Last week, Tucker Carlson released an interview with Bret Weinstein about Weinstein’s investigative trip to the Darien Gap. It’s well worth the hour and twelve minutes it takes to watch, for it exposes yet another flank in the Roman Catholic Church-State’s (RCCS’s) illegal alien assault on America, even if the connection is not made explicit in the interview.
The Darien Gap is a dangerous, sixty-mile stretch of jungle along the Columbia-Panama border through which there are no roads. Those who cross the Darien Gap must face its treacherous conditions on foot. Yet despite the danger, migrants continue to pour through the Gap in the hope of reaching the United States. And the dangers are not all natural. Weinstein talks in the interview about robberies and rapes that take place in this remote area.
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
It’s a curious thing to find yourself an object of hatred and derision in the very land founded by your forefathers, but that is the plight of millions of white Americans who have been subject to decades upon decades of official attacks upon them. If you’re a straight, white, Christian man, that goes double for you.
This isn’t a subject – the open, brazen, legal, official, disrespect for, discrimination against, and hatred of America’s white population by an establishment that is itself mostly white – I’ve written much about in the nearly fifteen years I’ve posted content on this blog.
Elizabeth Chasteen Day, organizing director for ACLU of Ohio, cheers during a gathering for supporters of Issue 1 at the Hyatt Regency in Columbus. Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch.
But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, till there was no remedy.
2 Chronicles 36:16
A note to the reader…Before starting on this week’s post, I want to let you know that, Lord willing, I plan to pick up my recent series on “The Religious Wars of the 21st Century, and Update” starting next week. This weekend I was out of town and that played havoc with my usual writing schedule. And wanting to post something, I thought I’d offer my thoughts on Ohio’s much-commented-on election results from last Tuesday.
On Tuesday, November 7, Ohio voters shocked the nation by voting to add a very liberty abortion provision to the state’s constitution and passed a law legalizing the sale and taxation of marijuana. Commenting on the abortion vote, one article I saw had the headline “The Ohio Vote is Only the First Step in America’s Descent into the Valley of Death’s Shadow.”[1] To which I thought, “I’m not so sure.” Not to defend the vote or abortion generally. That’s not what I mean. What I mean is that it certainly isn’t the first step in America’s descent to destruction. The West in general, and America in particular, have been collapsing for well over a century. Tuesday’s vote was hardly the first step in our destruction. We’ve been taking such steps for my entire life, and I’m 57 years old. I was born in 1966 and America was even then in the throes of the sexual revolution and the hippie sex, drugs, and rock and roll culture. The Civil Rights Movement was destroying civil rights and feminism was on the rise.
Talking about “our democracy” has become a big thing in recent years. Hardly a day goes by, or so it seems, that I don’t hear some politician or another spouting off about “our democracy,” usually in the context that we’re about it lose it if such and such a thing is allowed to happen.
Such and such a thing very often turns out to be the prospect of the reelection of Donald Trump, which Pelosi described as “a nightmare scenario” in the article quoted above.
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.
Detail from The Tower of Babel by Peter Brugel, 1563.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Genesis 1:1
“Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.” This quote, or some variant to it, has been attributed to several prominent people. In searching for the origin of the quote, I found it credited to such notables as John Knox, William Tyndale, and Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Jefferson used “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God” on his personal seal. Jefferson wanted to use this saying on the Seal of the United States
Whatever the origin of the quote, many Christians today are troubled by the notion that it is ever a Christian’s duty to resist tyranny. Citing Paul’s injunction in Romans 13 “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities,” they take Paul’s command to be, if not an absolute, at least something very close to it.
The extent of the civil magistrate’s legitimate authority came to the surface in 2020 with the coming of the Covid 19 restrictions across much of the world. These restrictions not only affected schools, universities, and businesses, but also churches. Sincere Christians, when considering how to react to government restrictions, in particular government restrictions on church meetings, came to different conclusions. Some believed it was the duty of Christians to obey every command of the various civil authorities that restricted, or outright prohibited, church meetings. Others considered it a Christian duty to resist such edicts. Because of these different views, as a follow up to last week’s post on the divine origin of civil government, it seemed good to me to say something about the relationship of civil government to the church.
To take the suspense out of things, I’ll tell you my view of the matter up front. Christians are required to obey civil magistrates, but only in the Lord. The civil magistrate, while a legitimate minister of God, has limited authority. This was also John Calvin’s view. He wrote,
The characteristic of a true sovereign is, to acknowledge that, in the administration of his kingdom, he is a minister of God. He who does not make his reign subservient to the divine glory, acts the part not of a king, but a robber. He, moreover, deceives himself who anticipates long prosperity to any kingdom which is not ruled by the sceptre of God, that is, by his divine word (Institutes, Prefatory Address).
Later in the Institutes, Calvin wrote,
We are subject to the men who rule over us, but subject only in the Lord. If they command anything against Him let us not pay the least regard to it, nor be moved by all the dignity which they possess as magistrates – a dignity to which no injury is done when it is subordinated to the special and truly supreme power of God (Book IV, Chapter 20.32).
It is the view of this author that the civil authority has no jurisdiction to regulate how Christian churches conduct their worship services, and that all such regulation represents overreach on the part of the civil magistrate. This is not to say that Christian ministers and Christians themselves are not subject to the governing authorities. If Christians commit acts that are contrary to the law of God and the just civil laws of society, then they are justly punished by the civil magistrate. But the regulation or prohibition of singing hymns, capacity limits due to Covid, or even outright prohibition on gathering on the Lord’s Day? All such restrictions by the civil authorities are tyrannical and ought to be resisted by Christians everywhere.
Detail from The Tower of Babel by Peter Brugel, 1563.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Genesis 1:1
In the famous opening sentence of his Treatise on the Social Company, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote, “Man is born free, but he is everywhere in change.”
While Rousseau’s social compact theory of government is not Christian, his observation that man is everywhere in chains certainly rings true. We can see this in the history recorded for us in the Bible as well as from secular sources. For that matter, we can see it simply reading the news of the day.
Jesus himself noted the authoritarian nature of civil government in his response to the disciples’ arguing about who among them was the greatest. Jesus responded to them,
The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called ‘benefactors.’ But not so among you; on the contrary, he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves (Luke 22:25-26).
Note that the kings of the Gentiles do two things. First, they exercise lordship. The Greek verb translated “exercise lordship” can also mean “be the lord or master of.” Perhaps another way of expressing the meaning of the Greek is to use the English expression “lord it over.” We talk that way. We say so and so is lording it over someone. Certainly, that was true of the kings and emperors who governed during Jesus ministry. They lorded it over their people. What the kings of the earth wanted, they took, and there was little to stop them.
The second thing these kings did was be called “benefactor.” On one hand they oppressed their people, but on the other, they wanted to be known as men of generosity. A modern example of this is Joseph Stalin, who, while being one of the most ruthless of the 20th century dictators used the title “Dear Father” among others.
From Jesus response to his disciples, we clearly see that there is a large gap between the Biblical teaching about how government should operate – the idea that government is a servant to the people – and how it actually does operate.
But even more basic than the questions what should government do and how should it go about doing it is the question, why should one man obey another man?
To answer these questions, we must turn to the Scriptures where we find the origin of civil government.
Lux Lucet 