As Christians in 2018 America we’ve been blessed with opportunities that few others in human history have even come close to experiencing. For this we should be eternally grateful. At the same time, as Christians in 2018 America we’ve become far removed from the worldview that inspired Pilgrim Puritans to plant the seeds that eventually became the United States.
Where our American culture and civilization was launched as a direct consequence of a distinctly Calvinistic Christian worldview with an optimistic eschatology that actually dared not only to believe but practically live out the Gospel-fueled Great Commission, we now find ourselves in the midst of a multi-century slide into the darkness that inevitably comes when people trade in biblical Christianity for any of its pessimistic, cowardly little counterfeits.
After many generations of State-managed programming, we’ve devolved into a people who not only disregard the very worldview that literally inspired the foundation of America, but, even more tragically, we’ve become a people who openly oppose and often despise the essential core concepts of that worldview – the same driving concepts that ignited “the great American experiment” in the first place.
So here we are, many generations into that slide, living in a culture that likes to imagine and proclaim itself to be Christian while openly practicing, advocating, and even celebrating scores of obviously and dramatically anti-Christian approaches to life and culture.
For example, we actually defend the “right” to build mosques and worship false gods as “a God-given right”.
Just think about that.
Let it sink in.
While you’re thinking about that terrifying fact of contemporary American cultural and political philosophy, realize this: It’s not an anomaly.
Our open repudiation of God is hardly limited to that one glaring, gut-wrenching example. To the contrary, the list of rancid, suicidally stupid examples of rebellion against God in our approach to law and government is long…very long…
We won’t attempt to compose that list here, but you get the picture.
With that picture duly noted, it’s important to not merely catalogue our grievances or list the horrors of our current Orwellian State government in the U.S. (though such grievances and lists definitely have their place). What we must also be doing if we aspire to bring lasting positive change to this dying land is clarify what civil government (the State) actually is from a biblical perspective.
When it comes to pursuing good government, if we don’t have a target to aim at, we’re quite unlikely to hit it.
So let’s paint the target.
Or at least try to.
To that end, I’d like to offer up a list of ten relevant points for your consideration. This is in no way intended as a comprehensive list of what a biblically sound State should look like. What it is intended to be is a helpful aid in clearing up some of the misunderstandings and downright lies about the State that seem to permeate our culture at this point in history.
In order to keep these points relatively digestible, I’m gonna at least try to make ’em brief or at least brief-ish (with links provided to articles that elaborate on certain relevant points).
That said, let’s dive on in…
10 THINGS CHRISTIANS SHOULD KNOW ABOUT GOVERNMENT:
- “The State” is not “The Government “in the complete or exclusive sense. We’ve been so thoroughly programmed by the State for so long here in America that when we hear the term “government”, we instantly and exclusively apply it to civil government – the realm of the State. But nothing could be further from an accurate understanding or application of such an important concept as “government”. This was a well understood fact prior to the age of State-run “education”.
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Coincidence?
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Nope.
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In truth, God has ordained, empowered, and limited multiple spheres of government in order to promote and empower vibrant, thriving people, families, communities, and culture. Individual, or self-government, is one of them. Family government is another. Church government is yet another.
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It should then be no wonder that the State would seek to increase its power over these other spheres of authority with the goal of eventually eliminating them from the scene, practically if not literally. This is exactly what we see now in America and throughout the West in the form of largely ignorant/enslaved/dependent masses, decimated families, and a castrated, incompetent (professing) church. The more we hand over responsibilities of individuals, families, and churches to the State, the more we will encourage and accelerate our slide into darkness, dependence, and ultimately death.
. - The State is not The Law. Conflating the State with the Law is commonplace. That conflation has played a central role in the massive expansion of State power in America (and throughout the West). When we think that every principle, law, or rule for life described in Scripture is inherently a thing that the State has been charged with handling or managing, we put ourselves on the path to just the sort of Orwellian hellhole of a culture that’s on the horizon (and partially arrived) in America right now. When we understand that the State is a very limited, very small (though critically important) part of what God has designed to enable the flourishing of culture and civilization, we will keep it in its very limited place and, in the process, enable true freedom, liberty, peace, and prosperity to wash over the land.
. - The State does not create Law. The State, in its proper form, merely recognizes and applies Law as it has already been revealed in Scripture, taking what God has told us and applying that Word to specific situations. The Law of God, which literally defines all of reality in God’s creation (including in the political/civil realm; see: Colossians 1:15-20), is the basis upon which all true law stands at a civil governmental level (or family governmental level or church governmental level or individual governmental level, for that matter). In its proper form, the State is God’s servant – “an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer”, among other things, with God’s Word serving as the basis upon which terms like “good”, “evil”, “right”, and “wrong” are defined (see: Romans 13:1-4 and check out Presuppositional Law: Where we begin with law determines where we end.).
. - Man did not create the State. Contrary to popular opinion and what most “professional educators” who’ve been programmed and licensed by the State may say on the matter, the State is not man’s creation. It’s not ours to do with as we please. It is ultimately God’s property to be used in service to Him for His glory and to the benefit of His people.
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The State is the purposeful creation of God, designed by Him to carry out a small number of specific tasks, with its attributes, responsibilities, and limitations defined in Scripture (see again Romans 13 as one reference point for this).
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For more on this general concept, check out Who owns America? (Hint: Not “We the People”).
. - The State is not above the Law. The State is not somehow magically empowered to act above, apart from, or outside of the Law of God. A group or gang of people cannot sidestep or skirt around the requirements of the Law by merely taking on the collective cover of “the government” or “the State”. (See also: Note to ‘Merica: There is no “God-given right” to murder children. Repent accordingly.)
. - The State is under the Law. The State is every bit as subject to God’s Law as anyone or anything else in God’s creation. States, like individuals, cannot truly break God’s Law. They can only break themselves upon it (as we are witnessing now in America and throughout the West). While it may take a long time as we measure things for that breaking to occur, it always and inevitably comes to any persistently unrepentant State just as it always ultimately comes to any individual who clings to rebellion against God. (See: Psalm 2 and check out Want to see America in Scripture? Try Psalm 2.)
. - The State has no business counterfeiting wealth (or, put another way: enabling the creation and use of magical fake money, also known as “fiat currency”). Of the many dark, evil, and enslaving forces deployed by our godless approach to civil government, perhaps none is more vile and pervasively destructive than our government’s use of fiat currency.
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Among the most significant truths withheld in State-run “education” systems is the fact that our precious dollar is literally crafted out of thin air by a select few who are thereby empowered to effectively own and control everyone and everything beneath them. In what is the ultimate example of a violation of God’s Law-Word on economics as recorded in Proverbs 11:1, the U.S. government’s massive system of systems is entirely dependent upon a black magic approach to economics that quite literally makes the masses slaves or, perhaps worse, something like pawns in someone else’s video game. (See also: Fiat $lavery: We have been bought and paid for…with nothing.)
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Yes, it’s that bad. Yes, it’s that evil.
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It is also the lynchpin propping up everything from the American military to the American welfare state.
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And its fall is inevitable, so prepare accordingly.
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For more on this, check out Why our economic Jenga Tower Of Babel must fall. (Hint: Proverbs 11:1).
. - The State has no business regulating professions. Just as the State cannot be allowed to monopolize the power to determine what constitutes money (wealth), so too the State has no credible claim to monopolistic power where the determination of who can or cannot pursue a profession is concerned. Private boards, organizations, and certifications can and should be allowed to fill any need in these areas, as the free market (comprised of free people) sees fit.
. - All State-wielded political power is derived through the threat of force. Every decree, regulation, and rule advanced by the State and its ruling politicians is ultimately empowered or backed up by the State’s ability to violently confront noncompliance. Coercive force is the name of the game; the necessary ingredient without which the State cannot function. This is why “gun control” is so important to Marxists and Statists of various stripes. They know that, as Mao rightly noted, “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
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That’s why they want “The Government” to have a monopoly on dangerous weapons.
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(For more on this important subject, please read What Gun Control Really Means and watch our video in The Evil Of Gun Control.)
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Just think for a moment about the terms “enforce” and “law enforcement” for a moment and things should click into place quickly from there. Without enforcement, a law is practically inconsequential. We all know this. The question then becomes (or should become): What has God empowered the State to force others to do (or not do)?
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This concept is utterly foreign to our State-programmed minds. Again, this is no coincidence.
.. - We do NOT live in a democracy. This correction has particular application in the United States, where the vast majority of State-programmed citizens have been conditioned to both identify the U.S. as a democracy and view democracy as an inherently good and virtuous thing (arguably the best and most virtuous approach to government, from the State propagandists’ perspective).
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Even so, and despite all propaganda to the contrary, we do not live in a democracy. The United States is not and was never intended to be a democracy. It was intended to be, designed to be, and might one day again become a republic, which is a completely different thing.
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Democracy is mob rule. Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting to decide what (or who) is for lunch. (And thereby who The State should be empowered to force into the role of lunch provider or lunch itself.)
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Democracy is the majority getting whatever it wants…which is why the American State relentlessly programs us to believe two things: 1.) That we live in a democracy, and 2.) That “We the People” should look to the State rather than to God for our protection, our prosperity, our security, and our hope in general, which just so happens to empower the State more and more over time.
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See how that works?
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It’s called idolatry.
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Idolatry of the State.
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In our specific case: Idolatry of America.
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And right now it’s killing us.
Another item that could easily be included on this list, but hopefully is so obvious at this point that inclusion isn’t necessary, is that The State should have no power or authority over the process of educating children. None whatsoever. To give the State the power to sculpt the minds of the young is to give the State the power to disciple each successive generation to become ever more State-centered in thinking, ever more State-dependent in practice, and ever more anti-Christian in worldview…which is exactly what State-run children’s “education” has gotten us in America.
I hope that these clarifications are helpful and encouraging – helpful in shedding light on the subject of civil government from a biblical worldview perspective and encouraging in that we have been given light by God on this subject so that we might apply it right here and now no matter how dark or desperate things may seem. By God’s grace, we’ve been called and equipped to productively apply the Gospel-fueled Great Commission even to the realms of politics and civil government.
As unbelievable as it may seem from where we now stand, we really can bring beauty, truth, and liberty-protecting power back to the State…one supernaturally inspired, grace-fueled step at a time…
It’s time to make a serious start to that journey.
It’s time to paint a biblically informed target so that we know where to aim.
Only after that first step is taken can the real work finally begin, so let’s get this show on the road, shall we?
Soli Deo gloria…and let’s roll!
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Stupid Elephant Tricks – The Other Progressive Party’s War on Christianity takes a painful but much needed look at how Christ-less “conservatism” has captivated Christians and co-opted them into helping march the culture ever deeper into darkness:
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The Beginning of Knowledge: Christ as Truth in Apologetics is an approachable, easy to read introduction to Christ-centered apologetics:
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Apathetic Christianity: The Zombie Religion of American Churchianity explores the tragic true horror story of all-American dead religion masquerading as Christianity:
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On Education is a compilation of some of the most provocative and compelling Fire Breathing Christian articles on the subject of children’s education:
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There Is No “God-Given Right” To Worship False Gods is a compilation of some of the most provocative Fire Breathing Christian articles on the subject of America’s embrace of a satanic approach to religious liberty:
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Fire Breathing Christians – The Common Believer’s Call to Reformation, Revival, and Revolution is the book that first presented the FBC mission to apply the Gospel-fueled Great Commission in every realm of God’s creation:
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And especially this one: Never forget that apart from God’s grace you and I are complete morons.
