Why The Coming Election Is Meaningless And What Can Be Done About It
By Al Cronkrite The Covenant News ~ September 02, 2008
Alaskan Governor Sarah Pulin appears to be a fine young woman. However the delightful gushing among naïve Republicans over her selection as Vice Presidential running mate for the elite Senator John McCain may or may not produce the victory they hope for, and, even if it does, and Ms. Pulin ultimately becomes president, she will be unable to stop the downward spiral of our nation.
In July, 2008, former Attorney General John Ashcroft testified before the House Judiciary Committee. Ashcroft is a high profile Christian whose beliefs underwent an excoriating attack by House Democrats during his confirmation hearings. He is an Evangelical from a Pentecostal background who claims to begin each day with a prayer. His testimony supported the cruelty of the Bush II Administration.
Hearing this prominent Christian man equivocate on questions of water boarding was both painful and pathetic.
Though the War in Iraq could, with convoluted logic, be justified under the tenets of a just war, the circumstances surrounding it and the propaganda that lead up to it was loaded with manipulation, deceit, and outright mendacity. Yes, Muslims can be violent and yes, Islam is a competitive religion but Americans seem too dense to perceive that the more imminent and more insidious danger is a growing, cancerous secular government that not only threatens their freedom but that of the entire world.
Attorney General Ashcroft has made himself a part of that predatory government and of its deceit and manipulation. He made the common mistake of allowing loyalty to a political party override the mandates of the God he claims to worship and in doing so disgraced himself, his God, and our nation.
More than a decade ago I became acquainted with a lady who was involved in a local patriot organization and seemed to have a good handle on the malignant nature of our national politics. She became a local leader of a national organization that is critical of government policies but consistently supports the Republican candidates for president. Concurrently she was active in local Republican politics. Now she has been elected to a minor position in the party and has colluded with other local Republican bosses to ostracize a group of Ron Paul supports who represent positions she formerly held.
In another case I wrote a letter of recommendation for a friend who was seeking a position with a national Christian organization. He got the position and little by little he began to moderate his views, accepting programs he formerly detested.
When ambitions in any field other than Christianity, either consciously or unconsciously, override the righteous intentions of King Jesus, the choice is evil. Loyalty to political parties regularly squelches the best interests of the nation but even loyalty to the nation has it limits. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob created everything and everything must be subjected to His Law and His Will. That is where our loyalty must be if we ever expect to make progress toward righteousness.
It is a subtle but disastrous error to allow the reasoning of men to manipulate the Commandments of God. Just consider the impression most Christians have of God's Law. Do they not "thank God" for not having to live under these "onerous restrictions"? Are they not delighted that the Law was for ancient Israel, not for our time? Yes, thanks to antinomian and Dispensationalists thinkers most of today's Christians consider God's Law anachronistic. And with what have they filled the legal void? With the patently evil assumption that the creature is wiser than the Creator, with a sigh of relief, they have replaced God's righteous Law with the morally vapid secularism that God promised to make foolish.
Attorney General John Ashcroft's disgraceful behavior is a result of working under a secular legal system that allows God's Law to be overridden with the sinful intentions of the powerful. When our forefathers incorporated freedom of religion into the Constitution they tacitly created a secular government. In spite of the fact that at the time ninety eight percent of the nation's population claimed to be Christian, in spite of the fact that the Constitution was said to be in accord with Christian principles, in spite of the fact that our legal system was derived from Blackstone, in spite of the fact that there was much Christian rhetoric among national leaders, and at a critical moment in the drafting of the Constitution Benjamin Franklin said a prayer, in spite of all this, it was a secular creation that shunned God's Law and championed human wisdom.
Principles are not laws and neither rhetoric nor prayer is legally binding. God's Law was not incorporated into our founding documents and as a result our nation is living under an evil legal system that allows sinful men to control the functions of government. Government is vested with responsibility for enforcing law. Secular government produces secular law. Secular law is not restrained by morality and since law is the major force of every social order secular law will always trump righteousness. There will be no progress against evil until Christians understand that immoral law is the problem and God's Law is the solution.
It follows that devoting time and effort to stopping abortion, blocking the progress of homosexuality, urging Christians to remove their children from public schools, running for elected offices with the intent of cleaning up the system, electing a Christian president, seeking honesty in government, and trying to educate the public on what is really happening are a waste of Christian time and energy. I am not trying to denigrate the dedication thousands of Christians have put into these efforts. Working in all of these niches is laudable but it is similar to pouring an ounce of fresh cream into a jar of sour cream. Righteousness cannot exist in an evil power structure. Their efforts have and will be in vain. The only way to rectify the problem is to empty the jar of sour cream, clean it thoroughly, and fill it with fresh cream.
Christian principles are distinctly different from law. Peace is a Christian principle. God's intention is to create peace. War is sanctioned as a device for the creation of peace. Obedience to God's Law also produces peace; however, it exerts specific force. Obedience to God's Law is clearly demanded throughout the Bible. Jesus confirmed the continuing reign of The Law and the Apostle Paul affirmed it as well. Christian principles cannot replace God's Law! We live with war and turmoil because we have rejected the peaceful mandates of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and replaced them with the malicious violence of sinful men.
Dependence on individual guidance by the Holy Spirit, which is almost universally accepted today, is disastrous; not because God is mute but because the individuals He is attempting to guide are sinners and often fail to accurately hear or obey. God's Law was given to His people in love as a static yardstick for behavior. Nothing is to be added to it or subtracted from it. Sin causes Christians to reject the Law which was given to us by God to create the peace and prosperity He desires for His creation.
When the Bible tells us that the Law has been replaced by Grace it is referring to the New Covenant which became active through the Paraclete, Jesus, The Christ. He died for our sins, purchasing our forgiveness and allowing us to come before the throne of the Father clean and white as snow. We are forgiven through the New Covenant and the Law can no longer condemn us. However, the fulfillment of God's love for His people through the sacrifice of His Son did not remove the loving legal standards He gave His people in antiquity when they, too, were lost.
When a Christian pilgrim joins a church and follows a leader, bright enthusiasm and a sense of loyalty to that leader can easily destroy righteousness and send him spiraling into a pit of error. Leaders in our churches are as guilty as those who formed our government. They, too, have allowed themselves to become aligned with their church, their denomination, and, even worse, to heresies that contend with a sound theological structure.
At one of the recent Chalcedon meetings I mentioned that in these dire times some participants in our secular government might be rationally open to some of God's legal standards. Reverend Mark Rushdoony responded that we seek willing Christian hearts that obey God's loving mandates without coercion, not heathen who would obey only what their worldly minds would accept.
The sour cream must be poured from the jar which must be thoroughly cleaned and filled with the fresh unadulterated cream of God's Law.