Strategy or Biblical obligation? To prevent offenses against who, God or man?
Strategy
I do not believe it’s deontologically obligatory to obey despotic government, yet submission to ruling authorities is our default Christian position in the confines of love and vigilance; yet it is our deontological position to respect the law that will offer society a just-order. However if the law is despotic, then it is not legitimate to be followed deontologically using ethics from Genesis, which provides the Unilateral contract of Natural Rights.
Paul is quick to admonish us to respect and submit to government, yet he is also quick to admonish that we are to obey God first and foremost. God does not condone our espousal of ruling authorities to disseminate arbitrary violence to person and property. Thus we ethically align with Natural Rights, for that is our moral code for justice.
Christ, Paul and many of the disciples rejected and disobeyed the law in conflict, yet why? Is it possible that sometimes its “strategic” to disobey arbitrary compulsion and sometimes it will cause offenses with authority in such severity that it may cause unavoidable pain, suffering and even death? On one occasion Christ escaped from authorities in the crowd after offenses occurred, yet on another occasion he stood against despotism publicly. Yet ultimately his disobedience to despotic law caused government to murder Him in the end, for that was His willing mission.
Let us consider that when Peter and Christ came into Capernaum to worship, a Sadducee confronted Peter regarding Christ paying a temple tax. Peter was quick to bow to compulsion and despotism, yet Christ brought him inside and privately rebuked him for doing so. Christ pointed out that those who taxed are “conquered people who are not the Kings children” and challenged him to consider if they were the conquered?” After all the earth is the Lord God’s and we are His children; thus its “illegitimate for an earthly despotic king or person to require it.”
Yet why did Christ pay the tax from a fish’s mouth? I will speculate that He demonstrated to Peter that he was not “conquered,” and to contextual accuracy did so to prevent offense with ruling authorities. It was a “strategic” move.
Paul also challenges us to respect the power of arbitrary compulsion strategically. It is to our benefit to do so since power is quick to harm, yet we must also be vigilant that we have limits for our sufferings of government edicts, for if the Lord commands us to share the gospel then it’s not our privilege to obey government when government commands us to cease. Thus we are deontologically mandated to “obey God.” God had endorsed and delegated to us all ‘Natural Rights”; therefore it is “obligatory is to challenge for Natural Rights”
Yes.
Another question; since marriage licenses for benefits such as insurance and tax purposes is controlled by the government, how do you suggest we proceed? Do we ask that the government remove any/all marriage laws/benefits and give marriage authority back tot he church? I will be honest, I don't have an answer to our current situation, but I'm intrigued as to what yours would be given your previous response.
You’re asking about societal strategy and can only give you my subjective opinion. I believe it goes similar to this but not necessarily in this rigid order. Also I rebuke no person and offer my opinion only.
- The Church must rediscover our first universal contract with God, The Unilateral Contract of Natural Rights and Property from Genesis 9
- We must come together on Natural Rights as a “broad unifier” which every denomination can agree upon in their diversified theological hermeneutical positions.
- We must also reach out with this common unifier to secular society which can also agree with the substrate of Natural Rights.
- The Church must stand up bravely in the gap for the non-aggressive sinner; this would include: (the non-aggressive – no-aggress committed) the dope-smoker, the drinker, the prostitute, the adulterer, the homosexual, the polygamist, the polyamorist, the gambler, the transsexual, the sex addict, the glutton, the hater, the discriminator, the sluggard, the liar, the gamer, and the dark-religious. The Christian must pray, admonish in love, and council each to scriptural sobriety if the person is willing, but we must never put blood on our hands by supporting, espousing, campaigning or voting for a compulsory system that will bring punitive judgment, monetary confiscation, or arbitrary violence to the non-aggressive sinner. Christ is our perfect example: He risked His life to stand in the gap for the adulterous woman but then in love challenged her to go and sin no more.
- Support the just confines of the law to “react” to crimes only, which would according to Natural Rights Theory be an act of “aggress (initiated violence) committed to person or property)
- The Church should avoid politics on every level and embrace “ethics from Natural Rights Theory” which has “massive” political implications. Pastors should preach “ethics” and never support “politics.”
- We should challenge for a non-interventionist free-market economy where no arbitrary violence can exists with exchange.
- We should challenge for an “ethical State”
- We should challenge for peace, frown on angry hostilities, and use persuasion instead of Socialism to make things fair and safe.
- Most of all we should walk as Christ walked; we must adopt the mind of Christ in all that we do. We must bathe our country in prayer and example ourselves to our country as being harmless as doves.
