I have heard some ignorant Christians say that the War for American Independence was a rebellious, unbiblical war. Corrie ten Boom’s sister almost got their family in major trouble because of her mistaken belief that lying is always wrong. And just because the Supreme Court says something is legal don’t make it so.

Our friend John Stoos has written a great article (I love the title, taken from John Calvin’s Institutes) which is in the Chalcedon Report. I am posting the whole article here just so you will be more tempted to read it without that extra step of clicking through. John does a great job of explaining our responsibility to the governing authorities and how lesser magistrates have a responsibility to hold those authorities accountable:

Christian Piety or Nefarious Perfidy?

by John E. Stoos
February 2003

“Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”   1 Timothy 2:1-4

In my radio ministry I often called on the listeners to pray for our political leaders and most times I reminded them to review these simple verses from the Apostle Paul that explain why the actions of our civil leaders are important. We should not call Christians to participate in the political process to benefit one particular political party or another. We should not be involved just so we can have personal peace and affluence. We are called to influence and care about the political process because righteous leaders produce godly and reverent civilizations that carry the good news of God’s salvation to the four corners of the world, so that all of God’s people will be saved from their sins (Rom. 10:1-15).

As Christians we are obligated to understand the Biblical principles of submission summarized in Romans 13:1-10. At a time when abortion-on-demand is “the law of the land” by decree of the U.S. Supreme Court and the radical homosexual agenda continues to advance, it can seem very difficult for Christians to obey Scripture in this area. Here inCalifornia our tax dollars are used to pay for approximately 40% of the abortions that the government funds in America! In my flesh I want to be the biggest tax protester this state has ever seen, but God’s Word says that we are to be in submission. And as long as they are not commanding that abortions take place in my family, as long as I am sounding the warning from the wall (Ezek. 3:17-19), then the blood is on the hands of the civil magistrates and those who participate in those sinful actions.

A Course of Action

However, as Christians we are not left without a further course of action. Unfortunately, there are many times in today’s America when so-called Christians are more a part of the problem than part of the solution. In the final chapter of his historic Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin takes dozens of pages explaining the importance of civil government and the Christians’ duty to obey that government. In the final paragraphs he says, “I am speaking all the while of private individuals,” and then includes a sentence that has shaken the civil governments of the world to their core:

“For if there are now any magistrates of the people, appointed to restrain the willfulness of kings (as in ancient times the ephors were set against the Spartan kings, or the tribunes of the people against the Roman consuls, or the demarchs against the senate of the Athenians: and perhaps, as things now are, such power as the three estates exercise in every realm when they hold their chief assemblies), I am so far from forbidding them to withstand, in accordance with their duty, the fierce licentiousness of kings, that, if they wink at kings who violently fall upon and assault the lowly common folk, I declare that their dissimulation involves nefarious perfidy, because they dishonestly betray the freedom of the people, of which they know that they have been appointed protectors by God’s ordinance.” 1

There was certainly a case of such nefarious perfidy recently here in Northern California when a local school board was called upon to protect the health and welfare of minor girls placed in their care. A brave member of the board for theRoseville Joint Union High School, Dean Forman, asked that the board review a school policy that allowed minor girls attending the school to be released for “confidential medical appointments” that could include abortions. Here in California it is perfectly legal for organizations like Planned Parenthood to arrange for a minor girl to have an abortion without the knowledge or consent of her parents. It will even be paid for by the state because the minor qualifies temporarily for Medi-Cal, since she cannot use her parent’s resources. However, there is no state law that requires schools to participate in these ungodly and repulsive actions. All Mr. Forman wanted to do was make sure the school itself was not a party to these actions.

After a spirited discussion, the board voted three to two to affirm the current policy of allowing the girls who had appointments for abortions to be released from school without the consent or knowledge of the parents.All of the parents who spoke at the meeting asked that the policy be changed, but that did not seem to matter to the board majority. The only voices in support of the current policy were the organizations that profit from the abortions and the “student representative” to the board who had been fully indoctrinated. It was extremely ironic that Planned Parenthood wanted the girls to be released to their custody for a serious medical procedure like an abortion, while at the same time asking those students who wanted to enter their poster contest celebrating “Thirty Years of Choice” to be sure and get their parents’ permission before they submitted their posters (honest, we don’t make this stuff up!).

It did not surprise me that parents thought they should be in the loop when such serious decisions about their minor daughters’ well being were made, and it certainly did not surprise me that the abortion industry would want to continue having unencumbered access to these profitable little clients with the state paying the bill. The nefarious perfidy came from the self-professed “Christian” and “prolife” members of the majority that sided with the baby-killers at Planned Parenthood. According to the Sacramento Bee story on the meeting, the discussion before the vote “made clear the trustees’ need to reveal their personal values to their constituents, while following a law most board members said they did not like.” Of course there is no “law” as referred to by the reporter, but that is no surprise since the writer was able to do an eleven hundred word “news” story on the meeting without ever using the “A” word: abortion.

Appointed Protectors

As Calvin so rightly pointed out, even if there were such a law, this would have been the ideal time for those board members, as “appointed protectors by God’s ordinance” to have exercised their proper duty to protect the students placed in their care and to hold the erring magistrates above them accountable for their actions. Sadly, this was not the case with a professed Christian leading the charge toward failure: “I’m a Christian woman,” board President Tami Brodnik said according to the Bee story, “but our nation is set up by laws, and I will not enact a policy that asks our employees to break the law.” Could there be a clearer case of what Calvin refers to as nefarious perfidy?

“I am not in favor of abortion,” board member Jim Joiner was quoted as saying in the same Sacramento Bee story. “I don’t like Roe v. Wade, and I’d like to see it overturned. But the school board doesn’t have the authority to overrule legislation.” No, neither Ms. Brodnik nor Mr. Joiner gets to sit on the Supreme Court or even in the state legislature, but that does not mean that they are not properly elected members of the Roseville High School Board with the right as lesser magistrates to hold those above them that are in error to account. Had these concerned members sat on a school board in Nazi Germany in the late 1930s, would they have stood up to the wrong actions of Hitler? If an order to deliver some of the Jewish students to the new “camps” had been issued would they have said, “I will not enact a policy that asks our employees to break the law,” or “the school board does not have the authority to overrule legislation.”  We would hope not, but sadly the historical record is very short on examples of lesser magistrates inGermany who were willing to hold Hitler accountable for where he wanted to take that once civilized nation. The result of their inaction was that some ten million Jews, Christians, Gypsies, homosexuals, and others whom Hitler deemed to be unfit, lost their lives.

The Roseville High School Board should have listened to the parents who entrusted their students to them and refused to release minor girls from school to obtain abortions unless the parents were notified. Every school board in our state should do the same. Every concerned parent who has a minor girl attending a government school that sends minor girls to have abortions should pull his or her daughters out until the school establishes the right policy.

What If…

Perhaps some brave school boards would inspire the same type of action in other lesser magistrates like city council members or state legislators. I dream of the day when a strong Christian majority is elected to a city council somewhere in America. This council could then pass a resolution declaring that abortion is now illegal in their city. Of course, the city attorney would quickly tell them that they cannot do this, at which point he should be fired and a good prolife attorney should be hired to replace him. Next up would be the police chief, who would likely say he could not enforce such a law. Again, the council should accept his letter of resignation and hire someone who would enforce the law. This is exactly what John Calvin expected lesser magistrates — that is “any magistrates of the people, appointed to restrain the willfulness of kings” — to do, to hold those above them accountable. In this case the state or federal officials would have to decide what they were going to do with this city that chose to protect its unborn residents. If they came to those members and said you must allow abortion in your city because it “is the law of the land,” then the council members could rightly and with all Biblical authority respond to the state or federal officials by saying, “whom should we obey, God or man?” The council members are empowered by their office to do what I as a private individual am forbidden to do, that is, hold these erring magistrates accountable.

In the meantime, there are glimmers of hope inAmerica. Last November the nine aldermen of Wisconsin Rapids voted unanimously to accept a nativity scene for inclusion in the city’s Christmas time display despite the threat of a lawsuit from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, according to Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel. I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Staver when he says, “It is encouraging to see a city that is not afraid of the empty threats of radical organizations.” In Alabama, Judge Moore continues his battle to publicly display the Ten Commandments.

My prayer will be that many other “lesser magistrates” throughoutAmerica will learn from their example; review the stories of Joseph, Daniel, and Nehemiah in the Scriptures; and then join in the battle for our nation and western civilization.

Notes

1. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book IV, Chapter XX, section 31.

I keep hearing that a majority of Americans call themselves “born again,” consider themselves Christians, believe in heaven, etc. This survey is just a reminder of what Jesus said in Matt. 7:21: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” It’s not about “My” God and “Your” god, but the one, true God.

My husband often reminds our children that it is not whether or not you believe something is true that is important; it is true whether you believe it or not.

A corollary to this is that it doesn’t matter whether you believe in God but whether you believe Him.

While on the topic of discerning truth, it turns out that many women are waking up to the fact that forestalling motherhood for the glamorous career is not as fulfilling as they were led to believe. I am so grateful to God for the privilege of bearing and raising my dear children, not only because of the joy it brings me but because of the refining work He does through the trials and tribulations which inevitably come with motherhood. By this I know that He loves me.

These are quotes I have written in the back of my Bible. I read the New Geneva Study Bible which is now called the Reformation Study Bible, but the one I have marked up and written notes all over is an old Inductive Study Bible in the NAS version. I really wish I had a Bible with wide margins in a better translation.

I’m sorry that I am not able to attribute all of these quotes. If you have any favorite quotes, why don’t you leave them in my comments section?

God is more interested in our holiness than in our happiness.
The most difficult trial we will face is the dailiness of life.
Law is love’s eyes, and without it, love is blind.
It is the sharp needle of the law that makes way for the scarlet thread of the gospel.
The Bible is a written definition of righteousness lived out in practical ways.
Prayer needs to be the sweat of the soul.
Your children more attention pay to what you do than what you say.
The children of God always prosper, constantly watered by the secret graces of God, so that whatever might befall them is conducive to their salvation–John Calvin
His way was much rougher and darker than mine; Did Christ, my Lord, suffer, and shall I repine?
If we were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict us?
This book will keep you from sin, but sin will keep you from this book.
Where there is heaven in the heart, there will be heaven in the house.
Love involves giving, spending, and impoverishing ourselves for the well-being of others. It’s total lack of self-concern is breathtaking. It is a principle of action rather than of emotion.
Don’t wrestle, just nestle–Corrie ten Boom
When is the church going to stop entertaining the goats and start feeding the sheep?
Whatever the course of our lives, we should receive them as the highest gift from the hand of God, in which equally reposed the power to do nothing whatever for us. Indeed, we should accept misfortune not only in thanks, but in infinite gratitude to Providence, which by such means detaches us from an excessive love for Earthly things and elevates our minds to the celestial and divine–Galileo
Philosophy is a succession of wrong ideas.
God’s eternity is an ever-present now.
Although his plan is not always clear, it is clear that He has a plan–Pieter Friedrich
The heart of every problem is a problem in the heart.
The meaning of the cross is the violation of God’s law–R.J. Rushdoony

In the Bible, God’s holy inerrant word, love is always associated with obedience and discipline.

In John 14:15, Jesus says, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” Later, in John 15:10: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in My love.” What? If I don’t obey then I’m not in His love? That doesn’t sound very nice.

But I want to have my own way, do my own thing. If you love me, you’ll let me do whatever I want.

Yet Hebrews 12:5-6 says:
And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons:
My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord,
Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;
For whom the Lord loves He chastens,
And scourges every son whom He receives.

God is love.

What images are conjured up when you hear that name? Many people have visions of conspiracy kooks or political Don Quixotes tilting at windmills.

Today I met a very nice lady who is a JBS member, and she wasn’t wild-eyed at all. In fact, lots of what she told me was very interesting indeed. She gave me several copies of the JBS magazine, The New American, and after looking them over, I haven’t found anything kooky or even that I disagree with. Of course, kooky is in the eye of the beholder.

Here is an article by William Jasper (who happens to live in Sacramento), the senior editor of The New American, explaining the history of the John Birch Society and its philosophy and goals. You can read it for yourself and decide if you think there is anything kooky about it. I’m used to being labeled and libeled for all the unorthodox (according to current popular opinion) ideas I espouse. I have learned it is always a good idea to check out the facts, as much as possible, before jumping to conclusions.