'Congressman Jerry Nadler's 'Will' vs. God's 'Will'

As chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, New York Congressman Jerry Nadler has been a hopeless bungler.

His management of the first Trump impeachment inquiry was so inept, Speaker Pelosi assigned the task of lead prosecutor in the Senate trial to Congressman Adam Schiff of California.

When Attorney General William Barr was testifying before the Judiciary Committee in 2020, Nadler scrapped the code of civility and denied the A.G.’s request for a men’s room break.

During the 2020 domestic riots led by or inspired by ANTIFA, Nadler made the ludicrous claim that the radical insurrectionist group was “imaginary.”

But his latest antic takes the cake. On February 25, after Congressman Greg Steube of Florida quoted the Bible on the floor of the House of Representatives, Nadler objected to the reference saying, “What any religious tradition describes as God’s will is no concern of this Congress.”

Really?

I guess Nadler has forgotten that our national motto is “In God We Trust.” And that motto presupposes there is a will of God.

Throughout the history of the nation, our greatest public officials have placed their trust in the “Will of God” when governing.

In his Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789, President George Washington declared: “... it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his favor.”

Thomas Jefferson, who believed our liberties are “a gift from God,” said in his first inaugural address on March 4, 1801, “And may that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils to what is best.”

During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin spoke of the will of God: “I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proof I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of men.”

In a speech celebrating the Fourth of July, John Adams said: “From the day of the Declaration ... They [the American people] were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of the Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledged as the rules of their conduct.”

Alexander Hamilton believed God willed the establishment “of political orders, the sacredness of property, and the economic foundation of the United States.” He also held that the sacred rights of mankind “are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”

Abraham Lincoln, in his 1862 “Meditation on the Divine Will,” insisted the will of God prevails … in the present civil war … I am almost ready to say this is probably true — that God wills this contest and wills that it shall not yet end.”

To Albert Hodges in 1864, he made this observation: If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God.

In “Fear God and Take Your Own Part,” Theodore Roosevelt declared, “We are citizens of a mighty republic consecrated to the service of God above, through the service of man on earth.”

For Woodrow Wilson, “God was sovereign just and loving, that moral laws governed nations and individuals, that Jesus Christ was God’s supreme revelation ... and that the Bible was ‘the incomparable word of God and the rule of life.’” In 1911, Wilson said that every day he attempted “to put himself under the command of the spirit of God.”

Franklin Roosevelt frequently invoked the will of God. At his fourth inaugural, for example, on January 20, 1945, FDR said, “So we pray to Him now for the vision to see our way clearly — to see the way that leads to a better life for ourselves and for all our fellow men — to the achievement of His will, to peace on earth.

Dwight Eisenhower, in his first inaugural address, uttered in a “prayer of his own”: “Almighty God, as we stand here at this moment my future associates in the executive branch of government join me in beseeching that Thou will make full and complete our dedication to the service of the people in this throng, and their fellow citizens everywhere.”

Ronald Reagan said he “always believed there is a certain divine scheme of things” and added, “I pray that whatever God’s will is, I’ll be able to accept it with grace and have faith in His wisdom.”

Yes, renown elected officials of every political stripe have looked to God for guidance and prayed to have the fortitude to adhere to His will in governing the United States.

Congressman Nadler should heed the words of our nation’s forebears. And he should hope that it is not God’s will that he routinely make a public fool of himself.

George J. Marlin, a former executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is the author of "The American Catholic Voter: Two Hundred Years of Political Impact," and "Christian Persecutions in the Middle East: A 21st Century Tragedy." He is chairman of Aid to the Church in Need-USA. Mr. Marlin also writes for TheCatholicThing.org and the Long Island Business News. Read George J. Marlin's Reports — More Here.