WHY SECULAR NEUTRALITY IS A MYTH AND THE STATE ALWAYS FILLS THE VOID

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” - John Adams, 1798

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TL;DR

The U.S. Constitution was designed to restrain power, not to create virtue. It presupposes a people already governed by conscience, what Scripture calls the law written on the heart. Secularism does not remove religion from public life. It replaces it with the State, which must then enforce a moral vision through coercion backed by its monopoly on violence. When transcendence is rejected, liberty cannot be sustained, written constitutions hollow out, and Leviathan inevitably emerges. Scripture’s answer is not procedural reform but restored lordship: Christ above the State, or the State in His place.

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SECULARISM, THE CONSTITUTION, AND THE RETURN OF LEVIATHAN

Modern secularism presents itself as neutral, an empty public square where religion is excluded so reason and law can operate objectively. Secularism is often mistaken for neutrality, but it functions more like a competing moral authority. That claim of neutrality is false. Secularism is not the absence of faith. It is the reassignment of faith. God is not removed. He is replaced. When that happens, the State inevitably expands to fill the vacuum.

John Adams understood this with remarkable clarity. The U.S. Constitution presupposes a moral and religious people. It does not generate virtue. It assumes it. Remove that assumption, and the Constitution becomes inadequate, not because it is flawed, but because it was never meant to govern a people without internal moral restraint.

The Constitution restrains power; it does not supply virtue.

This is the fault line modern secularism refuses to acknowledge.

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LAW WRITTEN BEFORE LAW IS WRITTEN

Scripture teaches that moral awareness precedes written law. Paul explains that even those without the Mosaic law still demonstrate accountability:

“They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness.” (Romans 2:15, ESV)

This is not saving grace, but it is real moral knowledge, sufficient for civil order. Written law does not create morality. It appeals to it. A constitution does not form a people. It reflects one.

Where conscience is operative, limited law suffices. Where conscience erodes, no document, however carefully crafted, can compensate.

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SECULARISM IS NOT NEUTRAL

Secularism accelerates constitutional decay by severing law from transcendence. Once God is removed as the highest authority, the State must assume that role. Moral categories do not disappear. They are absorbed and enforced by power.

The State begins to define truth, legislate virtue, regulate speech, and redefine human identity. This is not neutrality. It is theology enforced by coercion, ultimately backed by the State’s monopoly on violence and its authority to punish disobedience.¹

Scripture has always warned where this trajectory leads. Babel depicts centralized ambition apart from God (Genesis 11). Daniel portrays autonomous empires as beasts (Daniel 7). Revelation shows the State becoming monstrous when it demands ultimate allegiance (Revelation 13).

“For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.” (Romans 13:3, ESV)

Authority is real. Necessary. But authority detached from accountability to God inevitably becomes predatory.

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LEVIATHAN IS NOT A MYTH

Thomas Hobbes did not invent Leviathan. He described humanity without transcendence. When there is no higher law, power must become absolute to restrain chaos.

Leviathan is not an aberration. It is fallen man with sovereignty.

The American Founders understood this intuitively. They did not expect the Constitution to civilize the people. They expected the people, formed by Christian moral categories and natural-law assumptions, to restrain themselves. Liberty was possible because power was limited, and power could be limited only because conscience existed before coercion.

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WHEN THE HEART CHANGES, THE DOCUMENT HOLLOWS OUT

When that moral inheritance is rejected, the Constitution does not vanish overnight. It hollows out.

Words are redefined. Rights are detached from duties. Limits are reframed as obstacles.

The document remains, but its authority becomes symbolic. Eventually, power outgrows parchment.

Scripture never claims that law can save a people. Only Christ regenerates hearts:

“I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” (Jeremiah 31:33, ESV)

“Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3, ESV)

Yet Scripture is equally clear that societies depend on moral order to function at all. Remove God, and freedom does not remain neutral. It dissolves. What follows is not liberation, but management, not justice, but control.

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THE END OF LEVIATHAN

Revelation does not end with the Beast.

After the State reaches its fullest, most coercive form, Scripture offers a final word:

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” (Revelation 11:15, ESV)

Leviathan is temporary. Christ is not.

A constitution written on paper endures only as long as it reflects a constitution written on the heart. When the latter fades, Leviathan does not need to overthrow the former.

It simply replaces it, until it too is judged.

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NOTES

1.  Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation (1919): definition of the State as holding “the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force.”

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SOURCES

John Adams, Letter to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts (1798)

Romans 2:15; Romans 13:3; Jeremiah 31:33; John 3:3; Revelation 11:15 (ESV) Genesis 11; Daniel 7; Revelation 13 (ESV)

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)

Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation (1919)