Removing Wickedness High Places And Low
By Al Cronkrite The Covenant News ~ February 22, 2010
“In our time, the state has declared its independence of God, and the church has withdrawn from the necessary relevance of Christian faith to the state and to every other sphere of life. Both are under the judgment of God for their course of action and their rejection of Christ’s crown rights.” R. J. Rushdoony, “Sovereignty”, Pg. 259
I admire Chuck Baldwin and appreciate his industrious work for the cause of freedom. However, I have some serious questions about his recent essay “Spiritual Wickedness in High Places”.
Following are some excerpts:
“The war for man's heart and soul is never-ending.” - no problem here.
“The Pharaohs, Darius, Artaxerxes, Cyrus, Alexander, Nebuchadnezzar, the Caesars, and hundreds like them have all brought their tyrannical rule over the hearts of men.” - evil, agreed.
“If Jehovah God made anything clear in the Mosaic model of government, it was the fact that--until Christ Himself comes to occupy both offices--the offices of Priest and King were to be eternally separate.” - this could be a problem.
“When Colonial America fired that shot heard around the world and fought their way to independence, they broke free, not only from the political domination of the Crown, but also from the religious domination of a State Church.” – the potential problem grows.
“No longer would citizens be required to join a particular church in order to hold public office. No longer would citizens be required to financially support churches and institutions they deemed to be offensive to their spiritual convictions. No longer could a religious institution use the power and force of civil government to subjugate men to its tenets and, yes, tentacles. Indeed, the apostate kingdom created by Constantine's spiritual whoredom ended at the eastern shore of America!”- now, there is a problem!
“Why are they so blind to these devilish conspiracies? At the highest levels of virtually every major religion, the conspiracy to hijack truth and enslave the masses is constantly at work, whether it is Catholicism, Judaism, or Protestantism.” - Yes, men are sinners and men with power, even Christian men, are not immune. Is it then better to have power in the hands of a secular government? Secular governments murdered millions of their citizens during the Twentieth Century. A specifically Christian government might make terrible mistakes, as did the Catholic Church during the Inquisition and the Protestant Church during the witch hunts, but would it ever come close to the insane brutality of Stalin, Mao, and Hitler?
I am in total agreement with Pastor Baldwin on one of his assertions: Evil secular government in cahoots with a heretical church is an abomination to God and a bane to His people. It is true that the Church should not be involved with the State and the State should not be involved with the Church; they should be separate entities.
However, I am in total disagreement with his apparent desire to live in a nation that supports polytheism. We worship a jealous God. Polytheism contends with his dominion and kindles His judgment. The idea that we must wait for the Second Coming to seek obedience in all of His creation has been an effective ploy the Devil has used to neuter the Church. It is a Dispensational tenet that should be thrown into the wastebasket and replaced with a robust effort by every Christian to bring our nation and the world under God’s authority. Obedience should be our primary goal. We must fulfill the Great Commission but the Great Commission must involve obedience. Obedience is the primary theme of the entire Word of God!
Absolute freedom is a goal of heathen; it should not be a goal for Christians. Pastor Baldwin appears to be seeking a secular freedom that would allow Satan a foothold. He writes, “No longer would citizens be required to financially support churches and institutions they deemed to be offensive to their spiritual convictions.” “Spiritual convictions” are often evil. Spiritual convictions that allow other deities a place beside the One True God are an abomination. God never accepted the “High Places” of ancient Israel. Does Pastor Baldwin intend to allow Satan worshipers freedom to worship Lucifer as they are doing today? How can any nation seek God’s blessing when it allows God’s enemies to pollute His land?
A polytheistic nation can have a Christian majority but it cannot be a Christian nation. Law determines the religion of a nation. The United States is not and cannot be a Christian nation as long it functions under a secular Constitution and a legal system that enshrines the Devil’s agenda. It is impossible to rectify our current dilemma by pointing out the problem involved with melding Church and State. We must bring a solution to the table that pleases God and advances His Kingdom.
Pastor Baldwin clearly disdains government control over the church and church control over government. However, he does not explain how righteousness can be realized when the separation is achieved. In our current situation the State is independent from the Church but the Church is not independent from the State.
Are we to tread water until Christ returns? That expectation has now lasted for two thousand years and may last for many more generations. We do not know when it will be and are advised to leave it in God’s capable hands. Pastor Baldwin is unhappy with the lying, cheating, oath-breaking, treason, and apostasy in our government. He correctly points to the Babelian evil of global government and the heresy of church officials who support it. But his only solution is obedience to a secular Constitution that has already been trashed. He seems to believe in religious neutrality. But religious neutrality is impossible. Dr. R. J. Rushdoony writes, ”A church can be disestablished, and a particular religion can be supplanted by another, but the change is simply to another religion. Since the foundations of law are inescapably religious, no society exists without a religious foundation or without a law system which codifies the morality of its religion.” If a government is not legally required to be Christian it will be pagan! Would Pastor Baldwin be agreeable with a natural born Muslim or an atheistic intellectual legally assuming the highest office in the land? Is that what we want? Do we want to continue having a legal system in competition with the righteousness of God?
Pastor Baldwin is delighted that Constantine I’s “spiritual whoredom” ended with the First Amendment to our Constitution. It is easy to find fault with Rome’s Emperor Constantine I but compared to the rule of Caligula or Nero it is a shining Christian beacon.
There is probably not another layman who has had as much influence on the spread of the Christian religion as Constantine. He made Christianity the dominate religion of the Roman Empire. His theology was far from perfect and he made some horrible mistakes but Eastern Christians regard him highly to this day.
From what Pastor Baldwin has written in this essay one must assume that he finds no problem with secular rule over a nation that separates church and state. The separation of church and state is doctrinally correct but if the government is secular, as it is in America, the legal system devised by the evil minds of unredeemed men clashes with God’s righteousness which is exactly what is happening in our nation today – clashing and winning!
How can any nation that does not enshrine the Christian religion please the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? If I read Dr. Baldwin correctly, he has no problem with President Obama’s Muslim tendencies nor does he object to the immigration of substantial quantities of Muslims into the United States. Under the freedom of religion clause in our Constitution Muslims have as much right to worship their false god in United States as we have to worship The One True God.
Dr. Baldwin is correct in his disdain for President Bush’s Faith Based Initiatives program. Government money comes with government strings and is anathema to church freedom. He is also correct in inferring that the conspiracy for global government is Messianic.
What is glaringly missing in Baldwin’s essay is the necessity for government to adhere to the Christian religion. In United States the battle is between the righteousness of God as it is contained in His Holy Word and the evil of government as it is contained in the never ending succession of secular laws it imposes on the Church and society. Righteousness cannot be sustained under a secular government. Nor can the God of the Bible be obeyed in a nation that practices polytheism. We worship a jealous God.
Pastor Baldwin rails against luciferian Big Government and the potential evil demands of Big religion but he offers no solution. God seeks neither control of government through the church nor control of the church through government. He seeks a government and a church both obedient but separate. A nation divided against itself cannot stand and if the Federal government is secular, the Church is religious, and families are caught in the middle, chaos will reign and the Devil will continue with the field day he is currently enjoying.
There are three separate spheres of government: Federal, Family, and Church, they must be independent from each other but they must all be Christian and obedient to God’s Law! Law forms the religious base of a nation. If it is secular, the nation is secular, if it is God’s Law administered under the Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the nation is Christian. There is no other way to be successful in the battle for righteousness!
Al Cronkrite is a free-lance writer from Florida. He can be reached at fmsinfla@hotmail.com