Spiritual Politician, September 8, 2006
Stephen Safranek, the founder of True Marriage, an organization dedicated to returning control to individuals and so changing family law for all Americans.
On the Spiritual Politician host Melinda Pillsbury-Foster and Stephen Safranek will talk about the hideous abuses that are endemic in America's system of family law and how simply returning to the original vision of American rights can change that and bring us into balance with our spiritual natures.
Stephen J. Safranek is a professor of law at the Ave Maria School of Law. He helped to found the law school and has been involved in many other civic projects. He previously taught at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law and has taught a variety of classes to law students and lawyers.
He has numerous publications and has been involved in public interest litigation for over a decade. The TrueMarriage Project is an outgrowth of his interest in helping ensure the survival and growth of the institution most critical to society, the family.
Professor Safranek previously worked at one of the nation's largest and most prestigious law firms and clerked for Judge O'Scannlain on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He is admitted to practice in Michigan and Illinois (inactive status) and has been admitted to practice before a variety of federal courts including the United States Supreme Court.
On the Spiritual Politician the question of how to bring politics and government into alignment with the relationship we are mandated by Christ to have with each other is always in order. How can the American electoral system fulfill the charge Christ left with us. That charge was then and remains today that we are one in Christ and are to treat each other as brothers and sisters, despite our differences.
Spiritual Politician
Bringing government into alignment with the Lessons of Jesus:
The focus of our show is how to bring government into alignment with truth of our spiritual nature.
America started with the idea we are all, inherently free. We are free to choose, free to live, to breath, and to live our lives as we see fit. Government does not own us; government is just a contractor, providing service to us as sovereign individuals.
That framework is in alignment with the spiritual truth that each of us connects to God directly, needing no person or group as an intermediary. To be free is to be free in the spirit and so in the flesh that temporarily holds the spirit.
When Thomas Jefferson said we were all possessed of inherent rights, existing before government he was extending a spiritual truth into a civic form. It is that Mission Statement from the Declaration of Independence we need to keep in mind.
Because we are free and reject, as did Christ, the use of deceit, manipulation or violence, we need to identify and use other means for organizing ourselves for all purposes. We must be conscious about our relationships with others and find ways to grow into the sense of connection and community that makes us One in Him.
This is especially true for Christians but it is true for everyone else as well. All spiritual ways share these values.
Nearly every major spiritual viewpoint enunciates the idea that we are connected to each other and should be good to each other. Christians just have an even more exacting mission. Christians are to love every one, treating them as they would Jesus.
Jesus was very clear about how we were to treat others. He did not say that it was alright to be abusive, deceitful, and violent if we used government as our tool and agent. There was no exception, He wanted all of our hearts, minds and souls. Christ did not lay out any plan of government, but left it to the conscience of the individual, the same way He connects to each of us.
Jesus never said it would be easy. But neither would He have set goals for us that are impossible.
We are Americans but we are also members of a human family that connects us to something truly wonderful and immense.
So our job here at the Spiritual Politician is to look at Government as a human tool we use every day. Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence that government was ours to change. We need to do that.
Americans have had many successes over the last 231 years since our founding and, learning from both mistakes and successes we can take up the work and bring America into alignment with the Lessons of Jesus and with the highest visions of all humanity.
At the Spiritual Politician we look at the simple truth of what government has become and identify ways to bring it back to where it should be.
