Astronomy and Politics Through the Lens of Epistemology
How do We Know What We Know?
What is Our Method of Evaluating Truth?

Yet there are some obscure Evangelical groups who believe that because we Christians are not under the Hebrew law, that the law is therefore irrelevant to the entire Christian walk.  Therefore anyone citing Jewish law or the Old Testament is trying to put us back under Jewish law or a political theocracy.  My quick response to those groups is that they should stop being so selective about the New Testament Scriptures they cite and consider ALL of the N.T.  To those also, I would say consider this proof-text.  If you really believe the Mosaic Law is that irrelevant to every aspect of the Christian walk, then you should go get the ACLU to help you chisel off the multiple Engravings of Moses and the Jewish Law (Tablets) in the Supreme Court or on the Capital building it used to be in before 1935.  Furthermore, we are supposed to be subject to that modern secular Law and rulers via Romans 13:1-7 (again), since like the ancient Hebrews “we are a nation of laws”.  Therefore, we are going to reference the Jewish Law because their heritage as Jews is also our LEGAL heritage as Americans (Jews and Gentiles alike).

The Bible is full of progressive revelation like that, but at the same time, Romans 13 rests on the basic precepts of right and wrong, wisdom verses folly, sin verses righteousness, as revealed in the Old Testament or Jewish Tanakh.  Even the definition of terms in the New Testament is based on Old Testament language, precepts and pre-suppositions.  In other words, regarding civil government, if one does not first understand the Old Testament (the Tanakh), one will be rendered a virtual idiot trying to understand a Romans teaching on a "secular" government as well as many other New Testament concepts.  In other words, just loosely connecting the subject of religion with politics will not constitute an Old Testament theocracy.

So, in order to understand what is highly unwise about a king, tyrant, despot or dictator or simply a strong man like a liberal Obama or conservative Trump, we first have to read the basics in the Old Testament.  Only when we understand what we have read in the OT, can we do a more advanced study the dangers of a strong man in a Biblical treatment of the New Testament.

Now with that understanding, ancient Israel had a system of laws and judges, Levites and prophets in a government now referred to as a theocracy (in this case Jewish civil law) such that Israel was governed by a “rule of law” outlined in the Torah.  This system prevented any one person from going off on his own and deviating from what God has outlined for this system.  Any person attempting that would face a lot of flak from the judges and others in leadership.  Therefore, in that sense the theocracy had a system of checks and balances.  Now normally under this system, the judges, starting with Joshua, raised armies to finish conquering Canaan and to defend against invading armies, like by the Philistines, who lost the land God gave to the Hebrews.  Under this theocratic system, the Hebrews (the people of God) were expected to fight their own battles but not allow some foreign mercenary army or king to fight battles for them. That was the policy God in the books of Joshua and Judges.  Whenever there was a crisis God would raise up a temporary judge (Gideon and Samson for instance) and the PEOPLE OF GOD HAD TO FIGHT THEIR OWN BATTLES, but not to rely on others to fight their battles for them.

Of course, God knew the Israelites would eventually be under threat of huge armies requiring a limited degree of central control, so in Deut. 17:14-20 and elsewhere, God prescribed a king with very limited powers that would be subordinate to this system of laws, Levites, judges and statutes(see verses 18-20).  In stark contrast to this type of limited central control, were all the lands and people surrounding the Hebrews which had kings (strong men) with unlimited powers to control EVERYONE’S life or death totally dependent his mood or whim.

Now, in I Samuel 8, the people of Israel came to Samuel and demanded a king. “They said to him, "Behold, you have grown old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations."  We further know this type of king would not have been consistent with God’s “rule of law”.  That is because in verse 7, God consoles Samuel’s total disgust for the request by assuring Samuel that “they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them.”  God then refers directly back to His limited powers of a king in Deuteronomy 17, by first warring the men of Israel demanding a king “like all the nations”, about all the injustices such an authoritarian king would inflict upon the people of Israel (I Sam 8:10-17). Then he assures Israel that when they cry out and pray to him in repentance, he will not listen to their cries and ignore all their plies for relief of their own choices.  Despite this stern and ominous warning, the men refused and continued to demand a king “like all the nations”.  Therefore, God granted them exactly what they wanted and did exactly what he promised.  When Israel cried out in sincere prayer, God ignored their pleas to depart from the authoritarian king’s rule, even letting foreign armies decimate Israel for about three millennia (Samuel through foreign kings, the dispersion and finally the restoration of Israel).  In other words, God did not relent on that promise until the nation of Israel was restored in 1948!!

Now, some Christians might misconstrue the deriving of values from the Old Testament to suggest that I believe America is Biblical Israel.  I absolutely do not believe in any form of replacement theology.  Only the Jews and Modern Israel are Biblical Israel.  If anyone who thinks this would open their eyes, they would realize that if one totals up both Jews and Christians together, we would still be a decisive minority and whose numbers continue to decline.  Yet, back to my main point.

At this juncture in history, if Evangelicals replace a liberal authoritarian Barak Obama with a “conservative” even more authoritarian Donald Trump, will we simply repeat the experience of ancient Israel and set precedence for our government?  For the last seven plus years our representative form of government has suffered severe damage because of all sorts of executive actions which are contrary to our foundational legal system.  Starting with those principles I just mentioned above, that legal system was built upon with Biblical principles. Note that the engraving of Moses and his laws before 1935 were carved into the front face of the U.S. Supreme Court (now solely our capital building). If we throw away those principles by reverting to authoritarian rule, which many Christians are advocating now as a solution, we will surely loose much of what has been gained over the last three millennia.  As a demonstration of the early Biblical development of our system, I recommend the movie, Monumental with Kirk Cameron in addition to the book, Faith & Freedom: The Christian Roots of American Liberty by Benjamin Hart (endorsed on first page by former Reagan Supreme Court Nominee, Robert Bork).

In Part III on this series, I will do a much deeper study on Romans 13, Acts and other history in the scriptures and beyond show how these Biblical principles revolutionized governments in the development of western civilization.  All of this is at critical risk of being destroyed forever after a reversion back to authoritarianism to solve our current governmental and social chaos.

The lesson here and in Part III of this blog, is that we politically conservative Christians and Jews must immediately cease this habit of isolating ourselves from influencing our government in between elections.  We must frequently be salt in our society by regularly connecting the dots between the Tanakh and, for some of us, the New Testament with various issues then currently being debated in government. Like the Israelites, we must fight these battles ourselves and not dream of some surrogate hero to fight these battles for us.  We are far less effective as Salt in our world when we depend on others to be a representative for us without our personal input.  It is simply too easy for the anti-religious haters to demonize any such person we pick, whether that be Donald Trump or anyone else.  We individually need to call, write or fax, our senator or representative whether they be state or federal.  In some cases, if we need to show up and counter-demonstrate, then that is what we should do in order to inform both the media and our government that there are two or more sides to any issue that the left tries to paint as everyone’s view.  So in Part III of this series, I will seek to show from Biblical history and doctrine, why at least Christians should be involved in government yet keep our priorities for that involvement strictly subordinate to Christ’s great commission, the Gospel.