Dear Friends:
The best way to refute an atheist is to quote a more consistent atheist. Modern atheists get angry and some even feel justified in ridiculing Christians when we recall Dostoevsky’s refrain (paraphrased), “If God does not exist, all things are permissible.” The ridicule comes with pointing out that Dostoevsky didn’t actually write this exact line, although The Brothers Karamazov does get close to the sentiment. “You idiots are so ignorant: Dostoevsky never said that!” Of course, the protest only skirts the real point of the saying. Whether Dostoevsky said it or not, who cares? The issue is the impossibility of justifying moral laws in a godless universe.
Flowing from a near idol-worship of Isaac Newton and his emphasis on the laws of Nature, Alexander Pope published his 1732 “Essay on Man” as an affirmation of faith, although more in Nature than God. “All things fall out according to Natural laws,” was his point, and that we should learn to live content with whatever happens in life. After all, as he repeated throughout the poem, “Whatever is, is right.”
Pope had no idea what he was really advocating. Living in a world that was still dominated by Christian culture, law, morals, etc., for Pope “Nature” and “Right” seemed like good things. Little did he know just how depraved a society built solely on nature could actually be.
Pope died in 1744. A mere four years earlier was born another influential literary figure across the English channel – the Marquis de Sade. Pope would not live to see the French Revolution where they idolized “Nature” and enshrined “lady reason” in the cathedrals. Sade not only lived through it, he provided the most radical and consistent view of what a system of morals built only on natural impulses would look like. In his rigorous consistency with “Nature,” Sade shows how deluded a dream like Pope’s really is, though Sade embraced it wholeheartedly. He pulls back the curtains on a dark, sadistic (a word derived from his very name), heartless, murderous, pornographic, backstage of evil. His basis for this? The fact that godless Nature dictates a lawless society: “for what should we, who have no religion, do with law?”1
He continued, “Nature, equally dictating virtues and vices in us… in reason of the need Nature has of the one and the other, what she inspires in us becomes a very reliable gauge by which to adjust exactly what is good and bad.” While this sounds somewhat acceptable – he is still speaking of good and evil, right? – he had much more in mind. Unlike Pope, Sade would not be hindered by the moral values of good and evil already entrenched around him. He would rigorously seek ought only that which Nature dictated in us.
For example, he would advocate abolishing the death penalty, but not because he thought it too harsh a penalty for the crime of murder, but because he did not think murder is a crime to be punished at all. And thus, he argued, we should also abolish all laws against murder. Murder, after all, is a perfectly natural impulse.2 Society must learn to accept it.
In fact, sometimes mass murder is profitable for society, for example, to keep the population down and thus prevent poverty. For this, Sade prescribed infanticide, “The human species must be purged from the cradle.”3
Sade was just warming up. Once denuding society of punishment for the highest offense of murder, the way was clear for his favorite “natural” acts – those of sexual deviance. Sade advocated the forced submission of all women to all men unconditionally, incest, sodomy, pederasty, as well as the eating of feces as a matter of taste and sexual pleasure.4
Of course, some atheists today are still brave enough to say as much as that is, in fact, “natural.” Sam Harris, for example, has admitted, “There is, after all, nothing more natural than rape.”5 Although he pleads that it is still not “good.” A few years back a book titled A Natural History of Rape stirred up controversy with the same admission, “We fervently believe that, just as the leopard’s spots and the giraffe’s elongated neck are the results of aeons of past Darwinian selection, so is rape.”6 Like Sam, the authors were quick to point out, “We’re not saying something is good even if it’s natural.”7 Nevertheless, the book gives scientific, Darwinian, and academic sanction to the belief, “Rape is natural.”
At such a juncture, it seems that an ethic like Pope’s offers humanity little help: “Whatever is, is right,” means, “Rape is; therefore, Rape is right.” Further, since the atheist/naturalist believes nothing exists except nature, a consistent doctrine of “good” versus “bad” will be impossible to find. What is good for one man may or may not be good for another. One man’s pleasure is simply another woman’s (or little girl’s) pain, and who is to judge between them except for might itself? This is why atheists like Sade are so important: they expose how today’s atheists are really arbitrary and soft in both their logic and their practice. Sade shows how cruel and heartless the naturalistic ethic truly is:
“[W]hat right do you have to assert that women ought to be exempted from the blind submission to men’s caprices Nature dictates?”8
“[W]e have received from Nature the right indiscriminately to express our wishes to all women… we have the right to compel their submission… Indeed! has Nature not proven that we have that right, by bestowing upon us the strength needed to bend women to our will…. I have incontestable rights to the enjoyment of her; I have the right to force from her this enjoyment, if she refuses me it for whatever the cause may be.”9
Don’t lie Sam! With the naturalistic ethic, what is natural is good; and (if God does not exist) there’s no one who has the right to say otherwise. Ergo, rape is not only natural, but Nature herself proves that rape is acceptable by equipping the rapist with greater strength than his victims.
Nor does the age or well-being of the female affect the scenario:
“[O]nce you concede me the proprietary right of enjoyment, that right is independent of the effect [harm] it produces…. The issue of her well-being… is irrelevant. As soon as concern for this consideration threatens to detract from or enfeeble the enjoyment of him who desires her… this consideration for age ceases to exist.”10
“Once you concede me the proprietary right to enjoyment…” Now that is a profound notion of which all naturalists should take note. Taking nature as a source of morals creates a paradox for the naturalist: while he would never forbid the individual the right to enjoyment, he must do so in order to stop the rapist from pursuing his enjoyment. The Sadean rapist, of course, only cares about his personal enjoyment, and cares nothing about temporarily forbidding as much for his victim. In wishing to prevent him, however, the naturalistic ethicist must rely, in principle, on exactly the same standard: by saying that it is sometimes acceptable to prevent another person’s enjoyment, the naturalist has adopted Sade’s standard. He is, in principle, no better than Sade. Of course, which one prevails – in a naturalistic world, this is – will depend only on which one is more cunning, secretive, and/ or powerful enough to impose their will.
In a Christian world, of course, we have an infinitely better system. Mankind – male and female – are created in God’s image. They are thus designed to express God’s will – the Ten Commandments – in society. An attack on another person bearing God’s image is an attack on God Himself. To debase and dishonor that image through scheming, kidnapping, bondage, sexual violence and theft – i.e., rape – is essentially to break the entire second table of the Law in one act. As such a consummate act of rejection of God and God’s prized image on earth, rape deserves the death penalty.
This morality is transcendent, it descends from above, and lifts man to a higher purpose, honor, and meaning. Naturalistic ethics debases man to the level of lawless, meaningless matter. In such a world, the issue is not whether rape is good or evil, it is who can ultimately get away with raping whom. Reject God, and you destroy law, and open the floodgates to destroy man as well. Naturalism is the rape of morality.
The next great “consistent atheist” after Sade came a generation later in Friedrich Nietzsche. He used the same rigorous logic as Sade: “When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one’s feet….” When the naturalists
actually believe that they know “intuitively” what is good and evil, when they therefore suppose that they no longer require Christianity as the guarantee of morality, we merely witness the effects of the dominion of the Christian value judgment and an expression of the strength and depth of this dominion….11
This continues today as a perfect description of atheists. Logically, they have pulled the foundations of morality out from under their feet. Sade has shown us where this logically should lead. But rape and pederasty make for bad PR. Atheists continue to steal Christian morality while denying the Christ who gave it.
As long as they continue to do this, we should continue to refute them by referencing the more consistent atheists. The point of course, is not drive to actually become consistent atheists – at least not in practice – but rather drive them to admit where the logic of their position leads, and hopefully turn to the only God who can save them from it. And in the meantime, whether Dostoevsky said it or not, the truth remains, “If God does not exist, all things are permissible.”
SOURCES:
1 The Marquis de Sade, The complete Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and other writings, 297. The many quotations from herein are often referenced as well by R. J. Rushdoony, for example, in his books The Institutes of Biblical Law, To Be As God, and Noble Savages.
2 The Marquis de Sade, The complete Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and other writings, 310, 318.
3 The Marquis de Sade, The complete Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and other writings, 336.
4 The Marquis de Sade, The complete Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and other writings, 318–320, 324, 325.
5 Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation, 90.
6 Thornhill and Palmer, quoted in “Born to Rape?” Salon, Feb. 29, 2000.
7 Craig Palmer, quoted in “‘Natural, biological’ theory of rape creates instant storm,” USA Today, Jan. 28, 2000.
8 The Marquis de Sade, The complete Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and other writings, 318.
9 The Marquis de Sade, The complete Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and other writings, 319, 319 n15.
10 The Marquis de Sade, The complete Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and other writings, 320.
11 Nietzsche, “Twilight of the Idols,” The Portable Nietzsche, 515.
Respectfully,
Mark
Friday, July 30, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Real Jobs, Fake Jobs
Dear Friends:
In many ways, the unemployment numbers are much worse than they appear. One factor has been the timing of the US census. The bureau hired some 700,000 workers to collect data, people who otherwise were having a very difficult time navigating the choppy labor markets. They went for the jobs because they were a sure thing, paid decently, and didn't require unusual skills (anyone can knock on a door and pester people about their private lives).
That inflated the jobs number for a while. But now these jobs are at an end – a highly unusual event in government employment, which usually lasts a lifetime. Now all of these people are facing the reality of looking for employment in an economy wrecked by the government.
The press has been posting tributes to these people and their jobs and wailing about their fate now that their jobs are vanishing. And that raises questions. If these jobs were so great, why should they be eliminated at all? Surely, there is a way that these people could be transitioned to some other kind of government-funded service? That way, one might reason, people would have jobs, work would get done, and everyone would be better off.
Right? Wrong. Census jobs perform no market function, and the wages of these workers are paid by the taxpayer, meaning that these jobs are actually destructive of wealth. They siphon wealth and work out of the private sector into the wasteful sector. In fact, we can go further to say that eliminating these jobs is actually a step toward economic recovery.
Given the way economic fallacy has gone viral these days, it seems necessary to explain the issue further. The point of employment is not just jobs; it is productive and economically viable jobs.
It would be possible, for example, to reduce unemployment to its bare minimum simply by a mandatory regression in technology. We could abolish the trucking industry and force all freight to be carried by car, thereby creating millions of new jobs. Or we could abolish the car and create even more jobs for people to haul freight around by hand.
In each case, the number of jobs created would vastly outnumber the number of jobs lost. But would we be richer as a result? Not in any way. It would amount to a mandatory drop in living standards for everyone. These kinds of policies violate the Hazlitt dictum that part of good economic thinking consists in looking at what is good not just for one group (the unemployed), but all groups in society, and not just for the short term but for the long term.
The point of jobs is for people to work towards providing goods and services that are valued by the marketplace. If there is no consumer-driven demand for the things people are doing, their jobs are nothing more than waste. It does nothing for society if everyone is employed building pyramids, contrary to what Keynes once claimed. It would be senseless to have a business that employs thousands to do nothing but break new cell phones and repair them again, or to dig holes and fill them. And why is that? Because there is no economically rational basis for these tasks to exist.
To be sure, a wealthy entrepreneur can create a business doing anything, even something that loses money and is even socially ridiculous. But in order to sustain that, he will have to continue to throw good money after bad for an indefinite period of time, even unto the end of time. The day that he decides to stop doing it, the jobs will go away.
Of course, no businessman in his right mind wants to do such a thing. If you are going to create and retain uneconomic jobs, there is really only one way to do it: government. The government takes money from the private sector to throw around in inefficient ways, regardless of whether the job is worth doing in the first place.
The taxing and debt creation that is necessary to fund the government jobs is extracted from the real engine of wealth creation. This is not only true of census jobs but of all public sector jobs, whether in the federal bureaucracy, the military, or the educational sector. For this reason, the public sector's payrolls really ought to be excluded from the employment rolls.
One objection might be that some of what public jobs produce is actually necessary for long-term economic health. We need an educated society, people might say, and even the results of the census are necessary for private-sector planning. But if that is true, there is no reason why the private sector would not have the incentive to provide these services themselves.
And they do in fact. The private sector has ever more sophisticated means for educating its employees, and making up for the inferior products of public schooling. It is the same with the census results, which are used by the state to keep track of us and control us; the private sector has its own methods of assessing demographic concerns over business location and product development. Even if there were government jobs that are in fact productive in their results, they could be performed at a profit instead of by extortion.
While everyone obsesses about the plight of census workers, there is a genuine calamity taking place in the private sector, which is being attacked by government every day. This is why the latest jobs numbers show nothing like robust job growth where it matters most. We see only slight overall increases from a decade ago, with boom-time jobs almost entirely wiped out in the bust.
This is what needs attention, but not from government programs. We need an absence of government programs, plus dramatic cuts in taxes and regulations of all sorts, and across the board. We need wage reductions in some sectors so that employment can grow in other sectors. Government cannot plan real job growth. It can only get out of the way and let it happen.
Respectfully,
Mark
In many ways, the unemployment numbers are much worse than they appear. One factor has been the timing of the US census. The bureau hired some 700,000 workers to collect data, people who otherwise were having a very difficult time navigating the choppy labor markets. They went for the jobs because they were a sure thing, paid decently, and didn't require unusual skills (anyone can knock on a door and pester people about their private lives).
That inflated the jobs number for a while. But now these jobs are at an end – a highly unusual event in government employment, which usually lasts a lifetime. Now all of these people are facing the reality of looking for employment in an economy wrecked by the government.
The press has been posting tributes to these people and their jobs and wailing about their fate now that their jobs are vanishing. And that raises questions. If these jobs were so great, why should they be eliminated at all? Surely, there is a way that these people could be transitioned to some other kind of government-funded service? That way, one might reason, people would have jobs, work would get done, and everyone would be better off.
Right? Wrong. Census jobs perform no market function, and the wages of these workers are paid by the taxpayer, meaning that these jobs are actually destructive of wealth. They siphon wealth and work out of the private sector into the wasteful sector. In fact, we can go further to say that eliminating these jobs is actually a step toward economic recovery.
Given the way economic fallacy has gone viral these days, it seems necessary to explain the issue further. The point of employment is not just jobs; it is productive and economically viable jobs.
It would be possible, for example, to reduce unemployment to its bare minimum simply by a mandatory regression in technology. We could abolish the trucking industry and force all freight to be carried by car, thereby creating millions of new jobs. Or we could abolish the car and create even more jobs for people to haul freight around by hand.
In each case, the number of jobs created would vastly outnumber the number of jobs lost. But would we be richer as a result? Not in any way. It would amount to a mandatory drop in living standards for everyone. These kinds of policies violate the Hazlitt dictum that part of good economic thinking consists in looking at what is good not just for one group (the unemployed), but all groups in society, and not just for the short term but for the long term.
The point of jobs is for people to work towards providing goods and services that are valued by the marketplace. If there is no consumer-driven demand for the things people are doing, their jobs are nothing more than waste. It does nothing for society if everyone is employed building pyramids, contrary to what Keynes once claimed. It would be senseless to have a business that employs thousands to do nothing but break new cell phones and repair them again, or to dig holes and fill them. And why is that? Because there is no economically rational basis for these tasks to exist.
To be sure, a wealthy entrepreneur can create a business doing anything, even something that loses money and is even socially ridiculous. But in order to sustain that, he will have to continue to throw good money after bad for an indefinite period of time, even unto the end of time. The day that he decides to stop doing it, the jobs will go away.
Of course, no businessman in his right mind wants to do such a thing. If you are going to create and retain uneconomic jobs, there is really only one way to do it: government. The government takes money from the private sector to throw around in inefficient ways, regardless of whether the job is worth doing in the first place.
The taxing and debt creation that is necessary to fund the government jobs is extracted from the real engine of wealth creation. This is not only true of census jobs but of all public sector jobs, whether in the federal bureaucracy, the military, or the educational sector. For this reason, the public sector's payrolls really ought to be excluded from the employment rolls.
One objection might be that some of what public jobs produce is actually necessary for long-term economic health. We need an educated society, people might say, and even the results of the census are necessary for private-sector planning. But if that is true, there is no reason why the private sector would not have the incentive to provide these services themselves.
And they do in fact. The private sector has ever more sophisticated means for educating its employees, and making up for the inferior products of public schooling. It is the same with the census results, which are used by the state to keep track of us and control us; the private sector has its own methods of assessing demographic concerns over business location and product development. Even if there were government jobs that are in fact productive in their results, they could be performed at a profit instead of by extortion.
While everyone obsesses about the plight of census workers, there is a genuine calamity taking place in the private sector, which is being attacked by government every day. This is why the latest jobs numbers show nothing like robust job growth where it matters most. We see only slight overall increases from a decade ago, with boom-time jobs almost entirely wiped out in the bust.
This is what needs attention, but not from government programs. We need an absence of government programs, plus dramatic cuts in taxes and regulations of all sorts, and across the board. We need wage reductions in some sectors so that employment can grow in other sectors. Government cannot plan real job growth. It can only get out of the way and let it happen.
Respectfully,
Mark
Friday, July 16, 2010
Shellfish Logic and the Defense of Homosexual Marriage
Dear Friends:
How do you argue against gay marriage when pro-gay marriage activists say that even though homosexual marriage may be forbidden in the Old Testament, so is eating shellfish? They try to say that along with homosexual marriage that other stuff like shellfish is also forbidden. How do we as Christians respond?
Arguments like the “shellfish game” fill the internet, and many people are duped by them. Even Christians. In an interview published in Christianity Today magazine, Christian music artist and self-avowed lesbian Jennifer Knapp used the shellfish argument. (The interviewer did not challenge her on it.)
There are several ways to argue against this false analogy.
First, sexual relationships are defined in the earliest chapters of Genesis. Adam’s solitude was remedied with the creation of Eve, a female, someone designed specifically for him (Genesis 2:18-25). God didn’t create another man and also a woman so Adam could choose. He created a woman, a human complement designed sexually literally to fit with Adam. This is why Paul described homosexuality as “unnatural” (Romans 1:26-27). The physical side of homosexual is unnatural, like trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. The shellfish argument has no validity since sexual identity (male and female) and the definition of marriage (man and woman) are creation ordinances. There is no prohibition in Genesis regarding shellfish (Genesis 1:28-31).
Second, the New Testament follows the Old Testament creation ordinance of marriage defining it as between a man and a woman. Jesus confirms this in Matthew 19:4-6: “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? ‘So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate’” (also see Ephesians 5:25-33; cf. I Corinthians 7:2-3, 10-16; I Timothy 3:2, 12). There is no homosexual option. Jesus does not go to Leviticus to make His case; He goes back to Genesis.
Third, Leviticus, in addition to prohibiting homosexual relationships (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13), also prohibits eating certain foods (Leviticus 11:2-31). Unlike homosexuality, there are no civil penalties attached to eating from the prohibited food list. It’s obvious, in terms of the sanctions, that eating shellfish is not the same as engaging in homosexual relationships. With the coming of Jesus, the Second Adam, we are back to the creation ordinances where all foods are once again “clean” because the gospel is for the world (John 4:42; Acts 1:8):
And He said to them, “Are you also as lacking in understanding? Don’t you realize that nothing going into a man from the outside can defile him? For it doesn’t go into his heart but into the stomach and is eliminated.” (As a result, He made all foods clean.) Then He said, “What comes out of a person – that defiles him. For from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, promiscuity, stinginess, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a person.” (Mark 7:18-23)
We learn from Peter’s encounter with the “unclean foods” that he was told by God to eat that they represented the nations (Acts 10:9-48; 11:5-9): “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy” (10:15; 11:9). To eat foods that were set aside as unclean is an acknowledgment that the gospel is not just for Jews: “‘Therefore if God gave to them [Gentiles] the same gift as He gave to us [Jews] also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?’ When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, ‘Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life’” (11:17-18).
Fourth, from Jesus’ comments in Mark 7 and God’s instructions to Peter in Acts 10, there is direct special revelation given that changes a number of laws from the Old Testament. In addition to unclean foods, there is no longer any use for the temple, animal sacrifices, and circumcision. How do we know this? Because we are told that these ordinances and laws no longer apply or are fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus Christ. We’re even told that there needed to be a change in the law, but in this case only as regarding who can be a priest (Hebrews 7). Anyone familiar with the Bible knows these things.
Fifth, like the laws prohibiting homosexuality found in Leviticus, the New Testament prohibits homosexuality (Romans 1:26-27; I Corinthians 6:9-11; I Timothy 1:8-11), and if it prohibits homosexuality, then it prohibits homosexual marriage. Notice what Paul says in I Corinthians 6:9: “And such were some of you.” Some might claim that the Bible does not use the word “homosexual.” The definition is inherent in the Leviticus passages (18:22; 20:13): “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female.” That is, it is forbidden to engage in sexual relations with someone of the same (Latin: homo) sex. Paul uses similar language: “woman … burned in their desire toward one another, men with men [same sex with same sex]…” (Romans 1:26-27).
Sixth, the same “Holiness Code” that condemns homosexuality also prohibits adultery (Leviticus 18:20), child sacrifice (v. 21), and sex with animals (v. 23) and promotes loving your neighbor as yourself (19:18), a law repeated numerous times in the New Testament (Matthew 19:19; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14; James 2:8). Are the “shellfishers” telling us that adultery, child sacrifice, and sex with animals are now acceptable alternative lifestyle choices that should be protected by law? If his answer is yes, then let them say so. The New Testament promotes the Holiness Code law regarding loving one’s neighbor as well as laws prohibiting homosexual activity (Romans 1:26–27; I Corinthians 6:9-10; I Timothy 1:8-11). It seems that the New Testament writers do not have problems applying the Holiness Code legislation in the New Covenant.
Leviticus 19 (still part of the Holiness Code) – between the anti-homosexual passages of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 – prohibits stealing and lying (v. 11), oppressing neighbors and robbing them (v. 13), withholding wages from a laborer (v. 13), cursing the deaf and tripping the blind (v. 14), showing partiality in judicial matters (v. 15), slandering (v. 16), and taking vengeance (v. 18). Leviticus 20 repeats prohibitions against child sacrifice (vv. 2-5), adultery (v. 10), homosexuality (v. 13), and bestiality (vv. 15-16). Are we to conclude, using shellfish logic, that these laws no longer apply today because they are found in the Holiness Code?
Some Christians will argue against the “shellfishers” on the basis that under the New Covenant we are not “signatories to the Sinaitic Covenant.” On the surface, this might seem like a good approach to take, but in practice it breaks down since the New Testament writers appeal to laws found in the covenant given at Sinai. Jesus quotes Leviticus 19:18 (Matthew 19:19; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27) and 20:9 (Mark 7:10). Paul also quotes Leviticus 19:18 (Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14), as does James (James 2:8). Paul took the Old Testament law seriously enough to apply a law that seemingly was only applicable to animals (Deuteronomy 25:4) and applied its principles twice to humans (I Corinthians 9:9; I Timothy 5:18). If Paul could find contemporary application of a law that applied to oxen, then certainly the rest of the legal corpus has similar applicational force, even if we might not always know how to apply it.
Respectfully,
Mark
How do you argue against gay marriage when pro-gay marriage activists say that even though homosexual marriage may be forbidden in the Old Testament, so is eating shellfish? They try to say that along with homosexual marriage that other stuff like shellfish is also forbidden. How do we as Christians respond?
Arguments like the “shellfish game” fill the internet, and many people are duped by them. Even Christians. In an interview published in Christianity Today magazine, Christian music artist and self-avowed lesbian Jennifer Knapp used the shellfish argument. (The interviewer did not challenge her on it.)
There are several ways to argue against this false analogy.
First, sexual relationships are defined in the earliest chapters of Genesis. Adam’s solitude was remedied with the creation of Eve, a female, someone designed specifically for him (Genesis 2:18-25). God didn’t create another man and also a woman so Adam could choose. He created a woman, a human complement designed sexually literally to fit with Adam. This is why Paul described homosexuality as “unnatural” (Romans 1:26-27). The physical side of homosexual is unnatural, like trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. The shellfish argument has no validity since sexual identity (male and female) and the definition of marriage (man and woman) are creation ordinances. There is no prohibition in Genesis regarding shellfish (Genesis 1:28-31).
Second, the New Testament follows the Old Testament creation ordinance of marriage defining it as between a man and a woman. Jesus confirms this in Matthew 19:4-6: “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? ‘So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate’” (also see Ephesians 5:25-33; cf. I Corinthians 7:2-3, 10-16; I Timothy 3:2, 12). There is no homosexual option. Jesus does not go to Leviticus to make His case; He goes back to Genesis.
Third, Leviticus, in addition to prohibiting homosexual relationships (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13), also prohibits eating certain foods (Leviticus 11:2-31). Unlike homosexuality, there are no civil penalties attached to eating from the prohibited food list. It’s obvious, in terms of the sanctions, that eating shellfish is not the same as engaging in homosexual relationships. With the coming of Jesus, the Second Adam, we are back to the creation ordinances where all foods are once again “clean” because the gospel is for the world (John 4:42; Acts 1:8):
And He said to them, “Are you also as lacking in understanding? Don’t you realize that nothing going into a man from the outside can defile him? For it doesn’t go into his heart but into the stomach and is eliminated.” (As a result, He made all foods clean.) Then He said, “What comes out of a person – that defiles him. For from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, promiscuity, stinginess, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a person.” (Mark 7:18-23)
We learn from Peter’s encounter with the “unclean foods” that he was told by God to eat that they represented the nations (Acts 10:9-48; 11:5-9): “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy” (10:15; 11:9). To eat foods that were set aside as unclean is an acknowledgment that the gospel is not just for Jews: “‘Therefore if God gave to them [Gentiles] the same gift as He gave to us [Jews] also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?’ When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, ‘Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life’” (11:17-18).
Fourth, from Jesus’ comments in Mark 7 and God’s instructions to Peter in Acts 10, there is direct special revelation given that changes a number of laws from the Old Testament. In addition to unclean foods, there is no longer any use for the temple, animal sacrifices, and circumcision. How do we know this? Because we are told that these ordinances and laws no longer apply or are fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus Christ. We’re even told that there needed to be a change in the law, but in this case only as regarding who can be a priest (Hebrews 7). Anyone familiar with the Bible knows these things.
Fifth, like the laws prohibiting homosexuality found in Leviticus, the New Testament prohibits homosexuality (Romans 1:26-27; I Corinthians 6:9-11; I Timothy 1:8-11), and if it prohibits homosexuality, then it prohibits homosexual marriage. Notice what Paul says in I Corinthians 6:9: “And such were some of you.” Some might claim that the Bible does not use the word “homosexual.” The definition is inherent in the Leviticus passages (18:22; 20:13): “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female.” That is, it is forbidden to engage in sexual relations with someone of the same (Latin: homo) sex. Paul uses similar language: “woman … burned in their desire toward one another, men with men [same sex with same sex]…” (Romans 1:26-27).
Sixth, the same “Holiness Code” that condemns homosexuality also prohibits adultery (Leviticus 18:20), child sacrifice (v. 21), and sex with animals (v. 23) and promotes loving your neighbor as yourself (19:18), a law repeated numerous times in the New Testament (Matthew 19:19; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14; James 2:8). Are the “shellfishers” telling us that adultery, child sacrifice, and sex with animals are now acceptable alternative lifestyle choices that should be protected by law? If his answer is yes, then let them say so. The New Testament promotes the Holiness Code law regarding loving one’s neighbor as well as laws prohibiting homosexual activity (Romans 1:26–27; I Corinthians 6:9-10; I Timothy 1:8-11). It seems that the New Testament writers do not have problems applying the Holiness Code legislation in the New Covenant.
Leviticus 19 (still part of the Holiness Code) – between the anti-homosexual passages of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 – prohibits stealing and lying (v. 11), oppressing neighbors and robbing them (v. 13), withholding wages from a laborer (v. 13), cursing the deaf and tripping the blind (v. 14), showing partiality in judicial matters (v. 15), slandering (v. 16), and taking vengeance (v. 18). Leviticus 20 repeats prohibitions against child sacrifice (vv. 2-5), adultery (v. 10), homosexuality (v. 13), and bestiality (vv. 15-16). Are we to conclude, using shellfish logic, that these laws no longer apply today because they are found in the Holiness Code?
Some Christians will argue against the “shellfishers” on the basis that under the New Covenant we are not “signatories to the Sinaitic Covenant.” On the surface, this might seem like a good approach to take, but in practice it breaks down since the New Testament writers appeal to laws found in the covenant given at Sinai. Jesus quotes Leviticus 19:18 (Matthew 19:19; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27) and 20:9 (Mark 7:10). Paul also quotes Leviticus 19:18 (Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14), as does James (James 2:8). Paul took the Old Testament law seriously enough to apply a law that seemingly was only applicable to animals (Deuteronomy 25:4) and applied its principles twice to humans (I Corinthians 9:9; I Timothy 5:18). If Paul could find contemporary application of a law that applied to oxen, then certainly the rest of the legal corpus has similar applicational force, even if we might not always know how to apply it.
Respectfully,
Mark
Friday, July 9, 2010
Commandments, Not Suggestions
Dear Friends:
It’s only been recently that biblical law has been viewed as non-applicational to contemporary society, by non-Christians and Christians alike. The claim is made that there are so many laws in the Old Testament that it would be impossible to apply them today. Laws against murder and theft are viewed as self-evident that everyone agrees on. Certainly in principle this is mostly the case, but not always in practice. The country is divided over whether abortion snuffs out a human life or just “terminates a pregnancy.” Civil governments tax and redistribute confiscated revenue to people who under other circumstances would never receive the money unless it had been voluntarily given to them, or they stole it. In Kelo v. City of New London (2005), the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that municipalities can use the government’s eminent domain power to aid private parties by taking private homes, land, and businesses for private commercial development, in essence creating a reverse Robin Hood effect in order to generate additional tax revenue. Is it theft? Does it come under the prohibition of the eighth commandment?
The simplest approach is to claim that grace trumps law and then be done with the totality of God’s law. Of course, no one can live in a world where there is no law. Even atheists concede that we live in a moral universe even though they can’t account for morality given their naturalistic and materialistic assumptions. This hasn’t stopped them from trying to come up with moral absolutes that have application beyond the individual.1 History’s most notorious tyrants – Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin – felt no twinge of conscience in exterminating millions, but would have objected if someone tried to kill them. But in a purposeless universe, who’s keeping track?
There is a long history going back centuries of attempts to apply biblical law to society. “Indeed, biblical laws deal with topics ranging from criminal and penal law to judicial procedure and the administration of justice, commercial law, torts and injuries, family law, property law, estate planning, martial law, and social welfare, in addition to the laws concerning divine sanctity, cultic sacrifice, and religious taboos that usually come to mind when people first think of law in the Bible.”2 Some laws are easily transferable and applied. Laws against murder, theft, and perjury are written into the law books of America, so much so that few people ever question their origin. Marking property lines with “permanent monuments identifying land corners” is a common practice that has an ancient history as legal reasoning has shown, first, by the contention that private property is a divine ordinance, and second that the boundaries of a person’s property was sacrosanct: “From earliest times the law not only authorized but protected landmarks. Interference with landmarks of another was a violation of the Mosaic Law. See Deuteronomy 19:14; 27:17; Job 24:2; Proverbs 22:28; 23:10.”3 This is why Ted Koppel could say in a 1987 commencement address at Duke University,
What Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai were not the Ten Suggestions. They are commandments. Are, not were. The sheer brilliance of the Ten Commandments is that they codify in a handful of words acceptable human behavior, not just for then or now, but for all time. Language evolves. Power shifts from one nation to another. Messages are transmitted with the speed of light. Man erases one frontier after another. And yet we and our behavior and the commandments governing that behavior remain the same.4
There was a time when Koppel’s views were common because the general population of the United States, from farmers to government officials, knew the Bible and its moral precepts even if they all didn’t embrace the fundamentals of the Christian faith. Mark Noll comments that “It should not be surprising that even the least orthodox of the founders of the nation paid attention to scripture, for they lived at a time when to be an educated member of the Atlanta community was to know the Bible.”5 Today, the law as summarized in the Ten Commandments literally has been removed from public view in the places where it is needed most – in our civil institutions which have become a law unto themselves. Even so, a study of the subjects these ancient laws address will show that they have a contemporary ring to them despite how they are dismissed by modern-day lawmakers and jurists. Law professor John W. Welch observes:
In teaching biblical law to law students for twenty years, I have noticed that its topics and underlying policies have always proved to be surprisingly relevant and stimulating to me and to my students. Not only do Israelite and other Near Eastern texts promulgate rules that deal with problems and address legal issues that still arise in society today, but comparison and analysis is also illuminating and profitable for American law students precisely because the roots of the legal system in the United States are so deeply intertwined with biblical law. Thus, the study of its solutions and value structures helps to illuminate the issues and elements that both shaped the origins of American law and also remain relevant in modern times.6
There is no doubt that Welch’s observations are accurate. The amount of extant material available to scholars on the subject supporting the claim is overwhelming even if we are unaware of them. Some of the earliest court cases in the United States make statements that show the importance of the Decalogue in the reinforcement of our nation’s legal tradition. In a 1914 case, the court acknowledged, “The laws of spiritual life, of civil life, and moral life are all set forth in the ten commandments.”7 The 1899 West Virginia case Moore v. Strickling argued in a similar way:
These commandments, which, like a collection of diamonds, bear testimony to their own intrinsic worth – in themselves appeal to us as coming from a superhuman or divine source; and no conscientious or reasonable man has yet been able to find a flaw in them. Absolutely flawless, negative in terms but positive in meaning, they easily stand at the head of our whole moral system; and no nation or people can long continue a happy existence, in open violation of them.”8
In 1931, Judge Charles Sumner Lobingier declared that “Israel’s law is the connecting link between the earliest and the latest legal systems and has proved itself one of the most influential forces in the evolution of the world’s law.”9 But long before these modern statements, we find that “King Alfred in his Doom Book adopted the Ten Commandments and other selections from the Pentateuch, together with the Golden Rule in the negative form, as the foundation of the early laws of England.”10 Harold. B. Clark presents a compelling historical perspective in his 1944 classic Biblical Law:
The Scriptures doubtless have been a potent influence upon American Law. In the early colonial period, the Bible seems to have been commonly regarded among the people as law. Several of the colonies formally adopted provisions of Mosaic law.11 For example, Plymouth Colony in 1636 adopted a “small body of Lawes” largely based upon the laws of Israel. And New Haven Colony in 1639 resolved that “the word of God shall be the only rule to be attended to in ordering the affairs of government in this plantation,” and in 1655 adopted a code in which 47 out of 79 topical statutes were based on the Bible.12
With the exception of Rhode Island, every early American colony incorporated the entire Decalogue into its legal code. In 1638, prior to leaving Boston, Massachusetts, the leading men of the proposed Rhode Island colony incorporated themselves into a political body. The Portsmouth Compact, signed by 23 men, stated the following: “We whose names are underwritten do hereby solemnly in the presence of Jehovah incorporate ourselves into a Bodie Politick and as He shall help, will submit our persons, lives and estates unto our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and to all those perfect and most absolute laws of His given in His Holy Word of truth, to be guided and judged thereby.” The following Bible passages accompany the text: Exodus 24:3-4; II Chronicles 11:3; II Kings 11:17.
There is a lesson here for today’s churches and courts. There is no escape from law. The question is, Whose law?
SOURCES:
1 Arthur Allen Leff, “Unspeakable Ethics, Unnatural Law,” Duke Law Journal, 1979:6 (December 1979), 1229-1249. “I will put the current situation as sharply as possible: there is today no way of ‘proving’ that napalming babies is bad except by asserting it (in a louder and louder voice), or by defining it as so, early in one’s game, and then later slipping it through, in a whisper, as a conclusion.” (Arthur Allen Leff, “Economic Analysis of Law: Some Realism about Nominalism,” Yale Law Review 60 [1974], 454-455).
2 John W. Welch, “Biblical Law in America: Historical Perspectives and Potentials for Reform,” Brigham Young University Law Review (2002), 613.
3 International Paper Realty Company v. Bethune. No. 43092. Supreme Court of Georgia, June 10, 1986.
4 Ted Koppel, The Last Word, Commencement Address at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina (May 10, 1987). Quoted in Robert H. Bork, The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law (New York: The Free Press, 1989), 164.
5 Mark A Noll, “The Bible in Revolutionary America,” The Bible in American Law, Politics, and Political Rhetoric, ed. James Turner Johnson (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 39-40.
6 Welch, “Biblical Law in America,” 610-611.
7 Quoted in Harold B. Clark, Biblical Law, 2nd ed. (Portland, OR: Binfords & Mort, 1944). 8, note.
8 Moore v. Strickling (1899) 46 W. Va. 515, 33 SE 274, 50 LRA 279, 282. Quoted in Clark, Biblical Law, 8.
9 4 China LR (1931) 362 (Lobingier). Quoted in Clark, Biblical Law, 43.
10 Quoted in J. Nelson Happy and Samuel Pyeatt Menefee, “Genesis!: Scriptural Citation and the Lawyer’s Bible Project,” Regent University Law Review 89 (1997).
11 William Galbraith Miller, The Data of Jurisprudence (Edinburgh and London: William Green and Sons, 1903), 416.
12 Clark, Biblical Law, 44.
Respectfully,
Mark
It’s only been recently that biblical law has been viewed as non-applicational to contemporary society, by non-Christians and Christians alike. The claim is made that there are so many laws in the Old Testament that it would be impossible to apply them today. Laws against murder and theft are viewed as self-evident that everyone agrees on. Certainly in principle this is mostly the case, but not always in practice. The country is divided over whether abortion snuffs out a human life or just “terminates a pregnancy.” Civil governments tax and redistribute confiscated revenue to people who under other circumstances would never receive the money unless it had been voluntarily given to them, or they stole it. In Kelo v. City of New London (2005), the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that municipalities can use the government’s eminent domain power to aid private parties by taking private homes, land, and businesses for private commercial development, in essence creating a reverse Robin Hood effect in order to generate additional tax revenue. Is it theft? Does it come under the prohibition of the eighth commandment?
The simplest approach is to claim that grace trumps law and then be done with the totality of God’s law. Of course, no one can live in a world where there is no law. Even atheists concede that we live in a moral universe even though they can’t account for morality given their naturalistic and materialistic assumptions. This hasn’t stopped them from trying to come up with moral absolutes that have application beyond the individual.1 History’s most notorious tyrants – Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin – felt no twinge of conscience in exterminating millions, but would have objected if someone tried to kill them. But in a purposeless universe, who’s keeping track?
There is a long history going back centuries of attempts to apply biblical law to society. “Indeed, biblical laws deal with topics ranging from criminal and penal law to judicial procedure and the administration of justice, commercial law, torts and injuries, family law, property law, estate planning, martial law, and social welfare, in addition to the laws concerning divine sanctity, cultic sacrifice, and religious taboos that usually come to mind when people first think of law in the Bible.”2 Some laws are easily transferable and applied. Laws against murder, theft, and perjury are written into the law books of America, so much so that few people ever question their origin. Marking property lines with “permanent monuments identifying land corners” is a common practice that has an ancient history as legal reasoning has shown, first, by the contention that private property is a divine ordinance, and second that the boundaries of a person’s property was sacrosanct: “From earliest times the law not only authorized but protected landmarks. Interference with landmarks of another was a violation of the Mosaic Law. See Deuteronomy 19:14; 27:17; Job 24:2; Proverbs 22:28; 23:10.”3 This is why Ted Koppel could say in a 1987 commencement address at Duke University,
What Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai were not the Ten Suggestions. They are commandments. Are, not were. The sheer brilliance of the Ten Commandments is that they codify in a handful of words acceptable human behavior, not just for then or now, but for all time. Language evolves. Power shifts from one nation to another. Messages are transmitted with the speed of light. Man erases one frontier after another. And yet we and our behavior and the commandments governing that behavior remain the same.4
There was a time when Koppel’s views were common because the general population of the United States, from farmers to government officials, knew the Bible and its moral precepts even if they all didn’t embrace the fundamentals of the Christian faith. Mark Noll comments that “It should not be surprising that even the least orthodox of the founders of the nation paid attention to scripture, for they lived at a time when to be an educated member of the Atlanta community was to know the Bible.”5 Today, the law as summarized in the Ten Commandments literally has been removed from public view in the places where it is needed most – in our civil institutions which have become a law unto themselves. Even so, a study of the subjects these ancient laws address will show that they have a contemporary ring to them despite how they are dismissed by modern-day lawmakers and jurists. Law professor John W. Welch observes:
In teaching biblical law to law students for twenty years, I have noticed that its topics and underlying policies have always proved to be surprisingly relevant and stimulating to me and to my students. Not only do Israelite and other Near Eastern texts promulgate rules that deal with problems and address legal issues that still arise in society today, but comparison and analysis is also illuminating and profitable for American law students precisely because the roots of the legal system in the United States are so deeply intertwined with biblical law. Thus, the study of its solutions and value structures helps to illuminate the issues and elements that both shaped the origins of American law and also remain relevant in modern times.6
There is no doubt that Welch’s observations are accurate. The amount of extant material available to scholars on the subject supporting the claim is overwhelming even if we are unaware of them. Some of the earliest court cases in the United States make statements that show the importance of the Decalogue in the reinforcement of our nation’s legal tradition. In a 1914 case, the court acknowledged, “The laws of spiritual life, of civil life, and moral life are all set forth in the ten commandments.”7 The 1899 West Virginia case Moore v. Strickling argued in a similar way:
These commandments, which, like a collection of diamonds, bear testimony to their own intrinsic worth – in themselves appeal to us as coming from a superhuman or divine source; and no conscientious or reasonable man has yet been able to find a flaw in them. Absolutely flawless, negative in terms but positive in meaning, they easily stand at the head of our whole moral system; and no nation or people can long continue a happy existence, in open violation of them.”8
In 1931, Judge Charles Sumner Lobingier declared that “Israel’s law is the connecting link between the earliest and the latest legal systems and has proved itself one of the most influential forces in the evolution of the world’s law.”9 But long before these modern statements, we find that “King Alfred in his Doom Book adopted the Ten Commandments and other selections from the Pentateuch, together with the Golden Rule in the negative form, as the foundation of the early laws of England.”10 Harold. B. Clark presents a compelling historical perspective in his 1944 classic Biblical Law:
The Scriptures doubtless have been a potent influence upon American Law. In the early colonial period, the Bible seems to have been commonly regarded among the people as law. Several of the colonies formally adopted provisions of Mosaic law.11 For example, Plymouth Colony in 1636 adopted a “small body of Lawes” largely based upon the laws of Israel. And New Haven Colony in 1639 resolved that “the word of God shall be the only rule to be attended to in ordering the affairs of government in this plantation,” and in 1655 adopted a code in which 47 out of 79 topical statutes were based on the Bible.12
With the exception of Rhode Island, every early American colony incorporated the entire Decalogue into its legal code. In 1638, prior to leaving Boston, Massachusetts, the leading men of the proposed Rhode Island colony incorporated themselves into a political body. The Portsmouth Compact, signed by 23 men, stated the following: “We whose names are underwritten do hereby solemnly in the presence of Jehovah incorporate ourselves into a Bodie Politick and as He shall help, will submit our persons, lives and estates unto our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and to all those perfect and most absolute laws of His given in His Holy Word of truth, to be guided and judged thereby.” The following Bible passages accompany the text: Exodus 24:3-4; II Chronicles 11:3; II Kings 11:17.
There is a lesson here for today’s churches and courts. There is no escape from law. The question is, Whose law?
SOURCES:
1 Arthur Allen Leff, “Unspeakable Ethics, Unnatural Law,” Duke Law Journal, 1979:6 (December 1979), 1229-1249. “I will put the current situation as sharply as possible: there is today no way of ‘proving’ that napalming babies is bad except by asserting it (in a louder and louder voice), or by defining it as so, early in one’s game, and then later slipping it through, in a whisper, as a conclusion.” (Arthur Allen Leff, “Economic Analysis of Law: Some Realism about Nominalism,” Yale Law Review 60 [1974], 454-455).
2 John W. Welch, “Biblical Law in America: Historical Perspectives and Potentials for Reform,” Brigham Young University Law Review (2002), 613.
3 International Paper Realty Company v. Bethune. No. 43092. Supreme Court of Georgia, June 10, 1986.
4 Ted Koppel, The Last Word, Commencement Address at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina (May 10, 1987). Quoted in Robert H. Bork, The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law (New York: The Free Press, 1989), 164.
5 Mark A Noll, “The Bible in Revolutionary America,” The Bible in American Law, Politics, and Political Rhetoric, ed. James Turner Johnson (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 39-40.
6 Welch, “Biblical Law in America,” 610-611.
7 Quoted in Harold B. Clark, Biblical Law, 2nd ed. (Portland, OR: Binfords & Mort, 1944). 8, note.
8 Moore v. Strickling (1899) 46 W. Va. 515, 33 SE 274, 50 LRA 279, 282. Quoted in Clark, Biblical Law, 8.
9 4 China LR (1931) 362 (Lobingier). Quoted in Clark, Biblical Law, 43.
10 Quoted in J. Nelson Happy and Samuel Pyeatt Menefee, “Genesis!: Scriptural Citation and the Lawyer’s Bible Project,” Regent University Law Review 89 (1997).
11 William Galbraith Miller, The Data of Jurisprudence (Edinburgh and London: William Green and Sons, 1903), 416.
12 Clark, Biblical Law, 44.
Respectfully,
Mark
Friday, July 2, 2010
“Bring Your Pieces to Church” Sunday
Dear Friends:
Imagine the following scenario: At church this Sunday, while reviewing the list of announcements and upcoming events for your church, your pastor added, “Oh, and don’t forget: on Sundays we have our regular target practice. Make sure to bring your rifles. Make sure to bring your pieces to church.”
Absurd, right? Not so. It used to be the American way. For example, a 1631 law in Virginia required citizens to own firearms, to engage in practice with them, and to do so publicly on holy days. It demanded that the people “bring their pieces to the church.” Somewhere along the line we have lost this mindset. Today the ideas of church and arms are assumed to be at odds, as if loving your neighbor has nothing to do with the preservation and defense of life and property.
But the idea of Christian society and an armed, skilled populace actually have deep historical roots. Alfred the Great codified the laws of England in the 9th Century, often resorting to biblical law in order to do so (where he departed from biblical law, the integrity of his famous law code is quite poor). Alfred applied the Deuteronomic laws of kings that forbade a standing army (Deuteronomy 17), and as a result developed a national defense based on militia:
By the Saxon laws, every freeman of an age capable of bearing arms, and not incapacitated by any bodily infirmity, was in case of a foreign invasion, internal insurrection, or other emergency, obliged to join the army.…1
This required and encouraged an armed citizenry:
Every landholder was obliged to keep armor and weapons according to his rank and possessions; these he might neither sell, lend, nor pledge, nor even alienate from his heirs. In order to instruct them in the use of arms, they had their stated times for performing their military exercise; and once in a year, usually in the spring, there was a general review of arms, throughout each county.2
Imagine! Imagine the government poking its nose in every year not to register and license weapons for possible future confiscation, but to ensure that each house indeed possessed weapons. Imagine that instead of imposing fees for licensing schemes, the government levied fines for not owning a firearm. This was the case in Massachusetts in 1644. The state required that “every freeman or other inhabitant of this colony provide for himself and each under him able bear arms a sufficient musket and other serviceable piece” as well as “two pounds of powder and ten pounds of bullets.”3 Those who neglected this duty could receive fines up to ten shillings (for laborers, roughly a day’s wages).
In 1623, Virginia statute forbade anyone to travel unless they were “well armed,” and required that all men working in fields likewise be armed.4 1631 laws repeated the same requirements and added to them: all able men should bear arms and engage in practice with their arms. The law specifically required “All men that are fitting to bear arms,” and to “bring their pieces to the church upon pain of every offence.”5 (Equally shocking to most modern evangelicals is the fine for not obeying these laws: landowners who did not so arm their laborers and workers were required “to pay 2 lbs. of tobacco,” and this fine in tobacco was “to be disposed by the church-wardens, who shall levy it by distress.…”6
Imagine that: the government desiring, commanding that every able citizen own weapons and be skilled in using them! And to do so on “holy days” and at Church.7 (It’s even more unbelievable that the government assumed all men were going to church every Sunday. Perhaps we could increase their numbers if we could reinstate target practice fellowship.)
The legacy of arms and freedom as Christian virtues continued into American Revolution. The Lutheran pastor John Peter Muhlenberg is perhaps the most famous of the “fighting parsons.” He answered George Washington’s personal call to raise troops using his own pulpit and Ecclesiastes 3 to do so. Other ministers of the gospel were well known to preach with loaded guns in the pulpit with them. Pennsylvania preacher John Elder provides a great example: “Commissioned a captain by the Pennsylvania government, he led a company of rangers and was accustomed to preach with his loaded musket across the pulpit.”8 Likewise, Rev. Thomas Allen, a later collaborator in writing the Massachusetts State Constitution, himself fired the first shot at the Battle of Bennington. In the context of the War for Independence, ministers saw guns as tools of liberty and defense against tyranny.
In a later context, some ministers saw the continued usefulness of firearms. A former cowboy and confederate soldier turned Methodist circuit rider, Rev. Andrew Jackson Potter, preached among tough neighborhoods in the old West. He would regularly walk up, lay his two colt revolvers across the pulpit, and begin to preach. He retained order and security, and encouraged an atmosphere of respect. In this scenario, arms served less as tools of national liberty and more as tools of preservation of life and individual liberty and property.
This same scenario goes on today, by the way. As recently as the fall of 2009, pastors in the Detroit area began to arm themselves in the pulpit and while on church property. Rises in Detroit crime in general as well as attacks in church buildings in particular awakened the attention of many Christians. While it is illegal in most states to carry guns on church property, Michigan allows it for the pastor and those he approves.
Christians should be aware that the use of force in preservation of life is a biblical doctrine (Exodus 22:2-3; Proverbs 24:10-12; Ester 8-9; Nehemiah 4; cp. John 15:13-14). Likewise, those who possessed weapons in Scripture are often said to be well skilled in the use of them (Judges 20:15-16; I Chronicles 12:1-2, 21-22). We can only surmise that 1) God gave them talent in this regard, and that 2) they engaged in target practice regularly. Further, under biblical law, to be disarmed was to be enslaved and led to a disruption of the economic order due to government regulations and monopolies (I Samuel 13:19-22). But the mere presence of a couple weapons had psychological effects that put criminals to flight (I Samuel 13). There is a reason why Scripture tells these stories: they illustrate the defense of life, liberty, and property in the midst of a fallen world (and fallen governments).
The American Second Amendment did not spring into existence from nowhere. It had a long pedigree. The Christian society emerging from the old laws of Alfred continued to include the ideal of an armed populace as a means of securing human liberties. The Founders, many of them lawyers, had studied that legal tradition and would have read William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1769). The first part of the first volume elaborates on the subject of our “principal absolute rights… of personal security, personal liberty, and private property [i.e. life, liberty, and property].” It then covers five means of securing and protecting these rights “inviolate”:
The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defense, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which is also declared by the same statute I W. & M. st.2. c.2. and is indeed a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.9
Within that same legal tradition, and more than a generation earlier, the English philosopher John Locke voiced the sanctity of life, liberty, and property as well as our duty even to use force to preserve it:
Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself… so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.
Locke elaborated these views within the context of belief in God’s ultimate sovereignty, ownership, and law-order over all of creation:
being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions: for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order, and about his business; they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another’s pleasure…10
Thomas Jefferson clearly took his phrase “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” from Locke, likely via Blackstone. It is no irony that Jefferson kept a portrait of Locke on his parlor wall. Both hated tyranny, and saw freedom as requiring the defense of person and property via use of force if necessary. Both derived this from the Christian legal tradition they inherited.
Today Christians are so brainwashed and affected by progressive propaganda that we have an uneasy feeling even broaching the subject of guns. Constant liberalism in the media and years of government-school indoctrination have eroded the foundations of liberty in this nation. Today Christians think themselves conservative when they back everything the military does. Conservatives think that to oppose the military is to be a leftist. They have no idea that 1) the tradition of imperialistic war grows out of liberal, not conservative, ideology, and 2) the Bible forbids nations to have standing armies or stockpile offensive weapons. The Bible calls for national defense through an armed populace and militia upon necessity. A standing army is an affront to God. But for some reason, alleged conservative politicians easily persuade Christian voters that the next military maneuver is of necessity an expression of conservative values, and the Christians cheer.
We are further brainwashed into thinking (and feeling) that guns are somehow dirty and evil, and that Christians should have nothing to do with them. In this view, we have departed from the Scriptures, Christian legal history, as well as America’s Christian history.
As a remedy for the situation, we should both learn and exercise our gun rights. Every Christian should read and understand the laws of their particular state. Not only should you know about laws pertaining directly to carrying, but also to those pertaining to the use of deadly force. These vary per state, and Christians should be aware.
But we should also begin to exercise our inviolable rights. Every able Christian should own a firearm, and each should seek instruction and training in how to use them. This includes handguns, shotguns, and rifles, each of which has a particular strength in self- and home-defense. Elders and pastors should teach on the topic and its history, and should help aid church members in obtaining fitting pieces and proper training in legal settings.
One great expression of both education and practice appears in the Appleseed Project. These yearly training camps are steeped in American history and wish to advance the forgotten legacy of the American rifleman. Using focused and professional training events across the country, this project teaches and hones shooting skills toward the goal of making you accurate at 500 yards.
In addition to that great project, classes in handgun defense are offered by small gun shops and firing ranges around the country. Make use of them.
In states that oppress the inviolable right to bear arms, the best we can do is to organize politically and locally to change the laws. This is not easy, of course, but Christian society demands it as a measure to stop the tyranny of governments and the advance of individual crime. To allow unjust gun laws to continue unchallenged is to fail in loving your neighbor and to vote in favor of Egyptian and Philistine-style servitude. This, of course, demands its own article, but deserves at least mentioning here.
Christians need to understand and act upon these biblical ideals. While this article hardly provides the last word on the subject, we ignore the lessons of the Bible and history to the peril of our freedoms. Evil ever advances upon our families, churches, and states. Evil seeks positions of power, such as government, and from there seeks to eliminate the avenues of power that threaten it (an armed people). Thus tyrannical government seek to pass gun control laws. Wise Christians see past the propaganda and stand for freedom.
With relentless expression of our rights through education, publication, exercising the right, and challenging unjust laws, Christians can at least create a society hungrier for freedom. At best we may roll back the various infringements upon those freedoms. If we change the laws well enough, we may indeed once again hear pastors say, “Oh, and don’t forget: on Sundays we have our regular target practice. Make sure to bring your pieces to church.”
SOURCES:
1 Francis Grose, Military Antiquities Respecting a History of the British Army, from the Conquest to the Present Time, 2 vol. (London: Egerton and Kearsley, 1801), 1:1.
2 Francis Grose, Military Antiquities, 1:2.
3 William Brigham, ed., The Compact with the Charter and Laws of the Colony of New Plymouth (Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1836), 31.
4 William Hening, The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia from the First Session of the Legislature in 1619, (New York, 1823), 173–174.
5 William Hening, The Statutes at Large, 174.
6 William Hening, The Statutes at Large, 174.
7 William Hening, The Statutes at Large, 174–175.
8 Louis B. Wright, “The Westward Advance of the Atlantic Frontier,” The Huntingdon Library Quarterly 11/3 (May 1948): 271
9 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 4 vol., 1:139.
10 Two Treatises on Civil Government, Book II, Chapter II, Sec. 6. [1689].
Respectfully, Mark
Imagine the following scenario: At church this Sunday, while reviewing the list of announcements and upcoming events for your church, your pastor added, “Oh, and don’t forget: on Sundays we have our regular target practice. Make sure to bring your rifles. Make sure to bring your pieces to church.”
Absurd, right? Not so. It used to be the American way. For example, a 1631 law in Virginia required citizens to own firearms, to engage in practice with them, and to do so publicly on holy days. It demanded that the people “bring their pieces to the church.” Somewhere along the line we have lost this mindset. Today the ideas of church and arms are assumed to be at odds, as if loving your neighbor has nothing to do with the preservation and defense of life and property.
But the idea of Christian society and an armed, skilled populace actually have deep historical roots. Alfred the Great codified the laws of England in the 9th Century, often resorting to biblical law in order to do so (where he departed from biblical law, the integrity of his famous law code is quite poor). Alfred applied the Deuteronomic laws of kings that forbade a standing army (Deuteronomy 17), and as a result developed a national defense based on militia:
By the Saxon laws, every freeman of an age capable of bearing arms, and not incapacitated by any bodily infirmity, was in case of a foreign invasion, internal insurrection, or other emergency, obliged to join the army.…1
This required and encouraged an armed citizenry:
Every landholder was obliged to keep armor and weapons according to his rank and possessions; these he might neither sell, lend, nor pledge, nor even alienate from his heirs. In order to instruct them in the use of arms, they had their stated times for performing their military exercise; and once in a year, usually in the spring, there was a general review of arms, throughout each county.2
Imagine! Imagine the government poking its nose in every year not to register and license weapons for possible future confiscation, but to ensure that each house indeed possessed weapons. Imagine that instead of imposing fees for licensing schemes, the government levied fines for not owning a firearm. This was the case in Massachusetts in 1644. The state required that “every freeman or other inhabitant of this colony provide for himself and each under him able bear arms a sufficient musket and other serviceable piece” as well as “two pounds of powder and ten pounds of bullets.”3 Those who neglected this duty could receive fines up to ten shillings (for laborers, roughly a day’s wages).
In 1623, Virginia statute forbade anyone to travel unless they were “well armed,” and required that all men working in fields likewise be armed.4 1631 laws repeated the same requirements and added to them: all able men should bear arms and engage in practice with their arms. The law specifically required “All men that are fitting to bear arms,” and to “bring their pieces to the church upon pain of every offence.”5 (Equally shocking to most modern evangelicals is the fine for not obeying these laws: landowners who did not so arm their laborers and workers were required “to pay 2 lbs. of tobacco,” and this fine in tobacco was “to be disposed by the church-wardens, who shall levy it by distress.…”6
Imagine that: the government desiring, commanding that every able citizen own weapons and be skilled in using them! And to do so on “holy days” and at Church.7 (It’s even more unbelievable that the government assumed all men were going to church every Sunday. Perhaps we could increase their numbers if we could reinstate target practice fellowship.)
The legacy of arms and freedom as Christian virtues continued into American Revolution. The Lutheran pastor John Peter Muhlenberg is perhaps the most famous of the “fighting parsons.” He answered George Washington’s personal call to raise troops using his own pulpit and Ecclesiastes 3 to do so. Other ministers of the gospel were well known to preach with loaded guns in the pulpit with them. Pennsylvania preacher John Elder provides a great example: “Commissioned a captain by the Pennsylvania government, he led a company of rangers and was accustomed to preach with his loaded musket across the pulpit.”8 Likewise, Rev. Thomas Allen, a later collaborator in writing the Massachusetts State Constitution, himself fired the first shot at the Battle of Bennington. In the context of the War for Independence, ministers saw guns as tools of liberty and defense against tyranny.
In a later context, some ministers saw the continued usefulness of firearms. A former cowboy and confederate soldier turned Methodist circuit rider, Rev. Andrew Jackson Potter, preached among tough neighborhoods in the old West. He would regularly walk up, lay his two colt revolvers across the pulpit, and begin to preach. He retained order and security, and encouraged an atmosphere of respect. In this scenario, arms served less as tools of national liberty and more as tools of preservation of life and individual liberty and property.
This same scenario goes on today, by the way. As recently as the fall of 2009, pastors in the Detroit area began to arm themselves in the pulpit and while on church property. Rises in Detroit crime in general as well as attacks in church buildings in particular awakened the attention of many Christians. While it is illegal in most states to carry guns on church property, Michigan allows it for the pastor and those he approves.
Christians should be aware that the use of force in preservation of life is a biblical doctrine (Exodus 22:2-3; Proverbs 24:10-12; Ester 8-9; Nehemiah 4; cp. John 15:13-14). Likewise, those who possessed weapons in Scripture are often said to be well skilled in the use of them (Judges 20:15-16; I Chronicles 12:1-2, 21-22). We can only surmise that 1) God gave them talent in this regard, and that 2) they engaged in target practice regularly. Further, under biblical law, to be disarmed was to be enslaved and led to a disruption of the economic order due to government regulations and monopolies (I Samuel 13:19-22). But the mere presence of a couple weapons had psychological effects that put criminals to flight (I Samuel 13). There is a reason why Scripture tells these stories: they illustrate the defense of life, liberty, and property in the midst of a fallen world (and fallen governments).
The American Second Amendment did not spring into existence from nowhere. It had a long pedigree. The Christian society emerging from the old laws of Alfred continued to include the ideal of an armed populace as a means of securing human liberties. The Founders, many of them lawyers, had studied that legal tradition and would have read William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1769). The first part of the first volume elaborates on the subject of our “principal absolute rights… of personal security, personal liberty, and private property [i.e. life, liberty, and property].” It then covers five means of securing and protecting these rights “inviolate”:
The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defense, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which is also declared by the same statute I W. & M. st.2. c.2. and is indeed a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.9
Within that same legal tradition, and more than a generation earlier, the English philosopher John Locke voiced the sanctity of life, liberty, and property as well as our duty even to use force to preserve it:
Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself… so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.
Locke elaborated these views within the context of belief in God’s ultimate sovereignty, ownership, and law-order over all of creation:
being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions: for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order, and about his business; they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another’s pleasure…10
Thomas Jefferson clearly took his phrase “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” from Locke, likely via Blackstone. It is no irony that Jefferson kept a portrait of Locke on his parlor wall. Both hated tyranny, and saw freedom as requiring the defense of person and property via use of force if necessary. Both derived this from the Christian legal tradition they inherited.
Today Christians are so brainwashed and affected by progressive propaganda that we have an uneasy feeling even broaching the subject of guns. Constant liberalism in the media and years of government-school indoctrination have eroded the foundations of liberty in this nation. Today Christians think themselves conservative when they back everything the military does. Conservatives think that to oppose the military is to be a leftist. They have no idea that 1) the tradition of imperialistic war grows out of liberal, not conservative, ideology, and 2) the Bible forbids nations to have standing armies or stockpile offensive weapons. The Bible calls for national defense through an armed populace and militia upon necessity. A standing army is an affront to God. But for some reason, alleged conservative politicians easily persuade Christian voters that the next military maneuver is of necessity an expression of conservative values, and the Christians cheer.
We are further brainwashed into thinking (and feeling) that guns are somehow dirty and evil, and that Christians should have nothing to do with them. In this view, we have departed from the Scriptures, Christian legal history, as well as America’s Christian history.
As a remedy for the situation, we should both learn and exercise our gun rights. Every Christian should read and understand the laws of their particular state. Not only should you know about laws pertaining directly to carrying, but also to those pertaining to the use of deadly force. These vary per state, and Christians should be aware.
But we should also begin to exercise our inviolable rights. Every able Christian should own a firearm, and each should seek instruction and training in how to use them. This includes handguns, shotguns, and rifles, each of which has a particular strength in self- and home-defense. Elders and pastors should teach on the topic and its history, and should help aid church members in obtaining fitting pieces and proper training in legal settings.
One great expression of both education and practice appears in the Appleseed Project. These yearly training camps are steeped in American history and wish to advance the forgotten legacy of the American rifleman. Using focused and professional training events across the country, this project teaches and hones shooting skills toward the goal of making you accurate at 500 yards.
In addition to that great project, classes in handgun defense are offered by small gun shops and firing ranges around the country. Make use of them.
In states that oppress the inviolable right to bear arms, the best we can do is to organize politically and locally to change the laws. This is not easy, of course, but Christian society demands it as a measure to stop the tyranny of governments and the advance of individual crime. To allow unjust gun laws to continue unchallenged is to fail in loving your neighbor and to vote in favor of Egyptian and Philistine-style servitude. This, of course, demands its own article, but deserves at least mentioning here.
Christians need to understand and act upon these biblical ideals. While this article hardly provides the last word on the subject, we ignore the lessons of the Bible and history to the peril of our freedoms. Evil ever advances upon our families, churches, and states. Evil seeks positions of power, such as government, and from there seeks to eliminate the avenues of power that threaten it (an armed people). Thus tyrannical government seek to pass gun control laws. Wise Christians see past the propaganda and stand for freedom.
With relentless expression of our rights through education, publication, exercising the right, and challenging unjust laws, Christians can at least create a society hungrier for freedom. At best we may roll back the various infringements upon those freedoms. If we change the laws well enough, we may indeed once again hear pastors say, “Oh, and don’t forget: on Sundays we have our regular target practice. Make sure to bring your pieces to church.”
SOURCES:
1 Francis Grose, Military Antiquities Respecting a History of the British Army, from the Conquest to the Present Time, 2 vol. (London: Egerton and Kearsley, 1801), 1:1.
2 Francis Grose, Military Antiquities, 1:2.
3 William Brigham, ed., The Compact with the Charter and Laws of the Colony of New Plymouth (Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1836), 31.
4 William Hening, The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia from the First Session of the Legislature in 1619, (New York, 1823), 173–174.
5 William Hening, The Statutes at Large, 174.
6 William Hening, The Statutes at Large, 174.
7 William Hening, The Statutes at Large, 174–175.
8 Louis B. Wright, “The Westward Advance of the Atlantic Frontier,” The Huntingdon Library Quarterly 11/3 (May 1948): 271
9 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 4 vol., 1:139.
10 Two Treatises on Civil Government, Book II, Chapter II, Sec. 6. [1689].
Respectfully, Mark
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