FLAGLESS

Has the American State Become Your Religion?

“You shall have no other gods before me.” (Ex. 20:3)

Before falsely using YHWH’s name, before the sabbath, before honor of father and mother, before murder, adultery, theft, or false witness or coveting, before all of these is this single command: “You shall have no other gods before me.”  It is unqualified.  Commentators have noted how the commands that follow this one command and every book that follows Exodus relate to it.  Jesus summed up the two tables and their Deuteronomical and Levitical reiterations well.  He said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and…you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” (Matt. 22:37-38).  Throughout the Old and New Testaments the command is clear.  When a king of Israel set up idols to Baal?  He got sick and died or got killed in battle.  When the Israelites themselves served Baal?  The whole nation experienced strife and suffering.  Israel was eventually conquered and destroyed for their idolatry.  When Ananias and Sapphira worshiped their stuff rather than their creator?  They died.  Moses made it clear.  The prophets made it clear.  The Psalmists made it clear.  Job made it clear.  Jesus made it clear.  Paul made it clear.  There is no God but YHWH.  You cannot serve YHWH and serve another god.

Whenever the followers of YHWH have ceased following Him, be it the church or Israel (if you choose to make that distinction,) and followed gods and systems who disdained human life, indulged in human sacrifice, and called for general immorality, the followers of YHWH have proven themselves not followers at all but, rather, idolaters who fall into many immoral pursuits.  The writer of Hebrews said it well, “For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief,” (Heb. 3:16-19).  This is one of those rare texts that connects disobedience closely with unbelief.  Those people who called themselves follower of YHWH?  They were no followers at all, they were unbelievers and they proved it with their actions of unfaithfulness to YHWH.

Imagine a god who calls for you to sacrifice your children!  Imagine a god who calls for you to slaughter humans on his altar!  Imagine a god who calls you to steal from your neighbor!  Imagine a god who demands that you devote yourself to it and no other.  “Baal!” you say.  “Moloch!” you say.  Why, yes, those gods did demand human sacrifice, theft, and pure devotion.  They are gods of aggression.  They are gods whose image we surely do not bear.  They are not YHWH.  They are not the true God.  If you worship them you worship nothing and show yourself to be an unbeliever.

However, I am not talking about Baal or Moloch per se.  I speak of the modern Baal.

Hear me out.

When you pay your taxes, the state takes that money and uses it to kill women and children both here and abroad in the protection of their own interests.  When you put on a uniform and wield a weapon on behalf of the state to kill, you kill the son of another father and mother and a creature created in the image of God.  When you vote, you perpetuate a system of democracy that is rooted in injustice (imagine using a majority of 51% to screw 49% out of their inherent right to something!)  When you take millions of dollars from the state you swear your devotion to it for life.  When you campaign for Rick Perry, or Ron Paul, or Michelle Bachmann, or Mitt Romney, or Barack Obama, or any human, you say, “This, I worship!”  “The state?” you say?  “HOW DARE YOU!?”

I am tracking a deeply disturbing trend: many Christians maddeningly refuse to hear “Christarchists” out when they decry the state’s protection of itself in war.  Many Christians virtually stop their ears and gnash their teeth before they will hear us out when we decry the use of your taxes for abortion and the killing of the Muslim (while they somehow still “oppose” abortion and murder.)  Many Christians refuse to hear us out when we decry the perpetuation of a system rooted in the injustice of the many oppressing the few.  Many Christians refuse to hear us out when we question the validity of an institution that calls them to murder, steal, and inflict poverty wherever they go.

It is as if we were decrying the worship of YHWH!  It is almost as if we used the very name of YHWH in vain!  I, personally, have been sworn at, accused of being “inconsistent” with my worldview, and told that I am a disgrace to to the concept of freedom.

Why?  Because I have chosen to live consistently with the Sermon on the Mount?  Because I have attempted to live as consistently as possible with the system of non-aggression that the Bible predominantly espouses?  Because I have expressed disdain for a Church that largely refuses to do its work and feed the poor?  Because I have called for Voluntary consent to all taxes and systems of government (imagine a world in which we may voluntarily decide where we want our money and efforts to go!  Is that not freedom?!)  Because I have asked you to actually do what you say you’re doing and read Thomas Jefferson’s hatred of centralized government and banking?  Because I have dared to point out that we in Evangelicalism and many Reformed circles are treating the Constitution as if it were God breathed?

Christians, the American state is the modern Baal!  The voting booth is the modern “high place!”  Politicians are the modern Asherim, the Constitution a modern Golden Calf, partisan politics the modern Marduk.  As Moloch asked the Israelites to sacrifice their children on his altars, the state demands that we fund its murder of children.  As Asher demanded immorality on her altars, the state demands at the point of a gun that we fund every immorality which we supposedly oppose.  As Nebuchadnezzar built a giant image of himself and demanded Daniel worship it, the state presents politicians of all colors who build an image of themselves through various media and demand that we worship them with our vote and consent (and, subsequently, our money, time, and lives.)

I am seriously uncomfortable in my church now.  Why?  Every time I look at my pastor (who preaches amazing, Biblical, Christ-centered sermons) I see the American flag directly behind him.  That’s right, the symbol of the modern Baal, proudly displayed for all to see and hear that we condone the murder of children, that we love war, that we adore theft!  That flag speaks so loudly I cannot hear my pastor anymore.  We may as well have a Pentagram on the wall!  Let us display the Asherim!  Let us build a high place!  Let us mold a golden calf and dance around it!  Let us bow down and worship Tiamat!  If we’re going to go this far we may as well “go the whole hog!”

Christians, the American state is dangerously close to being our religion if it is not already.  It is becoming hard to distinguish between the two for me.  Do we serve Baal, or do we serve YHWH?  Choose, and choose quickly, because this state is about to demand your total and complete worship.

If we bow down, we prove our unbelief.   YHWH and YHWH alone is God.  If we dance around this golden calf, we prove that we do not ultimately believe that Christ is the one and all-sufficient King. 

Do we serve YHWH, or do we serve Herman Cain?  Do we serve YHWH or do we serve the Republican party?  Do we serve YHWH, or do we serve the American state?  Has the American state become our religion?

We worship in vain before blocks of wood and dead pillars of stone wrought by the hands of men if we continue to serve America, the modern Baal.

There is no King but Christ!  Let us serve the King!

Ryan Day Thompson, Contributor
The Flagless Cooperative

Who are the utopians? And who are the realists?

By David McElroy

Ever since Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden, sinful humans have made countless attempts to create the perfect society. We want heaven on Earth, so we establish rules designed to mold society into whatever conception we have of Utopia. It’s time to quit pretending that’s possible.

Over the centuries, we’ve seen many different systems proposed to enforce morality and establish perfect order. Kings believed they had been placed on their thrones to speak for God. Members of utopian sects have tried to live in communal brotherhood. Those who founded republics believed they had found a way to protect the rights of the some people. Adherents of various offshoots of Marxism thought the state would wither away and everyone would live in harmony once private property was abolished. And modern social democracies have handed power to the majority with the unspoken mandate that the majority are to use that power to perfect society.

All of these systems have been failures in one way or another. The question I have is why so many people keep believing in the failed god we call democracy.

Utopia doesn’t exist. As long as human beings are fallen creatures and still living on this Earth, we’re going to remain imperfect, regardless of our intentions or plans. But a democratic system ignores that reality. It pretends that humans are magically going to act in harmony for the good of all — and that the will of the majority is an acceptable thing to force the minority to accept.

Any majoritarian system is based on coercion. It’s based on the idea that it’s moral to compel everyone to obey the decisions of the majority. A society that allows free speech only does so because the majority have decided to accept it. The same is true for freedom of religion or any other freedom that might matter to you. Despite lofty words of support for freedom in various historical documents, any freedoms you enjoy are still available only because the majority around you haven’t decided to eliminate them.

By participating in a majoritarian system, you are acknowledging that the outcome of voting is legitimate and morally enforceable. As long as you’re in the majority — or at least generally approve of what the majority want — it might seem like a pragmatic solution. But what happens when the majority disagree with you in fundamental ways? What will it mean when the majority restrict the practice of your religion or restrict what you’re allowed to say or force you to hand over your money to be spent for things you find morally objectionable?

If you’ve gone along with the system while you were in the majority, what moral authority do you have to suddenly object when you become part of a minority who’s coerced to live in ways that you find immoral? The truth is that if you support enforcing the will of the majority when you’re a part of it, but object to majority will when it doesn’t go your way, you’re a hypocrite.

A democratic system is based on the utopian idea that the majority are going to protect everyone’s rights and allow people to live in freedom. It’s based on the idea that it’s moral and just to require that we all live in a “one size fits all” world. It’s based on the idea that sinful people can be trusted not to use the power of the state to steal from others when they receive power over the lives of those others.

In other words, democracy isn’t just a god that failed. Democracy is yet another attempt to establish Utopia — and it’s going to increasingly bare its teeth at those of us who are Christians as we fall further and further into the minority.

I don’t accept the idea that I have any right to tell others how they must live, even if I can get a majority to agree with me. I also don’t accept the idea that any majority has the right to tell me how to live or what to do with my money. If I accept those ideas as fundamental, there’s clearly no way I could morally support a democratic state — or any kind of coercive state.

I don’t want to reorder the world. I don’t have a utopian plan. I only insist that it’s my right — and your right — to make individual choices about the rules which govern the part of the world we choose to be a part of.

If a million people want to get together in a city or enclave and live as socialists, that is their right as long as they own the land. If a bunch of people want to set up a theocratic nation, they’re welcome to do it as long as they don’t force anyone else to live under their rules. If a group of rugged individualists wants to band territory together and agree that there are no rules other than non-aggression among them, that’s their right, too.

We all have our own ideas about the kind of city or enclave or nation we’d like to be a part of. As long as those rules are voluntary for the people living under them, why not allow different people to live their own ways? Why keep insisting that everyone from Florida to Alaska should be governed by the same system — whether the people want it or not?

I’ve given up on the coercive state, both for pragmatic reasons and moral reasons. I believe the coercive state is going to eventually collapse under the weight of its own contradictions, leading to economic and social collapse. I’d like there to be alternatives when that collapse happens, because things are going to get ugly when it happens in a country such as the United States.

Some people look at “anarchy” and think “chaos.” To me, it merely means “competitive governance.” It means allowing different groups of people to make different decisions about how to run their lives. It’s fair. It’s moral. And it doesn’t assume the utopian idea that sinful humans are capable of holding power over each other without abusing it.

Competitive governance — or a world without coercive states — is a recognition of the reality that human beings can’t be trusted with power over each other. If you truly understand the real nature of democracy and what it implies, you’ll understand that supporting a majoritarian system makes you a utopian — and Utopia is always bound to fail.

David McElroy writes about the coming post-statist world from a secret underground bunker protected by armed flying monkeys. You’ll find him at davidmcelroy.org.