Monthly Archives: June 2009

My Anarchism v. Constitutionalists’ Anarchism

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In my opinion, getting it through one’s head that states are simply big criminal monopolies is actually a source of relaxation and peace.  If someone holds you at gunpoint in order to take your money, it is a traumatic experience.  But at least you don’t feel guilty for submitting.

But when the government is involved, all sorts of American mythology about standing up for one’s rights, and “liberty or death” confuses one’s thinking.  One has some sort of duty to stand up against tyranny.

No, you have a duty to survive it as best you can.

Patrick Henry is not inspired (and never meant “Liberty or Death” as some sort of eternal principle anyway), but Solomon was.  And he said, “he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion“–which exposes grand stands of the Alamo kind as really exercises in mass suicide.

And it frees you from illusions of legitimacy.  Does anyone think that Paul would have modified Romans 13 if someone had said that a ruler had not been “lawfully” appointed by some legal tradition?  Do you think you get to avoid paying income tax because the amendment wasn’t properly passed or doesn’t really specify income?

Why bring trouble on yourself?

Most regimes in human history have come to power by coercion (actually, all of them have).  A legally predictable and consistent regime would be a great blessing, but it is not a reasonable expectation in most times and places and it is never an excuse for rebellion or even non-submission.

Joseph was kidnapped and enslaved through nothing but criminal activity.  When Potiphar’s wife asked him to “lie with” her, he replied,

Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?

Get that?  Joseph doesn’t even mention that adultery is a sin against God. He only spoke of how greatly his master had blessed him and how it would be a sin to be untrustworthy and ungrateful.  Joseph restricted his reasoning to a reply that would work just as well if a fellow slave told him to stop laboring so hard when his master wasn’t looking.  He, a kidnapped victim, regarded himself as obligated to his master.

I’ve written a fair amount about how we’ve been enslaved since the Paulson coup in September 2008.  Don’t confuse what I write about our increasing and illegal (i.e. unconstitutional) slavery with some hasty course of action.  In the American movie version of Joseph’s story, he would have escaped Potiphar’s house with gunfire (and probably slept with his wife too, come to think of it).

But he would never have inherited the world.

The Law is an Evangelist: Galatians is not about the “covenant of works”

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I haven’t had time to continue my response to Thomas Boston, but I would like to offer some additional thoughts on my points about Galatians in that post.

I wrote in part:

Paul contrasts Sinai to Abraham but where is the evidence that plugs this into the Covenant of Works?  His argument assumes that all reference to “bondage” means a system of demanding perfect perpetual obedience as a condition of eternal life.  But the Apostle Paul explains what he means by bondage and it is not what Boston presupposes:

I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

So, for Paul’s argument, the bondage is that of limitations due to immaturity.  The point is that now that the new has come we must leave behind the old.  Nothing is said about going all the way back to man’s state of innocence to where Adam, as a public person, was given a Covenant that demanded his perfect obedience to secure his own future and that of his posterity.

The quotation from Scripture above is from Galatians 4.1ff.  I should point out that it fits with the immediate verses preceding it:

Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came [NASB: “our tutor to lead us to Christ], in order that we might be justified by faith.  But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.  For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

Notice here that “faith” is virtually a synonym for Christ or the new covenant.  It does not mean personal belief in most instances because such faith existed both before and during the time of the Mosaic Law.  Nor does the Law “drive” us to Christ by showing us that we can’t live up to it’s demands.  Nothing is said about that. Rather, the law is an evangelist.  It leads us to Christ. it was our guadian.  It protected us in our minority when Jew and Gentile were separate offsprings.

And while that “imprisoned” language may sound dire, as I have already pointed out, Paul says in 4.1ff that it is simply about childhood.

The fact is that reading one’s prejudices into Galatians has become a sacred tradition in recent Protestantism.  We are told that the problem with the law is that it is the covenant of works which demands perfect obedience and condemns any and all disobedience, when Paul actually says that it condemns apostasy from the Law just as the Gospel condemns apostasy from the Gospel (Galatians 3.12, quoting from Leviticus 18.1-5).  We are told Christ died to save everyone who believes from the consequences of their disobedience at any point, when Paul actually says that Christ died to redeem Israel in order to bring blessing to the Gentiles so that then Israel could receive the Spirit (Galatians 3.13, 14).  We are told that the promise refers to an unconditional gift as opposed to a reward for works, whereas Paul says the promise is that there would be one and only one offspring rather than many different offsprings such as Jew and Gentile (Galatians 3.16-20).

Time and again all the details of the text are bulldozed and flattened to the shape of a simple story that we have decided must be what Paul is saying.  Worse, in Reformed circles, the details are buried under the hypothesis of a “works covenant” that is in some mysterious way “republished.”

Off-the-cuff thoughts after reading comments on a Doug Wilson post on the Tiller murder

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I’m in the middle of writing this response when I remember there is a character-count restriction… So I’ll just do it here:

A few observations:

  • A random murder of someone who makes a living killing children is not defense or protection unless that stops or at least has a chance of stopping the killing (leaving aside whether such an act is allowable). This wasn’t defense of anything; it was vengeance.
  • Romans doesn’t really have any chapter or verse breaks so:

    Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.  If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

    So if defense and protection are not motives, then we are left with vengeance, which is addressed here by God.

  • In a war, one allows others to die all the time.  The enemy attacks your people somewhere and you have to decide whether this is where you should take a stand.  One never sends out soldiers to find bad guys wherever they want and shoot at them.  There is nothing about the “culture war” that makes what happened right.  It was insane.
  • A random killing of someone who ought to be executed does nothing to change (either as in improve or replace) the government that protects him and rules you.  So whether or not it is lawful to use force to do those things is a distraction.  This was just murder.  The American War for Independence is in a different catagory.
  • In many societies aspects of justice are/have been more of a private sector phenomenon.  But they always involved the cooperation or even participation of the wider society.  Has any society been changed for the better by a random act of violence?  Does society just fall into line with the lone gunman’s value system when he decides to innovate in the private sector?  If such an attempt is not covered in Romans 12-13 above, then what is?
  • Reading about colonial America leading up to the Revolutionary War, one finds a system where the able-bodied men who constituted the police force would protect the community by unified action, involving property damage and somewhat brutal tarring and feathering.  These actions were remarkably non-lethal.  They don’t seem anything like a rogue killer who decides to pick one guy because he happens to be notorious.
  • The entire legal culture of past resistance and pressure for independence is entirely missing: no unified culture, no identifiable geography, no established government systems that could independently govern.  There will never be any struggle for independence like before.  So not only is there no reason to bring such history up when discussing a vigilante killing, there is never any reason for anyone in North America to bring up such history for any strategic reason at all.  Won’t happen because it can’t happen.  Like you can’t wave your arms and fly to the moon.  The only thing to do will be to watch the system self-destruct and pray and work to survive the destruction.
  • As things get worse, there will be riots and other forms of civil disobedience.  Those things should come from the fringe.  They should never come from the Church.  We are the ones who should be patient and wait.

OK, these were random thoughts, most of them having little to do with what anyone actually said.  My mind spun off in all sorts of directions.

I completely agree with pastor Wilson.  Lawless people tend to fight and kill one another. Tiller chose to live by the sword and he showed that it can lead to dying by the sword.  This was one zealot attacking another.

Since Tiller was one among many who will continue to commit abortions against babies, there’s really no purpose at all served by his death besides providing fodder for the pro-life movement’s enemies.  We’d be better off if he were alive and practicing.  To the extent that this can be used to further marginalize pro-life efforts, it could easily lead to more dead babies rather than fewer.