Al,
There is some here to agree with. While term limits may help, it doesn’t address the root problem . . . a disregard for LAW. Everything else is a symptom of that. Poverty, recession, unemployment are not our problems – they are only symptoms of a greater problem, our country’s move from Rule of Law to arbitrary rule of man.
John Adams
“A government of laws and not of men.”
“Novanglus Papers,” no. 7.— The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams, vol. 4, p. 106 (1851).
If we pass term limits but our lawmakers do not submit to the highest law of the land, we still have the same tyranny just slowed a little. I don’t think Americans understand this. I have something I want you to think about . . . “Jurisdiction”. Our founders gave the federal government a clear cut area of responsibility and expressly outlined it in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. This was to be the highest law of the land. It was not only you and I who were to submit to its authority but our lawmakers as well, Democrats as well as Republicans.
James Madison
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
Federalist No. 51 (1788-02-06) [9]
Madison understood this. When the federal government uses its authority and the “power of the sword” to encroach into areas outside their lawful jurisdiction (Energy, Education, Food & Drug, foreign wars, bailouts, health care, Federal Reserve etc….) we get tyranny and the problems our society faces today. The folks that benefit the most from congress’s use of force to take $2,600,000,000,000 of our private property (remember our nation existed without an income tax until 1913) are the major banks and defense contractors who sit on the boards of these six major media organizations (95% of all our media comes from these six). This is why you have to hear about this via an email and not your morning paper or evening news.
As you read this, General Electric, one of our nation’s Top 10 Defense contractors, owns 80% of NBC. Americans depend on major media to tell them how to think and what is important. Americans trust their news organizations. We assume we have a free press. General Electric was not going to allow NBC to inform us or ask tough questions about the Iraq war back in 2002 this would have stopped millions of revenue from entering their corporation.
Here is one example of media bias. Dan Rather, CBS News Anchor, says on the BBC News Night what he is forbidden to say on the evening news here.
http://gnn.tv/articles/111/The_Lynching_of_Dan_Rather
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/archive/2029634.stm
This helps explain why other nations don’t respond to international events in the same way we do. They are responding to a different presentation of facts. They get news we don’t. It’s hard to believe but true. Our news is more censored than any of us care to admit. It keeps us from questioning immoral policy decisions. This also explains some of the division in the church. We are responding to different perceptions of reality. Money is “the root of all evil” and corporate boards and lawmakers must deal with the same temptations as you and I. Without a respect for higher law and its importance to a just society we cannot have real reform.
Eric
“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.” - Thomas Jefferson
"But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it . . . this one will be blessed in all he does." - James 1:25 NKJV
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Warmongering
Friends,
I would like to share my two cents if I may with regard to the comments on “the cost of freedom” and “the terror that is alive and proliferating” and the comment “just or constitutional”. I think as Americans we are a little mixed up and allow me to share my bias so everyone understands where I am coming from. First, I am a follower of Jesus Christ, so I look to the bible for my definitions for that which is good and that which is evil. Second, I believe the founders and the U.S. Constitution produced the must just and civilized society in 6,000 years of human history.
That being said, let’s compare our military activities to the standards of these documents. The 6th Commandment states, “Thou shall not murder”. God is the Creator and Author of life and as such is the only one who has the right to take it away. He then delegates that authority to civil government (see the Apostle Paul in Romans 13:1-7). The only time the state has the delegated right to take life is when a man violates the 6th Commandment. See Genesis 9:6.
Thus, the only time a state or person can use force is for defensive purposes. That is, when not responding could mean losing your own life. For a Christian, the right to defend his life and property comes from the idea that those things are gifts from God and thus, as Jefferson stated . . .
(…even a deist understood what churches today do not)
Declaration of Independence
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Christians and Americans need to be reminded of something here. Jefferson and Madison did not give us our inalienable rights, God did. The founders merely recognized that which was basic to a free and just society. Because life is a gift from God, it belongs not only to our boys and girls but those in Afghanistan and Iraq as well.
These folks have the same right to self determine as Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry did. After all, how many of us would like the Afghan Army setting itself up in East County? The truth is none of us would like it and neither do they. We would respond in kind and go to war. They respond and we call it “terrorism”? It is simply “cause and effect”. We shouldn’t be surprised. Our behavior has consequences. We reap what we sow. This morning when we woke up our soldiers were in 130 nations on 700 different bases spending billions of our tax dollars (i.e… our property). Some of our sons are on bases that have existed since WWII and are still there (i.e. Germany & Japan). And we still aren’t questioning our behavior?
What is it about being the world’s leader in pornography, divorce, unmarried pregnancies and abortion and the separation of God from our schools (remember fear of God is the basis of wisdom) that give us the hubris to be the world’s policeman? What makes 30 million Christians unquestionably support violent, meddling, interventionist lawmakers? We shouldn’t be surprised at the problems foreign and domestic that result. Our founders only gave our lawmakers authority to provide for “National Defense”. Today, like Rome and Imperialist England, we have a “Worldwide Offense”. (“Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it”-Santayana)
It doesn’t cohere with our law or our faith. I does not matter how brave and courageous our soldiers are, they do not have authority, constitutional jurisdiction or God’s blessing to be there. . . and their actions are putting us in danger. Their loyalty and selflessness to an unrighteous cause does not sanctify their behavior. “Shall we do evil that good may result?” (Rm. 3:8) I can find the scriptures for God’s covenant relationship with Israel and the establishment of their theocracy and the commands to Joshua to cleanse the promise land but where in the bible to God make a covenant with the United States to do the same? We definitely are not a theocracy. Do we also need to be reminded how anti-family our interventionist military policies are? And not just with mom or dad being away but returning less than physically and emotionally whole and the financial burden they place on the rest of us to support them once they have been damaged?
Were Americans ever in danger from a bombed out third world country called Iraq? That is funny if you think about it. Ever seen their Navy or Air Force? Why are Christians today so supportive of aggression abroad while our Christian founders so totally opposed? What is happening to us? We have let the media spin these military operations to make them appear something completely different from what they are.
George Washington’s Farewell Address . . .
“The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connections as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.”
This leads to a second point. The 8th Commandment, another one of God’s ‘Top 10’ rules for a just society. These moral laws apply to groups (i.e. governments) not just individuals. The 8th Commandment states, “Thou shall not steal”. God communicated to Israel through Moses that personal property was necessary and to be protected. (He even goes further for those in a covenant relationship with Christ by giving them the 10th Commandment to warn us from even coveting our neighbor’s property).
The only way the federal government is able to maintain an army presence throughout the world is by violating the vary law that God and the founders gave our government responsibility to protect;
Declaration of Independence…
Those to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.
If Patrick Henry and John Adams were alive today they would already be fighting the tyranny. Our lawmakers did not derive this power from our consent. We do not have such power to give them!
It is our government’s role to protect our property and secure our rights not vote them away(remember they are inalienable from God) If I cannot come into your home and take your property by force, no matter how compassionate a use I have for it, neither can our government. The government is supposed to be our servant and operate at our consent.
There has been a bloodless coup. The government our founders fought and died for, a Constitutional Republic has been replaced by a “Democracy”. Democracies are evil and we are just beginning to understand why. A democracy is “two wolves and a sheep voting on what they will have for lunch.” In a Democracy, six out of ten people can vote to hang blacks or take property from Jews or pass an unauthorized Health Care or Bailout that is nowhere enumerated in the U.S. Constitution. In a “Democracy”, government can use force to take property from one group (you and I) and give it to another (GM or Bank of America). It’s socialism for big business and free markets for us. Our inalienable rights are gone and we think the battle is between Republicans and Democrats? Wrong!
That is the indoctrination of the national media that is keeping Christians divided.
It is about liberty and tyranny.
We don’t have a Statue of Democracy . . . We have a Statue of Liberty.
We don’t have a Democracy Bell . . . we have a Liberty Bell.
The word “democracy” is not in the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution or in any of the constitutions of the fifty states.
Patriotism is not faith in the latest policies from Washington or supporting our troops no matter whose land they may be plundering. Patriotism is loyalty and commitment to the ideals upon which this nation was founded (see the Holy Bible and the U.S. Constitution)
It is time to rise like our courageous Christian founders and take education out of the state’s hands where it was never given authority to be. It has indoctrinated us and made us stupid. Our enemy is not an Iraqi or Afghani. It is our Republican and Democratic lawmakers who have returned to “Divine Right of Kings” and have taken their solemn oath to the Constitution and trampled it under foot.
But our lawmakers are not our problem. They are a symptom of the problem and here I close with a gut check. The problem is you and I. We (the visible church) are the ones who allow the two major parties to perpetuate their power year after year with millions of Jesus follower votes. Christianity is a principled faith not a pragmatist one. We are sowing pragmatism which is why we are reaping these evils. When followers of Christ vote for the “lesser of two evils” we unite Christ with evil. A child of God should vote on principle and leave the results to Christ. Christ has the ability to take a few loaves and fish and do miracles, not to mention our consciences would be clear. The major parties violate our faith and the Constitution. The presidential candidates who do support the bible and the Constitution are referred to as “crazy and out of sync” by Christians and non believers alike.
If the Christians united around a righteous candidate he would be a major candidate overnight.
Here are two men the church ignored in the last election. The national media is not going to share this. You must find it on your own.
Dr. Ron Paul, Texas Congressman
http://www.ronpaul.org/
Pastor Chuck Baldwin
http://www.ontheissues.org/Chuck_Baldwin.htm
I encourage you to think for yourself and see if you can find any point where either of these men’s platforms or voting records violate scripture or the U.S. Constitution.
It is insane to continue to vote the same way, voting for the lesser of two evils, and expect different results.
Eric Andersen
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be . . . The people cannot be safe without information. When the press is free and every man is able to read, all will be safe.” Thomas Jefferson
I would like to share my two cents if I may with regard to the comments on “the cost of freedom” and “the terror that is alive and proliferating” and the comment “just or constitutional”. I think as Americans we are a little mixed up and allow me to share my bias so everyone understands where I am coming from. First, I am a follower of Jesus Christ, so I look to the bible for my definitions for that which is good and that which is evil. Second, I believe the founders and the U.S. Constitution produced the must just and civilized society in 6,000 years of human history.
That being said, let’s compare our military activities to the standards of these documents. The 6th Commandment states, “Thou shall not murder”. God is the Creator and Author of life and as such is the only one who has the right to take it away. He then delegates that authority to civil government (see the Apostle Paul in Romans 13:1-7). The only time the state has the delegated right to take life is when a man violates the 6th Commandment. See Genesis 9:6.
Thus, the only time a state or person can use force is for defensive purposes. That is, when not responding could mean losing your own life. For a Christian, the right to defend his life and property comes from the idea that those things are gifts from God and thus, as Jefferson stated . . .
(…even a deist understood what churches today do not)
Declaration of Independence
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Christians and Americans need to be reminded of something here. Jefferson and Madison did not give us our inalienable rights, God did. The founders merely recognized that which was basic to a free and just society. Because life is a gift from God, it belongs not only to our boys and girls but those in Afghanistan and Iraq as well.
These folks have the same right to self determine as Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry did. After all, how many of us would like the Afghan Army setting itself up in East County? The truth is none of us would like it and neither do they. We would respond in kind and go to war. They respond and we call it “terrorism”? It is simply “cause and effect”. We shouldn’t be surprised. Our behavior has consequences. We reap what we sow. This morning when we woke up our soldiers were in 130 nations on 700 different bases spending billions of our tax dollars (i.e… our property). Some of our sons are on bases that have existed since WWII and are still there (i.e. Germany & Japan). And we still aren’t questioning our behavior?
What is it about being the world’s leader in pornography, divorce, unmarried pregnancies and abortion and the separation of God from our schools (remember fear of God is the basis of wisdom) that give us the hubris to be the world’s policeman? What makes 30 million Christians unquestionably support violent, meddling, interventionist lawmakers? We shouldn’t be surprised at the problems foreign and domestic that result. Our founders only gave our lawmakers authority to provide for “National Defense”. Today, like Rome and Imperialist England, we have a “Worldwide Offense”. (“Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it”-Santayana)
It doesn’t cohere with our law or our faith. I does not matter how brave and courageous our soldiers are, they do not have authority, constitutional jurisdiction or God’s blessing to be there. . . and their actions are putting us in danger. Their loyalty and selflessness to an unrighteous cause does not sanctify their behavior. “Shall we do evil that good may result?” (Rm. 3:8) I can find the scriptures for God’s covenant relationship with Israel and the establishment of their theocracy and the commands to Joshua to cleanse the promise land but where in the bible to God make a covenant with the United States to do the same? We definitely are not a theocracy. Do we also need to be reminded how anti-family our interventionist military policies are? And not just with mom or dad being away but returning less than physically and emotionally whole and the financial burden they place on the rest of us to support them once they have been damaged?
Were Americans ever in danger from a bombed out third world country called Iraq? That is funny if you think about it. Ever seen their Navy or Air Force? Why are Christians today so supportive of aggression abroad while our Christian founders so totally opposed? What is happening to us? We have let the media spin these military operations to make them appear something completely different from what they are.
George Washington’s Farewell Address . . .
“The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connections as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.”
This leads to a second point. The 8th Commandment, another one of God’s ‘Top 10’ rules for a just society. These moral laws apply to groups (i.e. governments) not just individuals. The 8th Commandment states, “Thou shall not steal”. God communicated to Israel through Moses that personal property was necessary and to be protected. (He even goes further for those in a covenant relationship with Christ by giving them the 10th Commandment to warn us from even coveting our neighbor’s property).
The only way the federal government is able to maintain an army presence throughout the world is by violating the vary law that God and the founders gave our government responsibility to protect;
Declaration of Independence…
Those to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.
If Patrick Henry and John Adams were alive today they would already be fighting the tyranny. Our lawmakers did not derive this power from our consent. We do not have such power to give them!
It is our government’s role to protect our property and secure our rights not vote them away(remember they are inalienable from God) If I cannot come into your home and take your property by force, no matter how compassionate a use I have for it, neither can our government. The government is supposed to be our servant and operate at our consent.
There has been a bloodless coup. The government our founders fought and died for, a Constitutional Republic has been replaced by a “Democracy”. Democracies are evil and we are just beginning to understand why. A democracy is “two wolves and a sheep voting on what they will have for lunch.” In a Democracy, six out of ten people can vote to hang blacks or take property from Jews or pass an unauthorized Health Care or Bailout that is nowhere enumerated in the U.S. Constitution. In a “Democracy”, government can use force to take property from one group (you and I) and give it to another (GM or Bank of America). It’s socialism for big business and free markets for us. Our inalienable rights are gone and we think the battle is between Republicans and Democrats? Wrong!
That is the indoctrination of the national media that is keeping Christians divided.
It is about liberty and tyranny.
We don’t have a Statue of Democracy . . . We have a Statue of Liberty.
We don’t have a Democracy Bell . . . we have a Liberty Bell.
The word “democracy” is not in the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution or in any of the constitutions of the fifty states.
Patriotism is not faith in the latest policies from Washington or supporting our troops no matter whose land they may be plundering. Patriotism is loyalty and commitment to the ideals upon which this nation was founded (see the Holy Bible and the U.S. Constitution)
It is time to rise like our courageous Christian founders and take education out of the state’s hands where it was never given authority to be. It has indoctrinated us and made us stupid. Our enemy is not an Iraqi or Afghani. It is our Republican and Democratic lawmakers who have returned to “Divine Right of Kings” and have taken their solemn oath to the Constitution and trampled it under foot.
But our lawmakers are not our problem. They are a symptom of the problem and here I close with a gut check. The problem is you and I. We (the visible church) are the ones who allow the two major parties to perpetuate their power year after year with millions of Jesus follower votes. Christianity is a principled faith not a pragmatist one. We are sowing pragmatism which is why we are reaping these evils. When followers of Christ vote for the “lesser of two evils” we unite Christ with evil. A child of God should vote on principle and leave the results to Christ. Christ has the ability to take a few loaves and fish and do miracles, not to mention our consciences would be clear. The major parties violate our faith and the Constitution. The presidential candidates who do support the bible and the Constitution are referred to as “crazy and out of sync” by Christians and non believers alike.
If the Christians united around a righteous candidate he would be a major candidate overnight.
Here are two men the church ignored in the last election. The national media is not going to share this. You must find it on your own.
Dr. Ron Paul, Texas Congressman
http://www.ronpaul.org/
Pastor Chuck Baldwin
http://www.ontheissues.org/Chuck_Baldwin.htm
I encourage you to think for yourself and see if you can find any point where either of these men’s platforms or voting records violate scripture or the U.S. Constitution.
It is insane to continue to vote the same way, voting for the lesser of two evils, and expect different results.
Eric Andersen
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be . . . The people cannot be safe without information. When the press is free and every man is able to read, all will be safe.” Thomas Jefferson
Monday, June 29, 2009
Christian Passivism
Dear John,
I received your thoughtful letter and have responded below. I appreciate and respect your devotion to the scriptures as our sole rule of faith and like you am leaning into God and pursuing Him that my life might steadily become more conformed to His. I know that this is your heart as well. May this dialogue draw the two of us closer to the One who has called us. I have included quotes from your previous letter below and have highlighted them in yellow.
“And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the field.” – Deuteronomy 28:1-3
So begins this great chapter in which the Lord tells the nation of Israel of the benefits for following the natural laws that govern all of creation. In this chapter He promises blessings of liberty, prosperity and freedom to nations that acknowledge His ordinances. Not only will their enemies be defeated but they will be a creditor nation and live in prosperity.
I am afraid I do not adequately understand the differences between covenant and dispensational theology and its impact on my worldview but I believe that even without such knowledge we can both see the straightforward meaning of the passage above.
Six thousand years of human history testify to the veracity of Deuteronomy 28. Nations which acknowledge The Creator and His Natural Laws prosper and those that do not posit God do not. We might say it is a law as are His laws of gravity and thermodynamics.
The demise our nation faces today, morally, politically and economically, are a direct result of our violation his natural law. George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Please allow me to share a bit of our country’s history and connect it to the importance of you and I understanding our role and our responsibility in society today.
After three months of private deliberations on a hot and muggy Philadelphia summer in 1787 the blue print for our Constitutional Republic was complete. Our framers had laid a foundation for a nation built on the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”. That is higher law, the Rule of Law as opposed to the arbitrary rule of man.
The subsequent years of prosperity from our revolution would testify to the prosperity of following natural law while the French Revolution and the resulting Reign of Terror would testify to the curse of nations which refused to acknowledge “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.
Madison and the fifty four other delegates acknowledged that a higher law existed that governed all men and therefore preceded all human government and because it preceded all human government it was also superior to it. It is said that as Benjamin Franklin walked out of the building he was approached by a person who asked, “What type of government are we to have?” To which Franklin replied, “A constitutional republic, if you can keep it.”
That “if” mentioned by Franklin foreshadows a struggle that would one day seek to overthrow a nation, not from a army in Europe or from some poor third world Muslim “terrorist threat” but from ourselves.
“At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reaches us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” – Abraham Lincoln
Samuel Adams brought the issue closer into focus;
“A general Dissolution of Principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the Common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when one they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader… If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security.”
What did Franklin and our Christian forefathers understand that the contemporary church does not? I submit to you it was the vital role Christianity must play in governing the lives of individuals who were to be organized in society by a government whose power was strictly limited by Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.
In short, if Americans were to enjoy freedom and liberty as a free people and not live under the tyranny of a despot, then they must be able to self govern. And who governs men best? Christ the King. A federal government can never rule in the heart of man. Only Jesus can rule there and God forbid any man who attempts to encroach on that kingdom.
This idea, although lost on most of us today, was elementary to the thirty nine men who signed the Constitution and the ninety men of the first congress who drafted the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment.
In order to protect the republic from losing the very foundation upon which it depended, laws were enacted to guarantee the church’s inalienable right to inform the citizenry.
First Amendment
“Congress shall make NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
or abridging the freedom of speech…”
After all, how could we have a limited federal government if churches were not free to influence the hearts and minds of men and therefore our culture?
George Washington in his Farewell Address said,
“Reason and experience forbid us to presume that national morality can prevail to the exclusion of moral and religious principal.”
John Adams said,
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passion unbridled by religion.
Our Constitution was created only for a religious people.
It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
John, we live in a nation that has become completely disconnected from the above truths. The moral and economic crisis we face is a direct result of failing to adhere to the path that was set before us. Although these truths were preached with inspiration throughout the pulpits of New England and the other colonies in the years leading to 1776, I have yet to hear them articulated from a church leader today.
The pastors that informed the political philosophy of Washington and Adams and the other founders were graduates of Harvard, Princeton, Yale and William & Mary. They were the most learned men in their communities. They were scholars, classically trained not only in theology but philosophy, logic, metaphysics and ethics, but Latin and Greek. They were the presidents of great universities. Like the revivalist preachers Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield, they were trained in the teachings of Luther, Calvin, Locke, Sidney and the Westminster Confession. These pastors understood the important role religion must play in our country. They understood the depth of wisdom that lay in the verses of Deuteronomy 28 for the man who would search for them as for silver and gold.
John, these classically trained pastors and clergy, these God fearing men were rebels!
They rejected any encroachment by the civil authorities on their inalienable rights and God given liberties. By signing the Declaration of Independence they were guilty of treason for which hanging was the penalty. These men were not passive spectators waiting upon God to divinely intervene. These men were filled with a fear of God that was greater than their fear of the British army, greater than their fear of King George III and greater than their fear of death. All the signers who rebelled against the ungodly authority of British Crown did so at the risk of hanging. That is how committed they were liberty and the freedom to worship. They desired the freedom to exercise their God given liberties and to work out their faith in a society without state coercion.
What was the result of submitting the course of this nation to natural law and a free church? The first 150 years of our history stand as a monument to the most prosperity and freedom this world has ever seen. Millions have traveled from foreign lands to live in a country of opportunity and liberty. As promised in Deuteronomy 28, the nation quickly became the world’s largest creditor nation and was richly blessed by their God.
However, things began to change when our nation turned to the arbitrary rule of man and away from the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” Things began to change when the state began to encroach upon the church. We began to fulfill the second half of Deuteronomy 28, the curses for nations that despise the law of God. Our churches, the pillars of our republic, began to lose touch with the teaching and wisdom of the founders and failed to fulfill their required role in “salting” and being a light in our culture. (See 1 Samuel 8). Our leaders passed the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and Roosevelt converted our Constitutional Republic into a democracy. With four terms of office and the appointment of nine unelected black robed men who didn’t care for the original intent of our founders and their purpose, Roosevelt would be successful in beginning to reverse what our founders fought so bravely and sacrificed so greatly for.
The immorality we see on our televisions today and outside our front doors is a direct result of the Supreme Court rulings of FDR’s nine unelected black robed men. These men abandoned the Higher Law that our founders sacrificed their lives for. Anyone who is willing to look can see the fruit of this cursed form of government. A government that seeks to replace the sovereignty and authority of God with arbitrary rule of man.
In the thirty years from 1963 to 1993 after the culmination of these judges steady destruction of our natural law we have seen;
· An increase from 13 to 45 unwed births per 1,000 to unwed girls ages 15-19.
· A tenfold increase in violent crime
· An increase from 18 to 54 cases of gonorrhea per 100,000 of population
· And SAT scores have dropped from an average of 970 to 910.
What will we tell our grandchildren? How did we respond? We can choose to be fatalist and be passive spectators submitting to a self inflicted “dispensation” or be active participants in inspiring our communities to adhere to the Rule of Law intead of the rule of men. What if George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Calvin and Luther had chosen to be passive?
Let’s turn now to some of the passages of scripture that you shared in your letter
Daniel 2:20-21.
I agree. It is God who raises governments and brings them down. I might add 1 Samuel 8:6-8 to your note as well.
“The Lord kills and he brings to life;
He brings down to Sheol and raises up.
The Lord makes the poor and makes the rich;
He brings low and he exalts . . .
For the pillars of the earth are the Lords.”
But who does he use to do this? Does he not use men? Were George Washington and John Adams submitting to the governing authority? Did he not use Moses to set his people free? Did he not use Shadrach’s rebellion to turn a tyrant and the country towards Himself? Does God not use the church and their fear of Him to speak out and take stands against ungodly rule? Did he not use Nathan to confront the states sinful behavior in King David? Nathan did not wait for God to divinely convict David. In the words of Isaiah he said, “Here I am Lord. Send me.”
Revelation 3:15-20.
“Christ is outside the church.”
I do not believe it is theologically correct to say “Christ is outside the church”. The church is made up of believers who by definition must be indwelled by His Spirit and therefore under His rule. I believe this passage is about people who think they are saved but in fact are not. I do not see how this supports the contention that God cannot use man to challenge ungodly authority.
“In any case this is not the purpose of the Church.”
I don’t follow how you arrived at this conclusion. The purpose of the church and chief end of man is to glorify God. Being silent and participating in immorality does not glorify God. How does man glorify God? By being silent on issues of immorality? By keeping silent while their property and lives are taken by an ungodly authority? By being silent as the state takes billions of dollars of property from its citizens by force to feed an imperialist army that is bent on world domination and the denial of inalienable rights of men across the world? Does Isaac have to be drafted and forced to fight a war in a foreign country that poses no threat to us and come back crippled before we rise and say enough is enough!(Again see 1 Samuel 8) God forbid. To quote Jonathan Mayhew, a New England pastor whom John Adams’s referred to as a “transcendent genius”. A king’s authority is only legitimate when he follows higher law, but when the king . . .
“… turns tyrant and makes his subjects his prey to devour and destroy instead of his charge to defend and cherish, we are bound to throw off our allegiance to him and to resist . . . We may safely assert…that no civil rulers are to be obeyed when they enjoin things that are inconsistent with the commands of God . . . All commands running counter to the declared will of the supreme legislator of heaven and earth, are null and void; and therefore disobedience to them is a duty, not a crime.” The Revolutionary Years by Mortimer J. Adler, Encyclopedia Britannica, Chicago, 1976, p. 21 and 306.
1 Corinthians 1:20-25
I agree. God has made foolish the wisdom of this world and our country for the past one hundred years for rejecting His wisdom. Believers need to reject the government’s encroachment on the church and the “philosophers of this age” and actively influence their government despite the sacrifices and persecution. I do not support the political wisdom of this world or a naïve church philosophy that forfeits God’s sovereignty for state sovereignty whenever ungodly magistrates make a law they lack the authority to create. Quite the contrary.
“Owning land and goods are not a guaranteed right of the believer.”
This is a “straw man”. This was not claimed by me in my essays and leads our dialogue away from meaningful interaction. Man does have a right to defend his property from theft and I will make that case again here. Life and liberty are not gifts from the state they are gifts from God and as such cannot be taken away by any man unless by consent of the owner. Fundamental to orthodox Christianity is the concept that “all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” I will repeat here what I have shared in my previous essay “Christian Collectivism”.
God has given us an understanding to direct our actions, and has given us free will and liberty to act under the law He has established. We were created to enjoy this freedom without any interference from other men that we might not only be able to preserve the gift of life He has given but not be impaired from using our liberty to come to a knowledge of Him. When I violate the freedom God gave you to come to the knowledge of Him or steal by force property you need to sustain the life He has given you, I have sinned (and when governments do so they are evil as well and are to be opposed) In other words, you and I are allowed to exercise our authority to do all we please unless it encroaches on another person or his property. These are the first principles of tort law and property rights. When one party deprives another party of his right to property he is encroaching on that which God has given to sustain his life and is violating the equal status each has amongst men. The role of civil governments is to secure these rights. The Apostle Paul declares in Romans 13 that the state only has the authority it has received from God. God does not give any authority to do evil.
According to Elisha Williams, Harvard class of 1711, tutor to Jonathan Edwards, Yale University rector, delegate to the Albany Congress in 1754 (the first plan for American union under the leadership of Benjamin Franklin) and pastor of a Congregational Church in Connecticut. . .
“And reason tells us, all are born thus naturally equal, i.e. with an equal right to their persons; so also with an equal right to their preservation; and therefore as such things as nature affords for their subsistence. For which purpose God was pleased to make a grant of the earth in common to the children of men, first to Adam and afterwards to Noah and his sons: as the Psalmist says, Psalm 115:16.
And every man having property in his own person, the labor of his body and the work of his hands are properly his own, to which no one has a right but himself; it will therefore follow that when he removes anything out of the state that nature has provided and left it in, he has mixed his labor with it and joined something to it that is his own, and thereby makes it his property . . . and if every man has a right to his person and property, he also has a right to defend them and all the necessary means of defense.” – Political Sermon, The Essential Rights and Liberties of Protestants, Boston Massachusetts, 1744.
This defense then becomes the basis for men to gather. And to “secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving there JUST powers from the CONSENT of the governed.” – Declaration of Independence.
John, in societies that posit a Creator, people have a right to defend their “land and goods”. What incentive would there be to work if government could take whatever it desired? When a government disregards these natural rights it self destructs like a snake eating its own tail. See every socialist economy for the past hundred years, and might I add, watch what it happening to ours. What we do claim and hold as an unalienable right is that no man or government can use force to take from us that which God has given as a gift. I do not have the right to enter your home and take your property by force no matter what compassionate use I might have for it. Christians are not allowed to do evil that good may result (Romans 6). Since I cannot take your property by force neither can we delegate to the government the authority to do so since it operates at our consent and only has the authority we have to delegate to it. Romans 13 tells us there is no authority other than that which comes from God, therefore the state only has authority to do good and only in the jurisdiction God has given it to rule as His agent. It is this right to protection of our property that we delegate to godly governments to secure. God forbid a Christian with vested interest in the prosperity of his family and nation would fail to exercise his God given, First Amendment right to vocalize the violation of such when he sees his friends property (home and investments and purchasing power)stolen by the government. (You may not understand how your son’s loss of property is directly related to the above but I can explain that at your request)
“Pursuit of happiness in this life is not a valid Christian goal.”
This is another straw man. I don’t know where you found this.
“Disobedience to government is only valid in an extreme situation, not when I am unhappy about taxes ... If government tries to . . . force me into immoral behavior, that should be resisted, and Acts 5:28-30.
Your letter states “disobedience is only valid in an extreme situation or/and (?) when government forces immoral behavior.” I say, disobedience is required of the Christian whenever the states usurps its God given authority.
“If they (state authority) command anything against him (God) let it go unheeded. And here let us not be concerned about all the dignity which the magistrate possess.” - John Calvin, Institutes IV:XX:32
See Romans 13. Since God is the Creator, everything belongs to Him. He has all authority and the state is his agent to counter sin and encroachment of one man against his neighbor. Since government is also made up of sinners, the Constitution protects the people from abuse of civil authority. The only authority God gives the state is the authority to do good. When civil governments step outside God’s authority, they have no authority and are not to be obeyed.
Let’s use your mention of taxation as an example. We have a difference of opinion on the Sovereignty of God and the jurisdiction of the state. You are comfortable giving the state jurisdiction in areas where I find no basis for biblical authority. Let me explain. God as Creator, Ruler and King is the source for all legitimate authority. By virtue of God being Creator he has direct authority over those things He created. Examples of things that exist naturally in life and are self sustaining without state intervention and fall under God’s direct authority are families, the Church and business. God gave these areas life not the state. The state is not their creator. These spheres of life are to operate outside state jurisdiction in a life system that seeks to glorify God. When the state, or any social sphere, usurps their God given area of jurisdiction it comes under God’s wrath and judgment. The state’s authority is only legitimate when it is carrying out God’s divine authority (i.e. securing and defending man’s inalienable rights, protecting the individual from the masses and taxation to the extent necessary to carry out these duties). Government’s role is defensive not offensive. When governments encroach on these rights it is operating outside its area of jurisdiction and begins to grow. When it begins to grow it claim’s authority it has not been given and violates the ordinances of God. It then uses force (see 1 Samuel 8) to take more property (taxation) than is necessary and becomes immoral. This is theft. Once more when the state gives a monopoly to private families to create money outside the law (The Federal Reserve system and fraction reserve banking) it is diluting the purchasing power of the dollars held by American families. This has been the cause of every boom and bust in the last one hundred years and the resulting destruction of billions of dollars families depend upon to feed and clothe their children and were saving for retirement. I believe the issue here is a misunderstanding of the immorality of the banking system. Since I can’t walk into your home and steal thousands of dollars from you, why do you allow the state to do so? Is the state above God’s law? This would be Divine Right of Kings all over again. Remember John, government is not only to protect us from sinners but it is made up of sinners! Therein lays the problem and the valuable role of the U.S. Constitution. It is a document based on God’s law that not only protects men from the sinful behavior of their neighbor but from the abuse and tyranny of sinful rulers. The Constitution declared the proper jurisdiction of the state. Man naturally desires liberty and sinful men in government naturally desire more power and control. This has been the cause of multiple wars throughout the ages.
Our government has usurped their authority as limited by the U.S. Constitution
George Washington, the father of our country, on government . . .
“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force.
Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and fearful master.”
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
If angels were to govern men, neither external or internal
Controls on government would be necessary.
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men,
The great difficulty lies in this:
You must first enable the government to control the governed;
And in the next place, oblige it to control itself.”
- James Madison, Federalist #51
Your theology appears to be incongruent with the history of Christianity and our nation’s founders who were willing to sacrifice all rather than be passive spectators. I agree, God does raise up leaders and bring them low as you presented in the Book of Daniel and here is more from Daniel;
“The decision is announced by messengers,
The holy ones declare the verdict,
So that the living may know that the Most High
is sovereign over the kingdoms of men
and gives them to anyone he wished
and sets over them the lowliest of men.” – Daniel 4:17
“He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven
and the peoples of the earth.
No one can hold back his hand or say to Him;
“What have you done?” – Daniel 4:35
We are reaping what we have sown. An ignorant, silent and passive church is refusing to speak out and influence the political philosophy of a nation. It has chosen to eat the poisoned apple and exchanged its birthright for unconstitutional 501c3 legislation, it already had under the First Amendment. It has done so in exchange for mammon, thereby removing Christ as its head. It has accepted man’s law above God’s law and wants what it cannot ever have, prosperity while positing the state as its head. It has accepted “separation of church and state” despite the lack biblical precedent for doing so. Please note.
First Amendment clearly states congress shall make “NO LAW” respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
“Separation of church and state” is not in the Constitution.
The term comes from an 1801 personal letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists, not a political treatise.
Thomas Jefferson wasn’t even a member of the legislature who wrote the First Amendment. Therefore the admission of his letter as evidence in a court of law, since he wasn’t part of the floor debate, is hearsay.
Jefferson’s clause “separation of church and state” was taken out of context by the Supreme Court and does not reconcile with the political philosophy and original intent and purpose of the First Amendment or the perspective of any of the 90 legislators that were there.
Thanks to what appears to be a spectator theology we have spectator pastors and spectator churches. We know more about the Chargers and Padres and American Idol than how our faith is to inform a godly nation. We have allowed the state to take Christ’s place as Head of the Church and education of our children. The state now dictates what a pastor can and cannot say from our pulpits. We cower in fear of state law that violates the higher law of our God. As I write, hate crime legislation is now working its way through congress to tighten the chains around our necks even more and limit our influence on culture another notch. No mention of this has been discussed in my presence at my church. While we have been sleeping the Supreme Court has begun striking down religious activities and expressions which had been constitutional for the past 150 years. Here is a brief summary:[1]
A verbal prayer offered in a school is unconstitutional even if that prayer is both voluntary and denominationally neutral. ENGLE vs. VITALE, 1962.
Freedoms of speech and press are guaranteed to students and teachers – unless the topic is religious, at which time such speech becomes unconstitutional. STEIN vs. OSHINSKY, 1965
It is unconstitutional for students to see the Ten Commandments since they might read, meditate upon, respect, or obey them. STONE vs. GRAHAM, 1980.
If student prays over his lunch, it is unconstitutional for him to pray out loud. REED vs. VAN HOVEN, 1965
The Ten Commandments, despite the fact that they are the basis of civil law and are depicted in engraved stone in the U.S. Supreme Court, may not be displayed in any public courthouse. HARVEY vs. COBB COUNTY, 1993
When a student addresses an assembly of his peers, he effectively becomes a government representative; it is therefore unconstitutional for that student to engage in prayer. HARRIS vs. JOINT SCHOOL DISTRICT, 1994.
Even though the wording may be constitutionally acceptable, a bill becomes unconstitutional if the legislator who introduced the bill had a religious activity in his mind when it was authored. WALLACE vs. JAFFREE, 1985
Artwork may not be displayed in schools if it depicts something religious – even if that artwork is considered an historical classic. WASHEGESIC vs. BLOOMINGDAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS, 1993.
It is unconstitutional for a kindergarten class to ask whose birthday is celebrated by Christmas. FLOREY vs. SIOUX FALLS SCHOOL DISTRICT, 1979
It is unconstitutional for a school graduation ceremony to contain an opening or closing prayer. HARRIS vs. JOINT SCHOOL DISTRICT, 1994.
It is unconstitutional for a nativity scene to be displayed on public property unless surrounded by sufficient secular displays to prevent it from appearing religious. COUNTY OF ALLEGHENY VS. ACLU, 1989.
Is it any wonder births to unwed teenagers have increased more than 400%? Is it any wonder we have seen a ten-fold increase in violent crime? Think for a moment about the stress this is putting on local government for higher taxes as the need for more police, judges, jails and social services increases to compensate for a silent and apathetic church that can talk of the boldness of Joshua but can’t walk it. Is it any wonder we are beginning to experience His wrath in the form of an ungodly government? We are receiving what we deserve just as Israel did. Did God not warn Israel,
“They you will cry out in that day because the king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”
- 1 Samuel 8:18, NASB
Do we still stand passively waiting for God’s divine intervention? Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Franklin approached state encroachment on the church when all other methods failed with the letter below . . . and rebelled against ungodly tyrants.
“When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separation – That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government – When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government.” – Declaration of Independence
John, the states created the federal government not vice versa. That which is created is not greater that the creator.
“When the people fear the government,that is tyranny. But when the government fears the people, that is liberty.”- Thomas Jefferson
“For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established for God.” Romans 13:1, NASB.
The only authority that exists comes from God. When rulers cease to be His servants/ministers and act outside their jurisdiction they have no authority and therefore there isn’t an issue of disobedience. Hitler used Romans 13 against resistance movements in the church, most submitter to Hitler’s false hermeneutic. Bonhoeffer did not.
Eric Andersen
June 2009
P.S. In October I will have been studying these issues for two years. One of the missing pieces for me has been an explanation as to why our Christian community is so apathetic about state encroachment versus the Christian communities of the colonists. There are a number of reasons this may be true, the media and state education are most assuredly influencing our worldview, but you have given me cause to begin contemplating another, Dispensationalism. You are devout and a devoted disciple of Jesus yet passive in your response to state encroachment on our church. Could Dispensationalism be creating a form of tyranny on the mind of believers that keep them from responding to evil and seeing it in a proper context? I have been surrounded with this theology since I received Christ and I also know that many things I once held true are not. I am just beginning to be set free from much of the propaganda that has controlled my perception of theology and political philosophy. Part of wisdom is admitting that we don’t know everything and I will admit to you I have much yet to learn. I will say that it is not about Democrat versus Republican anymore. This a false worldview and keeps us from uniting and posing a credible threat to an ungodly civil government. I believe the correct biblical persective is about liberty versus tyranny and it is time for you and eye to stand arm in arm.
[1] Barton, David. Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion. Copyright 2000, pages 13-15.
I received your thoughtful letter and have responded below. I appreciate and respect your devotion to the scriptures as our sole rule of faith and like you am leaning into God and pursuing Him that my life might steadily become more conformed to His. I know that this is your heart as well. May this dialogue draw the two of us closer to the One who has called us. I have included quotes from your previous letter below and have highlighted them in yellow.
“And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the field.” – Deuteronomy 28:1-3
So begins this great chapter in which the Lord tells the nation of Israel of the benefits for following the natural laws that govern all of creation. In this chapter He promises blessings of liberty, prosperity and freedom to nations that acknowledge His ordinances. Not only will their enemies be defeated but they will be a creditor nation and live in prosperity.
I am afraid I do not adequately understand the differences between covenant and dispensational theology and its impact on my worldview but I believe that even without such knowledge we can both see the straightforward meaning of the passage above.
Six thousand years of human history testify to the veracity of Deuteronomy 28. Nations which acknowledge The Creator and His Natural Laws prosper and those that do not posit God do not. We might say it is a law as are His laws of gravity and thermodynamics.
The demise our nation faces today, morally, politically and economically, are a direct result of our violation his natural law. George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Please allow me to share a bit of our country’s history and connect it to the importance of you and I understanding our role and our responsibility in society today.
After three months of private deliberations on a hot and muggy Philadelphia summer in 1787 the blue print for our Constitutional Republic was complete. Our framers had laid a foundation for a nation built on the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”. That is higher law, the Rule of Law as opposed to the arbitrary rule of man.
The subsequent years of prosperity from our revolution would testify to the prosperity of following natural law while the French Revolution and the resulting Reign of Terror would testify to the curse of nations which refused to acknowledge “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.
Madison and the fifty four other delegates acknowledged that a higher law existed that governed all men and therefore preceded all human government and because it preceded all human government it was also superior to it. It is said that as Benjamin Franklin walked out of the building he was approached by a person who asked, “What type of government are we to have?” To which Franklin replied, “A constitutional republic, if you can keep it.”
That “if” mentioned by Franklin foreshadows a struggle that would one day seek to overthrow a nation, not from a army in Europe or from some poor third world Muslim “terrorist threat” but from ourselves.
“At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reaches us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” – Abraham Lincoln
Samuel Adams brought the issue closer into focus;
“A general Dissolution of Principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the Common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when one they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader… If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security.”
What did Franklin and our Christian forefathers understand that the contemporary church does not? I submit to you it was the vital role Christianity must play in governing the lives of individuals who were to be organized in society by a government whose power was strictly limited by Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.
In short, if Americans were to enjoy freedom and liberty as a free people and not live under the tyranny of a despot, then they must be able to self govern. And who governs men best? Christ the King. A federal government can never rule in the heart of man. Only Jesus can rule there and God forbid any man who attempts to encroach on that kingdom.
This idea, although lost on most of us today, was elementary to the thirty nine men who signed the Constitution and the ninety men of the first congress who drafted the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment.
In order to protect the republic from losing the very foundation upon which it depended, laws were enacted to guarantee the church’s inalienable right to inform the citizenry.
First Amendment
“Congress shall make NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
or abridging the freedom of speech…”
After all, how could we have a limited federal government if churches were not free to influence the hearts and minds of men and therefore our culture?
George Washington in his Farewell Address said,
“Reason and experience forbid us to presume that national morality can prevail to the exclusion of moral and religious principal.”
John Adams said,
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passion unbridled by religion.
Our Constitution was created only for a religious people.
It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
John, we live in a nation that has become completely disconnected from the above truths. The moral and economic crisis we face is a direct result of failing to adhere to the path that was set before us. Although these truths were preached with inspiration throughout the pulpits of New England and the other colonies in the years leading to 1776, I have yet to hear them articulated from a church leader today.
The pastors that informed the political philosophy of Washington and Adams and the other founders were graduates of Harvard, Princeton, Yale and William & Mary. They were the most learned men in their communities. They were scholars, classically trained not only in theology but philosophy, logic, metaphysics and ethics, but Latin and Greek. They were the presidents of great universities. Like the revivalist preachers Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield, they were trained in the teachings of Luther, Calvin, Locke, Sidney and the Westminster Confession. These pastors understood the important role religion must play in our country. They understood the depth of wisdom that lay in the verses of Deuteronomy 28 for the man who would search for them as for silver and gold.
John, these classically trained pastors and clergy, these God fearing men were rebels!
They rejected any encroachment by the civil authorities on their inalienable rights and God given liberties. By signing the Declaration of Independence they were guilty of treason for which hanging was the penalty. These men were not passive spectators waiting upon God to divinely intervene. These men were filled with a fear of God that was greater than their fear of the British army, greater than their fear of King George III and greater than their fear of death. All the signers who rebelled against the ungodly authority of British Crown did so at the risk of hanging. That is how committed they were liberty and the freedom to worship. They desired the freedom to exercise their God given liberties and to work out their faith in a society without state coercion.
What was the result of submitting the course of this nation to natural law and a free church? The first 150 years of our history stand as a monument to the most prosperity and freedom this world has ever seen. Millions have traveled from foreign lands to live in a country of opportunity and liberty. As promised in Deuteronomy 28, the nation quickly became the world’s largest creditor nation and was richly blessed by their God.
However, things began to change when our nation turned to the arbitrary rule of man and away from the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” Things began to change when the state began to encroach upon the church. We began to fulfill the second half of Deuteronomy 28, the curses for nations that despise the law of God. Our churches, the pillars of our republic, began to lose touch with the teaching and wisdom of the founders and failed to fulfill their required role in “salting” and being a light in our culture. (See 1 Samuel 8). Our leaders passed the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and Roosevelt converted our Constitutional Republic into a democracy. With four terms of office and the appointment of nine unelected black robed men who didn’t care for the original intent of our founders and their purpose, Roosevelt would be successful in beginning to reverse what our founders fought so bravely and sacrificed so greatly for.
The immorality we see on our televisions today and outside our front doors is a direct result of the Supreme Court rulings of FDR’s nine unelected black robed men. These men abandoned the Higher Law that our founders sacrificed their lives for. Anyone who is willing to look can see the fruit of this cursed form of government. A government that seeks to replace the sovereignty and authority of God with arbitrary rule of man.
In the thirty years from 1963 to 1993 after the culmination of these judges steady destruction of our natural law we have seen;
· An increase from 13 to 45 unwed births per 1,000 to unwed girls ages 15-19.
· A tenfold increase in violent crime
· An increase from 18 to 54 cases of gonorrhea per 100,000 of population
· And SAT scores have dropped from an average of 970 to 910.
What will we tell our grandchildren? How did we respond? We can choose to be fatalist and be passive spectators submitting to a self inflicted “dispensation” or be active participants in inspiring our communities to adhere to the Rule of Law intead of the rule of men. What if George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Calvin and Luther had chosen to be passive?
Let’s turn now to some of the passages of scripture that you shared in your letter
Daniel 2:20-21.
I agree. It is God who raises governments and brings them down. I might add 1 Samuel 8:6-8 to your note as well.
“The Lord kills and he brings to life;
He brings down to Sheol and raises up.
The Lord makes the poor and makes the rich;
He brings low and he exalts . . .
For the pillars of the earth are the Lords.”
But who does he use to do this? Does he not use men? Were George Washington and John Adams submitting to the governing authority? Did he not use Moses to set his people free? Did he not use Shadrach’s rebellion to turn a tyrant and the country towards Himself? Does God not use the church and their fear of Him to speak out and take stands against ungodly rule? Did he not use Nathan to confront the states sinful behavior in King David? Nathan did not wait for God to divinely convict David. In the words of Isaiah he said, “Here I am Lord. Send me.”
Revelation 3:15-20.
“Christ is outside the church.”
I do not believe it is theologically correct to say “Christ is outside the church”. The church is made up of believers who by definition must be indwelled by His Spirit and therefore under His rule. I believe this passage is about people who think they are saved but in fact are not. I do not see how this supports the contention that God cannot use man to challenge ungodly authority.
“In any case this is not the purpose of the Church.”
I don’t follow how you arrived at this conclusion. The purpose of the church and chief end of man is to glorify God. Being silent and participating in immorality does not glorify God. How does man glorify God? By being silent on issues of immorality? By keeping silent while their property and lives are taken by an ungodly authority? By being silent as the state takes billions of dollars of property from its citizens by force to feed an imperialist army that is bent on world domination and the denial of inalienable rights of men across the world? Does Isaac have to be drafted and forced to fight a war in a foreign country that poses no threat to us and come back crippled before we rise and say enough is enough!(Again see 1 Samuel 8) God forbid. To quote Jonathan Mayhew, a New England pastor whom John Adams’s referred to as a “transcendent genius”. A king’s authority is only legitimate when he follows higher law, but when the king . . .
“… turns tyrant and makes his subjects his prey to devour and destroy instead of his charge to defend and cherish, we are bound to throw off our allegiance to him and to resist . . . We may safely assert…that no civil rulers are to be obeyed when they enjoin things that are inconsistent with the commands of God . . . All commands running counter to the declared will of the supreme legislator of heaven and earth, are null and void; and therefore disobedience to them is a duty, not a crime.” The Revolutionary Years by Mortimer J. Adler, Encyclopedia Britannica, Chicago, 1976, p. 21 and 306.
1 Corinthians 1:20-25
I agree. God has made foolish the wisdom of this world and our country for the past one hundred years for rejecting His wisdom. Believers need to reject the government’s encroachment on the church and the “philosophers of this age” and actively influence their government despite the sacrifices and persecution. I do not support the political wisdom of this world or a naïve church philosophy that forfeits God’s sovereignty for state sovereignty whenever ungodly magistrates make a law they lack the authority to create. Quite the contrary.
“Owning land and goods are not a guaranteed right of the believer.”
This is a “straw man”. This was not claimed by me in my essays and leads our dialogue away from meaningful interaction. Man does have a right to defend his property from theft and I will make that case again here. Life and liberty are not gifts from the state they are gifts from God and as such cannot be taken away by any man unless by consent of the owner. Fundamental to orthodox Christianity is the concept that “all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” I will repeat here what I have shared in my previous essay “Christian Collectivism”.
God has given us an understanding to direct our actions, and has given us free will and liberty to act under the law He has established. We were created to enjoy this freedom without any interference from other men that we might not only be able to preserve the gift of life He has given but not be impaired from using our liberty to come to a knowledge of Him. When I violate the freedom God gave you to come to the knowledge of Him or steal by force property you need to sustain the life He has given you, I have sinned (and when governments do so they are evil as well and are to be opposed) In other words, you and I are allowed to exercise our authority to do all we please unless it encroaches on another person or his property. These are the first principles of tort law and property rights. When one party deprives another party of his right to property he is encroaching on that which God has given to sustain his life and is violating the equal status each has amongst men. The role of civil governments is to secure these rights. The Apostle Paul declares in Romans 13 that the state only has the authority it has received from God. God does not give any authority to do evil.
According to Elisha Williams, Harvard class of 1711, tutor to Jonathan Edwards, Yale University rector, delegate to the Albany Congress in 1754 (the first plan for American union under the leadership of Benjamin Franklin) and pastor of a Congregational Church in Connecticut. . .
“And reason tells us, all are born thus naturally equal, i.e. with an equal right to their persons; so also with an equal right to their preservation; and therefore as such things as nature affords for their subsistence. For which purpose God was pleased to make a grant of the earth in common to the children of men, first to Adam and afterwards to Noah and his sons: as the Psalmist says, Psalm 115:16.
And every man having property in his own person, the labor of his body and the work of his hands are properly his own, to which no one has a right but himself; it will therefore follow that when he removes anything out of the state that nature has provided and left it in, he has mixed his labor with it and joined something to it that is his own, and thereby makes it his property . . . and if every man has a right to his person and property, he also has a right to defend them and all the necessary means of defense.” – Political Sermon, The Essential Rights and Liberties of Protestants, Boston Massachusetts, 1744.
This defense then becomes the basis for men to gather. And to “secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving there JUST powers from the CONSENT of the governed.” – Declaration of Independence.
John, in societies that posit a Creator, people have a right to defend their “land and goods”. What incentive would there be to work if government could take whatever it desired? When a government disregards these natural rights it self destructs like a snake eating its own tail. See every socialist economy for the past hundred years, and might I add, watch what it happening to ours. What we do claim and hold as an unalienable right is that no man or government can use force to take from us that which God has given as a gift. I do not have the right to enter your home and take your property by force no matter what compassionate use I might have for it. Christians are not allowed to do evil that good may result (Romans 6). Since I cannot take your property by force neither can we delegate to the government the authority to do so since it operates at our consent and only has the authority we have to delegate to it. Romans 13 tells us there is no authority other than that which comes from God, therefore the state only has authority to do good and only in the jurisdiction God has given it to rule as His agent. It is this right to protection of our property that we delegate to godly governments to secure. God forbid a Christian with vested interest in the prosperity of his family and nation would fail to exercise his God given, First Amendment right to vocalize the violation of such when he sees his friends property (home and investments and purchasing power)stolen by the government. (You may not understand how your son’s loss of property is directly related to the above but I can explain that at your request)
“Pursuit of happiness in this life is not a valid Christian goal.”
This is another straw man. I don’t know where you found this.
“Disobedience to government is only valid in an extreme situation, not when I am unhappy about taxes ... If government tries to . . . force me into immoral behavior, that should be resisted, and Acts 5:28-30.
Your letter states “disobedience is only valid in an extreme situation or/and (?) when government forces immoral behavior.” I say, disobedience is required of the Christian whenever the states usurps its God given authority.
“If they (state authority) command anything against him (God) let it go unheeded. And here let us not be concerned about all the dignity which the magistrate possess.” - John Calvin, Institutes IV:XX:32
See Romans 13. Since God is the Creator, everything belongs to Him. He has all authority and the state is his agent to counter sin and encroachment of one man against his neighbor. Since government is also made up of sinners, the Constitution protects the people from abuse of civil authority. The only authority God gives the state is the authority to do good. When civil governments step outside God’s authority, they have no authority and are not to be obeyed.
Let’s use your mention of taxation as an example. We have a difference of opinion on the Sovereignty of God and the jurisdiction of the state. You are comfortable giving the state jurisdiction in areas where I find no basis for biblical authority. Let me explain. God as Creator, Ruler and King is the source for all legitimate authority. By virtue of God being Creator he has direct authority over those things He created. Examples of things that exist naturally in life and are self sustaining without state intervention and fall under God’s direct authority are families, the Church and business. God gave these areas life not the state. The state is not their creator. These spheres of life are to operate outside state jurisdiction in a life system that seeks to glorify God. When the state, or any social sphere, usurps their God given area of jurisdiction it comes under God’s wrath and judgment. The state’s authority is only legitimate when it is carrying out God’s divine authority (i.e. securing and defending man’s inalienable rights, protecting the individual from the masses and taxation to the extent necessary to carry out these duties). Government’s role is defensive not offensive. When governments encroach on these rights it is operating outside its area of jurisdiction and begins to grow. When it begins to grow it claim’s authority it has not been given and violates the ordinances of God. It then uses force (see 1 Samuel 8) to take more property (taxation) than is necessary and becomes immoral. This is theft. Once more when the state gives a monopoly to private families to create money outside the law (The Federal Reserve system and fraction reserve banking) it is diluting the purchasing power of the dollars held by American families. This has been the cause of every boom and bust in the last one hundred years and the resulting destruction of billions of dollars families depend upon to feed and clothe their children and were saving for retirement. I believe the issue here is a misunderstanding of the immorality of the banking system. Since I can’t walk into your home and steal thousands of dollars from you, why do you allow the state to do so? Is the state above God’s law? This would be Divine Right of Kings all over again. Remember John, government is not only to protect us from sinners but it is made up of sinners! Therein lays the problem and the valuable role of the U.S. Constitution. It is a document based on God’s law that not only protects men from the sinful behavior of their neighbor but from the abuse and tyranny of sinful rulers. The Constitution declared the proper jurisdiction of the state. Man naturally desires liberty and sinful men in government naturally desire more power and control. This has been the cause of multiple wars throughout the ages.
Our government has usurped their authority as limited by the U.S. Constitution
George Washington, the father of our country, on government . . .
“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force.
Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and fearful master.”
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
If angels were to govern men, neither external or internal
Controls on government would be necessary.
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men,
The great difficulty lies in this:
You must first enable the government to control the governed;
And in the next place, oblige it to control itself.”
- James Madison, Federalist #51
Your theology appears to be incongruent with the history of Christianity and our nation’s founders who were willing to sacrifice all rather than be passive spectators. I agree, God does raise up leaders and bring them low as you presented in the Book of Daniel and here is more from Daniel;
“The decision is announced by messengers,
The holy ones declare the verdict,
So that the living may know that the Most High
is sovereign over the kingdoms of men
and gives them to anyone he wished
and sets over them the lowliest of men.” – Daniel 4:17
“He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven
and the peoples of the earth.
No one can hold back his hand or say to Him;
“What have you done?” – Daniel 4:35
We are reaping what we have sown. An ignorant, silent and passive church is refusing to speak out and influence the political philosophy of a nation. It has chosen to eat the poisoned apple and exchanged its birthright for unconstitutional 501c3 legislation, it already had under the First Amendment. It has done so in exchange for mammon, thereby removing Christ as its head. It has accepted man’s law above God’s law and wants what it cannot ever have, prosperity while positing the state as its head. It has accepted “separation of church and state” despite the lack biblical precedent for doing so. Please note.
First Amendment clearly states congress shall make “NO LAW” respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
“Separation of church and state” is not in the Constitution.
The term comes from an 1801 personal letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists, not a political treatise.
Thomas Jefferson wasn’t even a member of the legislature who wrote the First Amendment. Therefore the admission of his letter as evidence in a court of law, since he wasn’t part of the floor debate, is hearsay.
Jefferson’s clause “separation of church and state” was taken out of context by the Supreme Court and does not reconcile with the political philosophy and original intent and purpose of the First Amendment or the perspective of any of the 90 legislators that were there.
Thanks to what appears to be a spectator theology we have spectator pastors and spectator churches. We know more about the Chargers and Padres and American Idol than how our faith is to inform a godly nation. We have allowed the state to take Christ’s place as Head of the Church and education of our children. The state now dictates what a pastor can and cannot say from our pulpits. We cower in fear of state law that violates the higher law of our God. As I write, hate crime legislation is now working its way through congress to tighten the chains around our necks even more and limit our influence on culture another notch. No mention of this has been discussed in my presence at my church. While we have been sleeping the Supreme Court has begun striking down religious activities and expressions which had been constitutional for the past 150 years. Here is a brief summary:[1]
A verbal prayer offered in a school is unconstitutional even if that prayer is both voluntary and denominationally neutral. ENGLE vs. VITALE, 1962.
Freedoms of speech and press are guaranteed to students and teachers – unless the topic is religious, at which time such speech becomes unconstitutional. STEIN vs. OSHINSKY, 1965
It is unconstitutional for students to see the Ten Commandments since they might read, meditate upon, respect, or obey them. STONE vs. GRAHAM, 1980.
If student prays over his lunch, it is unconstitutional for him to pray out loud. REED vs. VAN HOVEN, 1965
The Ten Commandments, despite the fact that they are the basis of civil law and are depicted in engraved stone in the U.S. Supreme Court, may not be displayed in any public courthouse. HARVEY vs. COBB COUNTY, 1993
When a student addresses an assembly of his peers, he effectively becomes a government representative; it is therefore unconstitutional for that student to engage in prayer. HARRIS vs. JOINT SCHOOL DISTRICT, 1994.
Even though the wording may be constitutionally acceptable, a bill becomes unconstitutional if the legislator who introduced the bill had a religious activity in his mind when it was authored. WALLACE vs. JAFFREE, 1985
Artwork may not be displayed in schools if it depicts something religious – even if that artwork is considered an historical classic. WASHEGESIC vs. BLOOMINGDAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS, 1993.
It is unconstitutional for a kindergarten class to ask whose birthday is celebrated by Christmas. FLOREY vs. SIOUX FALLS SCHOOL DISTRICT, 1979
It is unconstitutional for a school graduation ceremony to contain an opening or closing prayer. HARRIS vs. JOINT SCHOOL DISTRICT, 1994.
It is unconstitutional for a nativity scene to be displayed on public property unless surrounded by sufficient secular displays to prevent it from appearing religious. COUNTY OF ALLEGHENY VS. ACLU, 1989.
Is it any wonder births to unwed teenagers have increased more than 400%? Is it any wonder we have seen a ten-fold increase in violent crime? Think for a moment about the stress this is putting on local government for higher taxes as the need for more police, judges, jails and social services increases to compensate for a silent and apathetic church that can talk of the boldness of Joshua but can’t walk it. Is it any wonder we are beginning to experience His wrath in the form of an ungodly government? We are receiving what we deserve just as Israel did. Did God not warn Israel,
“They you will cry out in that day because the king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”
- 1 Samuel 8:18, NASB
Do we still stand passively waiting for God’s divine intervention? Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Franklin approached state encroachment on the church when all other methods failed with the letter below . . . and rebelled against ungodly tyrants.
“When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separation – That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government – When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government.” – Declaration of Independence
John, the states created the federal government not vice versa. That which is created is not greater that the creator.
“When the people fear the government,that is tyranny. But when the government fears the people, that is liberty.”- Thomas Jefferson
“For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established for God.” Romans 13:1, NASB.
The only authority that exists comes from God. When rulers cease to be His servants/ministers and act outside their jurisdiction they have no authority and therefore there isn’t an issue of disobedience. Hitler used Romans 13 against resistance movements in the church, most submitter to Hitler’s false hermeneutic. Bonhoeffer did not.
Eric Andersen
June 2009
P.S. In October I will have been studying these issues for two years. One of the missing pieces for me has been an explanation as to why our Christian community is so apathetic about state encroachment versus the Christian communities of the colonists. There are a number of reasons this may be true, the media and state education are most assuredly influencing our worldview, but you have given me cause to begin contemplating another, Dispensationalism. You are devout and a devoted disciple of Jesus yet passive in your response to state encroachment on our church. Could Dispensationalism be creating a form of tyranny on the mind of believers that keep them from responding to evil and seeing it in a proper context? I have been surrounded with this theology since I received Christ and I also know that many things I once held true are not. I am just beginning to be set free from much of the propaganda that has controlled my perception of theology and political philosophy. Part of wisdom is admitting that we don’t know everything and I will admit to you I have much yet to learn. I will say that it is not about Democrat versus Republican anymore. This a false worldview and keeps us from uniting and posing a credible threat to an ungodly civil government. I believe the correct biblical persective is about liberty versus tyranny and it is time for you and eye to stand arm in arm.
[1] Barton, David. Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion. Copyright 2000, pages 13-15.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Memorial Day
“It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million human beings collected together are not under the same moral laws
which bind each of them separately.”
- Thomas Jefferson
“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
– George Orwell
Friends,
I received an email (see the end of this letter) from a well known Christian leader in our community on Memorial Day. It is similar to many I have received praising the lives of our military who selflessly give their lives “preserving our freedom” in Iraq. It is quite moving and I am sure accomplishing its intended purpose . . . and at the same time guaranteeing the premature death of more of our children not to mention innocent civilians in the Middle East for years to come.
I am reminded of what the atheist and Nobel Prize winner, Bertrand Russell said, “Most Christians would rather die than think, in fact they do.”
You may not want to read what I write below. It may make you angry. It will challenge all that you have been taught to accept at face value from your morning paper or favorite news show. Two years ago, I could not have accepted this. I don’t like having my worldview dumped on its head anymore than the next guy, but facts are facts. I have documented my sources and you can come to your own conclusion. I no longer believe that the church sincerely cares about life. Unborn babies from American families? Yes. Lives of our sons and neighbor’s sons dying on foreign soil and of folks living in foreign lands? No.
Life is a gift from God. It was not given to us by Thomas Jefferson or the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration merely testified to what men of every nation enjoy as gifts from our Creator.
That the right to life, liberty and property are God given and inalienable. Since they precede human government they also supersede all government. That is they cannot and are not to be encroached upon by another man or group except in self defense. Let me repeat. Men can only use force to secure these rights. Force cannot be used to encroach on another’s inalienable rights and still cohere with Scripture.
In this letter I will only address the right to life though I could easily address property right violations (8th Commandment) by our government to support foreign aggression and the silence of our churches the immorality as billions are taken by force from our savings and incomes via unconstitutional taxation. Theft is a moral issue and violates the most basic precepts of a just society. We are not thinking. In a future letter I will include documentation to demonstrate the plundering of billions of dollars of property (income) from American families to support a military that tonight is on 700 military bases in 132 foreign nations, so much for “National Defense”. Perhaps we can now call it for what it is, a ‘Worldwide Offense’.
Before I document why I believe the Iraq war is immoral and should never have been supported let me say that I agree with our founders in the necessity of a strong national defense. A strong national defense is consistent with the Scriptures, securing our inalienable rights and is a necessary deterrent to foreign aggression. (See Switzerland during WWII for a proper model of how our founders meant for this is to be exercised. Switzerland was the only nation in Europe Hitler couldn’t conquer.
If my family's life is threatened, I will be the first one to call for a declaration of war, but we must be able to prove conclusively that our lives are in immediate danger and who is responsible. We must do so with a declaration for war from congress as stipulated by our Constitution, something we have failed to do with every war since Korea. It cannot be delegated to the President.
Christians are not allowed to do evil that good may result (Rom 6).
I am going to make the case below that our lives and inalienable rights were never in immediate danger from Saddam Hussein/Iraq and there is no evidence tying Saddam to Al Qaeda or terrorism. It is humorous to think that a third world country, recovering from an overwhelming military defeat, on the other side of the earth, could threaten us. We must stop responding emotionally. This war was fought for other reasons upon which you may agree or disagree that had more to do with control of energy to the world, Iraq’s conversion to the euro from the dollar as their reserve currency, profits for the military industrial complex and perhaps the political capital it was supposed to give a new President.
If I succeed in making my case;
The media are not to be depended upon to accurately inform.
Our son’s are dying unnecessarily at the hands of their own government.
Billions of dollars are being forcefully redistributed from the private sector to the public sector as our paychecks are plundered to support the global goals of the military industrial complex. (See Eisenhower’s Farewell Address below). Violation of the 8th Commandment.
We are guilty for supporting a war that has killed an estimated 1,000,000 million Iraqi men, women and children who were born with the same inalienable rights we have as men and women
This evening 5 million Iraqi men, women and children, many of whom are believers, will go to bed homeless as we sleep in our warm beds.
The church must explain how we can be so sincere about “Right to Life” and be silent about the murder of innocent life abroad from weapons we pay for and place in our son’s hands. Violence and war have become standard fare in our lives. Christians have become quite desensitized to it. We even send pastors to accompany our soldiers and give them “peace” about using force to intervene on another’s inalienable right to self determine.
The church must explain how it reconciles its support of the military policies of Bush and Huckabee with the foreign policy and Christian worldview of our framers.
If the official definition of terrorism is, “the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature…through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear,” then we must measure ourselves by the same definition.
Here is why I believe this war is immoral and a grievous error of historical proportion. If I have misunderstood the issues please correct me. I am interested in the truth as much as you.
Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act documenting Secretary of State Schultz desire to support Iraq despite the use of WMD from western firms to kill their own people. Letter depicts concern that American people would become aware of the use of WMD, not that Iraq was using them against their own citizens.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq24.pdf
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq25.pdf
05/12/96 UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright says on "60 Minutes" killing 500,000 innocent children is worth it. What if Saddam would have submitted to all of our foreign policy goals if President Bush was willing to fire a bullet through the head of one innocent Iraqi child? Would he have been justified before God? If not, how do we justify this many innocent deaths as a Christian nation?
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1084
In 1999, two years before 9/11, Presidential candidate George W. Bush tells his former ghost writer about the benefits of an attack on Iraq.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1028-01.htm
02/11/01 Sec of State Colin Powell says, "the U.S. has succeeded in containing Saddam Hussein and his ambitions...his forces are 1/3 their original size. They don't possess the capability to attack their neighbors they way they did ten years ago." (If Powell says their neighbors are not in danger, how could the U.S. be?)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5680.htm
06/xx/04, CBS Anchor, Dan Rather, tells BBC what he cannot say on United States television about the war in Iraq.
http://gnn.tv/articles/111/The_Lynching_of_Dan_Rather
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/archive/2029634.stm
01/24/04 David Kay, President Bush's Chief Weapons Inspector resigns saying "No WMD"
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/01/25/sprj.nirq.kay/
02/16/04 CIA reports they have no "direct evidence" that Iraq had obtained WMD.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5680.htm
06/06/06 FBI Publicity Chief states they have no hard evidence tying Bin Laden to September 11th.
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/16-no-hard-evidence-connecting-bin-laden-to-9-11/
Former FBI Translator says the U.S. maintained ‘intimate relations’ with Osama Bin Laden “all the way until September 11th.”
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/31/760117/-Bombshell:-Bin-Laden-worked-for-US-till-9-11
03/21/04 President Bush's top anti-terrorism advisor, Richard Clarke, tells "60 Minutes" there was no connection between Iraq and terrorism.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1028-01.htm
06/16/04 9/11 Commission reports no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and Al Qaeda
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html
04/03/05 Pentagon understands deploying the American media is more powerful than any bomb.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0403-25.htm
03/03/08 American media is not reporting the violence in Iraq. The number of civilian deaths in Iraq is now approaching the number (1.7 million) who died in Cambodia's infamous "Killing Fields" during the Khmer Rouge era of the 1970s. "Almost 5 million Iraqis have been displaced by violence in their country since 2003." No word in American papers. (In country poll conducted by prestigious British polling group, Opinion Research Business, in door to door interviews)
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/1-over-one-million-iraqi-deaths-caused-by-us-occupation/
03/13/08 300 Iraq war veterans publicly testify to atrocities they witnessed and participated as U.S. soldiers.
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/9-iraq-and-afghanistan-vets-testify/
So what is the war about if it is not about fighting “terrorism” and WMD?
“This war was fought for other reasons upon which you may agree or disagree that had more to do with control of energy to the world, Iraq’s conversion to the euro from the dollar as their reserve currency, profits for the military industrial complex and perhaps the political capital it was supposed to give a new President.”
Why are believers silent? Our founders only supported a defensive military because it was consistent with natural law and the bible. Our lives must be in immediate danger before we can justify force. We do not have the right to use force offensively to obtain some personal benefit for ourselves. NATO and foreign alliances that draw us into war are irreconcilable with the foreign policy of our founders and a Christian worldview. See if you can tell from the quotes below if our founders would have supported N.A.T.O. and the war in Iraq or Afghanistan.
George Washington’s Farewell Address . . .
“The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connections as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.”
John Adams letter while Ambassador in France during revolution.
“Let us above all things avoid as much as possible entangling ourselves with their ways and politics.”
Thomas Jefferson, in his first inaugural address, called for “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.”
John Quincy Adams describing his foreign policy, “Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence; she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force . . . She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.
“Not a place on earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but trade with them.” – Thomas Paine, 1776.
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Speech to the Nation, January 17, 1961
We need to start thinking with our heads and not our hearts. The church today and the thinking of our Christian leaders no longer reconciles with the foreign policy of our founders. There is no connection between terrorism and Iraq. We have become victims of propaganda like the animals in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. I voted for Bush twice. He was a Christian and campaigned on a non-interventionist foreign policy. I am part of the reason the boy in the article below is dead. Please forgive me. Christian presidents are no longer the answer. The answer lies in and educated populace uncompromised by media propaganda and state education, who support candidates who take their oath to abide by the United States Constitution and it’s legal principles seriously.
Eric Andersen
May 25, 2009
which bind each of them separately.”
- Thomas Jefferson
“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
– George Orwell
Friends,
I received an email (see the end of this letter) from a well known Christian leader in our community on Memorial Day. It is similar to many I have received praising the lives of our military who selflessly give their lives “preserving our freedom” in Iraq. It is quite moving and I am sure accomplishing its intended purpose . . . and at the same time guaranteeing the premature death of more of our children not to mention innocent civilians in the Middle East for years to come.
I am reminded of what the atheist and Nobel Prize winner, Bertrand Russell said, “Most Christians would rather die than think, in fact they do.”
You may not want to read what I write below. It may make you angry. It will challenge all that you have been taught to accept at face value from your morning paper or favorite news show. Two years ago, I could not have accepted this. I don’t like having my worldview dumped on its head anymore than the next guy, but facts are facts. I have documented my sources and you can come to your own conclusion. I no longer believe that the church sincerely cares about life. Unborn babies from American families? Yes. Lives of our sons and neighbor’s sons dying on foreign soil and of folks living in foreign lands? No.
Life is a gift from God. It was not given to us by Thomas Jefferson or the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration merely testified to what men of every nation enjoy as gifts from our Creator.
That the right to life, liberty and property are God given and inalienable. Since they precede human government they also supersede all government. That is they cannot and are not to be encroached upon by another man or group except in self defense. Let me repeat. Men can only use force to secure these rights. Force cannot be used to encroach on another’s inalienable rights and still cohere with Scripture.
In this letter I will only address the right to life though I could easily address property right violations (8th Commandment) by our government to support foreign aggression and the silence of our churches the immorality as billions are taken by force from our savings and incomes via unconstitutional taxation. Theft is a moral issue and violates the most basic precepts of a just society. We are not thinking. In a future letter I will include documentation to demonstrate the plundering of billions of dollars of property (income) from American families to support a military that tonight is on 700 military bases in 132 foreign nations, so much for “National Defense”. Perhaps we can now call it for what it is, a ‘Worldwide Offense’.
Before I document why I believe the Iraq war is immoral and should never have been supported let me say that I agree with our founders in the necessity of a strong national defense. A strong national defense is consistent with the Scriptures, securing our inalienable rights and is a necessary deterrent to foreign aggression. (See Switzerland during WWII for a proper model of how our founders meant for this is to be exercised. Switzerland was the only nation in Europe Hitler couldn’t conquer.
If my family's life is threatened, I will be the first one to call for a declaration of war, but we must be able to prove conclusively that our lives are in immediate danger and who is responsible. We must do so with a declaration for war from congress as stipulated by our Constitution, something we have failed to do with every war since Korea. It cannot be delegated to the President.
Christians are not allowed to do evil that good may result (Rom 6).
I am going to make the case below that our lives and inalienable rights were never in immediate danger from Saddam Hussein/Iraq and there is no evidence tying Saddam to Al Qaeda or terrorism. It is humorous to think that a third world country, recovering from an overwhelming military defeat, on the other side of the earth, could threaten us. We must stop responding emotionally. This war was fought for other reasons upon which you may agree or disagree that had more to do with control of energy to the world, Iraq’s conversion to the euro from the dollar as their reserve currency, profits for the military industrial complex and perhaps the political capital it was supposed to give a new President.
If I succeed in making my case;
The media are not to be depended upon to accurately inform.
Our son’s are dying unnecessarily at the hands of their own government.
Billions of dollars are being forcefully redistributed from the private sector to the public sector as our paychecks are plundered to support the global goals of the military industrial complex. (See Eisenhower’s Farewell Address below). Violation of the 8th Commandment.
We are guilty for supporting a war that has killed an estimated 1,000,000 million Iraqi men, women and children who were born with the same inalienable rights we have as men and women
This evening 5 million Iraqi men, women and children, many of whom are believers, will go to bed homeless as we sleep in our warm beds.
The church must explain how we can be so sincere about “Right to Life” and be silent about the murder of innocent life abroad from weapons we pay for and place in our son’s hands. Violence and war have become standard fare in our lives. Christians have become quite desensitized to it. We even send pastors to accompany our soldiers and give them “peace” about using force to intervene on another’s inalienable right to self determine.
The church must explain how it reconciles its support of the military policies of Bush and Huckabee with the foreign policy and Christian worldview of our framers.
If the official definition of terrorism is, “the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature…through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear,” then we must measure ourselves by the same definition.
Here is why I believe this war is immoral and a grievous error of historical proportion. If I have misunderstood the issues please correct me. I am interested in the truth as much as you.
Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act documenting Secretary of State Schultz desire to support Iraq despite the use of WMD from western firms to kill their own people. Letter depicts concern that American people would become aware of the use of WMD, not that Iraq was using them against their own citizens.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq24.pdf
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq25.pdf
05/12/96 UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright says on "60 Minutes" killing 500,000 innocent children is worth it. What if Saddam would have submitted to all of our foreign policy goals if President Bush was willing to fire a bullet through the head of one innocent Iraqi child? Would he have been justified before God? If not, how do we justify this many innocent deaths as a Christian nation?
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1084
In 1999, two years before 9/11, Presidential candidate George W. Bush tells his former ghost writer about the benefits of an attack on Iraq.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1028-01.htm
02/11/01 Sec of State Colin Powell says, "the U.S. has succeeded in containing Saddam Hussein and his ambitions...his forces are 1/3 their original size. They don't possess the capability to attack their neighbors they way they did ten years ago." (If Powell says their neighbors are not in danger, how could the U.S. be?)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5680.htm
06/xx/04, CBS Anchor, Dan Rather, tells BBC what he cannot say on United States television about the war in Iraq.
http://gnn.tv/articles/111/The_Lynching_of_Dan_Rather
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/archive/2029634.stm
01/24/04 David Kay, President Bush's Chief Weapons Inspector resigns saying "No WMD"
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/01/25/sprj.nirq.kay/
02/16/04 CIA reports they have no "direct evidence" that Iraq had obtained WMD.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5680.htm
06/06/06 FBI Publicity Chief states they have no hard evidence tying Bin Laden to September 11th.
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/16-no-hard-evidence-connecting-bin-laden-to-9-11/
Former FBI Translator says the U.S. maintained ‘intimate relations’ with Osama Bin Laden “all the way until September 11th.”
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/31/760117/-Bombshell:-Bin-Laden-worked-for-US-till-9-11
03/21/04 President Bush's top anti-terrorism advisor, Richard Clarke, tells "60 Minutes" there was no connection between Iraq and terrorism.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1028-01.htm
06/16/04 9/11 Commission reports no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and Al Qaeda
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html
04/03/05 Pentagon understands deploying the American media is more powerful than any bomb.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0403-25.htm
03/03/08 American media is not reporting the violence in Iraq. The number of civilian deaths in Iraq is now approaching the number (1.7 million) who died in Cambodia's infamous "Killing Fields" during the Khmer Rouge era of the 1970s. "Almost 5 million Iraqis have been displaced by violence in their country since 2003." No word in American papers. (In country poll conducted by prestigious British polling group, Opinion Research Business, in door to door interviews)
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/1-over-one-million-iraqi-deaths-caused-by-us-occupation/
03/13/08 300 Iraq war veterans publicly testify to atrocities they witnessed and participated as U.S. soldiers.
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/9-iraq-and-afghanistan-vets-testify/
So what is the war about if it is not about fighting “terrorism” and WMD?
“This war was fought for other reasons upon which you may agree or disagree that had more to do with control of energy to the world, Iraq’s conversion to the euro from the dollar as their reserve currency, profits for the military industrial complex and perhaps the political capital it was supposed to give a new President.”
Why are believers silent? Our founders only supported a defensive military because it was consistent with natural law and the bible. Our lives must be in immediate danger before we can justify force. We do not have the right to use force offensively to obtain some personal benefit for ourselves. NATO and foreign alliances that draw us into war are irreconcilable with the foreign policy of our founders and a Christian worldview. See if you can tell from the quotes below if our founders would have supported N.A.T.O. and the war in Iraq or Afghanistan.
George Washington’s Farewell Address . . .
“The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connections as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.”
John Adams letter while Ambassador in France during revolution.
“Let us above all things avoid as much as possible entangling ourselves with their ways and politics.”
Thomas Jefferson, in his first inaugural address, called for “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.”
John Quincy Adams describing his foreign policy, “Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence; she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force . . . She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.
“Not a place on earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but trade with them.” – Thomas Paine, 1776.
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Speech to the Nation, January 17, 1961
We need to start thinking with our heads and not our hearts. The church today and the thinking of our Christian leaders no longer reconciles with the foreign policy of our founders. There is no connection between terrorism and Iraq. We have become victims of propaganda like the animals in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. I voted for Bush twice. He was a Christian and campaigned on a non-interventionist foreign policy. I am part of the reason the boy in the article below is dead. Please forgive me. Christian presidents are no longer the answer. The answer lies in and educated populace uncompromised by media propaganda and state education, who support candidates who take their oath to abide by the United States Constitution and it’s legal principles seriously.
Eric Andersen
May 25, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Christian Collectivism
May 15, 2009
Darrin,
Thank you for the invitation last night to meet Assemblyman Joel Anderson. You had a nice crowd of people in your home. I am wondering if you had thought about the demands and expectations your friends and our Christian brothers had of Joel and especially the comments the two ladies made on our health care system? One of the ladies said that it is the government’s responsibility to provide police, fire and health care. Towards the end of the evening another lady strongly challenged Joel to address the lack of hospitals in East County. She then encouraged Joel to use his position to get state and federal aid.
Did you notice the contradiction between what I will assume are a group of Christian Conservatives and their philosophy of government?
What I heard last night didn’t surprise me. I used to have the same perspective and it is the reason I started the Liberty Discussion Group. There is a disconnect between what we preach and what we practice. When our actions don’t reconcile with our beliefs we can be seen as hypocrites. When we hold incompatible ideas simultaneously we become irrational. I am going to make a provocative statement to you and I will attempt to back it up. We are part of the problem that we are asking Joel to fix. We think it is the democrats or the people who didn’t attend the meeting who are the problem. I say the problem lies with you and me and our misunderstanding of how our faith should inform our politics.
When our founders signed the Declaration of Independence they posited a Creator and the unalienable rights of life, liberty and property. They recognized these rights as gifts from God. Because these gifts come from God we have the right to defend them, they are unalienable. That is, they cannot be taken way by another person or group of people by force. This then becomes the role of government to secure the life, liberty and property of its citizens at their consent. Nothing more, nothing less. Government’s jurisdiction is to be limited. Governments are made up of people, sinners, and as such must be constrained by a Constitution to protect the people from becoming its prey. This is why George Washington said,
“Government is not eloquent. It is not reason. It is force.
Like fire, it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master.”
Thomas Jefferson said,
“It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million human beings collected together are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately.”
But what did we hear from our sisters last night? Government’s role is MORE than that. Its role is to provide us with healthcare. Do we understand that governments are ineffective at providing what free markets can do naturally? Do we understand that our government has no money of its own? Do we understand that our government only has the money (property) that it forcibly takes from the people it is supposed to be protecting?
Do we understand that the promise healthcare to the folks in your living room imposes an obligation on you and me to provide it?
Darrin, governments operate at the “consent of the governed”. That is, they only have the authority that you and I have to delegate to them. Since I cannot come into your home and forcibly take your property (money) in order to give it to another (no matter how compassionate of a use I have for it) neither can the government. The government is nothing more than the collective organization of our individual rights. We have forgotten that and we have made it our master instead of our servant. We now tithe more to government than we do to Him. We are giving the government power for which it has not been authorized (Romans 13). There is much more to be discussed here and more effective free market solutions, but I will stop. Here is how I heard those ladies comments with my understanding of the founders and our faith;
“I am a follower of Jesus but I think His teachings are situational. For instance, if I want something and can get enough people to make a law to provide it, we can encroach on the unalienable rights of our neighbors and use government force to make them provide for our needs. If they are selfish, and refuse to submit to our laws and surrender some of their property (i.e. income) they go to jail”
That is collectivist.
There are only two types of governments, Individualistic and Collectivist. Individualistic governments posit a Creator and individuals derive their rights from Him. Governments of this form derive their authority from the Creator (Romans 13) and protect the unalienable rights of the people. Individualistic governments serve the people. People are free and have liberty to do whatever they wish until they encroach on the life, liberty and property of others. Our nation was founded as a Constitutional Republic.
All other governments are collectivist. They deny a Creator. Rights come from the group and individuals serve the group. With this form of government, Nazi’s can decide Jews are to be exterminated. Southern Whites, if they have 51% of the vote, can hang blacks. People who live in East County, if they have 51% of the vote can outlaw Christianity or raise a tax to pay for whatever they want. This system of governing is nothing more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what they will have for lunch. This is where we get socialism, fascism and democracy.
Our founders did not establish a democracy, they believed democracies were evil and resulted in mob rule (i.e. French Revolution). We do not have a Statue of Democracy or a Democracy Bell. The word “democracy” is not mentioned anywhere in our Declaration of Independence or Constitution. I understand it is not even mentioned in any of the Constitutions of the fifty states.
Darrin, we have a lot of work ahead. Not everyone will listen to a message such as this but there will be remnant. Isaiah had the unenviable task of delivering an unpopular message to a people who would not listen. We need to take our cue from him. I encourage you to pursue liberty and righteousness in the spirit of our faithful founders who studied war so their children could study the arts and sciences. If we don’t wake up soon, our children will grow up in a strange nation.
Eric Andersen
Darrin,
Thank you for the invitation last night to meet Assemblyman Joel Anderson. You had a nice crowd of people in your home. I am wondering if you had thought about the demands and expectations your friends and our Christian brothers had of Joel and especially the comments the two ladies made on our health care system? One of the ladies said that it is the government’s responsibility to provide police, fire and health care. Towards the end of the evening another lady strongly challenged Joel to address the lack of hospitals in East County. She then encouraged Joel to use his position to get state and federal aid.
Did you notice the contradiction between what I will assume are a group of Christian Conservatives and their philosophy of government?
What I heard last night didn’t surprise me. I used to have the same perspective and it is the reason I started the Liberty Discussion Group. There is a disconnect between what we preach and what we practice. When our actions don’t reconcile with our beliefs we can be seen as hypocrites. When we hold incompatible ideas simultaneously we become irrational. I am going to make a provocative statement to you and I will attempt to back it up. We are part of the problem that we are asking Joel to fix. We think it is the democrats or the people who didn’t attend the meeting who are the problem. I say the problem lies with you and me and our misunderstanding of how our faith should inform our politics.
When our founders signed the Declaration of Independence they posited a Creator and the unalienable rights of life, liberty and property. They recognized these rights as gifts from God. Because these gifts come from God we have the right to defend them, they are unalienable. That is, they cannot be taken way by another person or group of people by force. This then becomes the role of government to secure the life, liberty and property of its citizens at their consent. Nothing more, nothing less. Government’s jurisdiction is to be limited. Governments are made up of people, sinners, and as such must be constrained by a Constitution to protect the people from becoming its prey. This is why George Washington said,
“Government is not eloquent. It is not reason. It is force.
Like fire, it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master.”
Thomas Jefferson said,
“It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million human beings collected together are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately.”
But what did we hear from our sisters last night? Government’s role is MORE than that. Its role is to provide us with healthcare. Do we understand that governments are ineffective at providing what free markets can do naturally? Do we understand that our government has no money of its own? Do we understand that our government only has the money (property) that it forcibly takes from the people it is supposed to be protecting?
Do we understand that the promise healthcare to the folks in your living room imposes an obligation on you and me to provide it?
Darrin, governments operate at the “consent of the governed”. That is, they only have the authority that you and I have to delegate to them. Since I cannot come into your home and forcibly take your property (money) in order to give it to another (no matter how compassionate of a use I have for it) neither can the government. The government is nothing more than the collective organization of our individual rights. We have forgotten that and we have made it our master instead of our servant. We now tithe more to government than we do to Him. We are giving the government power for which it has not been authorized (Romans 13). There is much more to be discussed here and more effective free market solutions, but I will stop. Here is how I heard those ladies comments with my understanding of the founders and our faith;
“I am a follower of Jesus but I think His teachings are situational. For instance, if I want something and can get enough people to make a law to provide it, we can encroach on the unalienable rights of our neighbors and use government force to make them provide for our needs. If they are selfish, and refuse to submit to our laws and surrender some of their property (i.e. income) they go to jail”
That is collectivist.
There are only two types of governments, Individualistic and Collectivist. Individualistic governments posit a Creator and individuals derive their rights from Him. Governments of this form derive their authority from the Creator (Romans 13) and protect the unalienable rights of the people. Individualistic governments serve the people. People are free and have liberty to do whatever they wish until they encroach on the life, liberty and property of others. Our nation was founded as a Constitutional Republic.
All other governments are collectivist. They deny a Creator. Rights come from the group and individuals serve the group. With this form of government, Nazi’s can decide Jews are to be exterminated. Southern Whites, if they have 51% of the vote, can hang blacks. People who live in East County, if they have 51% of the vote can outlaw Christianity or raise a tax to pay for whatever they want. This system of governing is nothing more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what they will have for lunch. This is where we get socialism, fascism and democracy.
Our founders did not establish a democracy, they believed democracies were evil and resulted in mob rule (i.e. French Revolution). We do not have a Statue of Democracy or a Democracy Bell. The word “democracy” is not mentioned anywhere in our Declaration of Independence or Constitution. I understand it is not even mentioned in any of the Constitutions of the fifty states.
Darrin, we have a lot of work ahead. Not everyone will listen to a message such as this but there will be remnant. Isaiah had the unenviable task of delivering an unpopular message to a people who would not listen. We need to take our cue from him. I encourage you to pursue liberty and righteousness in the spirit of our faithful founders who studied war so their children could study the arts and sciences. If we don’t wake up soon, our children will grow up in a strange nation.
Eric Andersen
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Thoughts on Revolution...
Thoughts on revolution . . .
Rev.o.lu.tion. Noun. A dramatic and wide reaching change in the way something works or is organized or in people’s ideas about it.
When I first came to Christ, a wonderful man invited me to live with him and his family. His name was Ted McReynolds. He and Debbie led me to Christ. He was the executive pastor for Hal Lindsey at the church I had recently began attending in Palos Verdes. Ted lived and breathed Christ. Little did I know how privileged I was to have him disciple me. While I lived with him a number of people down on their luck came to live in their home for brief periods and were discipled by him as well. I will never forget watching him get up each morning to meet with his wife, Joanne. After getting their cup of coffee, both would walk out onto the patio for a time of devotion and prayer before they started their day. I was baptized in their pool and he later officiated our wedding. Ted had walked with Christ during some exciting times including a particular occasion that I wish I could have shared. I have a black and white picture in my bible of Ted sitting outdoors before 8,000 Cal Berkeley students in the Greek Theater. It was January 1967, and Cal was a hotbed of political activism. In the photo, Ted is on the stage with two other men. Ted was the leader of Campus Crusade for Christ at Cal at the time. He told me that whatever students believed at that time they wore on their sleeve. Everyone was bold for something and many were bold for Christ. He and the Crusade staff were blitzing the campus to win the students to Christ. Timothy Leary and Jerry Rubin were trying to win them over to something else. Who were the other two men on stage? They were Billy Graham and Bill Bright, the head of Campus Crusade for Christ. Billy Graham was at Cal that day to tell the students about “the world’s greatest revolutionary” Jesus Christ. That was his theme for reaching the students. “Let me introduce you to the greatest rebel”. I miss my mentor and his passion for Christ. No one will ever fill his place in my life like he did. Ted died a few years back. He was murdered while ministering to a homeless man. Ted brought the stranger home to feed him and let him spend the night. During the night the man murdered him, robbed him and fled. The story doesn’t end there. The man was apprehended and charged and convicted. At the end of the trial, Joanne, his widow, forgave the murderer for taking away her husband and her children’s father. Ted and Joanne evangelized at every opportunity.
I know that the term “revolution” has negative connotations. It does for a purpose. It is often employed by ungodly means and we should be repelled by such. However, it is also used peacefully and for godly purposes. Jesus, Peter, Martin Luther, Calvin, Jefferson, Franklin, Gandhi, Martin Luther King are positive examples of peaceful rebellion.
“Deliver me from the oppression of man, so will I keep thy precepts.” – Psalm 119:134
I recently discovered that Luther and Calvin wrote political pamphlets as well as religious ones. I had never thought of them as anything other than religious reformers, but it makes sense. The reformation started with their leadership. They were trying to remove the state and government influence from the church and vice versa.
Their inspiration for not conforming to the rule of man and his arbitrary laws?
• Moses demanding the “state” let God’s people go (liberty)
• Hebrew midwives not conforming to state’s law to murder the newborn male Hebrew babies Exodus 1.
• Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refusing to obey the state law restricting their freedom to worship. Daniel 3.
• Daniel’s response to the Persian King’s law forbidding him to pray to his God. Daniel 6:10, 22-23
• Esther violates state law and risk’s the death penalty on behalf of the Jews by entering the presence of the king. Esther 4:11.
• Nathan confronting the state’s inappropriate use of authority after King David’s murdered of Uriah the Hittite. 2 Samuel 12:7-9.
• Peter and John’s response to the rulers and elders before the Sanhedrin, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God.” Acts 4:19
• John the Baptist speaks out against the immorality of the state(Herod’s adultery) in Mark 6: 17,18
We could add Sir Thomas More, the pastors who wrote the Westminster Confession and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The church has a rich heritage of courageous and godly men and women who peacefully refused state sovereignty over the church. Many of the problems the church is experiencing with the state stem from a failure to understand the Creator-Redeemer Distinction and Liberty of Conscience. Even today, our failure to understand these principals keeps Americans from properly responding to sects of radical Islam who wish to make Shariah Law into state law.
Martin Luther (1483 -1546)
Luther risked his life and being burned at the stake when he expounded on his belief in the Creator-Redeemer Distinction.
“Secular government has laws that extend no further than the body, goods and outward, earthly matters. But where the soul is concerned, God neither can nor will allow anyone but himself to rule. And so, where secular authority takes it upon itself to legislate for the soul, it trespasses on God’s government.” - From Secular Authority: To What Extent it Should be Obeyed. January 1, 1523.
For Luther it was folly for the state to interfere on spiritual matters. It took great courage to challenge the state and consequently Luther fled for his life. His political views were not acceptable on the German political scene. The state was not ready to respect “Liberty of Conscience”. Luther was outspoken about where the state’s authority ended. While Luther was widely recognized as an important figure in religious reform, he was just as important for his revolutionary political views.
John Calvin (1509 -1564)
Forty years later, in Switzerland, another Christian revolutionary picked up where Luther left off. His name, John Calvin. In the final pages of Calvin’s Institutes he addresses the limits of the state. Citing the example of Daniel’s disobedience to the Persian King’s edict, Calvin said humans must disobey ungodly magistrates:
“If they (state authority) command anything against him (God) let it go unheeded.
And here let us not be concerned about all the dignity which the magistrate possess.”
Institutes IV:XX:32
Calvin’s Resistance Theory was rebellious. His theology was simply informing his political thought. He was being salt. He was not going to allow the state to encroach or place itself as sovereign over the church.
The Westminster Confession (1643)
The influence of Luther and Calvin’s teaching spread across Europe. Their ideas were then adopted by the English and Scottish clergy who were assembling at Westminster Abbey to address the tyranny and oppression of the state (Charles I) over the church. These Christian pastors were rebels. They had assembled against the wishes of the state. These Puritan and Presbyterian believers sat side by side at Westminster Abbey and authored a classic statement known as the Westminster Confession. The confession clarified the proper relationship between the church and the state and reaffirmed the Protestant resistance theories of Luther and Calvin.
“God alone is the Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in anything contrary to His Word … So to believe such doctrines or to obey such commands out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience …” – Westminster Confession XX
The clergymen of the Westminster Confession were rebels rejecting the ungodly interference of the state.
Jonathan Mayhew (1750)
President Adams called Mayhew a “transcendent genius”. In 1750, Mayhew gave a sermon that Adams said “was read by everybody.” The sermon was a deep exploration of religious principles relating to the authority of human governments. In it, Mayhew described what King George III was doing and how it violated Higher Law. He told the church that a king’s authority is legitimate when the king obeys Higher Law, but when the king …
“… turns tyrant and makes his subjects his prey to devour and destroy instead of his charge to defend and cherish, we are bound to throw off our allegiance to him and resist.”
Mayhew pulled no punches:
“We may safely assert…that no civil rulers are to be obeyed when they enjoin things that are inconsistent with the commands of God … All commands running counter to the declared will of the supreme legislator of heaven and earth, are null and void; and therefore disobedience to them is a duty, not a crime.”
Not just the king, “civil rulers,” said Mayhew, are not to be obeyed if their rules are inconsistent with the commands of God.” According to John Adams, the sermon was the real beginning of the American Revolution. It showed the people that they had to choose between the natural laws of their Creator and the rules of men.
Founding Fathers
These principles became implanted in the mind of a young Princeton divinity student as he closely studied the Westminster Confession. His name . . . James Madison, the chief architect of the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment which states that our government shall not establish or prohibit the free exercise of religion. Second only to the bible, the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Confession was the most widely published piece of literature of the pre-Revolutionary era in America. It is estimated that some five million copies were available in the colonies. With a total population of only four million people in America at the time of the Revolution, that number is staggering.
The revolutionary ideas shared by Luther, Calvin and the Westminster Confession had tremendous influence on the Founders of the United States. Many of them acquired their worldview from the Bible in one hand and Calvin’s Institutes in the other. Calvin’s theology profoundly affected John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.
What does all of this have to do with today? I believe the principles found in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution found their inspiration in the scriptures and in the theology of the aforementioned men. These principals have been lost by the church and we have allowed the state to encroach on our First Amendment rights. These rights do not come from the U.S. Constitution, they come from God and as such they are inalienable, that is they cannot be removed by the State.
“When the people fear the government, that is tyranny. But when the government fears the people, that is liberty.” - Thomas Jefferson
What Americans and believers lack in their education today is the theology and preaching that the colonists had in abundance.
1. God as Creator has established natural laws by which man must abide in order for society to prosper and receive His blessing. Deuteronomy 28.
2. Our founders established this nation as a Constitutional Republic not a democracy. In order for limited government to be successful man must be able to self govern therefore making freedom of religion and worship indispensible.
“Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail to the exclusion of moral and religious principle” – George Washington, Farewell Address
“We have no government armed with force capable of contending with human passion unbridled by religion.” – John Adams
“Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.” – Samuel Adams
Thomas Jefferson on the removal of God from society and government . . .
“Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? They are not to be violated but with his wrath.”
First Amendment
To this end the framers amended the U.S. Constitution to guarantee our unalienable right to worship freely without state encroachment and the arbitrary rule of man. The First Amendment was to ensure that families and churches were free to influence a nation in a way the state never could.
“Congress shall make NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech…”
This Amendment has been violated again and again.
Instead of the church and state recognizing the “Creator-Redeemer” distinction of Luther and Calvin and agreeing to recognize the important role each plays in a just society, that is each meeting on the “50 Yard Line”, the state has pushed the church back to their own “10 ”. Without a quarterback like Shadrach and Meshach, or the clergy at the Westminster Confession or a coach like the pastors who inspired liberty from their pulpits in the years preceding the Declaration of Independence , our church has agreed to fall back to the “Ten” when it should unequivocally accept nothing other than the “50.” The American church is being steadily pushed back to the “Nine”. It has been neutered by the state and at this moment appears lacking in leadership.
The church has become passive and accepts state encroachment and arbitrary rule of man over Rule of Law.
We have exchanged God for Government, churches for capitol buildings, pastors for lawmakers and worship for legislation. Our hope for salvation is now in more government instead of Christ. We happily accept socialistic principles that are incoherent and irreconcilable with orthodox Christianity. The immorality of our nation now falls on the back of a silent church unwilling and fearful of speaking out on immoral foreign, domestic and monetary policy. Our government is no longer serving the people but has become our master. Our laws are no longer based on Higher Law but are political and arbitrary and formed by whoever has the most power. I believe the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution stand ready to guide us back to times of freedom and prosperity and to a nation governed by the laws of God instead of the rule of man. I believe we need to become reacquainted with the principles that have inspired believers to stand against state tyranny dating back to Pharaoh and the Hebrew midwives. The church has passively accepted encroachment from the state in a manner far removed from the response of the aforementioned men. It is time to stand and peacefully rebel against all state encroachment on our churches and our freedom to worship. We must speak out and be wiling to accept whatever consequence may follow. We are stronger together than apart. The longer we wait the harder it will be.
Liberty and Prosperity
To Nations who Follow the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.
“If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all of his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on the earth. All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God . . . The Lord will grant you abundant prosperity . . . The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none . . . However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you . . . You will be unsuccessful in everything you do, day after day you will be oppressed . . . A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days . . . The alien who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him.” - Deuteronomy 28:1-2, 11-12, 15, 29 -30, 33, 43.
Eric Andersen
March 2009
Rev.o.lu.tion. Noun. A dramatic and wide reaching change in the way something works or is organized or in people’s ideas about it.
When I first came to Christ, a wonderful man invited me to live with him and his family. His name was Ted McReynolds. He and Debbie led me to Christ. He was the executive pastor for Hal Lindsey at the church I had recently began attending in Palos Verdes. Ted lived and breathed Christ. Little did I know how privileged I was to have him disciple me. While I lived with him a number of people down on their luck came to live in their home for brief periods and were discipled by him as well. I will never forget watching him get up each morning to meet with his wife, Joanne. After getting their cup of coffee, both would walk out onto the patio for a time of devotion and prayer before they started their day. I was baptized in their pool and he later officiated our wedding. Ted had walked with Christ during some exciting times including a particular occasion that I wish I could have shared. I have a black and white picture in my bible of Ted sitting outdoors before 8,000 Cal Berkeley students in the Greek Theater. It was January 1967, and Cal was a hotbed of political activism. In the photo, Ted is on the stage with two other men. Ted was the leader of Campus Crusade for Christ at Cal at the time. He told me that whatever students believed at that time they wore on their sleeve. Everyone was bold for something and many were bold for Christ. He and the Crusade staff were blitzing the campus to win the students to Christ. Timothy Leary and Jerry Rubin were trying to win them over to something else. Who were the other two men on stage? They were Billy Graham and Bill Bright, the head of Campus Crusade for Christ. Billy Graham was at Cal that day to tell the students about “the world’s greatest revolutionary” Jesus Christ. That was his theme for reaching the students. “Let me introduce you to the greatest rebel”. I miss my mentor and his passion for Christ. No one will ever fill his place in my life like he did. Ted died a few years back. He was murdered while ministering to a homeless man. Ted brought the stranger home to feed him and let him spend the night. During the night the man murdered him, robbed him and fled. The story doesn’t end there. The man was apprehended and charged and convicted. At the end of the trial, Joanne, his widow, forgave the murderer for taking away her husband and her children’s father. Ted and Joanne evangelized at every opportunity.
I know that the term “revolution” has negative connotations. It does for a purpose. It is often employed by ungodly means and we should be repelled by such. However, it is also used peacefully and for godly purposes. Jesus, Peter, Martin Luther, Calvin, Jefferson, Franklin, Gandhi, Martin Luther King are positive examples of peaceful rebellion.
“Deliver me from the oppression of man, so will I keep thy precepts.” – Psalm 119:134
I recently discovered that Luther and Calvin wrote political pamphlets as well as religious ones. I had never thought of them as anything other than religious reformers, but it makes sense. The reformation started with their leadership. They were trying to remove the state and government influence from the church and vice versa.
Their inspiration for not conforming to the rule of man and his arbitrary laws?
• Moses demanding the “state” let God’s people go (liberty)
• Hebrew midwives not conforming to state’s law to murder the newborn male Hebrew babies Exodus 1.
• Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refusing to obey the state law restricting their freedom to worship. Daniel 3.
• Daniel’s response to the Persian King’s law forbidding him to pray to his God. Daniel 6:10, 22-23
• Esther violates state law and risk’s the death penalty on behalf of the Jews by entering the presence of the king. Esther 4:11.
• Nathan confronting the state’s inappropriate use of authority after King David’s murdered of Uriah the Hittite. 2 Samuel 12:7-9.
• Peter and John’s response to the rulers and elders before the Sanhedrin, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God.” Acts 4:19
• John the Baptist speaks out against the immorality of the state(Herod’s adultery) in Mark 6: 17,18
We could add Sir Thomas More, the pastors who wrote the Westminster Confession and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The church has a rich heritage of courageous and godly men and women who peacefully refused state sovereignty over the church. Many of the problems the church is experiencing with the state stem from a failure to understand the Creator-Redeemer Distinction and Liberty of Conscience. Even today, our failure to understand these principals keeps Americans from properly responding to sects of radical Islam who wish to make Shariah Law into state law.
Martin Luther (1483 -1546)
Luther risked his life and being burned at the stake when he expounded on his belief in the Creator-Redeemer Distinction.
“Secular government has laws that extend no further than the body, goods and outward, earthly matters. But where the soul is concerned, God neither can nor will allow anyone but himself to rule. And so, where secular authority takes it upon itself to legislate for the soul, it trespasses on God’s government.” - From Secular Authority: To What Extent it Should be Obeyed. January 1, 1523.
For Luther it was folly for the state to interfere on spiritual matters. It took great courage to challenge the state and consequently Luther fled for his life. His political views were not acceptable on the German political scene. The state was not ready to respect “Liberty of Conscience”. Luther was outspoken about where the state’s authority ended. While Luther was widely recognized as an important figure in religious reform, he was just as important for his revolutionary political views.
John Calvin (1509 -1564)
Forty years later, in Switzerland, another Christian revolutionary picked up where Luther left off. His name, John Calvin. In the final pages of Calvin’s Institutes he addresses the limits of the state. Citing the example of Daniel’s disobedience to the Persian King’s edict, Calvin said humans must disobey ungodly magistrates:
“If they (state authority) command anything against him (God) let it go unheeded.
And here let us not be concerned about all the dignity which the magistrate possess.”
Institutes IV:XX:32
Calvin’s Resistance Theory was rebellious. His theology was simply informing his political thought. He was being salt. He was not going to allow the state to encroach or place itself as sovereign over the church.
The Westminster Confession (1643)
The influence of Luther and Calvin’s teaching spread across Europe. Their ideas were then adopted by the English and Scottish clergy who were assembling at Westminster Abbey to address the tyranny and oppression of the state (Charles I) over the church. These Christian pastors were rebels. They had assembled against the wishes of the state. These Puritan and Presbyterian believers sat side by side at Westminster Abbey and authored a classic statement known as the Westminster Confession. The confession clarified the proper relationship between the church and the state and reaffirmed the Protestant resistance theories of Luther and Calvin.
“God alone is the Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in anything contrary to His Word … So to believe such doctrines or to obey such commands out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience …” – Westminster Confession XX
The clergymen of the Westminster Confession were rebels rejecting the ungodly interference of the state.
Jonathan Mayhew (1750)
President Adams called Mayhew a “transcendent genius”. In 1750, Mayhew gave a sermon that Adams said “was read by everybody.” The sermon was a deep exploration of religious principles relating to the authority of human governments. In it, Mayhew described what King George III was doing and how it violated Higher Law. He told the church that a king’s authority is legitimate when the king obeys Higher Law, but when the king …
“… turns tyrant and makes his subjects his prey to devour and destroy instead of his charge to defend and cherish, we are bound to throw off our allegiance to him and resist.”
Mayhew pulled no punches:
“We may safely assert…that no civil rulers are to be obeyed when they enjoin things that are inconsistent with the commands of God … All commands running counter to the declared will of the supreme legislator of heaven and earth, are null and void; and therefore disobedience to them is a duty, not a crime.”
Not just the king, “civil rulers,” said Mayhew, are not to be obeyed if their rules are inconsistent with the commands of God.” According to John Adams, the sermon was the real beginning of the American Revolution. It showed the people that they had to choose between the natural laws of their Creator and the rules of men.
Founding Fathers
These principles became implanted in the mind of a young Princeton divinity student as he closely studied the Westminster Confession. His name . . . James Madison, the chief architect of the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment which states that our government shall not establish or prohibit the free exercise of religion. Second only to the bible, the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Confession was the most widely published piece of literature of the pre-Revolutionary era in America. It is estimated that some five million copies were available in the colonies. With a total population of only four million people in America at the time of the Revolution, that number is staggering.
The revolutionary ideas shared by Luther, Calvin and the Westminster Confession had tremendous influence on the Founders of the United States. Many of them acquired their worldview from the Bible in one hand and Calvin’s Institutes in the other. Calvin’s theology profoundly affected John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.
What does all of this have to do with today? I believe the principles found in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution found their inspiration in the scriptures and in the theology of the aforementioned men. These principals have been lost by the church and we have allowed the state to encroach on our First Amendment rights. These rights do not come from the U.S. Constitution, they come from God and as such they are inalienable, that is they cannot be removed by the State.
“When the people fear the government, that is tyranny. But when the government fears the people, that is liberty.” - Thomas Jefferson
What Americans and believers lack in their education today is the theology and preaching that the colonists had in abundance.
1. God as Creator has established natural laws by which man must abide in order for society to prosper and receive His blessing. Deuteronomy 28.
2. Our founders established this nation as a Constitutional Republic not a democracy. In order for limited government to be successful man must be able to self govern therefore making freedom of religion and worship indispensible.
“Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail to the exclusion of moral and religious principle” – George Washington, Farewell Address
“We have no government armed with force capable of contending with human passion unbridled by religion.” – John Adams
“Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.” – Samuel Adams
Thomas Jefferson on the removal of God from society and government . . .
“Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? They are not to be violated but with his wrath.”
First Amendment
To this end the framers amended the U.S. Constitution to guarantee our unalienable right to worship freely without state encroachment and the arbitrary rule of man. The First Amendment was to ensure that families and churches were free to influence a nation in a way the state never could.
“Congress shall make NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech…”
This Amendment has been violated again and again.
Instead of the church and state recognizing the “Creator-Redeemer” distinction of Luther and Calvin and agreeing to recognize the important role each plays in a just society, that is each meeting on the “50 Yard Line”, the state has pushed the church back to their own “10 ”. Without a quarterback like Shadrach and Meshach, or the clergy at the Westminster Confession or a coach like the pastors who inspired liberty from their pulpits in the years preceding the Declaration of Independence , our church has agreed to fall back to the “Ten” when it should unequivocally accept nothing other than the “50.” The American church is being steadily pushed back to the “Nine”. It has been neutered by the state and at this moment appears lacking in leadership.
The church has become passive and accepts state encroachment and arbitrary rule of man over Rule of Law.
We have exchanged God for Government, churches for capitol buildings, pastors for lawmakers and worship for legislation. Our hope for salvation is now in more government instead of Christ. We happily accept socialistic principles that are incoherent and irreconcilable with orthodox Christianity. The immorality of our nation now falls on the back of a silent church unwilling and fearful of speaking out on immoral foreign, domestic and monetary policy. Our government is no longer serving the people but has become our master. Our laws are no longer based on Higher Law but are political and arbitrary and formed by whoever has the most power. I believe the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution stand ready to guide us back to times of freedom and prosperity and to a nation governed by the laws of God instead of the rule of man. I believe we need to become reacquainted with the principles that have inspired believers to stand against state tyranny dating back to Pharaoh and the Hebrew midwives. The church has passively accepted encroachment from the state in a manner far removed from the response of the aforementioned men. It is time to stand and peacefully rebel against all state encroachment on our churches and our freedom to worship. We must speak out and be wiling to accept whatever consequence may follow. We are stronger together than apart. The longer we wait the harder it will be.
Liberty and Prosperity
To Nations who Follow the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.
“If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all of his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on the earth. All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God . . . The Lord will grant you abundant prosperity . . . The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none . . . However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you . . . You will be unsuccessful in everything you do, day after day you will be oppressed . . . A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days . . . The alien who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him.” - Deuteronomy 28:1-2, 11-12, 15, 29 -30, 33, 43.
Eric Andersen
March 2009
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