What follows is a collection of short pieces written exploring the implications of Noah's Covenant in the modern world. A great many things which puzzle believers can be explained by understanding what the Covenant means in its own context.
So you think you have it all worked out? Maybe you do.
In our Western educational matrix, we are taught Logic. It's considered a branch of Philosophy, which is mostly looking at the mumblings and grumblings of philosophers in ages past. We make a point of favoring one particular ancient culture over others, by giving preference to fellows like Plato, Socrates and Aristotle.
Based on their teachings, we have built a corpus of academic understanding such that we all assume we are pretty much on the same sheet of music when we discuss things "logically." We even have Rules of Logic and a list of Logical Fallacies. Good stuff, no? By these rules we can debate others and shoot them down when they unwittingly commit a logical fallacy. There is a standard, and we can go to sleep at night knowing the rules won't change tomorrow. It might not have any great effect on the world at large, but at least we will know what's true.
Indeed, this becomes our ground for pointing out when the world has gone astray. And how far astray it has gone, indeed! But in so doing, have we not also gone astray? In adopting the likes of Aristotle and his ideas, we have dismissed the vast majority of human history. We have confused a priori with a posteriori (look up those terms). We have assumed some things require no prior experience to understand, when we close our minds to the realization Aristotle and his friends were rejecting other paths in proclaiming their own assumptions were self-evident.
For millennia prior to them, mankind had carried philosophical reasoning and rules of logic which worked just fine in this world. But in order to downplay their possible importance, our Western philosophical matrix labels those things "primitive" to the point of saying those other forms of logic are "illogical." Nice try. If your Western logic is so wonderful, how come we are still so messed up? You can't claim the ancients didn't have it any better; saying that is projecting modern problems backward upon ancient times, of which we know precious little. The reason we know so little is because we refuse to understand things from their perspective. We even go so far as to assert ancient thinkers were hallucinating -- "they musta been taking drugs" -- just because they didn't come up with answers which fit in our logical frame of reference.
Wrong. It may be true of you, that you would have be higher than a kite to say what they said, but you weren't there, and you surely do not have grounds to judge their different philosophical assumptions. Way back when men first planted crops and built cities, their assumptions about the world were already very ancient. Yeah, there are records of it, but Western logic rejects that data as confused and unreliable. That's because it doesn't sound like a Western descriptions of things. It made sense to those who recorded them, so the problem is with you, not the record. You have to discern that record on the ground where it stands, not from your remote location.
That last sentence reflects the nature of ancient logic. Just a tiny sliver, but it points out how those people thought about things. The ultimate truth cannot possibly be put in human language, so they simply wrote symbolic descriptions. In other words, ancient logic is first and foremost symbolic. Miss that and you have no clue what they said. Call it a lack of arrogance so common to Western culture; the best ancient philosophers knew they could never quite grasp it with their intellect. If they could, it wouldn't be all that important. Stuff which really matters will always be just outside our grasp. However, if we keep reaching, there's an assumption we'll find something useful, something which helps understand what's around us and act wisely.
Today, we call that "mystical nonsense." Maybe it is, but the ancients didn't try to figure out how to blow up the whole world with a single device. It was not because they weren't smart enough, nor because they weren't advanced enough. It was because they couldn't imagine a need for that, knew they weren't wise enough to handle such a thing. Nor are we.
Most Christians aren't really aware of the various covenants noted in the Bible. Indeed, many aren't even aware the term "New Testament" means "New Covenant". A few understand the Law of Moses was a covenant between God and Israel, but aren't aware of the full implications. It wasn't just laws for Israel to follow, but a binding agreement which Israel failed repeatedly. Worse, as time wore on, their compliance worsened. What Jesus confronted in His day was a national leadership who didn't even really understand the Covenant, because they had thrown away their Hebraic culture, trading it for Hellenist intellectual assumptions, which cannot possibly catch the underlying meaning of Moses. Oddly, in their blindness, they still managed to do a pretty good job of understanding the Covenant of Noah, at least superficially.
If you look up the "Seven Noahide Laws" you'll likely find the Wikipedia entry near the top of your search results. This represents modern Jewish scholarship on the Bible passage near the end of Genesis 8, and into chapter 9. I would suggest their current major mistake is thinking Noah falls under Moses, whereas Jesus and the Apostles said the Covenant of Moses ended at the Cross, but taught Noah was still in force, as evidenced by the results of the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15. You'll probably notice the Apostles didn't echo all of the Seven Laws because it wasn't necessary. There were already plenty of laws against murder and theft, and blasphemy was too obvious. However, they did cite three issues because it might be news to Gentile Christians: idolatry, sexual immorality and meat with blood in it (usually strangled).
However, those three do a good job of covering things. I wrote elsewhere:
The first and most obvious requirement is withdrawing completely from pagan idolatry. This is translated variously in English texts of the New Testament, but it was more than just food. Paul makes it clear later it's not the physical reality but the perception of the watching world. There is one true God, and our loyalty to Him is undivided. Joining in pagan celebrations would compromise the impact of that witness. There were no details listed, but it was left to the conscience of the individual believers in their communities scattered around the world to prayerfully work out in each context what that required.
The issue of sexual purity went back before Noah. We who have seen the thread of revelation know God has consistently condemned sex outside the provision of lifelong commitment to building a family. This is easily tied to the call for civility and social stability, if not the very fundamental threat of compromise in the soul by the flesh. It's a special case of idolatry deserving special mention. If we have to start arguing about various sexual appetites for something outside the husband-wife pairing, we are already on the wrong ground. God granted only one provision for human sexual appetites, and there is absolutely no fundamental right to sex, much less any particular fallen desires for sex.
Meat with blood is paired with strangling as a single item. This is not a matter of what goes in your mouth, as Jesus noted, but of what comes out of your heart. Blood is a spiritual symbol going back to the Garden of Eden. It symbolizes the gift of life itself, and taking it lightly is the primary symptom of evil. It was the sin of Cain, and of Lamech, and clearly points back to the command we shall love and respect others equally with ourselves. Taking life is very serious business. It is required to keep civilization alive, but remains a heavy burden on government, not a privilege. Those who find it easy to harm others are the greatest danger to all human life. But that's not enough; a casual disregard of lower forms of life is also dangerous. Noah kept kosher long before it was codified in the Law of Moses, but the Lord said humans could eat anything they found edible. Animals were distinctly lesser beings, but God forbade under Noah anyone eating meat without draining away the blood, because it symbolized our acceptance of this still active Covenant of Noah. Nature itself will rebel against us if we do not obey and adopt the strict respect for life.
I suppose most Christians could accept this much once they are exposed to it. It's covered pretty nicely when Jesus said the whole Old Testament could be summed up in complete devotion to God and giving others the respect we want for ourselves (Matthew 22:34-40). What they may not grasp is just how poorly we keep that seventh item from the rabbinical list of seven: We do not have a just judicial system. That is, by biblical definition, we have a hideously corrupt government, from top to bottom. Our so called "civil culture" would draw vociferous condemnation of those who understood Noah's covenant best. We might be able to read the translated words, but the ancient biblical concept of justice is utterly foreign to most people born in the West. Need I remind people? That ancient culture is the one Jesus taught as fundamental to understanding what God requires.
You might well understand the penalties God threatened against Israel under the Covenant of Moses. You'll also note Moses applied to Israel only. However, you may not realize Moses was a particular instance of Noah. The Law of Moses was a specific application of the Laws of Noah in the case of Israel -- that people, that land, that time. Noah is a broader, general covenant still in force today. The various blessing to Israel for obedience, and the various curses for defiance, were all one singular package of promises implied by the Covenant of Noah. Do what Noah says and you can expect nature itself to remain pretty orderly -- "season upon season" is the phrase. This is symbolic language telling us God will direct Creation to cooperate with our needs in obtaining reasonable prosperity, health, and security. Those are summed up in the meaning of the word shalom. You cannot simply translate that word as "peace" and assume you have it covered; Hebrew minds would automatically think expansively, not concerned with precision as we think of it.
So here's the point: If you and I as individuals follow Christ, we pretty much fulfill Noah, but we need Noah as an example of what it means to follow Christ. On a broader level as nations with governments, our failure to observe the Covenant of Noah guarantees we are doomed. Nature itself will fight against us. Our leaders will not be able to make the right choices. So to the degree there is global warming or global cooling, and to the degree either of them threatens us, it is not simply the mechanics of human pollution, nor the random swings of earth cycles, but the holistic reaction of Creation against our sins. Even the very idiocy of tyranny swallowing the Western nations is the result of our failure to observe Noah.
This stuff is not a secret. It's been there in plain sight for thousands of years. Our intellectual culture conditions us not to see it, but it's still possible to figure out the minimum necessities. We have refused. We are in serious trouble.
In the past, when discussing the Covenent of Noah, I've been told by a few people I must be making this up. Actually, this is something entirely solid in Hebrew history. Even under the mistaken notions of the Talmud, Jewish scholars today recognize it as quite ancient.
I usually don't care much for the way Wikipedia covers things, but this one is rather well done: Seven Laws of Noah.
It should be obvious the Jerusalem Council saw no need to restate 2, 3, 5 and 7. Blasphemy was too obvious, and the rest were covered under civil law already.
You can ramble on for days about official definitions, provisions, and every other semantic weaseling you like, but we all know what torture is. Any honest definition includes using fear, repulsion, hatred, pain and other highly emotional manipulations of captured or detained people.
As always, I don't apologize for basing such declarations on my religious faith. Crucifixion was a form of torture which everyone knew was fatal. If simply executing the prisoner was the purpose, there are far more efficient ways to do it. We go on and on about humane procedures for ending life in animals, and it's patently illegal in just about every place on earth I've visited to torment them for any reason. But somehow it's our policy to treat captured enemies so badly no one wants to describe it in plain terms.
Bad as all that may be, the person administering the torture has to be someone you'd never want to meet. What happens when someone finds it "okay" to torture for any reason? Here's that religion thing again: Demons enter their souls. They become demon-possessed, literally possessed by demons. There's a plethora of studies in human behavior science showing people capable of torture are broken, bent and have entered far into the realm of "abnormal" -- they are sick, dangerously psychotic -- by conditioning to which they voluntarily submitted.
Let's pretend I had a much beloved pre-teen daughter. Let's further pretend she was captured and held by a band of nefarious terrorists, and we had managed to arrest one. Would I sanction terrorizing and torturing this man to get the information on her location for a rescue? No. If she were my daughter she would know that, too. She would know any society which finds it must torture to gain anything worthwhile, that society is already doomed, dead, and hopeless. If I permit torture, the demons enter my soul. If I rescue her by torture, the demons enter her soul. You cannot do God's good work using Satan's methods. God calls torture "sin". I'd rather my daughter suffer and die and go to Heaven than let demons take over her life on earth, and mine, along with whomever we commission to do that torture. I'd certainly rather take her place in a heartbeat, but the cost to the rest of humanity is just too high for my personal wishes to take precedence over everything else. I loved my own daughter all her life; love her still. I love other humans, too.
Life isn't worth much when you slam to door on God. Don't comprehend that value system? Then it saddens me to inform you Satan is your God, and Hell is your eternal destiny. The real battle in this world has nothing to do with any political division between humans. That's just background noise, and any nation which tortures is doomed, already under the judgment hand of God. America is already dead.
I've seen challenges to the assertion Scripture forbids torture. There are several websites, all of which reject the authority of Scripture in the first place, sites which collect a laundry list of places where beating is mentioned, burning with fire, stoning, and the favorite is King David's treatment of the Ammonites. Mention in Scripture is not necessarily approval. It's easy to take stuff out of context and twist meanings when you refuse to honor the source in the first place.
Without making this overly long, let's dispatch most of it. King David made numerous huge mistakes. They were mixed in with some pretty smart and heoric moves. We aren't permitted to know the full context of why he treated the Ammonites so poorly, but we should assume in the historical setting he conquered them, then judged their "crimes" and executed their leaders. It is highly unlikely he slaughtered peasants, since no one did back then, unless they were evil and nasty culturally (as with the Canaanites). This was an issue with the Amonnite warlords. Chances are he was not aiming at terrorizing innocent folks, but executing judgment on the guilty, even if it does seem grisly to our modern Western sensibilities (which generally defy Scripture, anyway). It's possible he went too far, but the context doesn't say.
Executions are executions. Grisly ones are reserved for exceptional violations. Jesus was tortured in the sense He committed no crime by any just standard. The Jewish leaders were utterly wrong. Beating is not torture if the punishment is deserved according to standards elsewhere in the Law. Beating someone to make them talk is torture. The general rule of dealing with enemies is covered by David's son, Solomon, in Proverbs 25:21-22:
If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; for so you heap coals of fire on his head. And the Lord will reward you. (NKJV)
There is nothing to take out of context there, because that portion of Proverbs is a list of epigrams and wise sayings, many quite unrelated to each other. However, we can surely see that an epigram is meant as a starting point for discussion, and expansion of the principle was expected.
Jesus said we could sum up the whole of written revelation at that time (the Old Testament) with two basic commandments:
Now, of course, we define "love" as the willful exertion of self in seeking the welfare of another. To love others is to love self, and to love self requires loving others. Both are the natural result of loving God, since He has indicated He loves all living beings. It's not just acting in the interests of others, but committing the will (heart) to a life-long course. A mere warm personal regard is a symptom, but proves nothing by itself. It matters not a whit what you believe or claim about being "born-again" -- this is God's command for all humanity. He said this is the whole matter of justice as God sees it.
It results in a social system often called "civility." You'll notice civility as a body of principle contains more about mending broken relationships than it has about avoiding breaks. There is an underlying assumption we humans will fail the high standard, but remain committed. Personal warm regard comes and goes with the vagaries of emotional winds, but that commitment is the point. It is not wholly rational, either. It is a matter of acknowledged duty, with an assumption much of it will never quite make sense. It comes down from above, a partial revelation of God, in terms of what He demands. You don't get there by constructing your own rational framework, but by accepting what's given from the very Authority which allows you to continue living.
This is all non-negotiable. Our silly notions about fairness and consent of the governed do not apply. God made you and offers one deal. Embrace it or suffer. You aren't quite on His level of competence, so don't pretend to question His decisions. Those decisions do have implications. You can seek clarification, but not on the grounds of what makes sense to you. Nor can you inquire by what authority He came to be in charge. If there is a higher court than God's, it's none of your concern; you are accountable to His.
The implications have at times been variously formulated and expressed. However, the summary remains a matter of personal commitment of the self. You cannot expect to substitute impersonal and objective performance for that. The fundamental sin of Western Civilization is depersonalizing, dehumanizing the structure of our social institutions. Objectivity is fine for examining the basic structure of matter, and will grant some hints of organic matter, but life itself is beyond such a framework of understanding. The very act of dismissing what cannot be measured and quantified by human intellectual inquiry is a sin. It is the anchor point for the damnation of Western Civilization. The other half of that sin is insisting the human intellect will someday obtain the measure of all things. God is not amused by that. Nobody is telling you to halt scientific inquiry, but to recognize limits.
Those limits include His demand you take humans as seriously as does He. Any thing you construct which serves to dehumanize people is just begging for God's wrath. You should not imagine He will fail to grant that request. It might not take place on the time scale of any living human, but it most certainly does come as a result. God has revealed all too clearly there are no two people alike. To the fullest extent of your ability, you are obliged to Him to treat every human individually, as a unique expression of His divine image. Bureaucratic regulation is sin, by definition. You are expected to use your individual wisdom to discern when any supplicant or applicant is lying and trying to manipulate your performance, but when providing any good or service, exceptions are the rule -- God's rule. Within the constraints of resources, talent and skill -- whatever it is you can't change in any given situation -- you are required to give full time and attention to making your efforts fit the unique needs of the individual before you. Dealing with masses as a single whole is simpler, because it reduces your burden. The more people we have to work with at a given moment, the more formalized and structured it has to be. However, we are not permitted to artificially aggregate individuals in how we treat them. God holds us accountable.
It pays to seek with all your abilities to comprehend the implications of God's command to love. It is the foundation of every promise He ever made for meeting human need. Peace, prosperity, health, security -- He concretely promised all these things were available to anyone willing to walk in His commandments. He also warned a failure to try, for any reason, guarantees you'll see none of those blessings. His Creation -- the Universe itself -- operates on the basis of those two commandments Jesus explained. It responds directly to living justly by love. That's the real secret to all things, to matter itself. You can't hope to measure and quantify love, but without it, this world will never yield its secrets, as it were.
God holds the whole human race accountable to some fundamental laws. It has nothing to do with going to Heaven, but a system by which humans can expect to gain a modicum of material prosperity, consistent health and longevity, and a measure of social stability. Obeying these laws will get you those things; flouting those laws will see them reduced. Ignore them long enough and eventually your country-nation-tribe will be destroyed. What makes it difficult is the penalties and blessings don't appear in the first generation, but may be a little slow in taking effect.
That's on the broader scale, but you can stake out some good things for youself regardless of your community. First and foremost, you must conceive some measure of belief this stuff actually works. That should be rather obvious. Simply adopt some basic principles.
The world is full to running over with whining cry-babies. Cultivate the image of a person so mature, no one can really hurt you. This isn't just good psychology; these are called basic rules of civility. Believe it or not, God actually cares whether you can live up to them. He actively manages this world in favor of people who know how to keep things civil. It won't get you to Heaven, but it will make things in this life as good as they get.
Jesus said loving your neighbor fulfills your obligation to God regarding His Creation (Mark 12:28-34).
The context of the discussion was very much a matter of law and Law. God had revealed His standards in a rather extensive suzerain-vassal treaty with the Nation of Israel, but the point of discussion was whether that could be summed up in simple statements. It could. The most basic requirement was giving God His due respect. The second was a similar respect for your fellow humans. To observe these two principles would easily sum up all the other written revelation from God.
The whole point was to think expansively, not narrowly. Western Civilization, via philosophical assumptions, does a very poor job extending an idea beyond its semantic boundaries. Ancient Near Eastern Civilization tended to use words as symbols of much bigger ideas, ideas hard to express in any human tongue. The point is: People who respect God and His revelation tend to act according to the principle of love. But not according our modern use of the term "love." We have almost nothing in our cultural matrix to account for the meaning Jesus gave the term.
He would probably accept this definition for love: Seeking the welfare of another person. That is, extending your ego boundaries to include other people, such that you realize their needs are your needs, and vice versa. This is what Jesus meant was lying under the Covenant of Noah, as well. If within your faculty for deciding how to act (your "will") you include a reckoning of what is in the best interest of others you touch, you will tend to act lawfully. The whole Old Testament structure of Law and laws regarding your duty to God for His Creation would be satisfied with putting humans first, and giving them all equal weight in deciding what's good behavior. Thus defined, love is the satisfaction of the law.
That almost everyone fails this is manifestly obvious. That is, no one of us ever really succeeds in keeping this principle at all times. God made plain, speaking as the ultimate Eastern Potentate of All Things, He would accept a certain amount of failure. He offered a vast array of means for restoring us to His good graces, largely based on the concept of apologizing, of confessing it was a mistake. Indeed, it's pretty much a confession we are worthless at it, but wish we weren't so powerless to do good. He made it clear it wasn't a matter of performance, but of desire. This does not repair all the damage we do, but it does keep us in the clear from God's perspective of active enforcement. That we willingly seek to clean up the mess is on-going proof of our confession we aren't perfect.
But some of that perfection is well within our reach.
Why do we find ourselves so easily turning to oppressive governments? Why do we not learn the lessons of history generation upon generation? Even if we set aside the very obvious fact certain "powers that be" do their best to prevent us knowing the real story, and when some of us actually get our hands on the real story, we still have a problem with this basic principle of love=law. It's not just the occasional error here and there, but a false orientation. There will always be bullies seeking an excuse to walk on others, and we will never get rid of them while the world remains fallen. We provide them the perfect excuse when we fail to observe the law of love.
We allow the behavior of bullies to become the target of our anger. That's okay, because a part of God's requirements in the Covenant of Noah is any government and laws must be just according to His standards, and there is an implied duty to reject a government which rejects God's standards. So rising up against the bullies of this world is not a sin in itself, because they can be murderous, and deserve to die for their crimes, as God commanded Noah must happen. The burden of executing that justice falls on the entire human race. Such a high standard is extrapolated into the basic commandments Jesus discussed with that Jewish lawyer that day. But when we allow that anger to affect how we treat others, we are in danger of our own judgment.
Carrying a gun is not a risk to other people unless you handle your gun poorly. Safe gun handling is a bigger threat to bullies than to anyone else. Refusing to pay taxes is a risk only to bullies. That they do some good things with that money does not excuse confiscation of property for all the other purposes which are unloving. The state apparatus which protects only itself and its prerogatives is evil by definition. But running a stop sign is a risk to everyone. Some actions are not merely defiance of the bullies; they defy the principle of love itself.
The burden upon you and I is to evaluate each day, sometimes every step of the way, whether our actions constitute love. When the demands are competing, we cannot simply favor ourselves willy-nilly, we have to decide what really matters. If we never think about it in the first place, we have already failed to love. Failure to love is a blanket failure of all laws. That means the bullies have won. We have no moral standing to oppose them. If you are going to rise up on moral grounds, on the love=law principle, you have to show some good faith effort to observe it yourself.
Very often, your recalcitrant observation of that principle is itself the ultimate act of rebellion against tyrants.
There seems to be an awful lot of noise lately, attempting to silence dissent, about how we must reconcile ourselves to legitimate government. "So-n-so won the election and that's that!" No, it isn't. Merely raising the issue brings along whole ship-loads of baggage.
If you want to suggest "might makes right," then be prepared for a great amount of bloodshed, including your own blood. There is none so awesome in battle he'll never meet someone else out there who can beat him, sooner or later. If we rely merely on the acquiescence of the majority, we are guaranteed to fail. On the one hand, we can at least point out very blunt statements from our founding fathers about the foolishness of simple majority rule. If you ask that huge bunch of folks pushing "hate crimes" legislation, they would suggest the will of the majority alone does not confer legitimacy. To appeal to some body of work proposing to enunciate the moral rights and responsibilities of modern humanity will quickly bring us back to the issue of a dissenting minority -- including folks like me -- who reject such arrogant nonsense. We weren't consulted -- we were excluded -- in the formation of these presumptive landmark declarations. You can't have it both ways.
When we are confronted by people who demand we grant the legitimacy of this or that government, regime, administration, etc., we have to be fully aware of the methods of propaganda -- which is a fancy word for lying manipulation. Part of that technique is to bypass critical elements of the debate, often using emotion-laden terms to stake out forgone conclusions. This is compounded by having taken place in stages over time, so that we are facing many layers of false assertions, things "everyone knows" so as to prevent debate. It behooves the Servant of God to detect these unspoken assumptions and point them out.
Aside from questions of legitimacy of current processes (a huge and important question in its own right), we have to remember the current USA is not a nation, by definition. A "nation" is a single people, held together by cultural bonds at least, if not a shared racial-ethnic identity. There is no such thing as a uniquely American culture, aside from a thin veneer, a shallow layer of mixed ideas drawn from others. It happens to be some of the worst adaptations, given there has been a concerted effort to make our culture the means to enslaving us, keeping us agitated by imaginary divisions, and above all, keeping us away from God. Thus, we have not been united as a country for at least a century. The loudest voices in our world today have intentionally prevented any peaceful unity. Instead, we have a massive lie about vague threats to force us to unify artificially on a wartime footing. Well, the war is not us against some outside enemy, but the ruling class against us, for your information. Whether anyone likes it or not, we cannot use the term "nation" to refer to the USA; we are an empire of many disparate nations within our borders. Most are subject nations, tributaries forced to support the conquering imperial government against their will and against their best interests.
We are a State. This modern State arose as result of a revolt against some prior imperial government elsewhere. While there are claims of violations on both sides, it seems those on this side were relatively minor, and mostly a reaction to far more egregious violations by the ruling regime we fought. That revolt was recognized by other States as legitimate because it ostensibly followed established principles for such things. Those principles arise from the Treaty of Westphalia. That event gave birth to the Modern State.
Prior to the Peace of Westphalia, feudalism was the order of the day. Legitimacy was based wholly upon claims of inherited title. Feudalism operated under a rather fluid philosophy of chivalry, and generally depended on the ancient Roman Catholic Church to interpret legitimacy, at least in part. That the Church had a direct interest in the outcome of such questions served to raise the question of her own legitimacy, and that was what led to Westphalia. However, much of what passed for a guiding set of principles arose in part from the ancient Roman Church, mixed with Teutonic cultural foundations.
A strong element in these antecedents requires a ruling family or class perform due diligence in protecting life, property and prosperity. Lacking the power to execute such a duty brings into question the legitimacy of their rule. At the heart of the matter, feudal powers accrued by voluntary surrender of freeholders to any warlord capable of maintaining stability of life and social order against external threats and internal predators.
The US government built upon the principle of the Modern State, but pulled in some philosophical elements of Classical Civilization, mostly Greece and Rome. The Roman Church brought forward an awful lot of that, too, so it was not entirely new, but at the time of our Founding Fathers, it was quite fashionable as "new" to claim some adherence to the Classics. By all rights, our US Constitution, more honored by abuse than by obedience, was not legitimate. You see, not a single member of the Constitutional Committee was authorized to replace the Articles of Confederation. That the states adopted it is still subject to questions of legitimacy, since more than one withdrew after passing it. Further, most of Lincoln's rhetoric was a blatant violation of even that Constitution, not to mention plain logic. Frankly, there is a good solid foundation for questioning the legitimacy of the current ruling regime of the USA by its own internal documents, as well failing to answer justly much older questions.
Again, that citizens of this empire acquiesce does not settle the issue. Frankly, the whole mess fails the most fundamental question of legitimacy of all: The Bible. According to that book, there are two kinds of people in the world -- servants of Christ and others. Notice I didn't use the term "born-again." We cannot possibly know whether another person is born-again; we can only observe whether we see the Fruits of the Spirit. There's plenty of debate what that means, but I'll set that aside for the moment to continue the academic thread. The point is, we have a whole world of humans who don't follow Jesus. The Bible says they fall under the Covenant of Noah. In case it's not too obvious what that means, we have a singular application of that covenant in history, commonly referred to as the Kingdom of Israel. Whatever else you might want to say about that kingdom, it was an example of what Noah looked like when applied in those specific circumstances. We can abstract some basic principles from that example by which we can safely assume all governments are held accountable to God.
First of all, not a single Modern State is safe. The principles of Noah assume ANE feudalism (different from Medieval European feudalism). Further, they assume tribal living, and a clear and distinct division of power between social government and civil government. The latter has one primary function: defense. There attaches a limited function of maintaining internal order, but that is highly limited. Your clan and tribe are the only government with any real legitimate interest in your daily affairs. No one who isn't related by blood or marriage has any authority from God to govern your daily existence.
Not a single Modern State is legitimate in God's eyes.
There is a fundamental sin behind the notion of corporations as legal persons. Human nature is such that, if we can dodge our individual culpability, we will. Until the consequences fall upon our personal heads, we do not change what we do. While it's also true of government figures, that's just an extension of the principle: If I am acting in a vested capacity on behalf of any group, then I cannot be held personally liable. Baloney.
Under the Covenant of Noah, all things are personal. The concept of corporate culpability is a perversion of the household culpability. If the master of a household sins, on the earthly level his entire household is liable for the consequence. That's not a matter of spiritual dynamics, nor some hocus-pocus where God holds three or four generations guilty. To read it so is bringing false assumptions to the text of Scripture. God was merely noting the importance of every head of household, and his accountability before God. Sons shall not be punished for a father's guilt, but the son will certainly be burdened by the consequences of a father's mistakes, and will have to live down the evil repute which attaches to his name. Subsequent generations can certainly choose to distinguish themselves as better people. The point is, it's all personal.
Under a biblical ruling, you cannot reduce your liabilities to mere tort. While it should certainly include financial liability, we fail God's demands under Noah when we allow a CEO to escape personal liability for decisions he made at the head of the corporation. If for the sake of profits, he allowed a couple hundred people to be poisoned and die, he should die. It's really that simple. That's in part a fundamental assumption about justice in God's eyes under Noah. There is no such thing as an impersonal corporation. First of all, you can't run a business where you don't claim personal ownership, unless you are serving as the appointed manager of someone else who does own it. In that case, you remain personally liable, but so does the owner. You can sell shares in the profits only; you remain the actual owner from God's viewpoint. In effect, companies don't exist, only people and families. You can't run a business where the officers aren't family, unless you all agree to bear responsibilities as if you were family -- that's called a covenant. God assumes an officer is family, but a servant can be anybody hired off the street. Servants are not liable before the law, but only to their master. However, you cannot create a legal fiction of a company which has nothing but servants. Somebody carries the personal liability, and all property is owned by an individual human. Our system in the West is completely and utterly in defiance of God. The whole thing violates God's requirements, so it's inherently evil from the start. Expect God to destroy it and everything which supports it.
If you suggest changing back to the ancient, "primitive" model would hamper material progress, you are wrong. God decides what is appropriate in terms of material progress. His promises were quite lavish, and any reading the Torah will show that. Do it His way, and you will find Him personally in favor of it, granting by that favor material prosperity, among other things. All the logic in the world means nothing, because you can't pretend God is not involved. You may find yourself in a world where you cannot escape such a false regime of economics, but at the very least you should denounce it to have any hope of receiving God's favor for yourself.
Protesters seem to understand a piece of this. When you see attempts to name and shame the individual leaders of things they despise, it's often condemned as "getting personal" -- as if there were something immoral about that. Such condemnation of their tactics is backwards from what God has said. If we post the names and addresses of, say, the head officers at Monsanto as legitimate targets for some form of harassment, that's biblical.
The reason it's biblical is because it exercises the proper form of pressure. It's not about fiduciary liability so much as personal liability. It's not a civil matter, but a matter of personal decisions made by individual people which is known harmful to a lot of folks who have no say in the matter. The corporate structure of Monsanto is itself illegitimate, so simply suing them is giving credibility to the whole mess. Under Noah, this is not a civil matter; this is a social matter. That Monsanto's doings are a threat is simply a fact. Monsanto won't behave as good members of the vast horde of communities they affect, so they need to be punished. It starts by applying moral pressure and appeals for better decisions. Failing that, they need to be kicked out of those communities. If they won't go, they should be physically violated and forced to go. Communities have an inherent right to defend themselves against threats. That's how the Bible views it.
It does enter into rather muddy waters when we talk about communities making decisions of that sort. Right now, we have a very tough time with it because most communities themselves are in sin, not following the biblical patterns. Again, this is not about sins in spiritual terms, but very concrete actions in violation of God's law for this fallen world as granted under the Covenant of Noah, and as expanded and exemplified in the Covenant of Moses. Protesters do not have to be born-again Christians to reap the blessings of God on how they go about the business of protesting; they need only abide by the conventions of Noah.
We need a little clarity here. On many libertarian websites you'll find the underlying theme, often bluntly stated, of preferring the Free Market over the State.
For those of us who serve Christ, the eternal viewpoint is the Market and the State are competitors, not enemies. If you grant all power to the State, you have a nightmare world of oppression. But if you grant all power to the Market, you will still have a nightmare world of oppression. The libertarian worship of human freedom is based on the Enlightenment assumption man is essentially a good moral agent. It won't matter what they say to the contrary, this is the undeniable philosophical assumption on which they build all their theory.
Man is fallen. Allow the market to rule and you will have oppression by commercial government-in-effect. Everything will be slanted in favor of the merchant's profit. You can talk all you want about fair and free competition, but without a big stick, you can't begin to keep any businessman honest. If it has to do with any part of human behavior, there must be a restriction imposed by other humans. However fouled up that may be, it's the facts. It's the reason why God established the Covenant of Noah. Assuming a Free Market merchant will tend to be fair, simply because it's in his own best interest, is too silly to chase very long. There has to be something of a risk, or he'll quickly do only what makes him happy, regardless what it costs others. This remains true of the whole, regardless what may be true of individual specimens.
The Laws of God assume the only proper and just restraint on sin is Himself working through His chosen instrument, the patriarchal extended family setting. For all the evil seen in that by Western Civilization, everything else so far has been worse. The mere notion we can reach an earthly Nirvana if we just keep studying and tweaking the system is one of Satan's favorite lies. What no one wants to admit is the ultimate trend of the Free Market is simply the State with another name. If all are restrained under the one head authorized by God -- the patriarch -- neither the State nor the Market will tyrannize the people. There might still be tyranny, but God has already explained how that is limited. It's just that no one wants to study up on it and find out how it works when His Word is obeyed.
Democracy in the widest sense of the word includes any system of government by which the people decide things. A republic is simply indirect democracy. The result of making it indirect is to slightly slow the degradation inherent in the choice to let every citizen -- or "stakeholder" -- have a voice, but also creates a much larger and more persistent ruling class separate from the people.
The very act of pretending the people have an interest and stake in things means the primary form of criminal behavior will be based on deception. While tyrants may use deception to delay negative reaction until after the thing is done, the fundamental nature of democratic assumptions will guarantee deception from start to finish. The notion there is something sacred in the will of the people assumes a level of character in government people which simply does not exist. That we do have a few now and then makes them exceptional, noteworthy. Power and wealth are two edges of the same sword of oppression, and once a man gets hold of the handle, it's more intoxicating than any drug.
History offers too many consistent examples to refute this. History shows there is no advantage to placing any power in the hands of the governed, because they will inevitably hand it over for all the wrong reasons to all the wrong people. It is an utterly silly basis for deciding anything which matters. All it does is beg for someone to become proficient at manipulating the masses. In our current condition in the West, we have been shaped over several generations to be particularly easy to manipulate. The difference between what we now have and the old "divine right of kings" is a greater share of society is dishonest by necessity.
Thus, to tinge the notion of "consent of the governed" with some mystical holiness is a lie in itself. It guarantees deception will be the fundamental essence of the entire society. Not the sort of "mind your own business" privacy of civility, but this is the outright denial of justly informed decision making. It has never been otherwise in human history. All that pretty talk about earning respect is just noise. The only way anyone can justly hold your respect is when you see their actions first hand, and the results of those actions. When that person can go away, out of your sight, and return with the bacon, you have no way of knowing if it's even bacon. You have to be there for the slaughtering of the hog, the butchering, and help guard the smokehouse door as a member of a close community. Otherwise, you have no business trusting them, as they go away to become part of another community, one fundamentally based on serving self.
The biblical standard remains: No one has any business under God's Heaven of governing you unless they are related by marriage or blood. Government is family, and family is government. Any other system is damned. What appears to the Western mind as the random results of birthright is actually protected and guided by God when Noah's Laws are observed. That does not remove evil patriarchs, but limits the harm they do. Instead, we have the modern world which dissolves households and follows the enticing piping of Satan.
Claire Wolf once asked "Is It Time, Yet?" People who actually take the time to read what she had to say will realize it was "time" a long time ago, in the moral sense. You don't have to read between the lines to realize the underlying theme of all such writings: In order to keep God's justice alive, you have to act on the Covenant of Noah quickly every time. When someone rises up who expresses a casual disregard for other humans, you must not allow them to live.
That was the meaning of Noah, and Jesus made it all the more clear when He spoke of loving your neighbor as yourself. In case you just can't operate on that ANE epistemology, let me clarify. Jesus took pains to elaborate the meaning of "neighbor" so no one could weasel out of it -- your fellow humans, all over the world, are your "neighbor" whenever they are in your neighborhood. It's not about residential proximity, but proximity of time and place. We are designed by God to love and care about those with whom we spend time. The more time, the more active is our love. You have to condition yourself to keep from doing that. There is no excuse! If the person in question is the enemy of your nation (Judeans versus Samaritans, for example), they qualify as "neighbor" when they do you no harm. Bad blood is just Satan's excuse to lead you into sin. The point remains: How are they acting now? You might be guarded, but peace is peace, and love is actively seeking the welfare of another.
So it's equally obvious when someone means you harm, you aren't supposed to tolerate that. That makes them "not your neighbor." And while Jesus taught us to forgive 70x7 (meaning don't bother counting), you and I know most people can't rise to that, so Jesus left a more reachable standard, and left the Covenant of Noah in place. It won't matter what excuse they use, anyone who seeks actively to reduce your welfare is your enemy. The justice of God under Noah is to stop such people from harming the community at large. Not just your own petty revenge; that's not supported at all. No, it has to be a real danger to others.
What Claire makes utterly clear is that threat should have been punished the first time it reared its ugly head. The first time someone in government pay sought to increase government prerogatives at the expense of citizen welfare, that was the time to have shot them. That first restriction on firearm ownership was when the judges should have been shot, along with the bureaucrats who prompted them to rule against liberty. The first time a federal agent donned a weapon for enforcement purposes, they whole agency was a prime target. But we did nothing then, and we'll surely do nothing now until it's way too late. The moment that "public servant" steps across the line, when that person decides anyone under his care is less deserving than himself or any other government employee, he is in sin. He is at that moment unjust, and a threat to the community.
Have you seen the change? When I was wearing the accouterments of a policeman, along with that went the training which emphasized respecting those I policed. Yes, I am fully aware most of my fellow officers forgot that in the first five minutes after donning their official marks of authority, but the training was there, the ideal stood, of which we were often reminded. So when some idiot stood before me in flagrante delicto, highly agitated because they didn't like getting caught doing wrong, and are fully prepared to argue up and down they did no wrong, I was still required to respect them enough to act in a fashion to defuse their tension. There were times I might not be able to do that, but it was my default line of action, and I was to always go back there when conditions changed to permit it. You won't see that much today. Today, officers make no allowance whatsoever for your humanity. You will either comply servilely, or you will get hurt.
Let me be the first to tell you: In God's justice under Noah, you can without sin execute such officers. We all know it won't be so easy in terms of real world consequences, but if you can remain as calm as the officer should have been, and act with due deliberation and intelligence, with an eye to the real needs of the community you are obliged to serve, it is not a sin. Yes, you are a member of the community, and you have a duty before God to act in their welfare. It's called, "Love your neighbor as yourself." That these things cannot be easily done, and it may well be a futile gesture, simply proves Claire's point. We have waited far, far too long. Now things won't improve until the whole structure is destroyed and we start from scratch. You and I bear the consequences of such a mess existing.
Don't bother making brain-dead noises about the civil process of correcting government. It hasn't been possible since the early 1800s in the US. The whole thing was stolen, and "the will of the people" was simply code language for manipulating the people through restricting information and spouting propaganda. Today's government, at any level you choose, is wholly unlikely to respond appropriately to any call for redress of grievances. We have long been ruled by a class apart, folks who play by their own rules regardless what's on paper, and surely regard you with contempt.
Pay attention when you read the Old Testament. You will notice: Every command from God under the Covenants assumes a tribal social structure. You cannot obey any of God's Laws without it. As always, for Christians, the reality is symbolic of a higher standard. So that means when you come together in Christian fellowship, you are required by Christ to construct a spiritual tribal structure before you are permitted to call it "church." In other words, for a church, DNA is not required, but the social structure is still the same.
There is no place in modern Western Civilization for recognizing this requirement. Try it, and every law of man will come against you. Satan hates it when we obey God, even if all we do is execute the mere worldly obedience to the Laws of God under Noah. The very foundation of the American judicial system, and all the assumptions, stated or unstated, condemn the tribal structure and lifestyle, as if it were the same as crime, moral turpitude, etc. When Western law speaks of "society" and its justified expectations, it's just code language for the state as it dictates to the conscience of the citizen. "These are our social standards because we say so." All this posturing from so-called Christian legal minds and philosophers, seeking to promote a society with no household larger than the "nuclear family" are just fools operating in the service of Satan.
No human on earth is under any moral obligation, or spiritual obligation, to give allegiance to such a government. There may be compelling tactical reasons for playing along, but in the end, obedience to God is rejecting the Modern State. It is only in the Modern State you would have some central authority proposing to force subjects to accept inoculations. Only the Modern State would make it a virtue to shield drug manufacturers from liability, because only the Modern State makes it so easy for those manufacturers to purchase laws favoring their corporate profit. Anyone in a tribal setting who tried to pull a stunt like this would be justly lynched by their tribe, the people of their own kin to whom they are responsible. Only in the Modern State can we imagine a barrier protecting the rulers from the ruled.
So let's get this out, bluntly and in the open: I would encourage you, in the name of God Almighty, to refuse to cooperate with any further inoculation programs promoted by our secular government. In case you haven't already realized it, let's make sure you understand from here on out, there is no possible justification for the current programs other than profit. It has absolutely no grounds in genuine health needs, and those who insist otherwise are fools or clients of the profiting drug makers. It is too easy to find factual scientific studies debunking the official lies. The primary falsehood is the safety of these "medicines." Most include poisons which serve no other purpose than convenience and profit of the manufacturer. I'll bet you could find a lot of other links, yourself.
God is with you if you choose to resist.
Nothing in Scripture justifies the notion any nation is special before God. The one and only nation to ever hold that status was Israel, later reduced to the southern half named Judah. Once Christ died on the Cross, that status was ended. The Covenant of Moses was fulfilled, and sealed shut in His blood. From that time forward, the only special nation was the Nation of the Spirit, the Tribe of Christ.
Even while it stood, the Covenant of Moses was merely a unique case of the Covenant of Noah. Moses was unique and limited: that people, that time, that place. Noah remains active. Thus, while there cannot ever again be any nation with special standing before God, any nation can gain His favor, equally on the same terms for all. It is idolatry of nationalism, even worship of the State, to believe your nation, your country, your people, have any special status before God since Christ.
It is an awful and damning heresy held today by many that somehow the US is special in God's sight. This is simply arrogance projected onto the national scale. If your church posts the American battle flag in the place of worship, you have a very serious problem with purity of loyalty. Every place where God's people gather for worship is the place to declare loyalty to Him alone, and fealty to His Realm. That Realm is rooted in Heaven, and sweeps in the entirety of Creation. To imagine no other nation could be as close to God as the US is blasphemy, for it serves to reject God's own revelation.
Further, it is manifestly obvious the US was never all that special to God. When you examine the requirements of Noah, you find we fail most of the tests. Individual requirements of that covenant are hindered by law, and the national requirements are flagrantly rejected by the US Constitution, not to mention the de facto national policies (most of which now defy that constitution). We were founded in sin because we rejected the most basic assumption required to understand and obey the commands of God: we don't have a tribal social structure: "Pay attention when you read the Old Testament. You will notice: Every command from God under the Covenants assumes a tribal social structure. You cannot obey any of God’s Laws without it."
By our arrogant insistence the Word of God must yield to our Western rationalist epistemology, it is but a short step from the heresy of American Exceptionality to somehow imagining Modern Israel as a State fulfills any part of the Covenant of Moses. Both the US and Israel are based on the damnable idiocy of Westphalian Sovereignty. This modern rationalist notion is read back into Scripture, so that a "nation" becomes a non-personal entity. Under God's revelation, all things are personal. The idea a government can somehow exist separate from the people who fill the offices is an insult to God. He does not deal with impersonal governments; they are all condemned by default for their inherent rejection of accountability.
Saying we have voting is just a way of preventing accountability under the cover of implementing something so easily faked. Further, it limits accountability to a single periodic moment, during which passions can be stirred and manipulated, easily by-passing the daily accountability God intended. God's idea of accountability is person to person, you and me, just as we stand before Him. No other form of accountability exists. Depersonalizing government is to dehumanize the governed -- the quintessential sin of Rome in John's Revelation.
So America stands today before God as a people particularly afflicted with the arrogance of demanding God had better straighten up and fix things or His name will be mud. I'm sure He's really impressed with that.
By now, it should be clearly established how utterly illegitimate is the current ruling regime in the eyes of God. Not only do the laws of the land directly attack what He requires under the Law Covenants, but our entire Western culture seems designed to prevent us even understanding those covenants. The government, and all major industries, are complicit in making this culture all the more so. The very essence of obedience to God, and loyalty to His Laws, make you a rebel and criminal. While there may be tactical reasons for going with the flow at some points, you will invariably come to the place where you have to say, "No, I will not do that."
In the broad sense of God's standards, there is no sin in resisting the will of the US government.
Keep in mind, this thing called "government" is not some objective entity, as we are taught to believe. Government is people, people who have separated themselves from any personal liability in carrying out whatever policy seems to please the various dreams and aspirations of some particular ruling class. That those who govern are scarcely aware of the will of the governed, nor inclined to pay them any mind, is manifestly obvious. These people don't care what you want or need; they will decide what you need and you darned sure better like it.
So when that American battle flag is marched before you, the slightest hesitation in falling down to worship this emblem of the State is justification for all manner of vilification. Should you pretend the Cross is a higher symbol of a higher Realm, you should expect to be oppressed. Should you dare to suggest the Cross of Christ demands something other than the will of the governing class, you are a branded a heretic, even by the folks who fill most churches.
You know where this is leading: Do not volunteer to serve in the government, to include in the military forces. As a general principle, such service is placing yourself under the authority of Christ's enemies. By no means do I suggest military service itself is sinful. Military service under the current regime is a sin. There was a time I would have said if you felt called, go enlist or whatever. I can't say that any more. That's because you cannot make that choice without committing yourself to the vast evil enterprise of our current senseless wars.
You've read about the Israeli ships steaming into the Persian Gulf? After all the sabre-rattling of the past few years, only a fool would imagine it's just a training cruise. And only a bigger fool would imagine any action by Israeli war craft against Iran won't suck us into it. Don't pay any attention to what the various mouthpieces in the US government say. Look at what they do. They keep sending those huge checks to Israel, tons of advanced munitions, etc. We keep Israel under the paint job of sainthood.
Never mind how big the lies about Iran's nuclear ambitions -- we can't afford it! Not only does all this warfare drain the treasury, but it's sucking in the lives of our most productive people. The hideous nature of this evil war is seen not just the body bags, but the vast numbers crippled in mind and body. Now, volunteers are one thing; if their conscience allows them to go, let them. But it will simply be utterly impossible for us to support a war against Iran, much less actually invade, without a draft. Can't be done. The military doesn't have enough troops for the current commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. All the Draft Boards have been reactivated recently. Yep, they are geared up to turn on that huge life-sucking machinery.
If you have already registered for the draft, prepare to avoid it. If you have not, consider ways to avoid that. Get some practical advice. If it involves your kids, do all in your power to stop it. To paraphrase Vox Day, "Render not your children unto Caesar." In this case, it's tantamount to tossing them in the arms of the glowing idol to Molech. In recent decades, no significant portion of our military activity has actually done anything to defend us and make us safer. Quite the contrary; we have created a bunch of new enemies by our senseless failure to protect the innocent.
This is not the same as counseling hostility to the troops. Don't forget the basic, "Love your neighbor as yourself." For believers, that includes, "Love your enemies." Pity them, comfort them, but don't support their mission. You'll have to work out for yourself where to draw the line in the sand which separates them from their mission.
But that there should be a line drawn in the sand is not up for discussion. Military draft resistance is not a sin.
Truth is a Person. You cannot have truth detached from God, as all truth reflects God or it is a lie. So all truth is God's truth. Truth cannot exist separate from His Person. The fundamental nature of the entire universe is personal, as it was all created as a reflection of God's self-revelation. The key to understanding existence, of being itself, is to understand it remains rooted in someone living.
Among other things, the source of all sorrow and sin -- Satan -- seeks to kill, to degrade and enslave all those living. Not just that, but to destroy the essence of what it means to live.
It's all cut from the same cloth. We are aware the foundation of Western intellectual culture is mostly in Greece, with the Greek Philosophers. The two most frequent names are Plato and Aristotle. In a certain sense, we could say the entire foundation of Western Civilization really stands on Aristotle, in particular. His entire epistemology assumes nothing worth knowing can remain outside man's intellectual grasp -- given sufficient time and inclination, man can know everything worth knowing. Man is the measure of all things. Modern materialism, and lots of other "-isms" arise from these assumptions, directly or indirectly. In the process, ultimate truth becomes a dead, objective entity.
You find this assumption behind all the arguments about religion which forcefully declare there is some objective standard to which conceptions of God can be measured. In such a world, God is reduced to something made by man's mind, or He must be rejected.
From such a background comes the modern rejection of all God has ever commanded. The notion we could remove the personality from things is the reason we have the modern nation-state, also called Westphalian Sovereignty: the notion we can have an impersonal State, which is more or less sacrosanct.
This is the foundation for creating a concept of government which does not include the persons doing the governing. We create offices and structures, and the persons carry a very limited liability for decisions made while in that office. It removes the soul from government, so that you cannot possibly come back and require accountability, except in the most impersonal form of merely changing the rules and laws. As if that fixes things.
It also allows the legal fiction of corporations as "persons" under the law. This means the evil of the corporate officers will never cost them, so long as what they do can be found by some twisted logic to be not quite criminal. Instead, it costs the corporation, which means the stockholders and customers. The crooks running the thing get off with a golden parachute.
It presents the fiction no one needs to be concerned with standing before God, at least not in this life, because there is probably no God. If there is, it's of no consequence because it won't affect you here and now.
That's the ultimate lie. That people seem to grow old and die unscathed is only apparent, but that issue is used to hide from accountability to God for the high responsibility of being in the driver's seat. Just as surely as God promises various levels of reward in Heaven, so there are various levels of punishment in Hell, though such could hardly be understood on this side. Worse, that lie tries to ignore how wrath accumulates to the nation as a whole.
Not a single government operating under the principles espoused in the Peace of Westphalia -- that whole business of the Modern State -- is acceptable before God. Each of them begins with a rejection of God's requirements under Noah. Only the tribal nations have any hope.
Rising up in revolt against the nation state, an organized armed rebellion, is nothing more than one criminal government replacing another, trading one sin for another. There is no compelling requirement under Noah to do that. However, there is a compelling interest in resisting the unjust demands of such a government. To have standing before God when opting for such resistance, you must first embrace Noah, not so much in the fulfillment, as in the commitment and intention.
Some implications of such resistance can be found in this article, Biblical Rebellion. As you would expect, the discussion includes both earthly and spiritual applications. If you are going to take that route, you might as well do it right. When you seek to resist bad government God's way, you can fully expect His support.
The point of these studies is not to constrain your understanding, but to offer you my understanding to provoke your own sincere search for the truth. Here I am offering a sort of workshop to teaching you how to apply the theory. Let's review key items of that theory:
Let us explore briefly an example of how we can apply this understanding to the situation before us in the world today. The conclusion will be startling.
Afghanistan is not a nation, but a geographical abstraction. It's a country which includes numerous nations. By now you should realize the nations there adhere to a tribal structure, which is the fundamental requirement under Noah. Aside from our intervention, these tribes have generally experienced some tension and warfare as far back as anyone can find records. What laws exist are culturally based. Virtually the entire population of all those tribes are some brand of Muslim.
It's odd how the modern Western world finds that situation barbaric, since each modern nation hardly blinks at their own brutal slaughters using weapons of mass destruction, such as the US air drones do in Afghanistan. We are blind to their essential liberty of spirit, and the broad willingness to keep what they have in preference to our Western moral and material decadence. What might be most frightening to our minds as we study Noah's Laws is realizing those tribes are far, far closer to Noah than any Western nation-state. The flaw, of course, would be their adherence to Islam.
Islam was founded by a very intelligent young fellow who traveled a good bit in the Middle East and Near East some six centuries after Christ. He brushed up against Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and a broad mixture of pagan religions, and appears to have read their sacred writings, observed their practices. His own people mostly served a pagan moon god. From this exposure, he developed a syncretic religion of his own. We should assume he sincerely believed what he taught, though we naturally discount some of the mythical claims of Islam regarding winged horses and Mohamed's travel on them. What we should not discount is how very much it all reflects the ANE worldview. Arabs in general, and Muslim Arabs in particular, are culturally closer to the ANE than any mainstream branch of Judaism, in part because Mohamed rejected much of the latter's Hellenism. Any critique of Islam based on Western intellectual and cultural assumptions is simply ludicrous.
By no means should we consider Islam a good implementation of Noah. In summary, it's easy to see sharia courts are inhumane by God's standard, a horrific extremist enforcement. However, we should realize it is yet much closer than any part of the Western world. While extreme, those courts are asserting fundamentally decent and just requirements. For example, demanding the burkha is patently silly. At the same time, modesty is certainly God's command. The very concept of "modesty" is inherently relative, but even from a Noahic viewpoint, the burkha is extreme and unjustified, albeit fundamentally correct. Frankly, the Taleban are generally welcomed by everyone in Afghanistan except the hedonist thugs, who seek the most despicable libertine behavior for themselves, even as they are more oppressive and capricious than the Taleban.
We never forget God remains the Ultimate Sovereign, and we will often find His choices inscrutable. Barring some purpose and plan we cannot grasp, we are left with this conclusion: The Afghani Taleban are far more compliant with Noah than the US, or any Western allies. According to the standards of Noah's Covenant, we should expect God to give the Taleban victory over US troops. This, of course, requires we understand military victory in ANE terms. It's not a matter of who slaughters the most, but who is left standing on the battlefield. I predict, based on the Bible, the US will be forced to withdraw in disgrace, much as the Soviets before us, who had ten times our number of boots on the ground.
Why would God allow Islam to spread so relentlessly around the world? Because so many nominal Christians have no answer for this, they have concluded God wants them to destroy the Muslims through war. Isn't Islam and evil religion?
Islam is not a religion, per se. It is best to view Islam as a social milieu with a religious component. Further, the cultural and intellectual foundation of Islam is rather close to the ANE. As such, we find Islam produces a society much closer to Noah than just about any other society currently in existence. Islam is not good; it is simply better. In terms of the Covenant of Noah, it is by far vastly superior to Western Civilization as it now exists.
For God to remain consistent in His promises under Noah, He must grant a preference to it as the best game in town. Barring the rise of something more precisely observant of Noah, it will eventually take over most of the world. It is hardly a secret the Christian faith slices through the religious component of Islam like a hot knife through butter, as it does every other belief system on this planet. Genuine Christianity is based entirely on the miracle of God's grace bringing life to dead souls. Wherever the gospel is presented with any degree of accuracy, God uses it to open the spiritual graves and bring His Son's Spirit into the new born spirits. No other religion could possibly offer that. Our grand mistake is not going farther to claim the better understanding of Noah, and building a social structure to reflect it. Instead, we spin our wheels promoting the failed Western rationalist society. That society is powerless to resist the superior covenant embrace of Islamic culture.
Western Evangelical ignorance and confusion about the actual requirements in the Bible provokes us to hideous behavior which God cannot support, even as we carry His Spirit in our faith.
It is not necessary to be spiritual to get a word from God on things.
Consider: Under Moses, the designated priests could get a word from God regardless of their spiritual condition. All they needed was ritual adherence. There were, of course, other factors, such as the nation's faithfulness as a whole. There also has to be a mechanism for asking which offers God a chance to ignore your question. This is totally consistent with ANE ethics, particularly regarding interactions with royalty. God casts Himself as the ultimate ANE Sheik. Keep in mind Moses is a subset of Noah.
However, in a broad general sense, most of what we regard as miracles and miraculous intervention was according the Law Covenants, not a genuine spiritual link with God. The spiritual connection adds a whole new element, but does not change the fundamentals. When people observe the Laws, they have standing to ask for things according to the promises of the Laws. I'm not sure exactly what we might do to mark the answers to questions, since we have no reliable information on what exactly is meant by "drawing lots before the Lord." Perhaps this is something which simply requires a certain amount of testing.
Strictly speaking, dealing with ANE royalty was mostly a matter of protocol. We assume nothing simply because no one of us could possibly know enough about the Sheik's business to always get it right. Still, when He proposes a covenant, aside from what seems to us caprice because we don't know all the angles, we address it mostly as an element of mystery attached to all things. We fulfill the best we know, make a request through proper channels, and wait for a response at the Sheik's leisure. Naturally, we try our best to make our requests consistent with what we know of His character.
So any Joe Sixpack who is observant of the Laws of Noah can ask God for a good harvest, and have reason to believe it will come. He could, for example, ask for God's guidance choosing between two or three prospective brides, and reasonably expect His choice to be according to His interests, but would work out well in those terms. The same goes with other perplexing life choices. The guidance offered will always be regarding things covered in the Covenant -- things of this world. Please notice: Satan and the demons are generally bound by the same Laws. We can't possibly fathom the actual details, but demonic activity is permitted or restricted by God according to the Laws of Noah, which remains the covenant binding all humanity today. The story of Job points out the inscrutable angle in God operating outside the scope of our understanding, yet in the long run, according to His promises. Variations are more likely to happen when the person involved is spiritual, due to higher expectations from God, and far less often when they are not spiritual.
It should be obvious under no circumstances should anyone expect paradise on this earth. Certain select individuals, for whatever reason, may approach that, or at least seem to be almost there. However, you and I, regardless of spiritual condition, should never expect it. We should always expect to be denied critical information as part of the Covenant conditions, which will maintain a certain variability in how things work out. However, the promises of the Covenant are unshakable. Perhaps you'll remember the Western bias for precision is a major hindrance here.
Thus, in terms Evangelicals will understand, God does hear a sinner's prayer for covenant blessings under Noah. The theology which states God hears only one prayer from sinners, that of confession and commitment to Christ, is not supported in the Bible. It's a logical derivative of the Westminster Accords, which are themselves entirely too Aristotelian to be faithful to Scripture. The declaration by certain religious organizations God works only, or works best, under their organizational structure, is only so accurate as they adhere to Noah. Any degree of Aristotelian or Platonic assumptions will guarantee they are wrong.
Loose lips sink ships. But only if the government owning the ships has rejected God. So let me propose a counter sound-bite: Truth is no threat to the honest.
Secrecy assumes there is no God. The Lord promised Israel if they relied on Him, He would take care of all the details and no enemy would stand before them. Just to show how much that reliance mattered, He once ran a demonstration which remains to this day utterly unforgettable. When a collection of allied forces approached, God informed Israel they should send out the choir as their advance line of attack. As the formation crested the hill, their enemies lay scattered and dying in the valley below.
That was no fluke. When you embrace the Laws of God, He supports your national safety and security. So much does He do so, He can use your army band marching with instruments to defeat a massive allied attack. You can broadcast to your enemy the exact details of your plans to defend, and it won't matter. They will fail because God is on your side.
We have proclaimed in times past about God and right on our side, but we were lying. Justice is defined by the Laws of Noah, not by some materialist Greek philosophical base, filtered through Latin anti-human organizational structure, combined with pagan Teutonic morals, and all Sanforized and homogenized by Enlightenment atheism. God is not impressed by such things.
He is deeply impressed when a nation humbles itself before His throne, and enters the Covenant of Noah with Him. He's pretty impressed when individual humans do so, too. Total honesty is an integral part of that.
Truth is not threat to honest people, because Truth is another name for God, and honesty is what He demands. Genuine honesty is His policy for all humans. Yes, there are things none of us should ever see, because they build an appetite for sin. That's not secrecy, but covering sin. We also know we expose things to children slowly, in steps, so they can assimilate truth as they grow in understanding. The nation of adult Americans are children only if our national leaders worked hard to make them that way, also contrary to God's commands. Finally, the issue of privacy is covered under the obvious command to respect others. Any fool should be able to discern the difference between secrecy and privacy.
Those who work to uncover secrets are doing God's work.
By Ed Hurst
updated, 30 July 2009
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