Showing posts tagged democrat
"No nation is sovereign; they all operate on arbitrary, made-up boundaries, and the whimsy of self-granted power. There are no borders. Christ has all nations under him, he establishes and destroys governments as he sees fit, and the kingdom to come is not one of nations. It is a kingdom of people who are bound together by Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection. It is a kingdom that is already established, and that Christians are made citizens of the moment they are saved.
So, I no longer consent to participate in a necessarily immoral institution. I am a Christian, and have been instructed by the laws of my God and King to obey the laws of the land in which I am physically present so far as they do not conflict with obligations to my God. The Romans recognized that Christ’s commands were political in nature. They understood and fought Christianity tooth and nail until they gave up and just integrated Christianity as an approved State religion.
I am a Popular Christian, or as some call it a Christarchist. I am not bound by any State or Religion but my borders are cast by the shadow of the Cross of Christ. And my fellow Christians those borders are unbounded, limitless, and cross the whole of the Universe and more… our God is great.
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— Aaron Huggins
(Source: http)
Pray for the King!
So far, most Christians are convinced that Christian Anarchists are in rebellion because they don’t support the king. The thing that they neglect to realize is that I DO support the king. I support the king stopping his murder of Muslims, babies, dissenters, and many more. I support the king being reconciled to YHWH through the sacrifice of Jesus. They say, “Don’t denounce the king, pray for the king!” Allow me to point to the falseness of this dilemma and remind you that Paul was specifically telling Timothy to pray for the salvation of all peoples because YHWH wants all people to come to Himself through Jesus. This commits a fallacy of what I call “Implied Exclusion.” Praying for the king to be saved does not imply the exclusion of the prophetic work of denouncing corruption (or 3/4 of the Old Testament would be blank pages.)
So, allow me to politely note that I pray for the king constantly. Here is a prayer I wrote that sums up what I usually say about the king:
‘Heavenly Father,
I thank you that you are the almighty sovereign King of the universe. I thank you that you control all events on earth. I thank you that you are holy and just and that, as a result, I can have confidence that all things that happen, happen for a good and loving purpose regardless of whatever pain and suffering result. In this specific prayer, I pray for the individuals of the Senate, House, and Presidency. I pray for all of those involved in the bloodied, corrupted, murderous State you have ordianed (without questioning your holiness, sovereignty, justice, goodness, or love with which I have such intimate acquaintance.) Father, I pray that they will be saved, reconciled to you by the blood of your Son Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and, in being saved, have their eyes opened to the mass murder that they commit and injustice that they perpetuate every day. I pray that they would see that coercive action via legislation or “representation” is against Christianity and amounts to little more than a desecration of the temple of God that are individual humans created in Your image. I do not pray that they would “do their jobs well” or “wisely” since praying to you that someone would commit murder “well” is an abomination. I pray that they would leave office, denounce coercion and idolatrous electoral politics, denounce murder through war, denounce applying coercive temporal solutions to the moral issues of other people, proclaim the wonders of YHWH, proclaim salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and serve the One True King, King Jesus.
Amen’
Ryan Day Thompson
I have a topic suggestion that I would be interested in you address, if you're up for it. Should we just ignore the government and live our lives following God's direction? Should we denounce bad government? Does it even matter?
Since we have endeavored to undertake a sizable project called, “Submission NOT Endorsement: A Christarchist Primer on Proof Texts”, that addresses your questions a text at a time and presents plausible solutions for Christians, I’ll go ahead and let this old question be answered like that and also give my brief take on it as well :-)
1) Yes. I think the most plausible way a Christian can keep their conscience clear in relation to the murderous state is to live like the state and its sub-organizations simply don’t exist. This means a number of things practically. For instance, I’m not completely ignoring the state by using this internet connection (since it is being paid for in FRN) or driving my car (using FRN again) or using our oven, or running our water, etc. Finding alternatives to these is challenging, and will be consuming much of my year this year! I think the answer is radical, but fairly straightforward: if we as Christians want a conscience clean of state involvement, we must have a total non-consent to every aspect of its doings.
2) I think that since the prophets spent a great portion of their time denouncing bad government, and taking after the example of guys like Daniel and Joseph and ladies like Esther who said, “This far and no further,” when “their” governments became idolatrous, adulterous, or murderous, we have more than enough reason to think that denouncing government is legitimate. Furthermore, our exemplar, Jesus Himself, was APPALLED at the turning of the temple into a center of Caesar and mammon worship (since it was Caesar’s face on those coins) and wasn’t precisely quiet about it. I think also if you read Paul considering Judahic and Roman context you’ll see very strong currents of criticism of the world spirit of the state.
3) Personally, I’ve begun to wonder if it’s worth it. If it even matters. I think that for some people, they would be better off just continuing what they’re doing and not bothering with the state. For others, I would have to say that this is worth it and that it matters very much. On a general Christian scale I would say it matters very much because the state is evil, to its core, in everything it does, and that, therefore, to not at least tertiarily consider our involvement in it flatly disobeys and ignores the gravitas behind Jesus command to love YHWH with all of our hearts, souls, and minds.
Ryan Day Thompson
"Christians are under no obligation to obey a power that is illegitimate. Just because a man with a gun orders us to do something does not mean that we should do it necessarily."
— James Montgomery Boice
"I am weary of your quarrels,
Weary of your wars and bloodshed,
Weary of your prayers for vengeance,
Of your wranglings and dissensions;
All your strength is in your union,
All your danger is in discord;
Therefore be at peace henceforward,
And as brothers live together."
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha
"Questions threaten the perception of the beneficial systems / A pyramid scheme with it’s cogs and it’s pistons / Mechanization of men, making more and more / Live in a miserable existence / How can so few, claim so many victims / And this begs the question."
— Josh Garrels
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
"Christian men and women must confront all life’s issues and make all life’s decisions “in the Lord.” This means that to be truly and dynamically Christian, a person must be possessed by Christ in such a way as to be an instrument of his will. To act “in the Lord” is to recognize that personal commitment to Christ is such that he must become the source, the pattern, the inspiration of all living. Out of love and reverence for Christ and imbued with the spirit of “caring” for man in every dimension of his being, which Christ inspires, his followers are called upon to live their lives in the light, love, and power of Christ. Taking advantage of all available knowledge, conducting themselves as responsible citizens, sensitive to the concrete situation in which the find themselves, Christians must decide and act “in the Lord.” Should the action they take arouse the ire of the government or of fellow citizens and fellow churchmen, or should it prove to be disadvantageous to their personal interests, let them resignedly accept the consequences in loyalty to their consciences."
— John A. MacKay
In Order
Tammie Libertas posted an excellent series of articles recently. They are read in the following order:
Logic and the Foundation of the Non-Aggression Axiom - Part 1a, Part 1b, Part 1c
In case you’re just dropping by for the first time or would like a refresh on what we’re about you can refer to the following articles:
Flagless: An Introductory Post
In the next couple of weeks we’ll have some new posts for you and I’m sure some interesting quotes. I, personally, am considering a photographic illustration of hyperinflation. The point of being a cooperative is that we can each pick up when the other’s busy lives make consistent posting impossible. Since we all have jobs and families this has been working out great.
Drop by once a week or so to keep an eye on us. Or just put us in your feed-reader!
We also really appreciate questions. Feel free to scroll all the way down to the very bottom of this page where a nav-bar appears and click, “Have a Question?” to ask away!
Ryan Thompson, Contributor
The Flagless Cooperative
