerable day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed.”
On Rome’s official coinage, Constantine portrayed his image on one side and the sun god, Sol Invictus, on the other side with the inscription “SOLI INVICTO COMITI” or “the invincible sun god is my companion.” This continued even after he allegedly became a Christian. He still worshipped the pagan sun god.
Forty years after Constantine’s first Sunday law, Church Bishops met at the Council of Laodicea to establish Sunday as the official religion throughout all of Christianity, and to excommunicate and persecute those who kept the Seventh-day Sabbath.
“Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath [Saturday], but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord's Day [Sunday]; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema [cursed] from Christ.” Council of Laodicea 363-364 A.D, Canon 29.
This decree abolished the Seventh-day Sabbath and institutionalized Sunday to be kept by all Christians. The cult of Sol Invictus continued to be part of Rome’s state religion until paganism was abolished by decree of Theodosius I on February 27, 390. However, by then Sunday had become popular largely because it was established and enforced by the power of the state.
Additional church-state decrees followed in the succeeding generations. These laws restricted what could be done on Sunday and forbade Sabbath-keeping. Each law became more strict, each penalty more severe.
In America, Sunday laws are often referred to as Blue Laws and were established as early as 1655 by the church clergy, who also wielded civil authority. The purpose of these early Puritan Sunday laws was to try to have people be in church, to pray to God, and read the Bible. Failure to do so would result in fines, imprisonment, or possible death. This of course caused church attendance to go up, as well as church offerings. Enforcing the conscience will not bring happiness, enjoyment, or salvation through Jesus Christ.
Most recently, in his 1997 Apostolic Letter, “Dies Domini” (Keeping the Lord’s Day), the late Pope John Paul II called upon Christians in every nation to secure Sunday as a day of rest and worship through civil legislation!
Sunday laws have been challenged on the grounds that they violate the separation of church and state. Our U.S. Constitution did help to contain the intensity of these Sunday laws; but, in the 1960’s the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in two separate cases [McGowan v. Maryland & Braunfeld v. Brown] that Sunday laws are not in violation of the First Amendment but rather – Sunday closing laws are actually secular laws that are to improve the “health, safety, recreation, and general well-being” of citizens.
The American clergy is ecstatic because the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest tribunal authority in the United States, has established Sunday closing laws as a necessary and uniform day of rest – but not for religious purposes, no, for secular purposes. Unbelievable!
All of these civil ordinances are trying to bring us back to early American Colonial days when people were severely punished for breaking the observance of Sunday—a religious institution. If this Sunday law is really only secular, why then are all the Protestant churches and the Roman Catholic church pushing for the Sunday law too? And the situation will grow worse in the days ahead; “And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name” (Rev. 13:15-18).
How will a National Sunday Law affect the economy of thStates and the world? Is it possible that making God’s law void will bring national financial and economic ruin because the American dollar affects the rest of the world?
“A time is coming when the law of God is, in a special sense, to be made void in our land. The rulers of our nation will, by legislative enactments, enforce the Sunday law, and thus God's people be brought into great peril. When our nation, in its legislative councils, shall enact laws to bind the consciences of men in regard to their religious privileges, enforcing Sunday observance, and bringing oppressive power to bear against those who keep the seventh-day Sabbath, the law of God will, to all intents and purposes, be made void in our land; and national apostasy will be followed by national ruin.” The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 7, p. 981.
On the other side you have a Supreme Court Justice, a true American patriot, who contends that Sunday laws are inherently religious and not secular.
“The Court picks and chooses language from various decisions to bolster its conclusion that these Sunday laws in the modern setting are ‘civil regulations.’ No matter how much is written, no matter what is said, the parentage of these laws is the Fourth Commandment; and they serve and satisfy the religious predispositions of our Christian communities…” Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420 (1961).
“When religion is good, it will take care of itself. When it is not able to take care of itself, and God does not see fit to take care of it, so that it has to appeal to the civil power for support, it is evidence to my mind that its cause is a bad one.” Benjamin Franklin, Letter to Dr. Price.
Sabbath from a Theological Perspective: Sunday or Saturday?
Jesus: “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read.” Luke 4:16.
Jesus declared: “...The sabbath was made for man [Greek: anthropos, mankind]…” Mark 2:27.
Paul: “And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures.” Acts 17:2-3.
Paul and the Gentiles: “And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. And the next Sabbath came almost the whole city together to hear the Word of God.” Acts 13:42, 44.
“But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God” Exodus 20:10.
Even Webster’s Dictionary tells us that the Saturday is the seventh day or the Sabbath and that Sunday is the first day.
The Encyclopedia Britanica also makes the following statement regarding Sunday-keeping:
“There is no evidence that in the earliest years of Christianity there was any formal observance of Sunday as a day of rest or any general cessation of work.” 1911 Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Article: Sunday (www.1911encyclopedia.org).
Baptist: “Of course I quite well know that Sunday did come into use in early Christian history as a religious day, as we learn from the Christian Fathers and other sources. But what a pity that it comes branded with the mark of Paganism, and christened with the name of the sun-god, then adopted as sanctified by the Papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism.” Dr. E.T. Hiscox, author of the Baptist Manuel. From a photostatic copy of a notarized statement by Dr. Hiscox.
Methodist: “It is true that there is no positive command for infant baptism. Nor is there any for keeping holy the first day of the week. Many believe that Christ changed the Sabbath. But, from His own words, we see that He came for no such purpose. Those who believe that Jesus changed the Sabbath base it only on a supposition.” Amos Binney, Theological Compendium, 1902 edition, pp. 180-181. Binny [1802-1978] was a Methodist minister and presiding elder, whose Compendium was published for forty years in many languages. He also wrote a Methodist New Testament Commentary.
Disciples of Christ: “If it [10 Commandments] yet exist, let us observe it…And if it does not exist, let us abandon a mock observance of another day for it. ‘But,’ some say, ‘it was changed from the seventh to the first day.’ Where? When? And by whom? No, it never was changed, nor could it be, unless creation was to be gone through again – for the reason assigned [Genesis 2:1-3] must be changed before the observance or respect to the reason, can be changed. It is all old wives’ fables to talk of the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day. If it be changed, it was that august personage changed it who I think his name is ‘Doctor Antichrist.” Alexander Campbell, the Christian Baptist, February 2, 1824, vol. 1 no. 7. Campbell [1788-1866] was an Irish Protestant who founded in America the denomination known as the Disciples of Christ.
Lutheran: “They [the Catholics] allege the change of the Sabbath into the Lord’s Day, as it seemeth, to the Decalogue [Ten Commandments]; and they have no example more in their mouths than the change of the Sabbath. They will needs have the Church’s power to be very great, because it hath dispensed with a precept of the Decalogue.” The Ausburg Confession, 1530 A.D. (Lutheran), part 2, article 7, in Philip Schaff’s, the Creeds of Christendom, fourth edition, vol. 3 p. 64.
Roman Catholic: “Sunday is a Catholic institution, and its claims to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles…From beginning to end of scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first.” Catholic Press, Sydney, Australia, August, 1900.
Roman Catholic: “Is there no express commandment for the observance of the first day of the week as a Sabbath, instead of the seventh? None, whatever. Neither Christ nor His apostles nor the first Christians celebrated the first day of the week instead of the seventh as the Sabbath.” New York Weekly Tribune [Roman Catholic] May 24, 1900.
Roman Catholic: “Question: Which is the Sabbath day? Answer: Saturday is the Sabbath day. Question: Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday? Answer: We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.” Peter Geiermann, The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, 1957 edition.
Daniel 7:25 warns us about how in the end of time a religious power would attempt to “change the laws” of God.e United
All the material that is in this document proves one thing.
“The dignitaries of church and state will unite to bribe, persuade, or compel all classes to honor the Sunday. The lack of divine authority will be supplied by oppressive enactments...and even in free America, rulers and legislators, in order to secure public favor, will yield to the popular demand [from mainstream churches] for a law enforcing Sunday observance.” The Great Controversy p. 592, Pacific Press Publishing Assosiation, 1888, (bracket ours).
The Sabbath pertains to man’s spiritual relationship to his or her God. This day was specifically designed by God as a basis for religious observances and acts of worship. No other human being or religious organization, much less civil government, can impose, enforce, or forbid this relationship.
We all certainly have the right to free speech in order to debate or persuade to others what our understanding is in regard to worship, to God, and to religious observances. We also have the right to change or to encourage others to change religious beliefs. But no one except God Himself has a right to punish others for failing to follow someone’s understanding as to what day is the Sabbath. All “offenses” against God will be answered at His tribunal. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” 2 Cor. 5:10.
“Every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshiping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.” George Washington Letter, United Baptist Chamber of Virginia May 1789.
Pastor Ron Spear,
Editor Emeritus
Source: http://www.eternalgospelherald.com/Wall_Street_Journal_Letter.htm
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The Decline of the Sabbath 
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