A group of migrants from Venezuela planned their next steps at the Downtown El Paso Greyhound station after they were released to the streets as part of an effort by the Border Patrol to control the population at its El Paso Central Processing Center. The men gave their consent to be photographed. (Cindy Ramirez/El Paso Matters)
In his book Ecclesiastical Megalomania: the Economic and Political Thought of the Roman Catholic Church, John Robbins argued that the Thomistic principle of the universal destination of all goods is so important in Catholic thought that all rights are subject to it. (Robbins, 1999)
This principle, the universal destination of all goods, is the idea that when God created the world, he gave it to man collectively. Robbins calls the universal destination of goods “original communism.”
One of the implications of the doctrine of the universal destination of all goods is that property rights are not absolute but can be overridden by other concerns. In Rome’s social teaching, need is the ultimate factor in determining rightful ownership. John Robbins explains it this way, according to Rome, “Whoever needs property ought to possess it. Need makes another’s goods one’s own. Need is the ultimate and only moral title to property.” (Robbins, 1999)
The Roman Church-State is fine with private property up to a point, but when things get serious, need is all that matters. If your neighbor needs something, and you have a surplus of what he needs, he can take it, and it’s neither a sin nor a crime for him to do so.
Robbins quotes Pope Paul VI writing in his encyclical On the Progress of Peoples:
…each man has therefore the right to find in the world what is necessary for himself. The recent Council [Vatican II] reminded us of this: “God intended the earth and all that it contains for the use of every human being and people. Thus, as all men follow justice and unite in charity, created goods should abound for them on a reasonable basis.” All other rights whatsoever, including those of property and of free commerce, are to be subordinated to this principle. (Robbins, 1999)
A group of migrants from Venezuela planned their next steps at the Downtown El Paso Greyhound station after they were released to the streets as part of an effort by the Border Patrol to control the population at its El Paso Central Processing Center. The men gave their consent to be photographed. (Cindy Ramirez/El Paso Matters)
It may come as something of a surprise to many people to hear that Rome is at the very heart of America’s ongoing immigration crises. While Joe Biden’s policies are the proximate cause of this immigration disaster, what is not appreciated is that the Biden Administration’s immigration practice is really the practice of Rome’s destructive immigration doctrine, which is itself based on the false theology and philosophy of the Roman Church-State.
But despite Rome’s involvement, both theoretical and practical, in America’s immigration mess, almost no scrutiny is brought to bear on Rome’s role. In his book American Democracy & The Vatican: Population Growth & National Security, Stephen D. Mumford went into some detail on how Rome successfully suppressed criticism of itself. Wrote Mumford, “Every city editor in the United States knows of the unofficial Catholic censorship of American news, but almost all publishers avoid discussion of the phenomenon out of fear of reprisals. The Church frequently succeeds in intimidating the most powerful newspapers by using organized protest and boycott, even though in many cases the facts suppressed have great social significance.” (Mumford, 1984)
A group of migrants from Venezuela planned their next steps at the Downtown El Paso Greyhound station after they were released to the streets as part of an effort by the Border Patrol to control the population at its El Paso Central Processing Center. The men gave their consent to be photographed. (Cindy Ramirez/El Paso Matters)
Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things?
Matthew 20:15
A few weeks back, I received a text message from Tim Shaughnessy, a friend and Reformed brother who lives in El Paso Texas, about an emergency with a church he pastors. El Paso sits in the far west of Texas, right across the US-Mexico border from the large Mexican city of Juarez. The Rio Grande forms the border between both cities and both countries. Knowing El Paso’s location, and if you follow the news at all, you won’t be surprised when you hear what the emergency was.
Tim’s church had been meeting at the Rescue Mission of El Paso, and the chaplain of the mission called up Tim on a Saturday and told him that his church would not be able to use the mission’s building for services on Sunday. The city had been dropping off migrants at the mission and the entire facility was packed with people and full of cots. Given the vast scale of the current flood of illegal aliens pouring across America’s southern border, doubtless the loss suffered by Tim’s church could be multiplied many times over.
The current immigration disaster started with the inauguration of America’s second Roman Catholic president, Joe Biden, in January 2021 and shows no signs of letting up. Indeed, by some reports, the flood of illegal aliens, far from subsiding, is getting worse.
Since I mentioned El Paso earlier, let’s look at a few immigration-related headlines from just this one Texas city.
These stories all paint a picture of one American city being overwhelmed by illegal aliens with little hope of relief. Indeed, migrant numbers historically are higher as we move into fall and cooler weather comes to the region making passage safer for those seeking to enter the United States illegally. As Tim said in his message to me, “Our city is overwhelmed right now.”
That, one could say, is an understatement.
But while America is being overwhelmed with a flood of illegal aliens, it’s important to keep in mind that this flood is not some force of nature, but the result of deliberate policies put in place by the current president and his government. On his first day in office, Joe Biden signed an executive order pausing the construction of the border wall. And this was not the only action taken by the president and by other Democratic government officials across the nation to make it easier for migrants illegally to cross America’s southern border, to make it harder to deport them, and indeed, even to reward them once in the United States.
To give you some idea of how Biden has encouraged illegal immigration to America, a quote from the article “The Border Crisis Comes to a Once-Quite part of West Texas” will suffice. In this piece, journalist Todd Bensman interviewed a “human smuggling guide” whose name was given as Jose Antonio. Antonio referred to Biden’s immigration policies as la invitación, the invitation.
Indeed, one would have a hard time coming up with a better name than la invitación to describe the immigration policies of Joe Biden in particular and the Democrats in general. To show just how committed the Democrats are as a party to forcing American taxpayers to support illegal aliens, consider the response of the field of democratic presidential candidates in 2019 to a show of hands question about whether their health plan would cover “undocumented immigrants” – the proper term for “undocumented immigrants” is “illegal aliens.” The response of all ten of the Democrats present was to raise their hands “yes.” You can see the video here.
There is no provision in the Constitution, the Supreme Court’s ruling notwithstanding, for the federal government to fund anyone’s “health plan,” not even health plans for the American people. And if it is unconstitutional, and more to the point, immoral for the federal government to use tax dollars to pay Americans’ doctor bills, how much more is it unconstitutional and immoral for the federal government to use tax dollars taken from the American people to pay medical bills for foreigners who have violated America’s immigration laws?
So, ask yourself this question: If you tell people to go ahead and break America’s immigration laws and we’ll reward you with fabulous cash and prizes, do you think you will get more immigration law-breaking or less immigration law-breaking? If you said, “more immigration law-breaking,” go to the head of the class.
Queen Athaliah Orders The King’s Children to be Killed by Harmen Jansz Muller, Hadrianus Junius, and Gerard De Jode.
And when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal.
II Kings 11:1
Today I’d like to wrap up our look at Jehoiada’s righteous interposition on behalf of the legitimate Davidic line of kings and the people of Judah.
As we’ve discussed so far, the purpose of this series is to look at an important but largely ignored Biblical doctrine known as the doctrine of the lesser magistrate. Last week we defined the doctrine of the lesser magistrate using Matthew Trewhella’s book The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates. In his book, Trewhella gives the following definition of this doctrine,
The lesser magistrate doctrine declares that when the superior or higher civil authority makes unjust/immoral laws or decrees, the lesser or lower ranking civil authority has both a right and duty to refuse obedience to that superior authority. If necessary, the lesser authorities even have the right and obligation to actively resist the superior authority (1).
It’s important to define and discuss this doctrine because Christians in the West find themselves in situations where more and more they live under governments that are openly hostile to them. Good is now evil and evil is now good. In some places, Christians can find themselves prosecuted for quoting what the Bible says about homosexuality, while satanic transgender activists are free to recruit kids for their perverted cause.
Here in the United States, we have a situation much like what Judah faced under Queen Athaliah, an illegitimate government that goes out of its way to implement evil policies. Athaliah was a murderess and promoter of Baal worship. Joe Biden works tirelessly to implement the Vatican’s globalist agenda via his climate change policies, unprecedented illegal immigration, attacking the Americans’ Second Amendment rights, fanning the flames of war in eastern Europe, the promoting sexual perversion, and accusing patriotic, Christian Americans of sedition when they speak out against his evil.
When faced with evil government dictates, some Christians will point to Romans 13:1 – Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities – and argue that there is no legitimate or almost no legitimate reason for Christians ever to push back against evil government commands. If a governor says that you have to shut down your church due to Covid, you shut down your church due to Covid, and that’s just that. Anything else is unrighteous rebellion. That this is a widespread opinion can be seen by the number of churches that bent their knee when told to close their doors “to stop the spread.”
On the other hand, there are some people who hold that primate rebellion is a justified response against a tyrannical government. There are several instances where the kings of Judah and Israel were murdered by political opponents. Oddly, young king Joash, whom Jehosheba and Jehoiada saved, would later be murdered by his servants. But the murder of Joash, even though Joash had clearly deviated from the paths of righteousness later in life, is clearly condemned in the Scriptures.
So we see that neither blind obedience nor private rebellion is the Christian answer to dealing with tyrannical governments. The Christian answer is the doctrine of the lesser magistrate. A doctrine we see modeled quite well by the righteous high priest Jehoiada. Jehoiada hid the young, rightful heir to the throne of Judah for six years. After that period had elapsed, he organized a military guard, brought the seven-year-old Joash out in public, and made him king.
That’s where we left off last week. Let us now consider the beneficial effects of Jehoiada’s actions and what lessons American and other Western Christians can take from his example.
Queen Athaliah Orders The King’s Children to be Killed by Harmen Jansz Muller, Hadrianus Junius, and Gerard De Jode.
And when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal.
II Kings 11:1
Today we continue our look at how Christians are to conduct themselves when they find themselves living, as we are here in America in 2022, under an evil and hostile government.
For most of us in America and in the West generally, the idea that we ever would find ourselves living under a government that actively hates us and seeks to harm us has seemed like a paranoid fantasy. Yet with the growing power of globalist organizations such as the Vatican, the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, and the Bilderbergers, as well as individuals such as Bill Gates and George Soros, Americans, and citizens of other once free Western nations have found themselves living under governments that are actively and openly hostile to their political and economic liberties and even their very lives.
This state of affairs raises a number of questions for Christians. How is a Christian to respond when living under a hostile government? Does a Christian have a right to resist an evil government, or does he simply have to put up with whatever laws a rogue government enacts, however evil and destructive they are? If resistance is an option, who does the resisting? What actions constitute proper resistance if resistance can ever be considered proper?
Last week we considered the actions of a private citizen to resist the actions of evil, usurping Queen Athaliah by looking at Jehosheba, who took it upon herself to rescue the only remaining heir of the Davidic throne from the murderous queen, thus preserving the David dynasty. Had Jehosheba not stepped up and saved the infant Joash, there would have been no continuing line of David to sit on the throne of Judah and God’s promise would have been made void. One lesson we can take from this is that private citizens may resist the commands or the actions of a ruler when those actions are evil.
The basis for private citizens is clearly seen in Romans 13. There, we read that the civil magistrate is, “God’s minister to you for good.” If the civil magistrate is “God’s minister,” it is God who is sovereign, not the magistrate. This means that the magistrate’s power is delegated to him by God and does not originate with himself. As such, the civil magistrate is bound by the law of God just as is the private citizen. Rulers do not have a license to lie, cheat, steal, or murder any more than a private citizen does. But if this is the case, who can call the civil magistrate to account? Or to put the question slightly differently, is it ever appropriate to rebel against and forcibly remove from power an evil ruler? And if it is, who can rightfully do this?
The Scriptures rule out the idea of private citizens taking matters into their own hands. Christians are enjoined to pray for rulers so that they may live peaceable lives. Christians can rebuke evil rules for their evil deeds. Take for example John the Baptist’s rebuke of Philip for taking his brother’s wife. But leading a violent rebellion is not something Christians as private citizens are called to do. As further proof of this, we see examples in the Scriptures of men who assassinated evil kings – for example, those men who assassinated King Joash when he went rogue later in life – being treated like murderers.
So, is it ever appropriate for Christians to use physical violence to rebel against an evil ruler? Not for Christian private citizens. But it is appropriate for Christians who wield civil power to do so. In Protestant circles, this idea has historically been known as the doctrine of the lesser magistrate. In his book The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates: A Proper Resistance to Tyranny and a Repudiation of Unlimited Obedience to Civil Government, Matthew Trewhella defines the doctrine of the lesser magistrate thus,
The lesser magistrate doctrine declares that when the superior or higher civil authority makes unjust/immoral laws or decrees, the lesser or lower ranking civil authority has both a right and duty to refuse obedience to that superior authority. If necessary, the lesser authorities even have the right and obligation to actively resist the superior authority (1).
Note well, as Trewhella has defined it, the doctrine of the lesser magistrate states that lower ranking civil authorities not only have the right to actively resist superior authorities, but when those superior authorities make unjust or immoral laws or decrees, they even have the duty to do so.
Let us now turn to the example of the faithful High Priest Jehoiada to see how his interposition helped to remove a wicked government and restore the God-ordained Davidic monarchy to Judah.
Lux Lucet 