CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE: IS IT APPROPRIATE FOR THE CHRISTIAN?

What would a church service look like in Hitler’s Germany? As people disappeared, never to be heard from again, and as reports came back of mass exterminations, would the sermons address these horrors? Would they instead be content to continue to just preach salvation and sanctification? Would the leadership argue that the church has no business preaching politics? Would the pastor not mention Jews being herded onto cattle-cars? Would he not direct a public outcry?

However, we need not place ourselves in Hitler’s Germany to ask these questions. Today, we are surrounded by reports, photos, and even boastings of genocide, beheadings, and the kidnapping of thousands of wives and girls for sex slavery. For example, in Nigeria alone, many thousands of Christians have been slaughtered and kidnapped:

• On April 14, 2015, Amnesty International released a report detailing the brutality of the Nigeria-based, radical Islamist group Boko Haram. The report estimated that more than 2,000 women and girls have been captured by the group since the beginning of 2014.  http://ow.ly/LHzbs

The horrors have reached proportions that have never before been seen. Entire communities of Christian have been utterly destroyed. Countries have been emptied of Christians, and the persecutors threaten to continue their rampages, aided by many nations. The church can no longer remain silent. We can no longer claim that we are called to preach the “Gospel” alone! Instead, the Gospel has profound implications.

Jesus certainly didn’t limit His teachings to matters of salvation and sanctification. For Him, the Gospel had to express itself in action:

• "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' … The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'” (Matthew 25:34-45)

We can no longer shy away from these concerns, fearing that we might lose church members or politicize the Gospel. Instead, the Gospel requires us reach out to the oppressed. Our brethren are being kidnapped into sexual slavery and the males are beheaded through no fault of their own.

We have never conceived of such mass horrors, and yet we remain silent, and our silence makes a mockery of our religion. God cries out through the Prophet Isaiah:

• "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter-- when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? (Isaiah 58:6-7)

However, the church is confronted with far worse today – the extermination of entire populations of Christians and other non-Muslims! Why then do we remain silent? Are we afraid of the results? Ironically, if we are really concerned about the results, we must act:

• If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. (Isaiah 58:10-11)

We cannot model our lives after the priest who passed by the dying man. If we love our neighbor, we must instead model our lives after the Good Samaritan (Luke 10). What did his religion look like?

• Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James 1:27)

If this is true, we have to cry out for the oppressed! We have to awaken the conscience of the church.

What if we fail to raise our voices? It is nothing short of sin:

• Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins. (James 4:17)

However, it is even worse. It is a betrayal and a rejection of the Gospel, which requires us to show the world our love for the brethren:

• “I [Jesus] pray… that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:20-23)

But do our responsibilities end at the point of raising our voices against injustice? Is civil disobedience ever legitimate? This is a very difficult question. Why? For one thing, every situation is different and civil disobedience can take many different forms. And then we must deal with the verses that would seem to argue against breaking any laws. Here are some of the main verses:

• And Jesus answered and said to them, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." (Mark 12:17)

• Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience' sake. (Romans 13:1-6)

• Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good. (1 Peter 2:13-14)

Can we demonstrate in front of the embassies of nations that support terrorism? Certainly, as long as it’s legal. But what if it is not legal? Peter had written to “submit yourselves to every ordinance of man.”

This is troubling, because some laws are unjust. The Apostles also understood this. When the Sanhedrin commanded the Apostles to no longer preach the Gospel, they responded that God and His commands had to be their first priority:

• But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: "We ought to obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5:29)

They declared that they were willing to break the law in order to fulfill God’s commands. This was something that even the Sanhedrin should have understood:

·       But Peter and John replied, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God.” (Acts 4:19)

Israelites had broken the law of the land on many occasions in order to follow the law of God. The Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, had been instructed by Pharaoh to kill the male Hebrew newborns. However, they secretly defied his instructions in order to save the lives of the newborns, and God was pleased because they had obeyed Him:

·       So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own. (Exodus 1:20-21)

They are many other exceptions to the Biblical teaching to obey those in command. Daniel, his three friends, and Mordecai refused to bow before their respective rulers.

Rahab of Jericho hid the Israelite spies and lied to the Jericho authorities about their whereabouts and saved their lives. Consequently, Scripture commended her for resisting her own authorities as an act of faith (Hebrews 11:31; James 2:25), not of sin.

We have a responsibility to honor God above our civil authorities, especially when life and death are involved:

• Deliver those who are drawn toward death, and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, "Surely we did not know this," does not He who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, does He not know it? And will He not render to each man according to his deeds? (Proverbs 24:11-12)

We have a responsibility for our brethren above all others (Galatians 6:10), especially as they face destruction in many Communist and Islamic nations. This brings us to the perplexing teachings about enduring “unjust suffering”:

• Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. (1 Peter 2:18-21)

Do these verses teach us to allow the “unjust suffering” of others? Should we pass by a Christian who is being raped or kidnapped because “it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering?” Of course not! Instead, many verses require us to intervene (Luke 10).

Why then are we taught to tolerate unjust suffering as opposed to exposing it (Ephesians 5:11) and reporting it to the authorities? Is this a contradiction? Not at all! While a Christian employee should treat his unjust boss with respect and kindness for the sake of his boss’ soul, he also can report workplace abuse.

Paul and Silas had every reason to escape when an earthquake had destroyed the bars that had unjustly held them captive. However, for the sake of the jailor, they did not! Instead, they used this occasion to preach the Gospel, something of even greater importance than their own liberty. And this led to the salvation of the jailor and his family.

However, when the town authorities wanted to quietly force Paul and Silas out of town, Paul demanded redress:

·       But Paul said to the officers: "They beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison. And now do they want to get rid of us quietly? No! Let them come themselves and escort us out." The officers reported this to the magistrates, and when they heard that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, they were alarmed. They came to appease them and escorted them from the prison, requesting them to leave the city. (Acts 16:37-39)

We must demand legal protections for those unjustly suffering, even as we trust that the Lord will provide for them, if not here, then in the next life. But this is God’s role. We have our own ordained role to play:

 

·       “’For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'” (Matthew 25:35-40)

ALINSKY: THE MAKING OF AN IDEALIST

Saul Alinsky (1909 – 1972) was a Communist and community organizer who wrote Rules for Radicals. He had also been the mentor to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Alinsky’s final interview, just before his 1972 death, was quoted in the new film about his life, “A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing”:

·       “If there is an afterlife, and I have anything to say about it, I will unreservedly choose to go to hell,” he tells Playboy magazine.

·       “Hell would be heaven for me,” he explains. “All my life I've been with the have-nots. Over here, if you're a have-not, you're short of dough. If you're a have-not in hell, you're short of virtue. Once I get into hell, I'll start organizing the have-nots over there.”

·       Asked why, Alinsky states, “They're my kind of people.” https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/new-film-shows-a-wolf-in-sheeps-clothing-still-a-threat

Why would the “have-nots” be his “kind of people?” And what if they got a good-paying job that enabled them to climb up into the camp of the “haves?” Would they no longer be his “kind of people?” Why would the difference of a few extra dollars turn a friend into an enemy?

I think that there is only one way to understand this rigidity. Alinsky was, as are so many others, driven by jealousy and hatred of the “haves.” The Communists had hated the “haves” so much that they regarded them as “parasites” which had to be eliminated.

However, we are all vulnerable to such feelings and are tempted to hide them behind an idealistic framework such as a concern for the poor. Sadly, when idealism is driven by these repressed emotions, it takes destructive paths. Consequently, we no longer have the welfare of those we are trying to help in mind, but our own disguised agenda. Just look at the 100,000,000 slaughtered by the various Communist regimes seeking to create their “workers’ paradise!”

The idealist and revolutionary, Mao Tze Tung, is reported to have exterminated 45 million of his own people in order to create his ideal society. How is it that this self-sacrificial idealist could have been the inspiration for such horrors? I think it is because he was unable to confront his dark-side, which, as a result took control of his vision.

Marvin Olasky, editor-in-chief of World Magazine, reported that, in 1957, Mao stated:

·       I’m not afraid of nuclear war. There are 2.7 billion people in the world; it doesn’t matter if some are killed. China has a population of 600 million; even if half of them are killed, there are still 300 million people left. I am not afraid of anyone.

What can explain such callousness and blindness? Clearly, it was not a concern for others that had been speaking, but his own hatred and jealousy.

How can we guard ourselves against this fate? How can we face our underlying darkness? We need courage. It was only the assurances of the love and forgiveness of the Savior that enabled me to confront the truth about myself.

THOMAS DILORENZO AND THE FAILURES OF SOCIALISM

In “The Problem with Socialism,” economist Thomas DiLorenzo, writes:

·       A 2016 Pew Foundation poll found that 69 percent of voters under the age of thirty expressed “a willingness to vote for a socialist president of the United States”

DiLorenzo is clearly troubled by our acceptance of a system that has consistently failed:

·       Socialism in all its forms has always been poisonous to economic growth and prosperity. This is not because the “wrong people” have been in charge of socialist regimes, and that “better” or smarter people could somehow make socialism work, or that all that is missing is democracy. Socialism is economic poison for several fundamental, inherent reasons. In other words, it is impossible for socialism to be anything but impoverishing as an economic system because of the very nature of socialism.

DiLorenzo, in his very readable short volume, provides many examples of this:

·       Hong Kong was one of the freest economies in the world under British rule with a modest, flat income tax and very little government regulation of business. That recipe made Hong Kong, with no natural resources to speak of except for a large harbor, one of the most prosperous countries on earth. By contrast, socialist China experienced the usual economic stagnation and backwardness that is the hallmark of all socialist economies.

·       The Soviet economy was so dysfunctional, thanks to seventy years of socialism, that by the time the entire system collapsed in the late 1980s it was most probably only about 5 percent of the size of the U.S. economy.

·       Argentina, which embraced socialism in the late 1940s during the Juan Perón regime. Perón restricted international trade, imposed wage-and-price controls, seized private property, nationalized some industries, and spent lavishly, much of which was financed by the government simply printing more money. The predictable result was economic ruination and hyperinflation that led to Perón’s ouster in 1955 by military coup. Argentina, however, remained socialist. Its economy continued to stagnate and, several coups later, by the late 1980s, it was suffering from 12,000 percent inflation from years of trying to cover up the failures of socialism by printing money to pay for all the socialist programs. 9 In 2001 Argentina defaulted on its obligations to foreign lenders in the then-largest public default in history. It defaulted again in 2014. Argentina was once the world’s tenth-largest economy, but by 2016 it was barely ahead of Kazakhstan and Equatorial Guinea.

According to DiLorenzo, even the failure of the first American settlements are attributable to socialism. He also challenges the examples of the Scandinavian countries which have been touted as socialistic success stories. For example, he explains Sweden’s apparent success with socialism was a result of its accumulated capital which had, cushioned her for many years from the socialistic drain of the economy. In an interview, DiLorenzo explained:

·       Sweden, for example, was one of the wealthiest countries in the world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries thanks to its large degree of economic freedom and a culture of entrepreneurship and capitalism.  It produced many great inventors and entrepreneurs such as Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, the people who created Volvo and Saab automobiles, and much more.  Sweden enjoyed the highest per-capita income growth in the world from 1870 to 1950.

·       But Swedish politicians began experimenting with fascism in the 1930s and then socialism, with the nationalization of many industries, a large welfare state, super-progressive income taxation, and onerous regulation and regimentation of private industry.  Sweden began “eating up” its accumulated capital, created by previous generations of capitalists, so much so that according to the Swedish Economic Association, Sweden did not create a single net new job from 1950 to 2005.

·       Because of this economic destruction the government resorted to printing massive amounts of money in an attempt to bail itself out, resulting in 500% interest rates. That in turn led to a Thatcher-like revolt that reduced marginal tax rates, privatized many industries, deregulated bank lending, retail, telecommunications, and airlines, and imposed deep spending cuts.  But fifty years of Swedish socialism is hard to recover from: the Swedes still have a per-capita income level that is lower than in Mississippi, our lowest-income state. (Townhall.com)

Well, what’s the big deal? It’s only money, isn’t it? Not according to DiLorenzo:

·       The main problems with socialism is that it will destroy your economic future – and your children’s future; it creates an unjust society where a small political elite enriches itself by imposing a regime of equality of poverty and misery on most everyone else; it has been associated with the worst crimes in human history, as documented in The Black Book of Communism, among other places

·       The socialist welfare state also harms the poor by destroying their work incentives, crowding out private charities, and causing family break-ups where fathers are replaced by government checks; and it destroys personal freedoms by using governmental force in pursuit of “equality.”  That’s just for starters.

Are our youth listening?

WHO OWNS OUR CHILDREN

 

Utopian idealists tend to believe that the State owns then. However, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao have proven poor parental substitutes. Consequently, they are now all gone and their experiments in State ownership are history.

Some collapses haven’t been violent and abrupt. Some utopian communities have merely found their idealism unworkable, and, therefore, have reverted to a more traditional understanding and practice.

In the early 70s, I had spent time on a number of Kibbutzim of the most radical and socialistic movement, Hashomer Hatziar. The Kibbutzim of this movement had been so radical that, initially, they had rejected marriage and the nuclear family as oppressive forms of “ownership.” However, by the time that I had stayed with them in the 70s, all had reverted back to the traditional nuclear families, although some tasks remained communal.

However, this discredited ideal of the State ownership of children stubbornly continues. In “To Whom Do Children Belong,” Melissa Moschella attempts to defend parental rights. At the beginning of her book, she quotes Melissa Harris-Perry:

·       “We have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.” 

Well, why shouldn’t children belong to their State? Doesn’t the State have a right and responsibility to ensure that children grow up into responsible adults? Of course! However, who can best ensure the welfare of the children and their positive adjustment to society?

Under the various utopian schemes, children have been made into the pawns of the prevailing ideology rather than the beneficiaries of parental love. The same critique can be made today.

Now, many school districts are pandering to the ideology of transgenderism. As a result, they are proscribing gender specific pronouns and encouraging young children to explore sexual alternatives. Besides, this ideology has become so militant that parents are no longer allowed to exempt their children from teachings they regard as inappropriate. Often, they are not even told about the schools’ advocacy of transgenderism.

About transgenderism and the State usurping the responsibility of the parents, psychiatrist Boris Vatel has written:

·       The NYC Commission on Human Rights maintains that gender identity is "one's internal deeply held sense of one's gender, which may be the same or different from one's sex assigned at birth. This statement intentionally uses language to distort reality. Except in cases of rare medical conditions resulting in ambiguous genitalia, no one's sex is "assigned" at birth any more than the fact of belonging to the human species is assigned at birth.

·       More significantly, this statement erroneously implies that a person's beliefs about himself carry more legitimacy than the physical facts that contradict such beliefs. Using the Commission's reasoning, can we declare an alternate "age identity" to be legitimately different from one's true age? What about "race identity" or even "species identity"? If one accepts as legitimate the logic by which men may identify themselves as women and insist on being considered as such by others, there is no reason to reject as invalid any number of other idiosyncratic identities that have no basis in reality. (Salvo Magazine)

Vatel compares the delusion of a boy thinking himself a girl with the delusion of subordinate thinking yourself the CEO of the company. Vatel argues that responsible psychotherapy has to challenge delusional thinking and not exalt it and pander to it through sex-change therapies.

If choice is exalted to encourage a boy to think he is a girl, why not also to encourage a Black to think he is a White, or a human to think he is a bird or a cow.

The parent understands the absurdity of such thinking, even more so, the potential damage to her children. The State doesn’t care. It has other concerns.

King Solomon, in his surpassing wisdom, understood this. When two women came before him, each claiming maternity over a certain baby, Solomon ordered that the baby be cut in two – one half given to each claimant. At this, the real mother cried out:

·       “Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!” But the other said, “Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!” Then the king gave his ruling: “Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother.” (1 Kings 3:26-27)

In contrast, the State might have answered, “Fine! If I can’t have the child, then no one else should.”

The State can never provide parental love (and it has no interest in providing this), and the parents will never sacrifice their child to a vague, politically correct ideal. This is why parents must retain control over their children!