[For the record: I do not believe Jesus votes Republican. I simply thought the image above was an appropriate illustration for the topic that follows.]
If you’re old enough to remember Dragnet, you should also remember Joe Friday and one of his signature lines: “Just the facts.” Long before the amazing science employed by the fictional members of the CSI crews in Las Vegas, New York, and Miami, Joe knew the value of objective analysis when it came to solving crimes.
And so it should be, I think, when we debunk the arguments of those who seek theocracy, who want their religion to form the basis of national law.
Recently, I started reading In Defense of the Religious Right, by Patrick Hynes, a political consultant and conservative blogger. Though I haven’t yet gotten deep into the book, one of the recurring themes so far is that today’s predominantly cruel caricaturization of the Religious Right is generally unfair and inaccurate. From the introduction …
“In researching this book, I had the pleasure of interviewing a number of leaders of the Religious Right. Their friendliness and frankness underscored my preexisting notions of Christian conservatives as wholesome, kind, convivial folks; the complete opposite of the sweaty, angry, poor, and stupid creatures of left-wing mythology.”
Fair enough. Mr. Hynes has a point. I, too, have had an opportunity to spend a great deal of time with Christian conservatives, and generally, they are as he describes them: “wholesome, kind, convivial folks.” Sure, there are a few major jerks and crackpots among them (reference: Fred Phelps), but these psychotics no more define the entire movement than Fidel Castro defines the political left.
Accordingly, I felt duly chastised when our good friend Stan took me to task for dismissing his latest missive. From Stan’s reply …
“… it makes sense that if there’s discomfort with a certain interpretation that it’s discredited as off-the-wall opinion. After all, then it can be invalidated and people can sleep again. That does appear to be the goal here. Invalidate Stan’s message so we don’t have to face what he says …
“I’d rather be the kind of person that searches out a matter before dismissing it, which is what I hope each of you do. That, my friends, is why I show up and post substantive comments with support for my positions. I hope and pray that someone will ‘get’ what I’m saying. Anyone up to that task? C’mon centralists, what do you think about the substance of the overall post?”
Now, I know there are TMV readers who will wonder why I continue to give Stan so much attention. You might be thinking, “Just ignore him and he’ll go away.” Unfortunately, I can’t do that.
As I’ve written before, I grew up in a home where many of Stan’s beliefs (and many of the justifications for his beliefs) were considered Truth. As I aged and began to read and explore new ideas and different perspectives, I developed a passion for a broader, more-inclusive world view and a corresponding desire to disprove certain elements of my upbringing.
“Certain elements” is the operative phrase, for I still recognize Christ as Son of God; His sacrifice as a redeeming moment in history; and I still pray to Him regularly. What I don’t accept is my birth-family’s hard-line rejection of all other beliefs; their teaching (at times implicit, at times explicit) that doctrinal purity is more important than living and working productively with those who have different views.
And for those reasons, I must challenge Stan’s argument that “6,000 years of God’s law trumps the Constitution.” Sure, Stan is only one person, and a relative unknown person at that, but there are just too many like him (who confuse faith with government) to simply and safely leave them unanswered.
Thus I attempt on the next page to address Stan and those like him, as they would be addressed, as Joe Friday would have encouraged us to address them, with “just the facts.”
Editor’s Notes: Stan’s comments are in block-quote form, to which the emphases (bold italics) were added. I do not answer, here, all of Stan’s recent points, but focus on the elements that (a) seemed most critical to his overall argument and (b) were substantially refutable on as factual a basis as possible.
God’s election of Israel began in the book of beginnings known as Genesis. Genesis 12 onward reveals Abraham/Isaac/Israel to be the focal point, and they begin to come into being during this time. They grow from individual to family to tribe, all the while being identified as God’s elect people. History now reveals them to be the Saxon people, or Isaac’s sons (‘saac’s sons), and America is the gathering place for the “lost†10 tribes of Israel.
Per earlier comments that Stan left at Central Sanity, the “history†on which he relies can be traced to an early 20th-century book titled Judah’s Sceptre and Joseph’s Birthright, by J. H. Allen. A Google search turns up a variety of background on this book, including sources that refute it.
One of those refuting sources focuses on a later-published book, The United States and Britain in Prophecy, by Herbert W. Armstrong, who apparently plagiarized a fair portion of Allen’s book.
Both books (and Stan) focus on the belief that the “Lost Tribes of Israel†are actually Anglo-Saxons rather than Jews. This school of thought – known in certain circles as “British Israelism†or “Anglo Israelism†– is thoroughly analyzed and debunked here. It ultimately appears to be little more than the arrogant nationalistic desires of an old minority sect of Brits and their American-immigrant counterparts.
Granted, Brits and Americans are not the first people to believe their nations were or are the centerpiece of divine destiny. If you haven’t yet had a chance to read it, spend some time with the middle section of American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips.
For additional refutation of Anglo Israelism, check here, and for a challenge of the presumed etymology of “Saxon,” check the Online Etymology Dictionary, where one commenter (on an earlier Stan post at CS) found that “The Saxons were named after the weapon they used: the Old Norse word ‘sax’ means ‘knife, short sword, dagger,’ and is possibly related to the Proto-Indo-European root of ‘saw.’
… the question remains about Jesus’ message when He showed up on the scene of human history. The underlying question is this: What Kingdom was intact that necessitated a new “gospel†or order by which it was to function? The answer is simple: The Kingdom already set in motion back in Genesis/Exodus. He’s not redefining the Kingdom with His message in Matthew through John, He’s just redefining the order by which it is to operate. He’s upsetting the power structure by rightfully placing government upon His shoulders, and the Pharisees hated Him for it.
Certainly, the Pharisees had a set of beliefs, a spiritual Kingdom they recognized, and they apparently longed for the return of the Jews’ own nation state. But the “Kingdom intact†at the time was that of the Romans – a kingdom that Jesus clearly treated as separate and distinct from what he was teaching when he instructed his followers to give to the Roman government (Caesar) what belonged to them, and give to God what belonged to Him.
Furthermore, it’s difficult to read the Gospels – all four of them, all the way through – and walk away believing that the Pharisees “hated” Jesus for attempting to place the Roman government “upon his Shoulders.†Rather, the Pharisees (some of them, at least) took exception to Jesus’ claim that he was the Messiah. Granted, Jesus’ divinity claim may have threatened those Pharisees’ sense of standing, not to mention their beliefs about Jewish history and prophecy. And yes, some of the Pharisees are depicted as collaborative with the Roman government; for instance, in the series of events described in the Gospel of John, Chapter 18. But there is reason to question the accuracy of that portrayal. Moreover, as we read in Chapter 18 of John’s Gospel: When the Apostle Peter attempted to make Christ’s cause a political stand – drawing a sword and striking “the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear†– Jesus stopped Peter from going further, surrendered Himself to the combined cohort that had come to arrest Him, and went on to make the ultimate sacrifice. So where in this various evidence can Stan, or anyone else, draw the conclusion that Jesus’ ultimate goal was a political one, when Jesus consistently acted in an apolitical manner?
[Editor’s Note: The prior paragraph was revised from the originally published version to better reflect updated information. Reference Holly’s notes in the comments section: here and here.]
The prevailing assumption within Christendom is that the new Kingdom nation is that of the church, but according to Matthew 10:5-23 that nation was the House of Israel, long departed from the region and into the British Isles by this point in time.
Stan’s reference here is entirely misleading. Nowhere in the cited passage does Jesus make reference to the House of Israel as having been “long departed from the region,†much less any reference to “the British Isles.†In fact, in the key verses (5 and 6), Jesus’ explicit instruction is to avoid “the way of the Gentiles.†At that time, the British Isles (and the routes to them) would have been predominantly Gentile.
.. the disciples asked Jesus if the Kingdom would be restored to Israel in Acts 1:6. Jesus didn’t correct the substance of their question because it was substantively correct. After all, He’d just spent a great deal of time instructing them on the Kingdom (Acts 1:3) so they were asking intelligent questions based on what they’d learned from Christ Himself. What He told them is that they wouldn’t know the timing of all this, and they needed to start spreading this gospel by which the Kingdom would be governed.
Wrong again. In the cited verses, Jesus never speaks of the Gospel as a device by which a political Kingdom would be governed.
In fact, where Stan interprets Jesus’ refusal to answer the apostles’ question as acceptance of the “substance†of their question, Jesus’ refusal could just as easily be interpreted as correction. Consider the translated text …
(6) So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?†(7) He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; (8) but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.â€
In other words, “Don’t get distracted by talk of restoring the Kingdom or when such things will happen; focus instead on sharing my story around the world.â€
Granted, that’s as much one individual’s interpretation as Stan’s is, and since I promised to stick to facts, I should not label one of these interpretations as superior to the other. What I will say is that the latter, apolitical interpretation seems the most consistent with Jesus’ earlier apolitical admonition about rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s, etc.
As gospel settlers, they’d start in Jerusalem, move outward to Judea, Samaria, and finally to the uttermost part of the earth. Not “uttermost parts†(plural), but “uttermost part†(singular). And they wouldn’t just DO witnessing, they were to BE witnesses. Become something…a holy nation built on Christ…predominantly Israel…open to gentile nations through conversion…culminating in the uttermost part of the earth. Start colonizing on the foundation of Christ, and in the process drive out demons, heal the sick, and raise the dead. The final place of colonization is the west coast of America, for that is the furthest landmass from Jerusalem settled by Isaac’s sons. It is truly the uttermost part for a settler beginning their journey in Jerusalem. Everything converges in America, and the time is soon for the revelation of the Kingdom in its fullness. We are in the end game.
Stan relies heavily on the singular vs. plural translation of “part.†However, out of 10 translations, the jury is split and that’s hardly worth hanging an argument on. Furthermore, Jesus is encouraging the disciples to be “witnesses†for him, not colonizers. Twice selecting a form of “colonize†in this excerpt, Stan is (without due support) putting his own words in Jesus’ mouth.
The long-term purpose of God is found in Revelation 21, and it’s found with the name of “New Jerusalem†… [which] consists of 12 foundations named after the apostles, and walls with gates named after the 12 tribes of Israel. The foundation of the Kingdom is the New Covenant, but the container of this Kingdom is still found within the 12 tribes of Israel. Walls and foundations are different, and the only thing being preached by the church today is the foundational truths of the gospels, but not the walls that reveal the container for the Kingdom.
Stan’s first mistake here is a common mistake made by many evangelicals in assigning “long-term†prophecy traits to the book of Revelation, ignoring the opening of that book where John writes the following …
(1) The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, (2) who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. (3) Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near.
Note the phrases: “must soon take place†and “the time is near.†Those who want Revelation to be about some distant point in the future might argue that time is irrelevant to God, that a millennium is no more than a blink of His eye. OK – but then why didn’t John say that? Why did he, instead, not once but twice emphasize the imminence of the prophecy? In a similar vein, why would he state later (Verse 11) that his message was delivered not to all churches in all times but instead, specifically, to the churches in existence in his time?
Stan’s second mistake is insisting on a physical rather than spiritual manifestation of the Kingdom. If his interpretation were correct, why – later in the same chapter of Revelation to which he points us (Verse 22) – would the very symbol of spirituality in the city (the temple or sanctuary) be singled out as non-physical? “I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.†Those words – across all translations – seem to clearly suggest that worship is an individual experience, between each of us and our God, not a national or state experience.
Jesus did say “my Kingdom is not of this worldâ€, but that’s a statement of origin, not location. He didn’t say “my Kingdom is not IN this worldâ€, He said it’s not OF this world.
Stan’s re-interpretation here is both a painfully contorted splitting of hairs and simply inconsistent with the plain-language of the originating verse across numerous translations.
Critically important is the second sentence of that verse (John 18:36), emphasis added: “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.â€
Jesus’ words are remarkably consistent with his actions earlier in the same chapter which we discussed earlier in this refutation, namely, when the Apostle Peter attempted to seemingly make Jesus’ cause a political stand, drawing a sword and striking “the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear†– Jesus stopped him.
The bottom line – for Stan and anyone else who attempts to make Christianity a political cause and thereby transform our nation into a theocracy – the facts are evident: You not only violate our Constitution, you ignore what Jesus taught us.