THE DISTASTEFUL IDEA
WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR PROBLEMS

By: Al Cronkrite

“Freedom has only come to a people as they have come, one by one, free men in Jesus Christ.  As a people advance into freedom in Christ, they move their society and country into that freedom, and as a people drift into unbelief and sin, their country declines into slavery”  R. J. Rushdoony, ”A Word in Season” 

The Jews rejected God’s judges and opted for a King.  In United States we have rejected God’s authority and through Democracy have vested it in a sinful people.  The will of our sinful populace is controlled through propaganda by leaders who extract heavy taxes, make slaves and paupers of their subjects, conscripted the youth, steal the land, murder detractors, and claim divinity, all the while striving for more and more power.

Just as the Jews rejected the rule of God in favor of the rule of kings Christians have rejected the rule of Christ in favor of an assortment of leaders who commit the same sort of sins as their secular counterparts.

President John Adams said that our government was meant for a Christian people.  We were a Christian people but we were living under a potentially pagan government.  As the scourge of Dispensationalism spread antinomianism in God’s church the people became inured to sin and allowed it to creep into the government as well as into their everyday lives.   Freedom is inversely related to rebellion and sin.  Our freedom is being lost to an evil government that we, ourselves, have created and continue to sustain.

Human beings are born without reference points.  Even before memory develops self centeredness is the norm.  Babies, fresh out of the womb, seek attention, comfort, and a full stomach.   Their first interactions with others are marked by a desire for the power to control their surroundings. They resist sharing and lack compassion for their peers.   “Good” is the satisfaction of their needs and desires; “Bad” is when they lose control and are no longer the center of the universe.  The baby’s conception of “good” is at odds with the intentions of the parent.

The Bible sets up authority figures, provides legal standards, defines love, and offers mercy.   Obedience is a fundamental biblical principle.  We are to obey God and His Law, we are to obey parents and proper authority figures.  Peace is a product of proper obedience.

When the sin-infested minds of human beings usurp God’s throne by interpreting “good” and “bad” through their flawed opinions the results require quotation marks around the words.

Rebellion against the One True God and His Law causes illusion and chaos.  One of the many attacks on God began against the doctrine of original sin.  The environmental movement reversed reality creating the enduring illusion that we are born “good” and made evil by our environment.  Continuing this heresy a current study has determined that “Fundamentally people behave in a social and rather compassionate and "good" way rather than aggressively, even without specified rules.”

The idea that people are essentially good is so thoroughly engrained in our minds that we are shocked when one of us commits a gruesome, violent crime.  Instead of understanding that when we are not properly restrained by God’s Law we are all vulnerable to violent behavior we believe that disparate actions are unusual. 

In an essay on the rise of tyranny Stewart Dougherty provides a list of despotic leaders of modern times: “Dictatorships have blighted history and ruined lives since the beginning of civilization. In recent times alone, tyrants such as Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Ceausescu, Amin, Hussein, Mussolini, Tojo, Kim, Pinochet, Milosevic, Tito, Batista, Peron, Pol Pot, Mugabe, Marcos, Somoza, Mengistu, Bokassa, Sese Seko, Franco, Ho Chi Minh, Mao, and Castro have power-sprayed blood onto the screen of time and ravaged mankind with murder, torture and human oppression. A full catalog of history's tyrants would require a book of hundreds of pages.” 

Though not a professing Christian, writer Fred Reed describes human inclinations this way:   “We do as we do because of what we are.  We have wars because having wars is what men do…Everywhere, in every epoch, with only the occasional brief oversight, leaders come to power—kings, tribal chiefs, emperors, presidents—and attack anyone convenient. Always, somewhere, there are wars. Depending, the participants use rocks, pointed sticks, arrows, swords, tanks, carriers or Stratofortresses, these artifacts being mere details.”

Our Founders understood this principle and crafted restraints on government power.  These restrains have been ignored by our elected officials.  Sinners regularly sell their souls for peace and lucre.