GOD IS JUST: ALL LAW IS THEOCRATIC

Chapter 8:

All Law is Theocratic

Since all law is moral, all law is religious; and since every religion has a god, then all law is theocratic. Remember, theocracy means “rule of God.” So when God and His rule aren’t acknowledged, then another god and its rule is acknowledged in His place. The choice then is between the true theocracy of Christ or a false theocracy of idols. Whatever reference point a society bases its law upon is that society’s god; thus a law-system’s reference point reveals the kind of theocracy a society holds to. For instance, if the law’s reference point is the Bible, then the law presupposes a Christian theocracy. If the law’s reference point is the people, then the law presupposes a humanistic theocracy.

Today’s secular humanists borrow much of their political philosophy from the ancient Greeks and Romans. For secular humanists, Greco-Roman civilization was happily non-theocratic, unlike Israel under God’s law. But as Rémi Brague points out, all of Western civilization has theocratic roots. While Brague doesn’t consider the theocratic nature of secular humanism, his point is well taken:

Although we modern Westerners commonly look down on “theocracies,” our systems of legislation are, or were, in some sense theocratic too. They are, or were founded in the last instance on assumptions that are theological in origin. And certainly, the idea of a divine law is not absent from our own Western tradition. On the contrary, it is emphatically present in both its sources—in Athens no less than Jerusalem, in Sophocles, Plato, Cicero, and many others, no less than in the Old Testament.142

Theocracy of some form or another is no less assumed in ostensibly religiously-neutral ideologies as it is in overtly theocratic assumptions in democracy and libertarianism. Democracy says, “vox populi, vox dei”—“the voice of the people is the voice of god.”143

Libertarianism says, “Each and every individual is a god unto himself.”144 

A democracy’s transcendent authority for law is the majority. It is a majoritarian theocracy, a mobocracy. The libertarian society’s transcendent authority for law is man’s autonomy. It is an autonomous theocracy, or auton.

Then we have liberalism and conservatism, with their respective faiths in what man will accomplish, or what man has accomplished.

Liberalism says, “Man is perfectible, and is making himself better all the time.” The liberal society’s transcendent authority for law is the bureaucracy, the representative embodiment of collective man and the mechanism for promoting human progress. Liberalism then is a bureauocracy.

Conservatism says, “Authority is found in the traditions of men.” The conservative society’s transcendent authority for law is the achievements of national ancestors. This amounts to ancestor worship, a heritocracy.145 And, there is pluralism, which says, “All religions and views are equally authoritative.” The pluralist society has several religious transcendent authorities for law. This amounts to a polytheistic theocracy, or, a polyocracy. 143  Theocracy, then, is inescapable. Consider the French Revolution.

While its pretext was building the first secular, neutral, non-theocratic society ever, it simply deified human reason in God’s place. Bent on

building a Reason theocracy, the revolutionaries converted “the venerable cathedral of Notre-Dame into a ‘Temple of Reason,’ dedicated ‘to philosophy.’”146 Other church buildings were converted to “temples of reason” throughout the provinces.147 During a “Feast of Reason” in the Notre-Dame cathedral,148 the theocrats designated their messianic

deliverer:

Madame Candeile, an actress and sometime opera singer, was carried in under the tremendous nave dressed in “an azure mantle garlanded with oak, holding in her hand the Pike of the Jupiter- People, heralded by young women in tricolor dresses.” The dignitaries of the Assembly in their medals and plumes cheered as the Goddess of Reason sat grandly on the high altar.149  

For the revolutionaries, Reason Incarnate had inaugurated her kingdom reign. Ironically, Jean Jacques Rousseau, a chief philosophical influence on the Revolution, said, “Never was a state founded that did not have religion for its basis.”150 This ostensibly religion-less revolution was, to quote Edmund Burke, “Atheism by Establishment.”151

Similarly, French Revolution critic G. Groen van Prinsterer calls the Revolution, “the religion, as it were, of unbelief.”152 He adds,

The principle of this vaunted philosophy was the sovereignty of Reason, and the outcome was apostasy from God and materialism. … I hardly need remind you that from the outset the supremacy of Reason was postulated as an axiom in philosophy.

This supremacy rested upon a denial of the corruption of human nature. But where Reason was considered uncorrupted, Revelation could contain nothing beyond its reach, or at least nothing against its verdict. Thus reason became the touchtone of the truth. … Holy Scripture, to be holy, came to need the sanction of human approval. It cannot escape the Christian that at this very juncture the Divine prerogative is already violated as man seeks to be rid of God and to be deified in His place.153

Reason for Revolutionary France was both god and holy writ.154 As opposed to a theocracy based on the “rule of God,” the French theocracy based itself on the “rule of Reason.” Then there is the French Revolution’s philosophical heir, the Russian Revolution. (Lenin, four months prior to leading the Russian Revolution in November 1917, approved of the Jacobin revolt.)155 The atheistic Russian Revolution took the French Revolution’s materialistic philosophy 156 to its logical conclusion and made its god, or basis for ultimate reality, matter.157 This revolution repeated a pattern from the first atheist revolution. Just as the French theocrats converted church buildings into “temples of reason,” Russia’s neo-atheist theocracy converted church buildings into “museums of atheism.”158 While the cathedral of Notre-Dame supplied the fodder for the greatest “Temple of Reason,” Leningrad’s Kazan cathedral supplied the fodder for the greatest “Museum of Atheism”— “Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism.”159

And, while the French theocrats worshipped “the goddess of reason,” the Russian theocrats worshipped the premier—Proletariat Incarnate, matter in its highest form. After the death of Lenin, the first communist premier, it was said: “Lenin lives in the heart of every member of our Party. Every member of our Party is a small part of Lenin. Our whole communist family is a collective embodiment of Lenin.”160

In the tradition of ancient Egyptians who mummified their deified Pharaohs, an “Immortalisation Commission” mummified Russia’s premier.161 Stalin repeatedly said at the funeral they would “honour” “thy [Lenin’s] commandment.”162 Stalin then took over and became Russia’s new god. He was heralded as the “father of the people,”163 of whom it was said, “Thou art the greatest leader.”164 A poem of that time reflects Stalin’s reputed god-like omnipresence and omniscience: “And so—everywhere. In the workshops, in the mines/In the Red Army, the kindergarten/He is watching … You look at his portrait and it’s as if he knows/Your work— and weighs it/You’ve worked badly—his brows lower/But when you’ve worked well, he smiles in his moustache.”165 After Stalin’s death, his successor Nikita Khrushchev reminded the Twentieth Party Congress that supernatural characteristics akin to those of a god.”166 The Russian revolutionaries had rejected the Kingdom of God for a kingdom of matter. This kingdom of matter would be inaugurated by the proletariat, who, in the words of Lenin, were “to set up heaven on earth.”167 Under the pretext of irreligion the Russian theocrats could not conceal their religion. Even the anti-Christian philosopher Bertrand Russell identified communism as developed in Russia as “a political religion analogous to Islam.”168

By their own speech, the Russian theocrats betrayed their professed irreligion. Lenin said, “Who plans whom, who directs and dominates whom, who assigns to other people their station in life, and who is to have his due allotted by others? These become necessarily the central issues to be decided solely by the supreme power.”169

Like Adam and Eve, in rejecting God, Lenin inescapably exchanged the Supreme Power for another “supreme power,” man. As Khrushchev would later affirm, “the people” are “the creator of history and … the creator of all material and spiritual good of humanity.”170 (Similarly, the Chinese communist leader Mao Tse-Tung wrote, “Our God is none other than the masses of the Chinese people.”)171 The Russian theocracy had thus rejected a biblical theocracy based on the “rule of God” for a material theocracy based on the “rule of the people,” more specifically, “the rule of the Proletariat.” And, let us not forget another philosophical heir of the French Revolution, American secular humanism. Like the French and Russian revolutions, secular humanism elevates reason 172 and matter.173 Its god is humanity, the embodiment of these attributes. In 1933, the Humanist Manifesto officially declared the humanists’ goal “to evaluate, transform, control, and direct all institutions and organizations by its own value system” (emphasis mine).174 

This language clearly indicates a desire to dominate society with the religion of humanism—to establish a totalitarian humanistic theocracy. Humanists were already in the process of converting a school system that originally taught Christianity 175 into temples of humanism. As early as 1930, the founder of the First Humanist Society of New York176 writes in Humanism: A New Religion:

Education is thus a most powerful ally of Humanism, and every American public school is a school of Humanism. What can the theistic Sunday-schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?177

Secular humanists figured out long ago how to circumvent the Constitutional guarantee against a nationally-established church: Simply label national secular humanist churches with the euphemism “public schools,” and have the church service times weekdays instead of Sunday, the day America associates with attending worship services. Then, deflect attention away from the religiosity of these humanist churches by positing a false dichotomy between secular and religious education. Such legerdemain has to this day duped Americans into unwittingly embracing compulsive humanistic religious instruction.

The secular humanist political platform is consistent with its desire to impose a theocracy in all areas of life. R. J. Rushdoony writes,[O]ur increasingly humanistic laws, courts, and legislators are giving us a new morality. They tell us, as they strike down laws resting upon Biblical foundations, that morality cannot be legislated, but what they offer is not only legislated morality but salvation by law … Wherever we look now, whether with respect to poverty, education, civil rights, human rights, peace, and all things else, we see laws passed designed to save man.

Supposedly, these laws are going to give us a society free of prejudice, ignorance, disease, poverty, crime, war, and all other things considered to be evil. These legislative programs add up to one thing: salvation by law.178

As Rushdoony observes, the secular humanistic faith pervades everything. Moreover, Rushdoony demonstrates that, despite secular humanism’s attempts to conceal its desire to impose a theocracy by appealing to neutrality, it is obvious that secular humanist policies are anything but neutral. They are all concerned with salvation of humanity by humanity; as the Humanist Manifesto II states: “No deity will save us;

we must save ourselves.”179 Secular humanists thus deify humanity. They look to humanity as their lord and savior. Lordship and salvation come through the state, the most physically powerful reflection of humanity. Secular humanism, in short, is as theocratic as any worldview gets. Even its religious pioneers could not escape repeated references to faith and religion:

The Humanist Manifesto I (1933) declares “to establish such a religion (of humanism) is a major necessity of the present,” and to “break with the past” in order to establish a “vital, fearless, and frank religion capable of furnishing adequate goals and personal satisfactions,” is the goal of humanism. 

The Humanist Manifesto II (1973) uses the words religion and religious some 19 times while stating that “Faith, commensurate with advancing knowledge, is also necessary,” among nontheists whose center of thought or worship is “nature, not deity.” Not only is there an influential journal entitled The Religious Humanist, but one of the most prominent humanists, Julian Huxley, referred to his beliefs as “the religion of evolutionary humanism” while still another, Michael Kolenda, entitled his book on humanistic religion, Religion Without God. Of course, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized humanism as a religion in Torcasco v. Watkins (1961), and The Secular Humanist Declaration (1980) concludes that “Secular humanism places trust in human intelligence rather than in divine guidance.”180 Secular humanism, instead of looking for salvation in Jesus Christ, looks to humanity for salvation. It rejects the theocratic “rule of God” for the theocratic “rule of humanity.”

The French Revolution, Soviet Communism, and American secular humanism are examples of how no matter how much man may try to not acknowledge any god, such attempts are futile, and therefore theocracy is inescapable. According to Romans 1:18-23:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Thus, “Knowing that God the Creator exists and that they are the creatures of this God and owe him obedience, they suppress this knowledge. Unable to obliterate this knowledge, they pervert it into an idol …”181—a statue, Nature, Mother Earth, the People, Reason, Matter, etc.

Thus in their suppression of the knowledge of God, non-Christian societies—no matter how secular they claim to be—evidence this suppression by assigning God’s divine attributes to other things. To assign any of God’s divine attributes to something else is to, by the nature of the case, see that something as a god. While all humanistic societies actually have many gods, we especially find them looking to the state as divine. The humanistic society assigns God’s attribute of sovereignty to the state, which is seen to possess sovereign powers to control a nation’s destiny; it has, for instance, the power to predestine economic prosperity.

Humanists also assign to the state God’s attribute of omniscience, as the state is seen to possess the ability to “enlighten” the citizen’s mind via public education. God’s attribute of justice is also mimicked as the humanistic society that rejects God looks to the state as the transcendent standard of justice. And, humanism might assign God’s attribute of omnipotence to the state by seeing it as having the ability to save society (and in the case of the UN, even the world) via social programs. Thus the inescapability of theocracy is very clear when we consider that all societies that reject God nevertheless look to the state as a god by ascribing it with any number of God’s divine attributes.

FOOTNOTES:

142 Rémi Brague, “Are Non-Theocratic Regimes Possible?,” The Intercollegiate Review vol. 41, no. 1 (Spring 2006): 4.

143 Gary DeMar, “Theocracy: An Inescapable Concept,” Biblical Worldview

Magazine, January 2005, vol. 21, no. 1:7.

144 Ibid., 19.

145 We must be clear that this does not necessarily describe all whom identify themselves as liberals or conservatives. Since the political platforms of liberalism and conservatism change over time, their platforms at any given point in history might happen to line up more or less with biblical law. In an emerging Christian nation (e.g., Rome during the early church), those who hold to biblical law might identify themselves as liberals. And in a Christian nation in decline (such as ours),

those who hold to biblical law might identify themselves as conservatives. What we consider a bureau-crat is one whose ultimate authority in political matters is the state and the bureaucracy, and what we consider a heritocrat is one whose ultimate authority in political matters is tradition. Finally, we distinguish political conservatism from Christian conservatism. We do not reject the latter, which is a term (when properly understood) for identifying orthodox Christianity over against liberal (false) Christianity.

146 Michael Burleigh, Earthly Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics in

Europe, from the French Revolution to the Great War (New York, NY:

HarperCollins Publishers, 2005), 87.

147 Ibid.

148 Scott, Robespierre, 208.

149 Ibid., 208, 209.

During that time the press wrote, “Liberty, represented by a beautiful woman, came out of the temple of philosophy, and taking her seat on the green sward, accepted the homage of the republican men and women, who sang a hymn in her honour, whilst stretching out their arms to her. Then liberty descended to re-enter the temple, but stopping before her entry to turn and cast a look of good-will upon her friends. As soon as she entered, their enthusiasm broke out in shouts of joy and oaths that they would never cease to be faithful to her.” Les Révolutions de Paris,

No. 215, 23-30 Brumaire, Year II (13-20 November 1793), 214-15. Cited in J.

Gilchrist and W. J. Murray, The Press in the French Revolution: A Selection of Documents taken from the Press of the Revolution for the Years 1789-1794 (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press Inc., 1971), 118, 119. Otto Scott paints a similar picture of a Jacobin Club meeting: “He [Robespierre] rose to speak inside the Club like one voicing the wishes of its gods, like a man who had visited the mountain. An observer wrote, ‘The nave of the Jacobin’s church is changed into a vast circus. The seats mount up, circularly, like an amphitheater, to the very groin of the domed roof. A high Pyramid of black marble, built against one of the walls—formerly a funeral monument—has been left standing, and now serves as a back to the office-bearer’s bureau. Here on an elevated platform sit President and Secretaries; behind them the white busts of Mirabeau and Franklin … In front isthe Tribune, raised till it is midway between floor and groin of the dome, so the speakers’ voice may be in the center. The imagination … recalls those dread temples

… consecrated to the Avenging Deities.’” Scott, Robespierre, 140-141.

150 Cited in Charles B. Galloway, Christianity and the American Commonwealth; or, The Influence of Christianity in Making This Nation, 20. Galloway’s quote cited in DeMar, America’s Christian History, 47.

151 Cited in Burleigh, Earthly Powers, 121.

152 G. Groen van Prinsterer, Unbelief and Revolution, 17.

153 Ibid., 17, 18.

154 As Edward J. Young writes, “To reject external revelation and to regard the human mind as a law unto itself is not to become enlightened but to fall into the grossest of deceptions. … To exalt the human reason, as though it in itself were the final arbiter of all things, is in reality to substitute the creature for the Creator.” Edward J. Young, An Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1973), 21.

155 Nigel Lee, Communist Eschatology, 90. Lenin writes in Can ‘Jacobinism’ Frighten the Working Class?: “Proletarian historians see Jacobinism as one of the highest peaks in the emancipation struggle of an oppressed class. The Jacobins gave France the best models of a democratic revolution and of resistance to a coalition of monarchs against a republic. … ‘Jacobinism’ in Europe or in the boundary line between Europe and Asia in the twentieth century would be the rule of the revolutionary class, of the proletariat, which, supported by the peasant-poor and taking advantage of the existing material basis for advancing socialism, could not only provide all the great, ineradicable, unforgettable things provided by the Jacobins in the eighteenth century, but brings about a lasting, world-wide victory for the working people” (Ibid., 90).

French Revolutionary philosophy influenced Marx and Engels, the chief philosophical influences of the Russian Revolution. Engels writes of Rousseau, “already in Rousseau, therefore, we find not only a sequence of ideas which corresponds exactly with the sequence developed in Marx’s Capital, but we even find that the correspondence extends also to details, Rousseau using a whole series of

the same dialectical developments as Marx used.” Nigel Lee, Communist Eschatology, 87. Engels mentions the “Great French Revolution” as being the first bourgeoisie uprising to “entirely cast off the religious cloak” (Ibid., 88). Prince

Lvov, head of two Russian provisional governments prior to the Revolution, wrote,

“The spirit of the Russian people has shown itself, of its own accord, to be a universally democratic spirit. It is a spirit that seeks not only to dissolve into universal democracy, but also to lead the way proudly down the path first marked out

by the French revolution, toward Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.” Cited in

Stéphane Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror,

Repression (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 44.

156 On the common French Revolutionary/Marxist views on materialism, Singer writes: “The empirical epistemology of Locke and his followers was no more successful than the rationalism which it replaced. Its major contribution to Western culture was to enhance the emergence of a secularism thoroughly embedded in materialism, a materialism which characterized the French Revolution and which ultimately produced Marxian communism and its philosophical satellites.” Singer, From Rationalism to Irrationality, 408, 409.

157 Lenin, for instance, states “We may regard the material and cosmic world as the supreme being, as the cause of all causes, as the creator of heaven and earth.” Cited in Nigel Lee, Communist Eschatology, 815.

158 Michael Burleigh, Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics, from the Great War to the War on Terror (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007).

From caption on third page of photographs in middle of book (no page number

given).

159 Ibid., 48.

This shift from “temple” to “museum” is logical. Marxism holds that matter is

the ultimate reality. “Temple” sounds too spiritual and thereby not material enough,

but “museum”—which connotes the display of raw material things—fits.

160 Michael Burleigh, Sacred Causes, 54.

161 Ibid.

162 Ibid., 53.

163 Ibid., 73.

164 Ibid., 72.

165 Ibid., 74, 75.

166 U.S. News and World Report, June 15, 1956, p. 34. Cited in James D. Bales,

Communism: Its Faith and Fallacies: An Exposition and Criticism (Grand Rapids,

MI: Baker Book House, 1962), 52.

167 Cited in Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction: The Conflict of Christian

Faith and American Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), 186.

168 Lester E. Denonn, ed., Bertrand Russell’s Dictionary of Mind, Matter, and

Morals, 30. Cited in Bales, Communism, 18.

169 Cited in Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, 116, 117.

170 Cited in Bales, Communism, 34.

171 Mao Tse-Tung, Five Articles by Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (Peking: Foreign

Languages Press, 1968), 15.

172 The Humanist Manifesto II (1973) states, “Reason and intelligence are the

most effective instruments that humankind possesses.” Cited in McDowell et al.,

Handbook of Today’s Religions, 467.

173 The Humanist Manifesto II (1973) states, “We find insufficient evidence for

belief in the existence of a supernatural.” Cited in Ibid., 464.

174 Cited in David Limbaugh, Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War

Against Christianity (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2003), 66.

175 DeMar, America’s Christian History, 108.

176 Limbaugh, Persecution, 65.

177 Cited by David A. Noebel, Clergy in the Classroom, The Religion of Secular

Humanism, 8. Noebel’s quote cited in Limbaugh, Persecution, 65.

178 Rushdoony, Law & Liberty, 2, 3.

179 McDowell et. al., Handbook of Today’s Religions, 464.

180 Charles W. Dunn, ed., American Political Theology: Historical Perspectives

and Theoretical Analysis (New York, NY: Praeger Publishers, 1984), 83.

181 John W. Robbins, Without a Prayer: Ayn Rand and the Close of Her System

(Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation, 2006), 22.

SOURCE:  "GOD IS JUST: A defense of Old Testament Civil Law" by Steve C. Halbrook  51-61

BIBLICAL THEOCRACY VERSUS HUMANISTIC THEOCRACY (1)

About the Author:
Steve C. Halbrook writes for, and manages, Theonomy Resources (theonomyresources.blogspot.com).
He is also a teacher for The New Geneva Christian Leadership Academy (www.newgeneva.us). He holds an M.A. in Government from Regent University’s Robertson School of Government (2008), with a focus on biblical civil government.
Halbrook’s master’s thesis was “God is Just: A Defense of the Old Testament Civil Laws,” which this book is an expansion of.

“Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth

has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter.”

(Isaiah 59:14)

“No one calls for justice, Nor does any plead for truth. They trust in

empty words and speak lies; They conceive evil and bring forth

iniquity.” (Isaiah 59:4) (NKJV)

“Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just,’ when it is their

own way that is not just.” (Ezekiel 33:17)

“Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily,

the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.” (Ecclesiastes

8:11)

“This city has aroused my anger and wrath, from the day it was built

to this day, so that I will remove it from my sight because of all the evil

of the children of Israel and the children of Judah that they did to

provoke me to anger—their kings and their officials, their priests and

their prophets, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

They have turned to me their back and not their face. And though I

have taught them persistently, they have not listened to receive

instruction.” (Jeremiah 32:31-33)

Chapter 1:

What is Biblical Theocracy? God is the sovereign ruler over all things: “The LORD has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all” (Ps. 103:19). God’s claim to universal rule is by virtue of being before all things (Jn. 1:1,2), Creator of all things (Jn. 1:3), Ordainer of all things (Is. 46:10), Sustainer of all things (Col. 1:17), the sole source of justice (Ps. 89:14), and the sole source of goodness (Lk. 18:19). All things, therefore, are in every way God’s property rights (Ps. 24:1, 2; cf. Rom. 9:20-23; Is. 10:15). God’s sovereign rule over all things is the starting point for biblical theocracy.

The basic meaning of theocracy is “rule of God.” It derives from the Greek words theos, meaning God, and kratos, meaning power, strength, or rule. In the first century, Josephus, the famous Jewish historian, coined “theocracy” and defined it as “placing all sovereignty and authority in the hands of God” (Against Apion, 2.164-165).76 While the word theocracy is absent from the Bible, from cover to cover its meaning is clearly taught: God rules over all.

11 (Prov. 3:6; Ps. 2:11-12).

“Theocracy” can be understood in different contexts. It can be descriptive of the reality of God’s rule over all things (Dan. 4:17; Matt. 28:18). It can also be prescriptive of man’s acknowledgement of God’s rule over all things Regarding the latter understanding, that theocracy requires the acknowledgment of God’s total rule, biblical theocracy begins with the individual, i.e., the conversion of the heart to Christ (Ezek. 36:27). A Christian’s theocracy then begins in a sphere of self-government.

Since out of the heart “are the issues of life” (Prov. 4:23, KJV), from selfgovernment a Christian’s theocracy naturally flows into other government spheres under Christ’s rule, including family, church, and state.

Since Christ is the head of all government spheres, no sphere may exercise monopoly powers over another; they are each restricted by Christ’s power and authority. Thus while their powers overlap in some ways, neither the family nor the church is permitted to have authoritarian control over the other. God is sovereign over both. The same concept applies with church and state: each answers to God as its ultimate authority, instead of one another. 

It is these two points—the bottom-up nature of theocracy, and the separation of church and state—where many are confused. Regarding the former, one reason humanists dread theocracy is because of their own totalitarian mindset: they project their view that society only changes via top-down conditioning by the state onto Christians, who are seen as competitors attempting a rival form of impositionalism.

To the secularist, the threat of theocracy is symbolized by the 

enthronement of the Ten Commandments in a courthouse, school, 

or public place. This is why they deem the removal of Judge Roy 

Moore’s monument as a victory for the theocratic resistance 

movement. However, theocracy is rather the enthronement of

God’s law in the heart of the believer as all human mediators, 

whether in church or state, are removed and the direct rule of God 

is placed over the self-governing man. Theocracy is not coming.

 Theocracy is now! In my home, relationships, and work, I do not function in terms of democracy, oligarchy, monarchy, socialism, or communism. In all areas of life I must be governed by the direct rule of God (theos-kratos) through the writing of His law upon my heart and mind.77

Humanism, being a worldview that begins with fallen, sinful man, does not understand bottom-up transformation because it does not understand self-government (Rom. 8:7; Gen. 6:5). While God’s law prescribes top-down, society must embrace this law bottom-up via regeneration by the Holy Spirit. When this happens, a national theocracy naturally develops where “God’s revealed law is supreme over all human laws, and is the source of all laws.”78

In rejecting God’s sovereign control of society—including His control over the hearts of regenerate men—humanism attempts to fill the void of sovereignty by attempting sovereign control of the hearts and actions of members of society via the sword of the state. So not surprisingly, when one mentions government in today’s humanistic society, one instinctively thinks of the state. Such thinking, by disregarding other forms of government, is “implicitly totalitarian.”79

The state is not to be thought of as the only form of government, and yet this is where our society is at; it looks to the state to govern the other government spheres (family, church, and individual).80

By contrast, a biblical theocracy will naturally enact laws from the Bible, but contrary to humanistic fears, such a society is the only one that would not be tyrannical, since it is the only possible society prioritizing regeneration over coercion.81 And so while humanism sword-imposes top-down via a totalitarian state, biblical theocracy primarily self-imposes bottom-up, that is, via hearts in direct submission to Christ.

 FOOTNOTES


76 Gary Demar, America’s Christian History: The Untold Story (Powder Springs,
GA: American Vision Inc., 2007), 207, 208.

77 Christopher J. Ortiz, “Theocracy Now!” Faith for all of Life, May/June 2007, 9.

78 Joe Morecraft III, With Liberty & Justice For All: Christian Politics Made
Simple (Sevierville, TN: Onward Press, 1991), 68.
79 R.J. Rushdoony, God’s Law and Society: Foundations in Christian
Reconstruction, Jay Rogers, ed. (Melbourne, FL: J.C. Rogers Production, 2006), 35.
Retrieved May 5, 2008, from http://forerunner.com/law/glsbook.pdf.
80 Liberal humanists are most consistent in viewing the state as “the government,”
since they hold that everything is a product of the environment, and therefore it is the
job of the state to produce the ideal environment by coercing with the sword (i.e.,
govern the behavior of) the family, church, and the self (i.e., the other government
spheres). Bottom-up government is impossible in this view, since the environment is
outside the individual.
81 Rushdoony describes the humanistic/Christian alternatives as “revolution or
regeneration,” respectively. Rousas John Rushdoony, The Roots of Reconstruction
(Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1991), 426.


From the book "God is Just": A DEFENSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CIVIL LAW  by Steve C Halbrook, pgs. 11-13

FAITH AND FREEDOM (4)

CHAPTER FOUR

John Wycliffe, Father of American Dissent

Following the disintegration of the Roman Empire we see in many ways a rebirth of the apostolic Christian spirit. Even though the Church still held to Augustine's "City of God" ideal of the total Christian society, there was no state to speak of with which the Church could unite. Nomadic tribes settled the areas once patrolled by Caesar's armies. There was no coherent body of law and no system of police protection. The survival of Christianity hinged not on making an alliance with a powerful ruler, but on its ability to convince the various barbaric tribes of the merits of its case. The world was, once again, decentralized, without any unifying political agent, and with no single institution setting down standards to which everyone had to conform. 

There was no military at the disposal of the Church, and so it needed to return to evangelism as practiced by Christians of the first three centuries prior to the conversion of Constantine. The result was the stunning spread of Christianity throughout Europe during the period that has come to be called the Dark Ages. Christianity during these centuries stood for progress, learning, and civilization. It discouraged slavery, elevated the status of women, tended to the suffering, and organized poor-houses. The Church handed down laws to the barbarian kingdoms and was a tremendous defender of the dignity of the individual.

But the Church, even though it had recaptured the missionary spirit of the New Testament, retained Augustine's vision of imperial Christianity. In the late seventh century, we see the emergence of the regal pontiff with the tall, white headpiece. And during the eighth century, the papacy began to promote itself as the sole head of the Church and successor to Peter. We also see paintings of Pope John VII receiving papal symbols from the Virgin Mary. But it was the Frankish emperor Charlemagne who in 800 formally reunited church and state, and began the age of the medieval church.

Charlemagne was an extremely religious man and Pope Leo III was eager for him to look with favor on the Church. Most of all, Leo wanted the protection of Charlemagne's armies; and Charlemagne wanted to become the "Lord's anointed" leader of a reconstructed Roman empire. This new empire, however, was to be Christian rather than pagan. Charlemagne saw a clear connection between building civilization and spreading Christianity, and so expanded enormously the ranks of the clergy, who represented the most learned class of people. He subsidized churches, monasteries, abbeys, and universities, and became involved in the appointment of bishops. Church councils became his legislative assemblies, and priests, abbotts, and monks his royal administrators. The Church once again had become a political arm of the secular monarch. The advantages to both church and state were clear. The Church received government protection and favors, and vastly increased its wealth, while the king or emperor received divine sanction for his activities. Indeed, at the end of the ninth century, Pope John VIII praised the Carolingian emperor Charles II as the savior of the world and "Vicar of Christ," thus beginning the medieval tradition of the divine right of kings.

Charlemagne was a great ruler in many ways, and fully intended to use the Church for the benefit of the people. But the contrast between the simple Christianity that was brought to the Franks and the version that emerged after Charlemagne was stark. Not only did the Church provide spiritual answers, it provided all the political answers. Every aspect of human and social relations was regulated to the minutest detail, all forms of deviation were crushed, and the clergy became a disciplined army serving at the behest of the secular power. Under Charlemagne, bishops were royal functionaries. They sat as judges, collected taxes, served as ambassadors, and wrote legislation. For their services, they were given large tracts of land. More than half of Carolingian legislation dealt with church matters. The monarch was in every sense a priest, which was the meaning of his coronation. The only spiritual power he did not have was the disposal of the sacraments. By the time of the Renaissance, the Church was an enormously rich and cynical center of political ambition, with the papacy largely subservient to secular tyrants. A good illustration of how the church-state alliance worked was the Spanish Inquisition, which had its formal beginning in 1233. The Inquisition in Spain and Italy was a national tool for crushing political dissent. The Church would investigate alleged heresy and the state would exact punishment.

More often than not, genuine Christians within the church have been a restraining influence on the state. Almost by necessity, however, the official church establishment has frequently behaved as just another player in the struggle for political power, often subordinating itself to the authority of the secular ruler. The case of John Hus is a good example. Hus at tacked the legitimacy of Pope John XXIII (1410-15). Pope John was one of three men, including Benedict XIII and Gregory XII, who claimed to be the true pope.

John XXIII was a man who had purchased the office of Cardinal, denied the resurrection, reportedly seduced and violated some 300 nuns, and poisoned his predecessor, Pope Alexander V. He was later accused by 37 witnesses (mostly priests) of sodomy, theft, murder, and other crimes. Hus denounced as un-Christian and blasphemous John's authorization of the sale of indulgences "for the remission of sins" to finance a military crusade against Pope Gregory XII. Hus's views were upheld by Inquisitor Nicholas, Bishop of Nazareth, who exonerated Hus and gave him a certificate of orthodoxy.

But Pope John had the support of the Emperor Sigismund, who saw Hus as a threat to the unity of church and empire. Sigismund presided over the Council of Constance (1414-1418), which was dominated by civil officials and academicians. Sigismund preferred John XXIII over his rival popes because John was subservient to the emperor. Sigismund and the council declared their authority as supreme over that of the church, including the three popes.

Sigismund tricked Hus into attending the council in order to defend his views, including his attacks on John. Sigismund promised Hus safe conduct to and from the council regardless of the verdict. When Hus arrived, however, he was arrested, put on trial, and charged with 62 counts of heresy - none of which correctly stated Hus's views. "You have heard of many and heavy crimes which are not only proved against Hus by reliable witnesses but also confessed by him. I deem that each one of them is worthy of death," declared Sigismund.

Hus said he would humbly and gladly recant if he could be proven wrong from Scripture. The emperor and the council refused Hus's plea, and on July 6, 1415, consigned his soul to the devil. That same day, the secular authorities burned Hus at the stake. He committed his soul to the Lord and prayed loudly until the smoke choked his voice.

The sentiment of the council, including Sigismund, ultimately turned against all three popes: Gregory resigned, while John and Benedict were deposed. Martin V, who had become the consensus choice among the reigning secular heads of state, was then pronounced pope. The Church later proclaimed Gregory, whom Hus had supported against John, as the canonical pope.

Throughout history, the state performed the chief function of Inquisitor, and dominated the church. There have been only brief periods when the pope held the upper hand. Often the church gained in power and wealth by entering into alliances with the secular authorities - but it did so to the detriment of religious faith.

Anti-papal literature began circulating during the 12th century. The Franciscans were but one of the many reform movements taking place under the surface of official society. Their dedication to poverty and chastity, their denunciation of worldly ambition, aversion to violence, and their determination to live the pure and simple Christian life gained followers by the tens of thousands. Not surprisingly, the land was soon ablaze with Franciscan friars who were often condemned (almost always by the state) for their non-conformist behavior and their rejection of the pomp and ritual that characterized the so-called orthodox church. The great Italian poet Dante, once a Franciscan himself, writing in the early 14th century, described the Vatican as a "sewer of corruption" and placed Popes Boniface VIII, Nicolas II, and Clement V in the lower regions of his Inferno (Hell). Dante lamented the alliance the Church had made with the emperor Constantine:

Ah Constantine! What ills were gendered there
No, not from thy conversion, but the dower
The first rich Pope received from thee as heir.

Dante himself got into serious difficulty, not only for portraying local church and political figures in unflattering terms, but for writing about Christianity in the vernacular, so that the average person could understand him. Transmitting the Bible's teachings in vulgar Italian, rather than high Latin, threatened the position of the clergy by taking the mystery out of Christianity, which was to be apprehended only by an elite core of theologians. Dante spent much of his life in exile from his native city of Florence, dying an outlaw in 1321. His poetry was considered politically dangerous and blasphemous - even though its purpose was to win converts to Christ.

Into this world John Wycliffe was born, around the year 1330, in North Riding of Yorkshire, England. He was the father of Protestant dissent in the English-speaking world, which is important for us because British Protestantism would later be transplanted to the colonies of North America. Wycliffe, a doctor of divinity, was a towering intellectual force at Oxford, writing some 200 books during the course of his career. For most of his life he was a staunch and orthodox Catholic. There were, however, two events that sowed the seeds of his discontent with the papacy. The first was the total submission of the pope to the demands of the French, historically loathed by the English. The second was the spectacle of rival popes excommunicating each other during the Great Schism. These two episodes seemed to call into question both the pope's political authority and his infallibility.

Wycliffe began criticizing papal extravagance, noting that the primacy of Peter in the New Testament was not in worldly grandeur and might, but in faith and humility. Christ Himself had no political power: "It is the plain fact," Wycliffe pointed out in his book De Potestate Papae, "that no man should be pope unless he is the son of Christ and of Peter, imitating them in deeds." For his arguments, Wycliffe relied on Scripture, constantly contrasting the example of Peter, who Catholics say was the first pope, with the regal pontiff of the Middle Ages. Peter wore no tall hat, no expensive robes, and carried no golden staff. Moreover, the Bible, thought Wycliffe, was a far more trustworthy authority than papal pronouncements or church tradition:

"All law, all philosophy, all logic and all ethics are in Holy Scripture," he said. The Bible is "one perfect word, proceeding from the mouth of God," and is "the basis for every Catholic opinion." Wycliffe's thinking broke sharply from medieval scholasticism, which considered church tradition as co-equal in authority with Scripture; many saw the Church as the primary authority, a view articulated by Guido Terreni, when he said that "the whole authority of Scripture depends upon the church." Wycliffe said this was wrong, and that in fact the opposite was the case: "In Holy Scripture is all truth."

Needless to say, church authorities were not amused. Pope Gregory XI issued five bulls against Wycliffe in 1377 and denounced him as "the master of errors." Gregory ordered the English church to arrest Wycliffe and try him for heresy. The English authorities, however, were cautious because of Wycliffe's enormous popularity, and Oxford was not eager to condemn so outstanding a scholar. He was placed quietly under house arrest, and continued to write.

By the end of the 14th century, church ritual had become so elaborate that Chrishanity was inaccessible to all but the most learned. The Mass was said in Latin. "There are many thousands of people who could not imagine in their hearts how Christ was crucified unless they had learned it from the sight of images and paintings," Wycliffe wrote, noting that "Christ and his Apostles taught to people in that tongue that was best known to them." Wycliffe, like Dante, sought to make God's message available to anyone who wanted to hear it. While still at Oxford, he embarked on his historic enterprise to translate the Bible into English, something that had never been done: "Every Christian," he thought, "ought to study this book because it is the whole truth."

But translations of the New Testament would be expensive to buy, and the poor - most of whom could not read - would still have no direct access to God's words. Essential to Wycliffe was a revival of the evangelistic spirit of the Apostles, a spirit that was discouraged and often repressed in the medieval church. As Martin Luther would observe later, "the whole world is full of priests, bishops, cardinals and clergy, not one of whom, as far as his official responsibilities go, is a preacher."

Wycliffe believed that praying was certainly important, but did not approve of monastic orders, pointing again to Scripture: "Among all duties of the pastor after justice of life, holy preaching is most to be praised." For it was the only possible way to bring the message of salvation to the poor and illiterate. Thus, in addition to his translation, he began to train a core of evangelists at Oxford, whom he called the "Poor Preachers." Their task was to bring the Bible verbally to England's under-class, indeed to anyone who would listen. His earliest followers at Oxford included the famous preacher John Aston, the enthusiastic layman William Smith, and William Swinderby, whose performances drew large crowds. The more scholarly Nicholas Hereford and John Purvey assisted Wycliffe in his translation. These men were the pioneers of what came to be called the Lollard movement.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, William Courtenay, was a staunch defender of the traditional church structure and grew alarmed by the implications of what was happening at Oxford. He decided that it was time to move against Wycliffe. On May 17, 1382, Courtenay summoned to Blackfriars a special committee to examine 24 conclusions from Wycliffe's works. Ten were deemed heretical, and the other 14 erroneous. Upon the completion of the council's investigation there was an earthquake, which contributed to the apocalyptic atmosphere. Wycliffe's writings were banned and he was expelled from the university. He had many influential friends in the government, which is probably why he was permitted to retire unmolested to his parish at Lutterworth.

He would live for only two more years. But during that time he continued to write furiously and translate Scripture. And while many of Wycliffe's earlier views pointed in the direction of his final conclusions, his vision of Christianity took on its most radical form late in life. He wrote scathingly of the papal practice of selling indulgences, calling this "an open blasphemy that men should horror for to hear." God does not sell righteousness, nor had He "left in His law this power to the pope." In his earlier days, Wycliffe had criticized papal extravagance, but still believed church unity was important and saw the Great Schism as a catastrophe for the faith. In his final years, however, he concluded that it was in fact healthy that schism had exposed the spiritual bankruptcy of the papal office: "Many noble Catholic truths are made plain by this happy division."

He also attacked the "Caesarian clergy," and articulated the principles of separation of church and state in even more radical terms than our own First Amendment: "No man is honorable who joins together the peculiar value and authority of the clerical office with the authority and value of the lay office." Such a union, as he saw it, was ‘'inexcusable'' and ‘'blasphemous." He assaulted starkly and systematically the sacramental powers of the clergy. The forgiveness of sin, he said, had nothing to do with priests, sacraments, or external ceremony, but rested solely upon a change in heart and the individual's response to God's call. His Bible replaced the pope as the infallible guide to the Christian life; the pulpit, instead of the Eucharist, became the channel through which God's grace was to be transmitted. He believed passionately that the church should give away all its earthly possessions and operate in a state of poverty, and that its ministers should carry with them nothing but a Bible and a sermon. He preferred to call houses of religious worship "conventicles," as the term church seemed too pretentious. Church, for him, was the mystical body of believers, not a building or human structure, and existed wherever two or three gathered together in Christ's name.

Wycliffe died of a stroke in his parish at Lutterworth in 1384, in nominal communion with the Roman Church. He was convicted posthumously of heresy by the Council of Constance. And in 1482, Richard Flemming, Bishop of Lincoln, exhumed Wycliffe's bones from consecrated ground, burned them, and scattered the ashes into the River Swift. Though Wycliffe himself probably did not fully understand the momentous implications of his own work, he had put into motion a spiritual, intellectual, and political force that would shatter the medieval church-state world. His brand of Protestantism - more than a century before the actual Protestant Reformation - was far more radical than either Luther's or Calvin's. Both Luther and Calvin believed in a state church -just a different kind of state church than what existed during their day. Wycliffe opposed all official religious establishments, and his ideas would continue to express themselves in the Lollard movement.

The tendency of Lollardry and its children was to constantly tear away at authoritarian structures, to undermine hierarchy, and to decentralize. The descendants of Wycliffe shunned human authority in favor of Scripture. The Bible was their manifesto of dissent, a revolutionary document that could topple popes and monarchs. The Bible was brandished by Oliver Cromwell against King Charles I; by the supporters of William of Orange against King James II; and by Samuel Adams and the New England Patriots against King George III. In Wycliffe's teaching we find the source of all the demands for a free church and a free state. Thus, it hardly can be said that separation of church and state was a victory for secular ideas over religious intolerance, because it was clearly a victory for the Bible over human authority. Indeed, the ideas of Wycliffe and his Protestant descendants placed all men, including popes and monarchs, under the same law, as written in Scripture, which far from promoting tyranny, turned out to be a great equalizer.

We see the same phenomenon at work in the Lollard movement that we saw in apostolic Christianity. The influence of the "Poor Preachers," with no property to defend, no visible organization and no apparent leadership, permeated every rank of English society. When Henry IV came to the throne in 1399, he began a systematic campaign to suppress Lollardry. In 1401, Wilijam Sawtry, John Badby, and John Reseby were burned at the stake. Wycliffe's works were incinerated in 1410, and John Oldcastle, a close friend and advisor to the King, was hanged and roasted for his Lollard convictions in 1417. We see long lists of martyrs from 1430 to 1466. Despite all this, complaints were rampant in ruling circles that the Lollard heresy was spreading. Everywhere the heresy seemed to be the same: the Bible is the sole authority, everyone is their own priest, and preaching goes on unlicensed in the secrecy of private homes. When the persecution was especially fierce, the Lollard movement went under-ground where "only God knew its members," and the ranks of the Lollards continued to grow. "The Lollards are as numerous as ever," lamented Archbishop Chichele in 1416 at the end of a vigilant period of suppression. Historians estimate that by the middle of the 15th century, half the English population was Lollard.

In all sorts of ways, Protestantism appealed to in dividualism and contributed to the development of a middle class. The notion that the individual could speak directly to God and did not need a saint or a priest to mediate on his behalf tended to break down aristocracy and church hierarchy. It was up to the individual to ask for his own salvation, not an enclave of monks praying for an entire community or a bishop granting absolution. Households began saying their own prayers tailored to their specific needs. The emergence of Protestantism was tied to the development of printing, which permitted the mass distribution of Bibles translated into the vernacular, making it possible for the individual to read and interpret Scripture. The phrase "the individual" first appears in its modern sense in the late 16th century. All these developments had their origins in the Lollard movement.

When we think of Protestant England most people think of Anglicanism, forgetting that the official English Church has never called itself Protestant. Henry VIII based his decision to break from Rome solely on power politics and his desire to divorce his wife Katharine of Aragon - hardly the Protestant ideals for which Wycliffe, Luther, and Calvin struggled. In fact, when Henry died he believed he was still a Catholic. A case can easily be made that to place the king at the head of the church was a far more oppressive and corrupting influence on Christianity than the pope in far-off Italy. The bishops, formerly responsible to the Roman authority, often served as an effective check on royal power. Now they were little more than a political arm of the state, used to stamp out religious dissent, which was seen as a threat to social order. William Tyndale, for example, carried on the Wycliffe tradition of translating the Bible into modern English. But he did so in hiding, relentlessly pursued by the King's henchman Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and his agents. One of Tyndale's offenses was to write a tract criticizing Henry VIII's divorce. Betrayed by people he thought he could trust, ‘Tyndale was apprehended in 1536 in Antwerp, condemned for heresy, and put to death. His New Testament translation was burned in St. Paul's Cathedral. In many important respects, placing the English Church under secular rule was actually a setback for religious freedom and grievously compromised the purity of the Christian faith in England.

Anti-papal feeling was so strong that Henry had the full support of the Lollard-type Protestants in severing ties with Rome. After the break the Anglican Church service underwent a few modifications, but still looked virtually identical to the Catholic Mass. What had occurred in England was a schism, not a reformation. The church-state relationship was still intact, in fact more firmly than before. Soon it was obvious that Lollardry was incompatible with the monarchical Anglican religious structure. To the children of Wycliffe, the cathedrals, vestments, crucifixes, sacraments, and stained glass windows, even if they fell under the jurisdiction of the Crown rather than papal authority, still represented "Roman popery."

When religious orthodoxy, political orthodoxy, or orthodoxy of any type, is determined by whoever happens to hold the levers of power, whatever is orthodox one day can suddenly become unorthodox the next. This is exactly what happened continuously in England, where a bishop, appointed by a previous monarch, could suddenly find himself burning at the stake under the new regime. Thus, when Mary Stuart ascended the throne in 1553 and subsequently sought to bring England back to the Roman fold, Bishops Latimer, Ridley, Hooper, and Cranmer were burned at the stake. Even though these men held official church positions, their incredible bravery in the face of death indicates that radical Protestant notions had pene trated even the ruling classes, and fueled anti-Roman sentiments. Cranmer recanted his Lollard views under torture, but then retracted his recantation as he went up in flames. And Latimer's last words to his fellow martyr are worth repeating:"Be of good comfort Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." These are not the sentiments of a cynical position-seeker, but of someone who took the Reformation seriously. These men were forerunners of a powerful reform movement called Puritanism.

Protestant dissent in England began as a counterculture movement, achieved critical mass by the end of the 15th century, and penetrated even the ruling establishment. The reign of Mary, her executions of dissenters, and her collusion with Catholic Spain, tended to radicalize the population and turned many in the English Church against Roman ideas. Mary was herself a sincere Catholic who thought it important to reunify Christendom, a goal that was unattainable, so pervasive had Protestant opinion become in England. She died a very unpopular monarch on November 17, 1558. Her views did not represent England's, a fact that was obvious to her successor, Elizabeth I.

Elizabeth attempted a new approach. Instead of a rigid religious orthodoxy, she instituted a "broad church," which was to put England on an even keel by accommodating as many Christian perspectives as was politically possible. In other words, she attempted "pluralism"-within certain limits. This came to be known as the Elizabethan settlement, which aimed not for purity of religious doctrine, but for political stability. Elizabeth's preference was for a relaxed form of Christianity that did not make rigorous demands on the people. But a moderate, compromising church was not what the descendants of Wycliffe and Tyndale, or the followers of Luther and Calvin, wanted either. Truth and compromise are not, in the end, compatible ideas. An official civil religion, no matter how broad, could not accommodate those who took their Christianity seriously.

Within the Elizabethan Church there emerged a more moderate movement that sought to reform Anglicanism. Its ranks were not Lollard Separatists, completely opposed to the state church structure. Rather, they wanted the official church to be more Protestant. Their inspiration was John Calvin more than John Wycliffe, and they went by the name of Puritan. Generally they sought a presbyterian rather than episcopal church rule. But even though they were willing to work within the official church, emotionally they were far closer to Separatism than High Church Anglicanism. They were interested in "godly, preaching ministers," not clerics who spent their energy amassing titles and offices. They considered the official church vestments to be "rags of popery," and most Puritans, such as Laurence Humphrey and Thomas Sampson, refused to wear the "obnoxious garments." They objected to the sign of the cross, the use of wedding rings in marriage, kneeling, and the term "priest" in the Book of Common Prayer. In short, they became a major source of irritation to Queen Elizabeth. Preaching before the Queen, Edward Dering, for example, scolded her: "I need not seek far for offenses whereat God's people are grieved, even ‘round about this chapel I see many," he said. Everywhere "all these whoredoms are committed," and yet, he added, "you sit still and are careless." Many Puritans, unconcerned about the consequences to themselves, were outspoken against Elizabeth's Church. And they proved far more dangerous to the Crown because they were political and highly organized, forming a distinct political party. Peter Wentworth typified the Puritan spirit when in 1576 he told his colleagues in Parliament that it was useless to wait for the Queen to begin reforming the Church, and proposed that Parliament take the initiative. Wentworth spent the rest of the Parliamentary session in the Queen's dungeon.

While the Puritans and Separatists disagreed on the desirability of the church-state relationship, both wanted an end to the state-enforced monopoly of the High Anglican Church. Both agreed on the primacy of the Bible, with the Puritans giving some weight to doctrine as formulated by the fathers of the Church. The Lollard-style Separatists rejected any teaching that was not explicitly stated in Scripture, and relied on the Holy Spirit, rather than church organization or tradition, to make clear Christ's message and to steer the sincere believer away from grave errors. As Wycliffe put it: "The Holy Ghost teaches us the meaning of Scripture, as Christ opened the Scriptures to the Apostles."

The children of Calvin were not as radical in their Protestantism as the descendants of Wycliffe, but they had much in common, and in practice were allies against the official church of the Elizabethan settlement. Nevertheless, it is important to make a distinction between the Presbyterianism of the Puritans and the total hostility to a state religion on the part of the Separatists, because while the Puritans spent much energy and shed much blood fighting for control of a spiritually bankrupt official church in the 1640s, Separatism would prevail in the United States of America. Today, these radical Protestants would be considered fanatics, as they were indeed considered fanatics by the defenders of the church-state alliance. But, as it turns out, these Lollard-style Separatists, who insisted on adhering to the bare letter of Scripture, could not justify a state-enforced religion, no matter how mild and inoffensive that religion might be. It was Protestants of the most radical stripe, most zealous in their religious convictions (those whom the American Civil Liberties Union would like to see outlawed from the public discourse) who were in fact the greatest proponents of religious liberty as codified in America's governing charter 200 years later.

Elizabeth's civil religion was pluralistic and easygoing by the standards of her day. But to force those who did not believe in it to support it and to participate in it, still conforms to the American understanding of tyranny. Obvious parallels can be drawn here between Elizabeth's attempt to use the Anglican Church to promote a national civil religion and the American public school system's attempt to promote its morally bankrupt world-view. The state is a secular, not a spiritual, entity; and as such is incapable of drafting a uniform religious creed that can suit everyone's spiritual needs. According to the Christian faith, salvation is contingent on a personal commitment to Jesus. The corporate body of believers in the New Testament plays a vital role in administering baptism and communion, providing fellowship among believers, reinforcing faith, and spreading the Gospel. But, in the end, the Christian's relationship to his Creator is intensely individualistic, and cannot be mediated by an overarching government apparatus no matter how broad and accommodating its apparatus might be. In fact, civil religion's lack of rigor, intellectual carelessness, and the obvious moral degeneracy of so many of its proponents, often leads to social unrest - as was the case with Oliver Cromwell's Puritan Revolution of the 1640s, the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and finally the American Revolution of 1776.

from the book:

Faith & Freedom by  Benjamin Hart