TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF THE STATE 

By John M. Frame 

An Anarchist Response

 Vine & Fig Tree

Before we get to a line-by-line analysis of Frame's theory of the State, let's grasp the big-picture differences between the two approaches.

The "Vine & Fig Tree" vision is that of beating "swords into plowshares" and leaving every man dwelling safely under his own "Vine & Fig Tree." (Micah 4:1-7). We can call this "postmillennial anarchism": A world converted to Christianity; a world converted to non-violence; a world under God's Law and the Prince of Peace; a world which has abandoned the entire concept of "the State."

America's Founding Fathers were motivated by this vision, though not as radically as I am. They abolished a government they described as a "tyranny." Taxes were 1/20th what they are today, and the government they abolished would never have dreamed of using tax revenue to fund abortions, remove the Ten Commandments from local schools, give foreign aid to Saddam Hussein during his war with Iran, and build more than 700 military bases around the world, all of which the government created by America's Founders went on to do.

Americans in the 21st century would consider the Americans of 1776 to have been "radical anarchists" or even "terrorists."

But, of course, even the most libertarian of the Founders was not technically an anarchist.

I am.

• The institution called "The State" has intentionally killed nearly a quarter of a billion human beings in the 20th century -- not including abortions. That's an average of about 10,000 people per day.
• Billions of people are enslaved under states that claim to own all property.
• Trillions of dollars worth of private property has been destroyed or confiscated by the State.

This monstrous violence against people is always done in the name of "the People," these crimes are supposed to prevent crimes.

I propose a society -- indeed, a world -- of "Liberty Under God."

The concept of  "the State" is the idea that some people have the right to violate God's Commandments. Those people who call themselves "the State" claim the right to take vengeance on their enemies, and they have the right to confiscate the property of others to fund their acts of vengeance. The statist worldview justifies these actions. Taxation, enslavement, execution: it can't get any better than that.

But it can get much, much, worse.

Violence.     Today "the State" is clearly the greatest force for evil on the planet. More people are murdered, more lives enslaved, and more property confiscated or destroyed by "the State" than all the "criminals" and so-called "anarchists" combined. Hundreds of millions killed, billions enslaved, trillions of dollars stolen.

Secularization.    And because "the State" begins with the foundational idea of stealing in order to kill, the more consistent it becomes in its rebellion against God's Commandments, the more atheistic it becomes. Virtually every "state" on earth today is atheistic, and the State has become (to use the words of A.A. Hodge) "the most efficient and wide instrument for the propagation of atheism which the world has ever seen."

The more powerful the State is, or wants to become, the more it must promote immorality and suppress religion and morality.

Opposition to Violence.   Frame's article accepts the moral legitimacy of this institution called "the State," though he reconstructs it in a way that departs from many standard analyses, and in ways which are close to the "Vine & Fig Tree" position. But in the end, we're still very far apart, I fear. Frame and his students will not go down in  history as great opponents of the murder, slavery, and theft on a massive global scale which "the State" represents.

Opposition to Secularism.   Nor will Frame's theological package counter the big theological errors which cripple Christians and have served as the foundation of the State for the last couple of centuries. Not that Frame agrees with these errors -- he does not. But unless these errors are refuted in a way that also refutes the legitimacy of  global murder, slavery and theft, the errors have not been refuted, and the secular State will grow.

Then, in turn, the continued existence of the State and the legitimacy of the concept of the State is a toxin which poisons society, causing great a vicious cycle of spiritual sickness and death.

This is a "worldview" issue. One's worldview determines the fundamental categories of interpreting the facts of our world.

• Eschatology: Should the world be abandoned to "tribulation" and imminent catastrophe while we await a "Rapture," or should we be making plans to create peaceful and orderly human societies which will last for millennia into the future? The position on "government" in this campaign is written from an "optimillennial" rather than "pessimillennial" perspective. We look forward to a global "Christocracy."
• Law: This response is written from a generally "theonomic" perspective. God's Law is not a burden. God's Law is a blueprint for social and personal growth, progress, overcoming challenges, and dominion, which makes people more human.
• Society: This response is written from an individualistic rather than collectivist perspective. A "capitalist" perspective rather than a "socialist" one. But it also recognizes family and church, with "church" being defined not hierarchically, but as a corporate mutualist network of service.
• Government: We favor a well-ordered, Godly society. But the greatest progress in human culture and social order will take place when the entire concept of "the State" is as distant a memory and as absent from the planet as "animal sacrifices," though both at one time dominated human society. On balance, "The State" brings disorder.

Ultimately this issue will not be resolved by the exegesis of a handful of Bible texts. This is really an entirely different way of reading the Bible and looking at human society.

"The State" owes its existence to extortion and threats of violence ("taxation"), and its core purpose is vengeance, all of which are forbidden by God's Law. But most Christians believe that we cannot be secure without these sins being committed by "the State."

That word "secure" is part of the Biblical definition of "salvation." Modern Man believes "the State" brings salvation rather than God. Belief in the necessity or moral legitimacy of the State is a form of idolatry.

There is no legitimate human social function which cannot be more efficiently and humanely carried out without "the State." Self-government, family government, schools, hospitals, grocery stores, insurance, home security, dispute resolution and other businesses will all thrive without "the State."

They have in the past; they must in the future.

Among anarchists there is a debate as to whether our present huge global multinational corporations would exist without the State, e.g., whether Exxon would have its present form without the full resources of the million-man nuclear-armed military forces of a superpower State (the U.S.) overthrowing the government of Iran in 1953, raising up Saddam Hussein's army to battle Iran for over a decade in the 1980's, overthrowing Soviet-influenced governments in Latin America, creating "al Queda" to counter the Soviet Union's disruption of oil pipeline construction in Afghanistan, and myriad other ways in which a "Free Market" in energy has not existed since industrialists like Rockefeller created today's "Administrative State" to annul the Constitution and to carry out their corporate policies. (Pro-special-interest regulation was once "progressive" or  "populist," said to be in the best interests of "the poor" or "the people," but today's regulation is now often carried out in the name of "de-regulation," a misnomer, just as "free trade agreements" do not make trade freer, but create huge new systems of government which are not bound down by "the chains of the Constitution.")

"The government" continues to create popular support for its own existence by manipulating education and the media to create the widespread popular belief that without "the State," "criminals" would "take over." We have all been trained to believe from our youngest days that "The State" protects "Life, Liberty and Property."

Today's federal government takes over half of everything you earn. If we remove our patriotism-colored glasses, it will immediately become apparent that "the State" destroys more lives, enslaves more individuals, and confiscates or destroys more private property than all the "anarchists" and "criminals" in the world combined.

The entire concept of "the State" is unBiblical and supremely dangerous.

Our worldview needs to exclude the whole idea that a group of people have the right to confiscate the wealth of others ("tax") to fund acts of vengeance against their competitors or "enemies." We do not allow this idea to become socially accepted in the world of business. The idea must become as socially unacceptable in the field of "government."

The future of the human race depends on this conversion.

What follows is a bit more academic; a line-by-line analysis of Prof. Frame's paper which is found in the pinko-colored left-hand column.

Of course, we need to determine from the word of God what we should seek to achieve in every arena, but that answer is going to be different in arenas which shouldn't even exist in the first place.

Hermeneutical Prolegomena

First, then, my starting points:

(1) God’s word in Scripture is the supreme authority for all areas of human life, and therefore must be confessed as infallible and inerrant.

(2) Everything God says in Scripture applies to us today (Rom. 15:4; 1 Cor. 9:10; 2 Tim. 3:16ff.).

(3) Scripture is sufficient as a transcript of God’s will for all areas of human life (2 Tim. 3:16ff.; Isa. 29:13; Matt. 15:1-10).

(4) Old Testament law, specifically, continues to exercise authority over the New Testament believer (Matt. 5:17-20; Rom. 13:8-11; 1 Cor. 9:8ff.,21; James 4:11ff.).

On these four starting points, we are in complete agreement.

Could it be that Christians in our day have imposed on themselves a "burdensome legal tutelage, even bondage," which is appropriate only for an immature slave-like people? Both priesthood and "the State" are holdovers from the Old Covenant.

Three verses earlier (Hebrews 8:10) God says "I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people." Which laws are aging and should be forgotten, and which are made new and should be on our minds and heart?

Not that we do not agree with Frame on the inapplicability of the same ordinances which he believes are inapplicable, but not for the same reason. We are to be at least as holy as Israel. This would imply more laws, not less.

After a long list of "judgments," "ordinances," and "statutes," God says,

LEVITICUS 18:24 ‘Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you. 25 For the land is defiled; therefore I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants. 26 You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations, either any of your own nation or any stranger who dwells among you 27 (for all these abominations the men of the land have done, who were before you, and thus the land is defiled), 28 lest the land vomit you out also when you defile it, as it vomited out the nations that were before you. 29 For whoever commits any of these abominations, the persons who commit them shall be cut off from among their people.
30 ‘Therefore you shall keep My ordinance, so that you do not commit any of these abominable customs which were committed before you, and that you do not defile yourselves by them: I am the LORD your God.’”

In other words, the Gentiles were thrown out of the Promised Land because they violated Leviticus. They should have repented. But where should "repentance" have stopped? Which laws were they not required to obey? When Nineveh repented, did they get carried away, and the Prophet Jonah had to say, "Wait, wait, you don't have to obey those laws."? Which laws? Where does the Scripture say that?

See our discussion of the dietary laws.

(Note: this is not about "anarchism," it's an argument about "Theonomy."  I just can't resist arguments.)

The qualification is not odd if those nations were going to be destroyed. (Actually, it is odd, even then, I admit. But is this like divorce, something temporarily or grudgingly permitted for the hardness of their hearts?)

Herem destruction is critical in discussions of capital punishment and war, as these passages are sometimes used to support the functions of the modern State.

Sometimes the word "penalty" is misapplied to Old Covenant commands concerning the shedding of blood and other rituals of purification. These were not "penalties" in the sense of retribution or vengeance. They were acts of liturgical cleansing, carried out under the oversight of the priests and levites. They were not "judicial" or "criminal" in nature, but were "ceremonial." These liturgies can only be obeyed in our day by faith in Christ.

Less precisely. It has been argued that if the victim of theft is not aware of the theft, his damages are less, and the restitution owed by the thief is only 20% plus the principal (Leviticus 6:5). But we agree with Frame that whatever the application, it applies to the New Israel as well as the old. (Prisons)

Noah was also commanded to offer burnt offerings (Genesis 8:20). Are such offerings still due today? Then why the "shedding of blood (Gen 9:4-6)?"

 4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
 5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require;

 

Is there less holiness in the world after Christ than there was before?

It is theoretically possible that all the "civil" laws could be "ceremonial."

The above convictions and other considerations have led me to some conclusions about the various schools of thought mentioned earlier:

 (16) I have not been persuaded by the Anabaptists that the state is necessarily Satanic and that therefore Christians are faced with the choice either of meek submission or of peaceful opposition. Certainly there have been satanic states, but I don’t see the state as necessarily being under Satan’s domain. 

IIIM Magazine Online, Volume 3, Number 44, October 29 to November 4, 2001

TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF THE STATE

Part 2

By John M. Frame

The Nature of the State

I now would like to try to build upon my basic convictions in order to seek a better understanding of the biblical teaching concerning the state and the applications of that teaching to our present situations.

"State" is not a biblical category in the sense that "family," "people of God," "Israel," and "church," are biblical categories. God established the family at creation (Gen. 2:24). In Exodus 19ff., God established Israel as a nation, as the people of God. The church is, in one sense, the whole people of God from Adam to the present, and in another sense a fresh historical expression of that community based specifically upon the apostolic confession of Christ (Matt. 16:18ff.). But in what passage did God establish the state?

Does the familial power of "physical punishment" include taxation and incarceration?

Regrettably, Frame has never concretely and specifically defined "the State." Ludwig von Mises has defined "the State" as a monopoly on

the power to tax to fund
acts of vengeance.

How does one family gain a monopoly over other families to tax and take vengeance?

First, did Adam have the power to "tax" Cain's family for "tribal defense?" Did Cain have the power to tax Seth's family? Does "the State" exist without the power to tax? What is the difference between our version of "patriarchy" ("family-values anarcho-capitalism") and "hereditary monarchy?"

Second, military and priestly functions were intermingled in the activities of Old Covenant saints like Abraham. The "separation of church and state" is a myth.

Third, all the legitimate* functions of the State were carried out on a patriarchal (family) level. There is no economic reason why families, businesses, voluntary associations, and other networks of people cannot enjoy "national security" in the absence of "the State." And there is no Biblical reason why they cannot try. Home Security need not be funded by extortion and violence. Whole villages need not be wiped out in response to the crimes of a handful (and likely wouldn't in the absence of patriotic statist mythology). Patriotism sanctions the lies of Lamech.

Biblical Anarchist Government

* The Post Office is a "legitimate" function of the State, unlike taxation and vengeance. There's nothing immoral about delivering mail. It is not legitimate for the State to make postal functions a monopoly, that is, to threaten violence against postal competitors.

If A has a duty to the poor, B, this does not in any way imply a right of A to tax C for the support of the poor (B).

If C does not acknowledge A's demands for financial support of A's beneficiaries (B), A does not have the right to incarcerate C.

A monopoly of the powers of Taxation and Incarceration is the defining characteristic of "the State." Where does the Bible give these powers (and monopolistically) to any family (A)?

Jacob’s family multiplied and became a nation. From nuclear family, it became an extended family, and then a "clan," or indeed a group of clans. Exodus 6:14-25 lists the "heads" of various Israelite clans (cf. references to the "elders" of Israel in Exod. 3:16ff.; 4:29; 12:21; 17:5ff.; 18:12). The descendants of Reuben formed four clans, each descended from one of Reuben’s sons. Similarly, six clans of Simeon were formed. Seven clans of Levi are mentioned, each related to one of Levi’s grandsons.[15] After Israel left Egypt, Moses evidently played a role in selecting "leaders" of the tribes (Exod. 18:21-26). I am not clear on the relation between the "officers" of Exodus 18:21-26 and the "elders" mentioned earlier in Exodus.

• Was Moses merely creating a new judicial role for the already existing elders?

• Or was this a new level of government, corresponding to the first, perhaps, as the American judiciary corresponds to the executive?

• Or was Moses taking control of the traditional processes by which tribal elders were chosen?

I am inclined to think both the first and the third suggestions were actually the case. Note that Numbers 1 and 2 list names of leaders, appointed by God through Moses, of each of the twelve tribes. That these are called "leaders of their ancestral tribes" and "heads of the clans of Israel" (Numbers 1:16) suggests that Moses’ appointees were also the more-or-less hereditary elders of the tribes.[16]

Here is what Israel's families ought to have been doing. But they were rebellious and slave-like. God raised up Moses and elders to keep the nation moving toward the New Covenant. The goal was personal responsibility, holiness, and obedience to God. We are in that age now, the New Covenant is now, and the desire for another Moses and more elders is retrograde.

Elders as Jugdes

We would classify Mosaic legislation as "remedial patriarchy." By "patriarchy" we mean a family-centered society functioning under 100% laissez-faire capitalism, or "anarcho-capitalism." Israel was not spiritual enough for this, so Moses gave them "elders" and divorce. The direction was not toward the State and atomistic families.

The "government" associated with the tribes and clans was actually a reflection of the lack of government in Israel -- the lack of self-government.

But Moses said to him, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the LORD would put His Spirit on them!"
Numbers 11:29 

See "Government" by R.J. Rushdoony. There was some form of "government" in Israel, but not "the State," which was not imported until 1 Samuel 8.

The question is whether Mosaic deviations from patriarchy are normative.

Death Penalty Debate - "Separation of Church and State"

The armies were still led by priests, and performed "ceremonial" acts of atonement and cleansing through priestly/military "genocide." They were priestly warriors, not secular soldiers.

The prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc.) prophesied to kings; does that make prophets part of "the State" rather than "the Church?" Or anti-state?

• Moses did come from the priestly tribe of Levi, and
• Exodus 4:14-17 suggests that Aaron’s authority, originally at least, was derived from that of Moses. And
• Moses’ intercessions for Israel (as Exod. 32:7-14) suggest a sense of priestly responsibility.

Socialism is a failure. It is not "ordained" by God in any field of human action. Pure capitalism leads to the elimination of "the State."

Families do not "naturally" have to create "the State" or some other system or institution which has a monopoly on the power of violence to confiscate revenue to fund its activities.

Christians in the New Covenant should not require mediators like Moses.

For the first time, there is to be in Israel a continuing line of monarchs, normally linked by heredity (though of course God often disrupted that hereditary pattern for his own purposes). The institutional change, however, is not a radical one.

It is, to the contrary, a radical departure from God's blueprint ( but not from God's predestined plan).

Unedited discussion of Deut 17

Numerous commentators have said that while the importation of "the State" was not wrong (as we contend), monarchism itself was. What is being condemned by God in 1 Samuel 8, they say, is not the State per se, but "undemocratic" monarchism. What Frame shows here is that all democratic ideals were in fact served. "The People" spoke. The monarchy was a king for "We the People." Hoppe argues that monarchism is a more Godly form of government than democracy.

But God clearly says it was rebellion. "The State" is evil.

God dealt patiently with Israel, and Solomon, although a loser, could still paint a picture of the coming Messiah.

We must not get lost in the details. The broad sweep of history (upward, from Old Covenant to New Earth) and the path of destruction by the State must not be ignored. The State is institutionalized evil, and is the greatest obstacle to the Christianization of the planet.

God often raises up men to become "the State" precisely because they are unfaithful and evil (e.g., Assyria, Isaiah 10).

The initial choice to import "the State" into Israel by choosing a king was without divine warrant. All subsequent elections are evil, but sometimes the details of the choice help God tell the story. (We can learn from both the big bad choices, as well as the smaller good choices within the bad situations. King Saul might had done something less bad, even commendable, but he should not have been made king.)

Is my "anarchism" preventing me from seeing something here, or causing me to read too much into the text? (See Van Til's comments on Lamech in Rushdoony's essay above.)

I think this is important. Lamech is a figure of pure evil. "The mentality of kingship" is clearly evil. It doesn't "spring up" in families, it is a demonic downward integration into the void, a rebellion against the humble importance of family service. 

Frame is not alone in this kind of analysis, or rather "un-analysis." Virtually all defenders of the State employ the historical chronology of Scripture in the same way. Justification of the State is read into the text, modern concepts read back into history. 

Whenever expositors seek to explicate the meaning of the texts -- without reference to "the doctrine of the State" -- they usually leave us with a quite different feeling (like Rushdoony above; or see any other exposition of the text). But whenever we have a passage explained by a theologian wearing the hat of a political scientist, one whose primary purpose is to discuss "the Biblical doctrine of the State," we get a different picture of that passage -- cold, scholarly, devoid of evil -- than we get from one who is diligently expositing the Biblical picture of Cain, Lamech, Nimrod, or Israel in 1 Samuel 8.

This is because kingship is evil, not holy, not faithful.

• Yes, God has ordained authority within the family. 
• Yes, he warrants the extension of that authority to extended families, tribes, and nations. 
• Yes, he warrants the popular selection of leaders to implement that authority (a selection into which, of course, he is always free to intervene, and over which he always exercises providential superintendence).[24]  
• Yes, that authority includes the power to use deadly force and to resolve disputes that cannot otherwise be resolved. 

In that sense, we may say with Paul in Romans 13:1 that, "the authorities that exist have been established by God." But it is important to remember that the authority of the state is essentially a family authority, not something different. For that reason, I consider it somewhat misleading to talk about a "divine institution of the state," or to speak of "family, church and state" as "God’s institutions," on a level with one another. I shall, however, use "state" to refer to the family elder-structures beyond the nuclear and extended families.[25]

• "God has ordained authority within the family," but not to steal and kill. 
• No authority to steal and kill has been extended to tribes and nations.
• No authority to select "leaders" to steal and kill has been given to the people.
• God has given nobody the authority to use deadly force. Therefore nobody has the right to hire a contract killer, or "vote" for someone who will steal, conscript, and kill your enemies.
• As for using the State to resolve disputes, Paul says it is better to be defrauded than to resort to such power (1 Corinthians 6:1-11).

The family has moral legitimacy. The State does not.

Let me now address some potential problems in this analysis:

1. Diversity in Modern States

Is it legitimate to think of political authority as tribal eldership, even in modern nations within which there is no discernible tribal unity? What of the U.S. or the former U.S.S.R., with people of many diverse backgrounds, or South Africa in which various racial groups are sharply estranged from one another? Well, God has never decreed that "tribes" should forever maintain uniform [sic], and to say that he has is to adopt the heresy of racism. Israel itself was joined by a "mixed multitude" when it left Egypt (Exod. 12:38). The line of the Messiah included the Canaanite Rahab and the Moabitess Ruth. Membership in Israel (even physical Israel, to say nothing of spiritual Israel) is not limited to physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The founders of the U.S. opened its borders to people of many nations, inviting them to join the tribe. Whatever practical problems this diversity produces, it does not change the essential nature of civil government. Certainly God has not given us additional revelation

What exactly is "the essential nature of civil government?"

2. State Interference in the Family

Some may find my view of the state rather ominous because it might be used to compromise the common Christian insistence on the protection of the family from state interference. If, as I am saying, the state is simply the government of the mega-family, then how could the nuclear family be protected from its often unwanted and unhelpful intrusion? How can family be protected from family?

I would answer simply by stressing the distinction between nuclear family and mega-family or tribe. As I mentioned earlier, Scripture probably forbids the nuclear family to exercise capital punishment among its members, so as not to compromise the ties of affection that bind that unit and so as to require involvement of the wider community in such a weighty decision. 

The rationale of the Moses-Jethro organization of Israel in Exodus 18:17-27 is not to center authority in one man who would then make all the decisions, but rather the reverse: to free up Moses so that he would not have to consider every little problem. By analogy, I would think that the "officials over thousands" would not seek to solve all the problems among their people, but would hear cases "too hard" for the officials over hundreds, and so on down the line. Thus the chief decision-making unit is on the "tens" level — possibly the nuclear family itself. The higher levels of state power only handle cases too small [sic] to be decided locally. The essential localism, the from-the-bottom-up nature of this organization protects the nuclear family against intrusive assaults from broader courts, but also allows the wisdom of the wider community to be brought in cases where the nuclear family admits its inability too handle a problem. This is essentially the same model presupposed in Presbyterian church courts.

There is an alternative world: the world of the "Lex Mercatoria" -- the law of the Free Market. The resolution of disputes and a system of appeals courts can be created by families in a Free Market. They can be created by families acting as "the Church" (the Body of Christ).

There is nothing in the Bible or in Frame's analysis that justifies the transition from families and businesses to the concept of "the State" with its taxation and war.

So where does the Bible justify "civil government" rather than ecclesiastical courts?

3. Education

Related to the above is the contemporary Christian concern about education. State schools in the U.S. have proven to be inadequate academically and especially religiously, as they have sought to impose a secular humanist ideology upon their students. Yet the state seems determined to maintain a virtual monopoly on general education by denying tax resources to schools that are not state controlled. Responding to this situation, Christians have argued that this is an unjust state intrusion into the proper prerogatives of the family. But can we maintain this critique if we regard the state as also, in one sense, "family?"

I think we can. I agree with the contemporary Christian argument that God commits the overall education of children to the parents (e.g. Deut. 6:4ff, Proverbs). And let us now note that he commits it to parents, not grandparents or uncles or aunts. The education of young children is the task of the nuclear family, and it is, of course, to be carried out in an atmosphere saturated in God’s word (Deut. 6:6ff.). Again, the distinction between nuclear family and tribe is an important one. The extended family would enter the picture only if and when the nuclear family is unable or unwilling to carry out its responsibility.

A Secular State would find a Christian family "unwilling" and "unable" to carry out its responsibility to nurture "democratic citizens of the New World Order."

States "serve" God (act as His minister, diakonos) when they punish the innocent and promote the guilty to four-star general.

A consistent Christian cannot be a citizen of a state like the United States. 

Christians can be "good citizens" in that they do not steal or kill, but they cannot serve two masters, and have two loyalties. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that Christians cannot become American citizens unless their allegiance to Washington D.C. is "unqualified" by a higher allegiance to God. I know this to be a fact because I studied law and passed the California Bar Exam, but was denied a license to practice law on this ground by the same federal court that ruled that children must not be allowed to Pledge Allegiance to the government with the words "under God."

In principle, every institution that claims the right to steal and the right to take vengeance must declare war on God and allegiance to a rival Sovereign.

The "battles" they lead are only peaceful metaphors of state genocide and mass destruction.

Should a Christian be willing to apply state sanctions against unbelievers? Should the Christian be willing to have wages garnished, houses encumbered with liens, resisters beaten and enslaved, or even killed? "The State" is an anti-Christian monopoly of violence.

I do not believe Christians can, consistent with their faith in the Prince of Peace, turn to the state to bomb other nations "back to the Stone Age."

A Biblical Defense of Pacifism

The Holy Spirit dwells in the Church.

How can the world be anything but more holy, more specially holy because more Christian? Why is idolatry not more offensive to God after He sent His Son?