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