About Us
How it all Began:
The time would have been the late 1950s. The place was a couple of miles outside the megalopolis of Cope, County of Morgan, State of Indiana (a.k.a., “the boonies”). The issue was the welfare and safety of the breadwinner for a wife and four sons who, each evening, gathered apprehensively around the kitchen table to wait for headlights to turn into the driveway, thereby affirming that said breadwinner had made it home one more time without injury to himself or damage to his pickup truck.
Said breadwinner was the eldest of seven children, had been orphaned at age nine, the only sibling thus orphaned who had not been adopted and who had pretty much “raised himself” in spite of ”the system” of the 1930s. A veteran of WW II, he was part of what would later be called “The Greatest Generation,” returning to rebuild a nation and provide a good life for his family. He was as honest as the day was long, an extremely hard worker, a union pipeline welder who was always crossways with the union because he insisted on giving an hour’s work for an hour’s pay, even (especially) if that meant doing jobs outside his “classification” or “job description” (i.e., chipping, taping, backfilling, etc., for those who know pipelining). At the time in question, the breadwinner was commuting from Cope to a place called “Terre Haute” to cross a picket line and ply his honest trade of welding in spite of an ongoing and violent labor strike. In response, union goons were physically assaulting alleged sub-humans they called “scabs,” even putting some in hospital, and/or trashing their vehicles. The breadwinner’s wife and sons – and the rest of the world – knew this was happening because the strike was being covered nightly on the TV news. I was the eldest of those four brothers sitting around that kitchen table. And I recall wondering, not understanding the intricacies of management/labor relations, “What kind of place is this place called Terre Haute that people would beat up other people and burn their pickup trucks simply because they were trying to make an honest living and provide for their families?” Answers to that question were a long time coming. (For more information about the above, please visit our Program Archives and listen to “The Hand of God in the Glove of Life.”) Fast-forward nearly three decades… For reasons unascertainable this side of eternity, partly due to certain foolish life-choices on my part and involving to some degree, as I came to understand later, divine Providence, I found myself in that place called “Terre Haute,” with my own wife and my own four children, trying to make my own honest living in a “skilled trade” other than welding. Eventually, for reasons the depths of which we shall not plumb here, the City moved against me because I was endeavoring to make that honest living outside the (unlawful, unethical) parameters the City was recognizing as prerequisites to plying that particular lawful trade within the City limits. That action fanned a smoldering spark that had been lying dormant in my belly for those many years. The response was more or less automatic, emotional and, I suppose, visceral: “NO! You will NOT do to me what you tried to do to my father!” The spark in the belly was fanned into a fire in the belly. Game on! Although a Christian who fancied himself a “biblicist,” like most Americans I was grossly ignorant of our Constitutions, our body of law, our biblical heritage and our standing before God as He holds us accountable in and for our standing before our government. But that was about to change, thanks to the City of Terre Haute. I began to study and to learn the law, both as it was intended to be and as it had been perverted. I learned that knowledge truly is power (Hosea 4:6). I learned the difference between a “citizen” and a “subject.” I came to appreciate Paul’s status as a Roman and Jefferson’s allusion to “rights endowed by our Creator.” If not an epiphany, it certainly was an empowering enlightenment. The “game” lasted ten years. They took me to court; I took them to court. As a certain bloviating conservative talk-show entertainer would say, I had more fun than any man ought to legally be allowed to have! One “officer of the court,” one of the few who treated me as a human being throughout the process, told me later that in all his years of service he had never “seen them spend so much time and money” on any single case. Finally, in response to my Fifth-Amendment (as opposed to a Fourteenth-Amendment) federal “civil rights” suit against various city officials, various county officials and the largest bank in the area, Vigo County hired one of the largest law firms in Indianapolis as its defense team. For little old nobody me? I was blown away. Still am. They finally just gave up. That same “officer of the court” said they decided I was not worth all the time and effort. Technically, it was a stalemate. In practical application, however, many of the aforementioned “unlawful, unethical” practices of both the City and the organized “skilled tradesmen” were corrected. It’s still Da Hote, “Little Chicago,” a hotbed of corruption of which old Mayor Daley would have been proud, but things are different today because one man chose to stand up to tyranny. No brag; just fact. Thank you for visiting. Please stay tuned… For Christ and Country, Constitutionally Yours, Ron Marsh (For pulpit supply and/or special meetings, please see “Contact” page.) |
Our Purpose:
The purposes of this site and the Constitutionally Yours ministry are two-fold: (1) to educate We the People about our God-given, biblical heritage and to demonstrate the harmony between biblical principles of governance and the principles of a constitutional, republican form of government as envisioned and established by our Founding Fathers and (2) to encourage God’s people to take their rightful place – and to fulfill their rightful responsibilities – as citizens of Heaven and sojourners of Earth.
By God’s grace, this site will always be a work in progress. So please, look around. And please, come back often to see what has been added. By God’s grace, we will always try to keep our priorities in tune with God’s priorities, that the first and final answer to ALL of life’s questions, dilemmas and crises is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. All else of life pales in comparison. By God’s grace, we will never abandon the biblical principle that the Christian life is not bifurcated into “things sacred” and “things secular,” but that ALL of life is, for the Christian, sacred – including our relationship to our government and our civic responsibility before God. In addition to trying to keep up with current issues affecting Christian families and the churches, we will be revisiting certain incidents from the past with which I have been involved in my roles as pastor, legislative lobbyist, pro-life and pro-decency activist, “patriot movement” activist, and “God and Government” speaker. For Christ and Country, Constitutionally Yours, Ron Marsh (For pulpit supply and/or special meetings, please see “Contact” page.) |