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If you seek to return to the kind of government that existed one day after the Constitution was ratified, namely, Thirteen Christian Theocracies in a part-time federal union, or if you seek to make the government even more Christian than it was at that time, the courts will not allow you to take an oath to "support the Constitution." If you believe that the State and all its officers have a duty to obey God and do all things to His glory, you are a "Theocrat," and if you "must obey God rather than man" (Acts 5:29) you cannot become an American citizen. Thus saith the Supreme Court.
U.S. v. Macintosh[1]
In 1931, the U.S. Supreme Court reconsidered the 1892 case of Holy Trinity Church v. U.S.[2]
A Canadian Christian named Macintosh, an ordained Baptist minister and Professor of
Theology at the Yale Divinity School, wanted to become an American citizen. When it was
discovered that this Canadian differed from the average "church-goer" by
actually following Christ in his political decision-making, his application for
citizenship was denied. The reason? To become a citizen, you must take an oath to be loyal
to the Constitution. But a Christian's loyalty is ultimately to God. A
Christian "must obey God rather than man" (Acts 5:29). Macintosh, unable
to discern the signs of the secular times,[3] admitted that he would not
obey any law that forced him to disobey God. The U.S. Supreme Court told Macintosh that he
could not become an American citizen. This is no longer a Christian Theocracy, but a
secular one, the Court apparently felt. And with God stripped from the field of law, the
State must rise to fill the void. People who take Jesus seriously are dangerous to
the survival of the secular State, the Court concluded, and cannot be allowed to become
citizens. As the Court said of Macintosh,
When he speaks of putting his allegiance to the will of God above his allegiance to the government, it is evident in the light of his entire statement, that he means to make his own interpretation of the will of God the decisive test . . . . [True, w]e are a Christian people (Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U.S. 457,470,471, 12 S.Ct. 511 [516], 36 L.Ed. 226), according to one another the equal right of religious freedom, and acknowledging with reverence the duty of obedience to the will of God. But, also, we are a nation with the duty to survive; a nation whose . . . government must go forward upon the assumption, and safely can proceed upon no other, that unqualified allegiance to the nation and submission and obedience to the laws of the land . . . are not inconsistent with the will of God.[4]
The Holy Trinity case had declared that in a Christian nation, no statute could be construed in such a way as to keep a Christian minister out of the country. Macintosh repudiated this Theocratic notion wholesale. America was not the same nation it was in 1789.
A decade after Macintosh, a Christian with similar beliefs sought to be admitted to the Illinois Bar. It was revealed that his ultimate loyalty was to God, not the State. He was denied admission to the Bar. Although he was willing to take the oath to "support the Constitution," the Illinois Bar and Supreme Court held that he couldn't take the oath "in good faith." The denial was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.[5] The Summers Court looked back to the Macintosh case:
If the attitude of this claimant, as shown by his statements and the inferences properly to be deduced from them, be held immaterial to the question of his fitness for admission to citizenship, where shall the line be drawn? Upon what ground of distinction may we hereafter reject another applicant who shall express his willingness to respect any particular principle of the Constitution or obey any future statute only upon the condition that he shall entertain the opinion that it is morally justified? The applicant's attitude, in effect, is a refusal to take the oath of allegiance except in an altered form. * * * It is not within the province of the courts to make bargains with those who seek naturalization. They must accept the grant and take the oath in accordance with the terms fixed by the law, or forego the privilege of citizenship. There is no middle choice. If one qualification of the oath be allowed, the door is opened for others, with utter confusion as the probable final result.[6]
The ruling in this case clearly bars me as a Christian from taking the oath to "support the Constitution." I can't just take the oath when I know that the U.S. Supreme Court has said I cannot.[7]
It seems the only people who are held by the courts to be unable to take the oath in good faith are Christians who admit that if there is ever a conflict between God and the State, "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). People who are predisposed to disobey laws which they deem to be immoral according to a meta-constitutional principle are held as a matter of law to be unable to swear their support for the Constitution "in good faith."[8]
I mention again the 1968 case of an applicant "foolish" enough to support Theocracy and to seek to modify his oath, in which the applicant was denied the "free exercise" of his Theocratic religion.[9] The applicant was a member of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, which requires Theocratic oaths. The applicant proposed adding a line to his oath which set forth his
supreme allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ, and in making that declaration I take the same God as my witness invoking His assistance to help me render due obedience to my Country in all temporal matters. And I do further declare that I do not now know any matter in which I intend actual disobedience to any command of my country now known to me.[10]
He lost his job and his appeal. The inescapable issue is Lordship. Even though he may never disobey any law, a Christian has "an attitude": the State is not his God. This is unacceptable in a Secular theocracy. America is not the same nation it was in 1789.
Just as atheists in a Christian nation were prohibited from testifying in court because they were held as a matter of law to be unable to take an oath (even if they were willing to do so), so in a secular theocracy Christians are declared as a matter of law to be unable to take an oath to support the secular government (even if they might want to). Both positions are logical, based on their initial presuppositions.[11]
Madison said those who hold government offices must be subject to the Universal Governor. But the secular state will not self-consciously and publicly subject itself to this Sovereign, and as a result, there is no Higher Authority than the State, to which "unqualified allegiance" must be sworn.[12]
There is no "neutrality." Christianity requires the State to be self-consciously subject to God's Law. The Secular State will have none of this.
Even the Girouard Court held that a vision of exclusivistic Christian society, with its decidedly un-secular "test oath," is "abhorrent to our tradition."[13] It is a Christian Theocratic test oath which I seek to take. My religion lashes out at the heart of what the current Court sees as the essential principle of American Government: pluralism.
One morning you're getting your newspaper and you see that your pagan next-door neighbor is preparing to sacrifice his son to his gods. Will you rescue the child, or are you a "pluralist?"
Many people today join the Supreme Court in opposing the fusion of religion and government.[14] Many people today view "pluralism" as "enlightened" and "democratic," and "Theocracy" as an unmitigated evil.[15] People fear that "Theocracy" will mean the denial of civil rights and the breeding of a spirit of "intolerance." Secularists bemoan the
turmoil, civil strife, and persecutions, generated in large part by established sects determined to maintain their absolute political and religious supremacy. With the power of the government supporting them, at various times and places, Catholics had persecuted Protestants, Protestants had persecuted Catholics, Protestant sects had persecuted other Protestant sects, Catholics of one shade of belief had persecuted Catholics of another shade of belief, and all of these had from time to time persecuted Jews. In efforts to force loyalty to whatever religious group happened to be on top and in league with the government of a particular time and place, men and women had been fined, cast in jail, cruelly tortured, and killed.[16]
But the Crusades and the Inquisition and the KKK and the Religious Right combined are but a drop in the bucket compared to the denial of civil rights occasioned by the Secular State. Secularism, not Christianity, has made the 20th century the most violent century in recorded history.[17] Everyone can see that the Inquisition and the Crusades were evil; only a few have come to see secular government as an even greater evil.[18]
Philosophers sometimes speak of "epistemological self-consciousness." It means being consistent with what you profess to believe. When Christians are consistent, they grow out of Inquisitions and Crusades. But when Atheists are consistent --and the 20th century has become more and more consistently atheistic - well . . . God says "all they that hate Me love death." (Proverbs 8:36) Secularism brings death.
"The Divine Right of Kings" was universally held several centuries ago. But the inner logic of monarchy led to a struggle for human rights. Now we have moved away from kings and royalty toward government "of, by, and for the people."
The inner logic of Pluralism has led to violent crime, widespread ignorance, rising rates of sexually transmitted diseases among 14-year olds, graphic violence and perverted sex as "entertainment," ubiquitous divorce and illegitimacy, and the inability of our government or leaders to make a moral judgment and say that all of this wrong. After all, we mustn't "impose our values" on others. Indeed, when Christians attempt to "impose their values" on child-killers by praying in front of their homes or protesting in front of their clinics, they are met with armed force in the form of the State's police and military. In an effort to avoid "Theocracy," the Christians are arrested for violating the "civil rights" of the abortionists.
Civil rights are only violated when one group of people claim the moral right to a monopoly of violence over others. Is the answer to human rights violations to strip our government and culture of the moral absolutes Christianity provides? I don't think so. The answer is to demythologize the moral legitimacy of the State itself, and to be ready to follow Christ to the Cross for doing so.
This is why I defend Christian "Theocracy," a society governed by the Law of God. Such a Biblical society is both "patriarchal" and "anarchistic."
Patriarchy Biblical Theocracy is best exemplified by Abraham. He took hundreds of people into his household and attempted to transfer to them the discipline and godly habits which he had learned.[19] This educational ministry is the foundation of social order, and it is always familistic.[20] Such activities take place through voluntary associations, not coercion and regulation. Future-oriented self-sacrifice is blessed by the Providence of God with prosperity and security, obviating the purported necessity for a State.[21]
Anarchism "Anarchism" is the belief that the State has no moral legitimacy; that the State is an organized monopoly of violence. As a would-be attorney at law, the question that arouses my passion is, How do we achieve a well-governed society? How do we decrease lawlessness and increase social order? The State - "the government" - is larger now than it has been in generations, yet lawlessness is ever-increasing. What would happen if this message were to permeate our culture, in schools, newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, CD, and on-line:
If this message were believed and put into practice by all citizens, the first thing that would happen is that the State would disappear. Order would increase, and we would have a "well-governed" society. But no State.[22] This no doubt explains the State's hostility toward the Gospel.
The Constitution served us well in moving us away from the "divine right of kings." But if we can do without "right of kings," we can't do without "divine." The Constitution thus also moved us away from Christian Theocracy and toward the New World Order of Secular Humanism.
Conservatives have long regarded the U.S. Constitution as the summit of Western political development and the epitome of the American legal genius.
No document has been more fulsomely praised, more often held aloft, more often cited, more often described as a "work of genius," as a masterpiece emerging from a wonderful group of men, as a marvel of the ages, worthy of admiration for all time.[23]
If we had to pick a group of men in the 1990's to fashion a new Constitution, we would be hard pressed to duplicate the mental power of that "worthy company" that gathered in Philadelphia.[24] But what has to happen before we concede that they failed? The greatest charter of civil government the world has ever known derailed the missionary hopes of those who settled this land,[25] and instead gave birth to the greatest outbreak of totalitarianism and mass murder in human history. Because "The Puritan Hope" was derailed, and because U.S. "insiders" (sworn to "support" the Constitution) planted and nurtured the seeds of Communism,[26] we must lay the blame for most of the carnage and spiritual destruction which Prof. Rummel describes[27] at the feet of America. America's early Theocratic covenants with God would have prevented the spread of Communism and 20th century "democide" - if we had kept them; America's secular covenant was instead its catalyst. The world really needed a "City on a hill"; we got a "New World Order" instead. "Constitutional government" is no substitute for decentralized Christian Patriarchy (Theocracy), and has been an instrument of Christian apostasy, not Christian Reconstruction.
The Constitution was supposed to set limits on the State. That was its whole purpose; that was its claim to fame. It has failed to do this, and failed miserably. One reason it failed is because it is not an explicitly Theocratic document. It did not self-consciously and explicitly place the government under Christ speaking in the Scriptures. Thus liberated, the State would inevitably assert its own divinity.
But even if the Constitution had been explicitly Christian, or even if we were to amend it, it would still be a failure. No constitution can ever be Biblical. Have we not learned the lesson? It is taught from cover to cover in the Bible. We know it in the saying, "Power corrupts." In this political context, "power" means the right to use violence. The right to kill your enemies. The right to tell others how to run their business; what to teach their children; what to include in their diet. The Constitution says you may not hire the Boy Scouts to deliver your neighborhood Christmas cards for a nickel each (Art. 1, §8, ¶7). The Constitution says some people have the right to set up a bureaucracy and force others - at the point of a gun - to act in certain ways. The Bible never says anything like this. "Free market" economists have shown it never works. If I'm wrong, please send me the chapter and verse! Power surely does corrupt; it has corrupted, and is corrupting.
Service, on the other hand, sanctifies. No Constitution is needed to be a Patriarch. No Charter is needed to follow Jesus in self-sacrifice. Only would-be kings need a Constitution (Mark 10:42-45).
The answer is Christian Theocracy.[28] After having devoted myself to studying Biblical Law for over a decade after being a Chalcedon Scholar,[29] I find no command in God's Law (the Bible) to form a State, nothing which justifies man's shift from Patriarchy (society centered in the Family) to Politics (society centered in the State). Those who do so are roundly condemned.[30] Functions said by apologists of the State to be uniquely "public" (e.g., war, executions, punishments, taxation, fractional reserve banking, conscription) are prohibited by Biblical Law: they shouldn't be done by anyone, even those who have been "voted into office" by others.[31]
Alas, we may have kings, dictators, bureaucrats, and constitutions for many years to come. And as long as we do, we must not act like they do. We must not return evil for evil, vengeance for vengeance, regulation for regulation, theft for theft. We "submit."
But "submission" does not mean "legitimization." The institutional church, seeking political accreditation,[32] has historically legitimized the State by referring to Biblical commands to "submit" to their [evil] acts. But when Jesus says not to "resist" the evil one, He does not thereby justify evil; "turn the other cheek" was not an approval of cheek-slapping (Matthew 5:38-48). The State is evil, but Christians obey it until it commands disobedience to God (Titus 3:1-7; Acts 5:29).[33]
As a Christian, I oppose the violence and mass murder of the secular State. Without the moral principles of Christianity to guide it, the State becomes a terrorist. If there is no God, Dostoevsky observed, "all things are permitted."[34] I told the District Court that there is only one answer to lawlessness, violence, and the denial of civil rights. Christianity must pervade our society. The reign (Theocracy) of God must replace the reign of Secular Man. The Bible promises that when Christianity "fills the earth as the waters cover the seas"[35] the State will disappear. We will "beat swords into plowshares" and live safely under our "vine and fig tree."[36] A Christianized people will eliminate the institutionalized violence which is the State.[37]
People ask me, "But if you don't support the Constitution, there won't be any law, and all will be chaos." But don't you see, the Constitution has undermined law and order in this country - indeed throughout the world - by permitting the destruction of its very foundation: Christianity. The Framers of the Constitution sincerely wanted "religion" and (natural law) morality to be taught in their schools, but their Constitution could not prevent the rise of secularism, social chaos, and tyranny. It is not a Christian covenant.
Admitting that the Constitution is a failure will not bring chaos. We already have chaos, courtesy of Secular Humanism! And it's increasing every day. During the last decade in which I have lived with the urban homeless I have seen the chaos. I have seen hopeless lives. I have heard gunshots nearly every night. Believe me, I fear chaos. That's why I fear the State. That's why I do not "support the Constitution." That's why I feel I must take a stand against a secular oath, instead of just getting my "ticket" and becoming a rich lawyer.
I will not play the politicians' game; I cannot take a secular oath in support of a secular constitution. America is in "denial." We must tear down the façade of "law and order," expose the chaos, and rebuild true and lasting social order on the foundation of Biblical Law.
And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. Joshua 24:15
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U.S. v. Macintosh, 283 U.S. 605, 51 S.Ct. 570, 75 L.Ed. 1302 (1931). [Return to text]2. See above, note 139. [Return to text]
3. Secularism had recently received a tremendous boost in the field of law with the celebrated "monkey trial." Scopes v. State, 154 Tenn. 105, 289 S.W. 363 (1927). The case was important not for its precedential value in law (Wm. J. Bryan "won"), but as a cultural phenomenon affecting lawmakers (C. Darrow won), marking the definitive transition from the Theocratic liberties of Holy Trinity to the secularist militarism of Macintosh. [Return to text]
4. Macintosh, 283 U.S. 605, at 625, 51 S.Ct. 570, at 575 ("his own interpretation," Court's emphasis; all other emphasis added). On the Holy Trinity Church case, see above, text at notes 123 & 139. Of course it is obvious that "unqualified allegiance to the nation" is in fact not only "inconsistent with the will of God," but is the very definition of "idolatry." A good deal of the New Testament was written by an incarcerated author, and many of Christianity's most honored saints were sadistically executed by the State (cf. Hebrews 11:32-38). The Macintosh theology marks a dramatic religious shift in our legal system. [Return to text]
5. In re Summers, 325 U.S. 561, 65 S.Ct. 1307, 89 L.Ed 1745 (1945); reh. den. 326 U.S. 807, 66 S.Ct. 94, 90 L.Ed. 491 (1945). [Return to text]
6. Ibid., at 325 U.S. 573n.13, 65 S.Ct. 1314n.13, citing Macintosh, 283 U.S. 605 at 626, 51 S.Ct. 570 at 575. [Return to text]
7. Some have claimed that Girouard v. U.S., 328 U.S. 61, 66 S.Ct. 826, 90 L.Ed. 1084 (1946) overruled Macintosh. Only a statutory construction by Macintosh was overruled in Girouard. In any case, the U.S. Supreme Court has not stopped citing the Summers case since it ruled in Girouard, and the District Court ruling in my case cited Summers as authoritative. For further discussion, see Attachment D. [Return to text]
8. Some of these cases are discussed in Appendix E of the California Petition, including Smith v. County Engineer of San Diego Co. 266 C.A.2d 645, 72 Cal.Rptr. 501 (1968), Petition of Williams, 474 F.Supp. 384 (D.Ariz., 1979), and In re De Bellis Petition for Naturalization, 493 F. Supp. 534 (E.D. Pa., 1980). [Return to text]
9. Smith v. County Engineer of San Diego Co. 266 C.A.2d 645, 72 Cal.Rptr. 501 (1968). [Return to text]
10. Smith, 266 C.A.2d 645 at 657, 72 Cal.Rptr 501 at 509. [Return to text]
11. One presupposition says that God is God; the other says that Man is god. (True "Man" (capital "M") always seems to be incarnate in the State.) [Return to text]
12. Conscientious civil disobedience by the individual against the State is a meaningful concept only in a Christian framework. R. Rushdoony, The One and the Many (1971). [Return to text]
13. Girouard v. U.S., 328 U.S. 61, 69, 66 S.Ct. 826, 829 (1946). See also the criticisms of religious tests in Everson, 330 U.S. 1, 44. ("These things none devoted to our great tradition of religious liberty would think of bringing back." J. Rutledge, dissenting.) [Return to text]
14. The joining of religion and civil government is inescapable. All civil law is the coercive imposition of a morality. Every society has an ultimate source of morality - a religion - from which springs all law.
Most of the Founding Fathers were suspicious of a union between the State and the Church, that is, between the State and a specific institutional, ecclesiastical Christian denomination. But not one - I dare say not a single one - believed it was either wise or possible to separate the State from the principles of True Religion (granted, Jefferson's concept of "True Religion" differed from Witherspoon's). Similarly, there is no one in the Religious Right - not one - who denies the "separation of church and state" where "church" is a specific institutional, ecclesiastical denomination or Christian sect (See Appendix C of the California Petition, "Religion in the Constitution and in Torcaso v. Watkins.") [Return to text]
15. Everyone defends a theocracy; theocracy is an inescapable concept. "Theocracy" comes from two Greek words, Theos, meaning "God," and kratos, "power," krateo, "to hold." It means literally "the rule of God [or god]." Since all law is religious (previous note), we cannot escape the rule of a god. The most vocal opponents of "theocracy" really only oppose the rule of the God of the Bible as God, but not the rule of Man as god. We now live in a secular theocracy, in which Man is god. See above, note 131. Plaintiff can only support a Christian Theocracy (capital "T"). [Return to text]
16. Everson, above, note 129, 330 U.S.at 8-9, 67 S.Ct. at 508. It's as if none of these things are ever carried out by secular sects against Trotskyites, proto-capitalist Ukranian farmers, opponents of the "Cultural Revolution," or other "counter-revolutionaries." Was the problem with the Khmer Rouge too much religion?
Anyone - whether Christian or atheist - who claims a political or moral right to violence is a threat to others. The answer is not "separation of church and state," with the secular State left free to its Imperialist whims. The answer is the Theocracy taught by Christ in the Scriptures. See below, under "Anarchism," p. 74. [Return to text]
17. G. Elliot, Twentieth Century Book of the Dead (1972); R. Rummel, Death by Government (1994) (estimating nearly 200 million intentional State-sponsored killings in this century.) [Return to text]
18. Whenever the courts have criticized "test oaths," they point to persecution by Christians, while ignoring persecution by secularists. See above, text at note 17. There is an understandable and even appropriate double standard here. The world is more outraged by persecution from Christians because Jesus, the Prince of Peace, told His followers to be "anarchists" and to repudiate the politics of persecution (Mark 10:42-44). [Return to text]
19. See "Volume Four" in Joint Exhibit 3. [Return to text]
20. G. Gilder, Wealth and Poverty, chs. 6, 13 (1981), R. Moore, et. al., "The California Report: Early Schooling for All?" 53 Phi Delta Kappan 615 (1972)(Family produces superior character, scholarship, vis-a-vis institutional settings). [Return to text]
21. Leviticus 25:18-19; 26:5; Deuteronomy 12:10; 33:12; 33:28; Psalm 78:53; Proverbs 1:33; 3:23; Isaiah 32:17-18; Jeremiah 23:6; Ezekiel 28:26; 34:25-28; Hosea 2:18. For discussion, see Attachment G, "Patriarchy and National Security." [Return to text]
22. If this paragraph is not immediately apparent to you, or upon reflection does not come to you as an "Oh, yeah; I see!" then I can't convince you of it in this web-site. As I see it, this political-sounding proposition is nothing less than the Christian Gospel (Luke 1:51-52; Galatians 3:8; Micah 4:1-5). If you're serious about the direction of our nation - indeed, of the human race - you must grapple with this issue, this "Good News." Here are some resources:
23. O. Scott, "The Legend of the Constitution," 12 J. of Christian Reconstruction 45, 46 (No. 1, 1988). [Return to text]
24. M.E. Bradford, A Worthy Company (1982). [Return to text]
25. Remember what you learned in Section One ("Government and Theocracy"). See John Winthrop's vision of a "Citty vpon a Hill" and the purpose of the Massachusetts Charter: to win the natives to Christ and to promote our "good life and orderly Conversation." See also I. Murray, The Puritan Hope (1971). "Original Intent" could not be clearer. Tragically, America is now a "by-word through the world." [Return to text]
26. A. Sutton, Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution (1974), and Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development, 3 vols., (1968-73). [Return to text]
27. G. Elliot, Twentieth Century Book of the Dead (1972); R. Rummel, Death by Government (1994) (estimating nearly 200 million intentional State-sponsored killings in this century.) [Return to text]
28. "Theocracy" is my term of choice because the term "patriarchy" is offensive to my liberated friends on the "left," and the term "anarchy" is offensive to my patriotic friends on the "right." "Theocracy" offends everyone equally. The term "anarchy" is more relevant to this case, however, because there are no cases involving "Theocrats," but there are cases involving "anarchists." (Appendix E, California Petition [Joint Exhibit 10]). If you believe in God's Law, be prepared for the State to call you an "anarchist." The best disciples of Jesus eventually find themselves in jail (Acts 16:23). [Return to text]
29. Cf. above, note 126. [Return to text]
30. Cain: Genesis 4:17; Lamech: Genesis 4:23-24; Nimrod: Genesis 10:8- 12; Babel: Genesis 11:1-9; Israel: 1 Samuel 8; Christ's disciples: Mark 10:42- 45. The publications mentioned below, note 228, demonstrate that there exists no Biblical imperative for human beings to form a "State," or "civil government." [Return to text]
31. Plaintiff has argued elsewhere that "Capital Punishment" was a Patriarchal power, given to "Noah and his sons [family]" (Genesis 9:1) but was also a ceremonial shedding of blood (Genesis 9:4) which cleansed the land of bloodguiltiness (Numbers 35:33) and can be obeyed today only by faith in Christ's work on Calvary (Hebrews 9:22; 10:4; cf. Deut. 21:1-9). See below, note note 228. [Return to text]
32. Plaintiff's studies (see Joint Exhibit 3) have led him to conclude that the "institutional church" is merely an imitation of the secular State, and a part of the "Civil Religion" symbiosis which has existed in Western culture since the time of Constantine. See generally L. Verduin, The Anatomy of a Hybrid (1978). See also Attachment E. [Return to text]
33. Attachment F contains Plaintiff's response to Defendant's Interrogatory No. 2, concerning the Biblical justification for a non-violent State-less society. The State is motivated by unBiblical impulses (vengeance, fear, etc.) rather than Godly ones (forgiveness, faith in Providence, etc.). The State inherently requires sinful actions to sustain it (taxation, murder, oppression, etc.) An association which does not tax or coerce in any way is a "voluntary association," not a State; it may provide social order and stability, cultural continuity and justice (which the State claims it alone can do), but without acts of coercion and violence, it would still be a voluntary association, not a State. By definition, a State claims a monopoly on the moral right to engage in acts which would otherwise be called theft ("taxation") or murder (war, "police power"). [Return to text]
34. Post-modern secularists have no standard by which to condemn secularist "democide" (cf. R. Rummel, "Power, Genocide and Mass Murder," 31 J of Peace Research 1 (1994)). All four branches of the U.S. government seem to turn a blind eye to the body bags and labor camps of any nation in which "our" investments are secure. Secular Governments defend each other's "sovereignty" under "International Law" rather than act decisively (and morally) to end human rights abuses, which are usually more effectively guarded by non-governmental organizations with a strong moral agenda. [Return to text]
35. Isaiah 11:9. [Return to text]
36. Micah 4:1-5. [Return to text]
37. A list of publications elucidating Christian Theocracy/Patriarchy/Anarchism are found in Joint Exhibit 3, or can be obtained from Vine & Fig Tree, 12314 Palm Dr. #107, Desert Hot Springs, CA 92240. [Return to text]