Values Schizophrenia: Primacy of the Individual

It's a peculiar spiritual schizophrenia we have in American Christianity. On the one hand, we have plenty of people who embrace keeping good social order and being respectful of authority figures. At the same time, there is a distinct under-current of resistance to tyranny. That resistance arises from a fairly idealistic view of American History. The result is calling "tyranny" something which isn't, and giving way too much subservience to the wrong authorities. This is all the result, naturally, of embracing Western rationalism and unknowingly bowing the knee to Enlightenment assumptions, which are entirely humanistic.

It blinds us to the biblical model. The Man of God is the Righteous Servant, to which modern Evangelicals give much lip service. But when you examine the imagery using the ancient Hebraic analysis of human discourse, you see the image painted in hues of anarchy. Some go so far as to embrace the word "anarchy" as a good thing. Yes, we all know the root meaning is simply "no government" -- something forbidden under the Covenant of Noah. I have no problem with being anti-State, but anti-government is another thing entirely. So our Western Christian manhood is rebellion boiling under the cover of civilized behavior. "I will not bow the knew to any man!" Yet they easily bow the knee to a peculiarly middle-class Western cultural vision of civil order, along with any State which makes a plausible claim keeping that civil order.

Thus, we have the blasphemous reverence for the US battle flag, and for military service regardless of the evil policies backing most wars since around 1800, all because it's easier to simplify things by dismissing some questions as disrespectful and rebellious. No matter how you slice it, the State becomes a demi-god. This is possible only because they reject the whole counsel of God, preferring to isolate certain texts from the greater whole. Romans 13 is waved all over the place as authorizing this worship of the State, when they so conveniently refuse to investigate the foundation of that passage from Paul. At the same time, when their petty god starts to talk about confiscation of property, there's no problem with rebelling, because the private ownership of property is also sacrosanct. Frankly, it boils down to Mammon as the higher god. The State is good only so long as it defends tangible property. The police are good only so long as they defend the sort of civil order which protects some imaginary property right which boils down to, "Get off my lawn!" This is nothing more than pasting Bible verses over their reverence for material prosperity, since this particular brand of civil order is precisely aimed at getting and keeping all their stuff -- "honorably" of course.

Peel away the layers of paint, and you have a very fearful pagan clinging to his physical comforts. All this honor, duty and liberty talk is just a nice paint job over materialism. Sure, they'll bear some deprivation in the noble cause of defending their way of life, but that way of life is "gimee, gimee." What does the New Testament say of the early believers? "No one was claiming his property as his own, but shared generously with all." So we have a thousand commentaries deriding this as some sort of euphoric and immature mistake. Well meaning, but... (shudder) communism! Yet nary a word in Scripture justifies condemnation of that attitude in the first church.

The ground for resisting tyranny uses words from the Bible, but Evangelicals actually depend entirely upon the primacy of the individual. This is humanism, and the humanists snicker at how Christians have embraced their underlying assumptions. The Servant of God cares little for the loss of tangible property. Have it when God grants it, use it for His purposes, then leave it behind when that purpose is finished. Your very flesh and blood are held in the same disregard. Nor do you get too excited about the losses of other folks' property. It's just stuff. If simply and willfully walking in Christ's footprints causes that sort of losses, you take it in stride. You are not your own; you are bought with a price. Jesus didn't die on the Cross to protect your property rights, nor any imaginary rights enshrined in some long-forgotten "Bill of Rights." Jesus died on the Cross to free you from that sort of sinful fear and clinging to what you can touch or imagine, and bind you to Himself. He binds you to His Cross, as well.

In Kingdom philosophy, every living being is the servant of some other. All are servants of God, either willingly or unawares. When we stand to resist sin, be it at the hands of some agent of the State, or some other crook, it's on the grounds of God's supremacy. We don't expect to prevail in the flesh, but in the Spirit. Should God choose to manifest His victory on this world's terms, or bring us home to be with Him, He has already won His victory back at Calvary. The only grounds for resistance is not some imaginary supremacy of the individual, nor the individual rights to "life, liberty and property" (the original wording of that document), but on the grounds God made it clear you should resist. You do so because some pretentious earthly authority is treading on God's authority. Not that God cannot defend His prerogatives, but He generally expects us to work with Him on these things.

Resisting the State's attempt to kidnap your children is not about some property rights in the kids, nor even of yourself or household. It's on the grounds the State will always attempt to twist them to Satan's purpose, against your mandate from God to train them up in the way He wants them to go. God appointed you as steward of your children, not any State anywhere. To that end, taking the lives of the State's agents is just a possible means of doing God's will. It's not about tyranny and manful resistance to oppression; it's about your duty to God as His servant. You don't bow the knee to any other authority. Nor should we even take that literally, since bowing is simply a human custom, as is shaking hands. We honor men on a human level all the time, so long as it does not conflict with honoring God. There is no simple formula for deciding when and how to resist. It's always in the context of God's Kingdom, and the indefinable whims of an Almighty God. I choose those words carefully to remind us God is a living Person, and none of us can pretend to know Him so well as to anticipate everything He's likely to demand of us. He is God, not we. Perhaps you should have recognized that in the first place and taken action to avoid exposing your children to such horrors. God's commands are not simply a compartment of life, but the whole of your being.

Otherwise you are just another servant of Mammon fighting some other servant of Mammon for some stuff.