About time! Judge Underwoods tells the police department to give the cash back to the innocent victim or go to jail!
It’s about time. There are some really really awful laws on the books that are absolutely unconstitutional, unquestiionably! Civil forfeiture is one of them!
I’ve only looked at Reddit this past week, and wanted to use this list from an old post there to write up some answers to questions about libertarian Christian thinking.
1. God instituted government in the Old Testament, therefore it must be good!
God never instituted government of men. He told Samuel outright that demanding a king was a rejection of God. Samuel’s corrupt children were an excuse then, just like abuses and selfishness of some corporations or capitalists is an excuse to strengthen the power of corruptible men.
The rules for society God gave Israel through Moses did not include any government at all, especially not in the sense that some theologians claim it does for today’s “democracy”. Jesus said the majority uses the broad road and enters through the wide gate, so trust the majority to be wrong. Christians are a “peculiar people”.
God’s warnings against having a king to Samuel and Israel proved true. Maybe 90 percent of the kings of Israel and Judah were unabashedly wicked. The Israelites lived 400 years without government, without kings, no government at all, just a set of rules and on occasion judges that the people trusted to resolve disputes. When they rejected God, or sin became widespread, God allowed invasion. When they repented, he raised up leaders
Then there is the misinterpretation of Jesus’ reply about taxes. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. But taxes are forced confiscation of that which is yours and if not yours then God’s. In Matthew 17:24-27 Jesus paid “tribute” but used the occasion to teach his disciples (and us) an important fact about taxes. The rulers of any government do not paid taxes. For our times, that means whoever decides what you pay in taxes or imposes them, they do not pay them.
2. God doesn’t say government is bad, but that people in government are bad; ergo government is not the problem.
If people in government are bad, then everything government does is bad, because it’s multiplied by the fact that the government is the one institution making decisions that affect everyone, and capable of giving abusive power to people. This is the lesson that God made clear to the prophet Samuel.
3. Paul argues that government is good because he would have told Christians to disobey government in one of the most persecuted periods in history (era of Nero), yet Paul never did.
Saying that Paul argued that government is good, and claiming that applies to Nero, is a self-canceling argument. How can you say Paul ever argued that Nero’s government was good? This probably refers to Romans 13, the most misinterpreted chapter of the Bible in church pulpits today. Romans 13 sets down rules for government, too. I don’t hold the view some libertarian Christians have, that it only applied to church leaders. But if you note the description of government there, Nero’s does not qualify. Like the apostles told the priests of the temple after getting beaten, it is better to obey God than men.
4. There are prayers in the Bible to nations and people groups and the good that they do, ergo government is good.
Exceptions abound. God setteth up one, putteth down another. Governments are made up of faulty humnas that may do some good. The kings had a bountiful treasure they got from taxes (loot) and they help whom they will. But David said he would not give to God that which cost him nothing.
5. America was started as a Christian nation; we shouldn’t get rid of government, but get rid of secular humanism.
Government of men is secular by definition, no matter how godly the men are. Daniel 2 has an interpetration of the king’s dream in whch in the end, all, yes all, of men’s governments will be smashed to pieces and replaced by God’s kingdom.
6. God instituted a Theocracy to prove that government was necessary in the world.
God did not institute a theocratic government in the laws of Moses, he instituted government by God, and when the Israelites demanded a king, he told Samuel they had rejected God, not Samuel, nor had they in fact rejected the corrupt sons of Samuel. There is no government in the laws of Moses. There are priests. When they strayed from God’s law, God allowed their enemies to conquer them. When they repented, God would raise up a man to gather an army to repel them. If blacksmiths were banned to prevent the Israelites from making weapons, they would organize blacksmiths clandestinely to make them for their army.
7. Our rights and privileges are given to us by God through the government. Without the government, we have no rights and privileges that God has ordained.
Rights and privileges predate all governments. The Bill of Rights recognizes some of them by name, but not all, but rights are not a government creation.
8. As long as the government doesn’t make you commit a sin against God, then you should support government.
Government is based on tax extortion, and theft is condemned all through the Bible, including in the story of the Good Samaritan.
9. How otherwise is God supposed to maintain order and protect lives without bigger/limited government?
The Bible says that the law is for the lawless. In context that passage was referring to the laws of Moses, which prove to Bible believers, that you can have law without a government.
One of my most useful verses for insight is Matthew 7:20: “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” A couple of related ideas are embodied in the commonly used expressions “Cui bono?” (“Who benefits?”). And “Follow the money”.
For example, who benefits from the events of January 6?
A public broadcast of the counting of electoral college votes and the objections that would air unrefutable details of prima facie facts in evidence of massive fraud in the 2020 presidential election, to people in the audience that only get their usual political news from the government-compliant media.
Acts of vandalism that no Trump supporter has committed over the previous five years get broadcast are painted as a new danger coming from the right, meaning anybody to the right of Biden.
Now, armed troops surrounding the Capitol building to project an image of “rightists” laying siege to the country.
America’s Reichstag.
Cui bono? Legislation and executive orders to suppress and censor dissenters and to make social media bans official.
Cui bono? War drums are now resounding again in the Middle East. The U. S. returns to bombing Syria and Iraq and emits conflicting signals over Iran.
Planned Barrenhood is back in business. Policies that reflect Bil Gates’ goal of population control in full vogue again. His investments in vaccine companies and producing new experimental biological agents now supported by political power and much profit.
Cui bono? Who got much richer from the lockdowns and shutting down of small business and the massive slashing of available jobs while the big box stores stayed open?
Cui bono from social media censorship? (And censorship it is, because every one of those monsters is subsidized by govennment.)
Keep asking: Who murdered Ashley Babbit?
This is it! A Canadian pastor is sent to jail for preaching the Gospel to the church with maskless faithful!
The cup of iniquity in North America is overflowing!
Just got one of those regular spam emails from an outfit self-named “Keep it local, Florida”, advocating that Florida join (so they say) 48 other states in taxing sales for on-line orders from outside the state.
I clicked “I disagree” real fast.
This is a bad idea that punishes Floridian consumers for the evil taxation practices of other states. Florida has no income tax at all, so the “burden” for Floridians in more than mitigated.
And no mention of the much heavier abuse that Floridians got early in the coronavirus madness of last year. You know why they don’t say “coronavirus” any more? Because they’ve been around forever, all the strains are just common cold viruses. And virologists know there’s no cold virus vaccine for a reason. It’s a forever moving target.
Just release the burden of state regulations off the backs of small businesses! Licensing, permits, zoning are counter-economical. And I hope there aren’t any of these evil laws requiring certificate of need, where existing businesses get to block competitors from starting up.
Be not given to doubtful disputations. I once was in a missionary home along with a brother who said he got saved after watching Godspeed, (that blasphemous “rock opera”). I watched once as a family lady friend received Christ repeating the salvation message in one of Jimmy Swaggart’s presentations.
Another brother said he sought out a Jesus People house after talking to some members in the Black Panthers.
My Dad was a Pentecostal preacher and pastor, and one of the most godly, kind, loving man you could get to know, but was divorced from my mother and remarried, and that second union bore a great many godly fruit. By their fruits…
Stan of The Prophecy Club never claimed that every one of the speakers was on the level of a Samuel or Elijah. They often contradicted each other. It just became a forum before the Internet that gave voice to ideas that did not get common currency in the traditional evangelical churches.
And thank God for that! Let my people think is a good slogan and ministry offshoot from Ravi Zacharias, God bless him. And people are spitting on that man’s grave over a very little mistake. Ravi never sent any Uriah to be killed anywhere, he never fled into hiding for three years for fear from Jezebel like Elijah did.
And look at those evangelical churches today! Maybe you too! Cowering in fear because man’s kingdoms told them to, for fear of a common cold virus, aka coronavirus. Many, but way, way too few are standing against this flood of lies without discernment. A head knowledge of Bible prophecy has left them powerless against the lies of the devil that tell them to give up their lives, their livelihood, and even their health –yes, health– over a lie that tells them it’s too stop a Biblical plague.
The plague is coming, and it’s a Trojan horse that they call a “vaccine”. The Great Whore is about to begin her stumble into judgments of God.
There’s one halfway down with a redacted portion. Squint and you’ll see the hidden message. Uproarious laughter!
Women are selective too, on what mates they will choose to be with. Poverty is kind of glorified in many romances as well as appearance.
I sort of considered ending myself over the “playful” insults of high schooler making fun of me. I had a strange resemblance to Albert Newman, the Mad Magazine character, and the banter embarrassed me and had me thinking I was ugly. And my embarrassment at others’ actions and comments made it worse. Even the girls made fun of me, they enjoyed making me turn read. But I was interested in learning, eventually got into the local Ivy League university, and was among intellectual peers who were past the adolescence. There i had a first lasting relationship.
But more important is that I lost the self-consciousness. In my time as missionary in Puerto Rico, in a work associated with the “Jesus People” movement of the 1960s, there was one sister who did not have a standard “beautiful” face, but that girl walked with the sexiest strut and emanated a confidence in her bearing that made her one of the most attractive girls I have ever met. (My wife is the exception).
In my history I worked a bit with a couple, in which the husband was one of the handsomest guys on the planet. She, not so much at all, to be nice. But guess which one was the jealous one? Yep, him.
Just decide. Remember what God told Samuel: Man looketh upon the outward appearance; God looketh on the heart.
Also, learn to make a habit of concern for other people. If you haven’t been born again, let Jesus in, accept his victory over guilt, sin, death, and hell and his gift of life. Practice his commandment to love others as you would have them love you.
Now that I have done this and gone on to be missionary for many years, life is better than before, than ever. Like a rich man once told his suicidal daughter, distraught at the emptiness after living a wild life in Europe: “If you have to throw your life away, at least throw it at something worth doing.”
