Posted on 09/09/2015 10:03:11 AM PDT by xzins
Before a judge today ordered her release, Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee announced their plans to meet with Kentucky clerk Kim Davis whose refusal to worship at the First Church of Justice Kennedy and sign her name to same-sex marriage licenses landed her in jail over the Labor Day weekend. Had her stand happened a few short centuries ago, Huckabee and Cruz would likely have been joined by a few notable figures from Christian history — men like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Knox — the men who first put the “protest” in “Protestant.” They would have understood her stand completely. It’s the stand of the “lesser magistrate” — the lesser public figure — against a “greater magistrate” who has not only abandoned his God-given role and forsaken his God-ordained responsibilities, but is demanding that his subordinates participate in his rebellion.
At the dawn of the Reformation, the early Protestants faced the twin challenge of defying both ecclesiastical and earthly authority — often combined in the form of rulers acting in the name of the Catholic Church. The result wasn’t just a clash of arms, but a clash of ideas — a theological argument over whether the Reformers, including Protestant public officials, were required to obey their Catholic rulers as God-ordained authorities, abandon their new faith practices, and bring themselves — and their cities — back into obedience to the Holy Roman Emperor.
The theological response was relatively simple: When rulers defy God, they lose their God-ordained authority. When rulers require lesser authorities to cooperate in and facilitate evil, the lesser authorities must resist. As John Knox stated, “True it is, God has commanded kings to be obeyed; but likewise true it is, that in things which they commit against His glory, He has commanded no obedience, but rather, He has approved, yea, and greatly rewarded, such as have opposed themselves to their ungodly commandments and blind rage.” Calvin was even more blunt: “For earthly princes lay aside their power when they rise up against God, and are unworthy to be reckoned among the number of mankind. We ought, rather, to spit upon their heads than to obey them.” In support of this assertion, the Reformers could point to no shortage of biblical examples, including such luminaries as David and Daniel.
But resistance is not to be mounted impulsively or lightly. The Magdeburg Confession, a 1550 statement of defiance of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, notes that all men — both greater and lesser rulers — are subject to “natural weakness” — their own “vices and sins” — yet these common, “remedial” offenses present no cause for defiance or rebellion. But the situation grows more grave as a ruler takes away the rights of others and graver still as the ruler commands that the lesser magistrate participate in his wrongful acts. The “highest level of injury” comes when rulers “persecute God, the author of right in persons, not by any sudden and momentary fury, but with deliberate and persistent attempt to destroy good works for all posterity.” This — the reformers would argue — was precisely the goal of the Holy Roman Emperor, to “extinguish the true worshippers of God, that is, the true Church of God.” One can see the influence of this doctrine in our own American Revolution, which began as a conflict between greater and lesser magistrates, with colonial legislatures and then the Continental Congress serving as the vehicle of American efforts first to appeal to, and then later to defy the crown. Mob violence occurred, but it was mercifully brief and relatively bloodless (especially as compared with that of the French Revolution). Indeed, the Establishment Clause itself — part of the First Amendment — has historically stood as a bulwark against just the kind of crisis triggered by Charles V and other religious rulers of Europe.
It’s critical for the social-justice warriors to understand that victory over the faithful in political and even cultural clashes will not cause them to yield.
Mercifully, for much of our nation’s history, not only has our government not adopted positions explicitly opposed to orthodox Christian faith and practice, when it has encroached on religious conscience, it has been generous in granting exemptions for the faithful. Even when the nation’s very existence is at stake, we don’t demand that pacifists take up arms. Even as our nation’s judiciary created a right to kill innocent children, lesser magistrates erected a labyrinth of conscience exemptions to prevent taxpayers from directly funding abortion and to protect health-care practitioners from participating in murder. In fact, our system is built from the ground up to withstand a high degree of religious dissent.
But this time of relative peace may be at an end. Ever since Justice Kennedy began to establish a new federal religion, most concisely articulated in his infamous “sweet-mystery-of-life” passage in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (“At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life”), America’s Christians have seen their space in the public square shrink, with dissent re-labeled as discrimination and orthodox religious faith slandered as bigotry. Yet it’s critical for the social-justice warriors to understand that victory over the faithful in political and even cultural clashes will not cause them to yield. The alternative to accommodation isn’t coercion but rather conflict.
Last year — while writing in support of Religious Freedom Restoration Acts — I noted: : “Religious liberty exists as a core civilizational value not just because pluralist societies profit from it, but because the human heart demands it. If history teaches anything, it teaches that the religious impulse — the sense of eternity set in the hearts of men (to paraphrase Solomon) — is nothing if not powerful.” Or to put things more bluntly, Justice Kennedy can purport to change the Constitution, but he can’t transform Christian conviction. Unless his social-justice church grows more tolerant, the Kim Davis case is a harbinger of more conflict to come. We Protestants are simply returning to our roots.
It's also because Christianity is at the heart and soul of America. You can't fundamentally transform America while Christianity stands. If Islam, Zoroastorianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Scientology, and Mormonism all held the same position as Christianity, only Christianity would be attacked. Because only by removing Christianity can America be totally undone.
32. But in that obedience which we hold to be due to the commands of rulers, we must always make the exception, nay, must be particularly careful that it is not incompatible with obedience to Him to whose will the wishes of all kings should be subject, to whose decrees their commands must yield, to whose majesty their sceptres must bow. And, indeed, how preposterous were it, in pleasing men, to incur the offence of Him for whose sake you obey men! The Lord, therefore, is King of kings. When he opens his sacred mouth, he alone is to be heard, instead of all and above all. We are subject to the men who rule over us, but subject only in the Lord. If they command anything against Him let us not pay the least regard to it, nor be moved by all the dignity which they possess as magistrates—a dignity to which no injury is done when it is subordinated to the special and truly supreme power of God. On this ground Daniel denies that he had sinned in any respect against the king when he refused to obey his impious decree (Dan. 6:22), because the king had exceeded his limits, and not only been injurious to men, but, by raising his horn against God, had virtually abrogated his own power.On the other hand, the Israelites are condemned for having too readily obeyed the impious edict of the king. For, when Jeroboam made the golden calf, they forsook the temple of God, and, in submissiveness to him, revolted to new superstitions (1 Kings 12:28). With the same facility posterity had bowed before the decrees of their kings. For this they are severely upbraided by the Prophet (Hosea 5:11). So far is the praise of modesty from being due to that pretence by which flattering courtiers cloak themselves, and deceive the simple, when they deny the lawfulness of declining anything imposed by their kings, as if the Lord had resigned his own rights to mortals by appointing them to rule over their fellows, or as if earthly power were diminished when it is subjected to its author, before whom even the principalities of heaven tremble as suppliants.
I know the imminent peril to which subjects expose themselves by this firmness, kings being most indignant when they are contemned. As Solomon says, “The wrath of a king is as messengers of death” (Prov. 16:14). But since Peter, one of heaven’s heralds, has published the edict, “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29), let us console ourselves with the thought, that we are rendering the obedience which the Lord requires, when we endure anything rather than turn aside from piety. And that our courage may not fail, Paul stimulates us by the additional consideration (1 Cor. 7:23), that we were redeemed by Christ at the great price which our redemption cost him, in order that we might not yield a slavish obedience to the depraved wishes of men, far less do homage to their impiety.
John Calvin - Institutes 4.20.35
Hope you don't get banned.
Whatever else it is, it’s a great title.
2Co_3:17 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
“Martin Luther supported tyrannical civil authority when it came to the bloody repression of the Peasants Revolt.
To kill a peasant is not murder; it is helping to extinguish the conflagration. Let there be no half measures! Crush them! Cut their throats! Transfix them! Leave no stone unturned! To kill a peasant is to destroy a mad dog! “
People forget that Martin Luther was born , raised , and died a Catholic .
That’s engraved on the wall of city hall in Detroit.
“That’s engraved on the wall of city hall in Detroit”
It’s to bad they never paid heed to it
Here is my simple question. If Kim was imprisoned for not implementing the law— Why is obama still free for not implementing immigration laws?
Selah!
And Amen.
Obviously I don't know Kim Davis personally and I confess I questioned her motives when this story first broke.
I blame my intense skepticism of Democrats (which Kim Davis is) and the Men Seeking Men Media.
So I hereby apologize to Kim Davis and pray that God will bless her beyond measure for shaking us out of our spiritual slumber, standing up for righteousness and not allowing herself to participate in the persecution of God.
Because the law is for us. Not the elite and exempt. We go to jail. They do not. They have no fear of the law, because whatever they say is the law, is the law. Just ask Sotomayor and company.
Even during the American revolution, there was Catholic support, mostly from Maryland.
Secular Humanism is what the left and the MSM embrace. Man is the upmost moral authority. Man can decide what is right and wrong, and can change his mind at any time. While secular humanism is not a formal religion, it is treated like it is. It does not simply disagree with persons of faith, it views them adversarially. Secular humanists view Christians as competitiors. And what do you do with competitors? You try to beat them. That is what is going on now in our world.
One of the signers of the Declaration was Catholic. Charles Carroll. And yes, he was from Maryland.
A great man.
And I say that as a non-Catholic.
“Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure (and) which insures to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.”
— Charles Carroll
For his stand against the tyranny of the Catholic Church.
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