1. The United States of America has been the subject of a coup de etat affected through abuse of the electoral system.
2. The current President of the United States has no legal basis to govern because of both his failure to meet the constitutional citizenship requirements for the office and his illegal actions while in office.
3. The institutions of government are being illegally used to further the socialist goals of the coup de etat and both political parties are complicit.
4. The President of the United States is now serving as a dictator by ignoring both the constitution and the other branches of government designed to offset his power.
5. Due to the complicity of both political parties, the normal legal and political remedies such as impeachment and de-funding by congress are unlikely to succeed.
These five common conclusions leave the American Christian and devout Jew in a very difficult place. Armed rebellion is inappropriate. But, further cooperation with the system is unconscionable. The hard question then is "What are we supposed to do now?"
The first question that comes to my mind is should we do anything political at all? The Book of Jeremiah teaches that there are times when God's judgment has been pronounced and it is sin to oppose it. Jeremiah was imprisoned and nearly killed for refusing to go along with Israel's continued war against its enemies when God's judgment had already been pronounced. America's current sins are at least as bad as ancient Israels. One preacher friend of mine regularly quips, "If God doesn't judge America now, he owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology." Increasingly, I wonder if America hasn't crossed the line of God's judgment and we are simply waiting for the cup of his wrath to be poured out.
In his prophetic little book "Against the Night, Living In The New Dark Ages" Charles Colson wrote: "God has ordained three institutions for the ordering of society: the family for the propagation of life, the state for the preservation of life, and the church for the proclamation of the gospel. These are not just voluntary associations that people can join or not as they see fit; they are organic sources of authority for restraining evil and humanizing society. And the family, state, and church, as well as the closely related institution of education, have all been assaulted and penetrated by the new barbarians." (p. 69 - emphasis added)
If the institution of the State is lost as some believe it is in America, then perhaps the biblical model from Jeremiah is timely again. If that is the case, perhaps we should be training our people and marshaling our resources for a time of captivity. Perhaps it is time to concentrate on those institutions that are left where we can have more influence, faith and family. History has taught us that these institutions are remarkably durable and are capable of functioning effectively almost indefinitely even in a hostile state. But, it would be a mistake to assume that a simple retreat from the political arena would be all that is involved. The practice of the faith and the preservation of the family in a hostile state almost always involves bitter and costly conflict with that state. In America circa 2014, such a retreat would not be a simple laying down of arms but rather a strategic retreat designed to let the completely corrupted political system run its inevitable course without the assistance and complicity of the faithful.
In his "Letters and Papers from Prison" Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, "We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself." This is a profound strategy in one sentence. First, we are called to rescue the victims of the state, to do everything in our power to help and sustain them. But second, we are called to refuse to allow the crushing wheel of state to continue rolling over them with our assistance.
What does this mean in practical terms? Here a few examples. Christian doctors and nurses should refuse to participate in abortions and refuse to serve with doctors who perform abortions or euthanasia. Christian pastors should refuse en masse to either perform homosexual marriages or allow them to be performed in their churches. Christian business people should refuse to do business under circumstances that violate their faith and conscience. Christian school teachers should refuse to teach the theory of evolution unless discussion and presentation of other theories of creation are allowed as well. They should also refuse outright to participate in "sex education" programs that advocate pre-marital sex and homosexuality. Christian delivery drives should refuse to deliver to abortion clinics and other businesses that violate their faith and conscience. Christian leaders should be quietly organizing underground institutions to continue training pastors, elders and deacons in the true faith. They should also be organizing escape networks and safe houses for the persecuted.
In the past, American Christians have substituted what they believed to be political opposition to these inherent evils for personal and practical opposition. This seemed to work well because there was never any personal cost involved. Voting for a so-called "pro-life" politician (the sum of whom have managed to do absolutely nothing to stop abortion in over forty years of political wrangling) is a lot less costly than actually defying the system and refusing to be complicit by silence in its evils. This so called "retreat" from politics would grind the wheels of the already overburdened "justice system" to a halt by the sheer number of cases involved and send a strong message to politicians as well.
Political participation by the church on social issues has been a miserable failure. We have lost on every issue. It was a powerful pain killer fed to the patient to mask the true symptoms that were being left untreated. It is time to realize that and do what we should have done to start with, quietly and peacefully refuse to play their game anymore.
In his prophetic little book "Against the Night, Living In The New Dark Ages" Charles Colson wrote: "God has ordained three institutions for the ordering of society: the family for the propagation of life, the state for the preservation of life, and the church for the proclamation of the gospel. These are not just voluntary associations that people can join or not as they see fit; they are organic sources of authority for restraining evil and humanizing society. And the family, state, and church, as well as the closely related institution of education, have all been assaulted and penetrated by the new barbarians." (p. 69 - emphasis added)
If the institution of the State is lost as some believe it is in America, then perhaps the biblical model from Jeremiah is timely again. If that is the case, perhaps we should be training our people and marshaling our resources for a time of captivity. Perhaps it is time to concentrate on those institutions that are left where we can have more influence, faith and family. History has taught us that these institutions are remarkably durable and are capable of functioning effectively almost indefinitely even in a hostile state. But, it would be a mistake to assume that a simple retreat from the political arena would be all that is involved. The practice of the faith and the preservation of the family in a hostile state almost always involves bitter and costly conflict with that state. In America circa 2014, such a retreat would not be a simple laying down of arms but rather a strategic retreat designed to let the completely corrupted political system run its inevitable course without the assistance and complicity of the faithful.
In his "Letters and Papers from Prison" Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, "We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself." This is a profound strategy in one sentence. First, we are called to rescue the victims of the state, to do everything in our power to help and sustain them. But second, we are called to refuse to allow the crushing wheel of state to continue rolling over them with our assistance.
What does this mean in practical terms? Here a few examples. Christian doctors and nurses should refuse to participate in abortions and refuse to serve with doctors who perform abortions or euthanasia. Christian pastors should refuse en masse to either perform homosexual marriages or allow them to be performed in their churches. Christian business people should refuse to do business under circumstances that violate their faith and conscience. Christian school teachers should refuse to teach the theory of evolution unless discussion and presentation of other theories of creation are allowed as well. They should also refuse outright to participate in "sex education" programs that advocate pre-marital sex and homosexuality. Christian delivery drives should refuse to deliver to abortion clinics and other businesses that violate their faith and conscience. Christian leaders should be quietly organizing underground institutions to continue training pastors, elders and deacons in the true faith. They should also be organizing escape networks and safe houses for the persecuted.
In the past, American Christians have substituted what they believed to be political opposition to these inherent evils for personal and practical opposition. This seemed to work well because there was never any personal cost involved. Voting for a so-called "pro-life" politician (the sum of whom have managed to do absolutely nothing to stop abortion in over forty years of political wrangling) is a lot less costly than actually defying the system and refusing to be complicit by silence in its evils. This so called "retreat" from politics would grind the wheels of the already overburdened "justice system" to a halt by the sheer number of cases involved and send a strong message to politicians as well.
Political participation by the church on social issues has been a miserable failure. We have lost on every issue. It was a powerful pain killer fed to the patient to mask the true symptoms that were being left untreated. It is time to realize that and do what we should have done to start with, quietly and peacefully refuse to play their game anymore.
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