Baby is healthy. Parents are tired. All kinds of good and tired and fun and crazy. Not much cool stuff to report yet. He basically just eats, sleeps, poops.

Today I wanted to talk about church politics. This is going to be a long blog, and hard for me to post, because we always want something which is more grand by our own standards. I have to conform myself to scripture and reason as I see it, though, and so this post represents a small shift in my immediate kingdom/empire-related goals.

Sometimes, when I think about the government and its departure from God's laws, I really want to do something about it! And, what better way to effect change in the government than by getting involved, and eventually running for some kind of office? My views could potentially be called "conservative". Given the ease with which a person can market themselves on the internet with a small budget, I think it's not a far stretch of the imagination to suppose that I could run a successful race for some small government office, and then slowly work my way up the ladder to more influence as I gain experience. I don't see this as a statement to the effect of my own qualifications or anything -- I think anyone can run for office these days, if they play their cards right and have relatable ideas (and let's be clear, I know exactly zero people who totally relate to my ideas). I mean, look how far some other politicians have made it. Sometimes the idea seems really desirable to me, because government office seems like an ideal place from which a person can make changes for good. Certainly I want to do good.

Here's the thing... even though part of me really likes the idea, I don't think I could ever actually do it. I've talked at length in previous blogs about how the Bible doesn't contain any command to compromise with an unjust government. God's commands represent an absolute standard of justice and morality, so any concession is unjust and/or immoral. In order for me to take office, even though my goal might be to change the system, I would have to abide by and uphold the system to some degree. I don't think I could do that. For example, just by voting against a change to law, I'm participating in the legislative process, which I think shouldn't exist. There are two common passages that I've heard, which people often bring up in favor of submission to human government systems. I've written a lot about the first one, (Romans 13) so I'll quickly respond to it in the next short paragraph. The meat of this blog is going to be [Part 1] about Mark 12:17, and, if I get to it in this post, [Part 2] about my ideas about what Christians should do in response to a secular government (a little development from last time I articulated this topic).

Alright, so first off, Romans 13. It says that we should submit to governing authorities. Then it defines "governing authorities" as authorities which use their God-given influence to punish evil and promote good. So, if an entity claims to be a governing authority, but does not punish evil and promote good, then it is not what Romans 13 is talking about; the command to submit does not apply.

--Part 1--

But Mark 12:17 gives an important balance to the above statements about authority. Take Rome, for example, since it's what they were talking about in that immediate context. Rome was a pagan kingdom, operating in direct and unrepentant violation of several of God's commands for government. Rome levied taxes in Roman currency on people who lived in Roman territories. Should Israel pay taxes to Rome? Jesus answers by pointing out that Caesar's face is on the Roman coin, and saying "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's". Let's dig into that response a bit.

First of all, in order for Jesus to have said that without contradicting all the laws of God simultaneously, he must NOT have meant, "obey Caesar even when Caesar commands you to disobey God". The behavior of the apostles in Acts 5:29 supports my interpretation here.

Also, the statement is definitely more complicated than "obey the law of the land wherever it doesn't disagree with God's law". Jesus is issuing an imperative here, relating to taxes, where compulsory/forceful taxation is not an activity which God's law delegates to human governments -- the taxation itself was sinful inasmuch as it was being [reason 1]forced by an [reason 2]illegitimate governing authority (see above comments on Romans 13). Again, the Bible includes no civil penalty for failure to pay taxes -- the tithe is a moral/ceremonial law, enforced only by God.

So then what does the statement by Jesus mean? What's the application? Well, let's try taking it at "face" value and see where that gets us (hehe). We know that God owns literally everything. But more specifically, in the context of the Israel economy, God claims Israel's first-fruits. So, giving to God what is Gods can be read as a reminder to give our first-fruits to God. Lots of ink has been spilled by other people in effort to explain "first-fruits", so I'm going to focus on the other part of the statement here: Jesus indicates that Roman Currency is the property of Caesar, and so whatever part of it is recalled to Caesar (taxes) should be given back to Caesar. Caesar has the right to require that we give to him what is his.

Let's apply it. This affects how we view money and property in general. The U.S. Dollar has George Washington's face on it. It belongs to him (and let's not be obtuse -- this clearly means that the dollar belongs to the U.S. Government, which itself is represented by the president).

That means that every dollar in my possession is actually owned by the U.S. Government. What do we call it when we posses something which belongs to another person? It's either theft or a loan. Every dollar is a loan, borrowed from the government, for the amount of its own value. And good old Generous George tells us, "if you work hard, I'll give you more dollars, and let you go into even more debt to me!".

But people go crazy for that debt. They will give up literally anything they have for it - their time, their land, their clothes, etc.. It's so deeply ingrained in our society that you can't get anything without it! The only way to get food in the U.S. is to trade for it in debt-notes. And, if you want to own something big, like a plot of land, then you have to go into debt for debt and then work for more debt to pay off your debt debt.

OK, what am I advocating here? What's the point?  Should we switch to a barter economy? No, actually. If you work it out, all economies eventually come to rely on currency. For example, suppose a cow farmer wants to buy his neighbor's land to put more cows on it. without currency, the cow farmer can only pay with what he has: cows. His neighbor exchanges the land for 100 cows. Now the neighbor has less land and more need for land, to support his new cows -- it won't work for him. Instead, he trades for a promissory note, guaranteeing that he can have the meat from 100 cows, cared for by the cow farmer. Now the holder of the note wants to hire someone to build him a nicer house on his remaining land; he finds someone willing to do it, but he doesn't have anything worth the whole upgrade that he wants to perform... except that note worth 100 cows. The construction worker says that the value of the work is equivalent to the value of the meat from 50 cows. The owner of the 100 cow promissory note divides his note into two 50 cow promissory notes, and a currency is born, bound initially to the value of a cow, but eventually as the trade network becomes more complex, the original binding evaluation of the cow-note can be forgotten. Eventually, the people in this hypothetical place are just trading in arbitrarily-named "bucks". Even if it remains ultimately bound to the cow-standard, the buck, in its use, seems to have very little to do with cows anymore, and anyway it's hard for that farmer to keep track of who has legitimate cow-notes. So the people step in with a government. They put some jerk's face on every buck, and say, 'everyone trading in bucks must trade in our standardized bucks. And in order to keep the press running, everyone has to contribute 1 buck for every 100 bucks gained.'

I know it's much more complicated than that. My point is: currency is inevitable.

So then, do Christians in the U.S. establish their own currency and stop trading in Dollars? Impossible. The American people have all given their land over to the American government by agreeing to pay property taxes. If you don't pay your taxes, the government comes and takes the land from you, and there is no "army of free Americans" to rescue you and your land from from Generous George. As long as you live in America, you have to use the dollar. It's not much different in other places. The world seems to have been basically divided into various lands, owned by governments, and afaik all of them have unjust tax laws inhibiting deviation from their established economies.

So, give to George Washington that which belongs to George Washington. That means, if your government says they get a tax on everything sold with their currency, in their territory, and if you intend to buy and sell with their currency, in their territory, then you should pay that tax. And, in general, give to other people what belongs to them.

--Part 2--

But there's a silver lining here. I want to preface it by saying that I'm trying to reach these conclusions by meditation on God's law, and I want to avoid fitting it into a mold advocated by modern political philosophers, (for example, I personally know some people who say about God's law, "this seems like socialism", and then they go study socialism to understand God's law, rather than studying God's law to understand God's law).

OK, so let's take God's government in its purest form, prior to the human monarchy. Granted, the Israelites made a huge mess of things in Judges. I think it's because, as it says in the prophets, God had written his commandments on tablets of stone, but he had not yet written them on the hearts of the Israelites (writing the law on their hearts is something he would do in the new covenant). We know that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit serves to inscribe the law of God on our hearts (sanctification). I propose that the Holy Spirit and the ready accessibility of God's Word empowers us to make better use of God's Law in establishing an actual government.

What do we see in God's government? How is it composed?

God raised up Moses to be Judge over Israel, and promised to later raise up others to be judges, prophets, nazirites, etc.. The priest of Midian advised Moses to choose judges from among the people: a judge over 10, a judge over 100, another over 1000, 10000, and so on, in orders of 10. This system worked when the judges made their rulings according to God's law, and it was blessed by God. Strictly speaking, these judges only existed to help solve issues among the people according to the Law of God, about which the people were supposed to be well instructed anyway. The judges were not given authority to levy taxes, establish any standing army, or enact any compulsory social welfare programs. For all intents and purposes, this was not a government at all in the modern sense.

That's the silver lining. The Christian government can exist in certain forms anywhere. This is where this post is a little different from prior posts, where I talked about Christians separating from the U.S. government entirely and establishing a Biblical state somewhere. I still advocate that as an eventual goal -- a Christian state -- but since it has to be achieved peacefully, I suspect that it will come about very slowly, and that it will be the Zeal of the Lord of Hosts who accomplishes it; not my zeal. So, there's room for discussion about how we should act in the interim. How can Christians act as functionaries in a secular government prior to completely separating themselves from it?

I here propose that Christians adopt a type of judicial isolation from the U.S. government. In the absence of a "Moses", every 10 Christians identifies from among themselves a respected elder, knowledgeable in Scripture. The precedent for this is readily available in the OT law, where it often talks about "bringing [the accused] to the elders", etc, in a way that appears interchangeable with bringing someone "to the judge". The elders in a town were respected members of the community who were entrusted by the people to make discernments about matters pertaining to God's law and their community. Their power was derived from God's system, and really only existed inasmuch as it was acknowledged by their constituents (see Lex Rex again).

Before we get too carried away with thinking that this seems to be approaching the American judicial structure, remember that these elected judges are the entire government, and they are effective toward groups of only 10 people per judge. So every 10 people in the Church should identify among themselves one who they respect, and utilize that person as judge to resolve disputes. The higher judges do not establish precedent with their rulings (the way American higher judges do) -- judgments should be made only by considering scripture and the circumstances at hand. Higher judges cannot take initiative to overrule lower judges. Higher judges only work when they are called upon by lower judges or their constituents, when the matter is too hard for the lower judge to resolve, or when the people find that the lower judge is not acting Biblically. Since the authority of the lower judge is rooted only in the scripture, if the people find that a judge's ruling is incompatible with scripture, they may overrule it, like a jury of the person's peers. The judge is not the ultimate authority in any case; the scripture is. There are no career judges, because there are no taxes to pay them. That's why it's important to have so many judges with such a small constituency, so that their small workload enables them to continue with their other practical responsibilities. And lastly, there's no legislative process affecting any change on the way that these judges should measure a case -- only scripture.

Without diving deep into the scriptural basis for the above, since most of it is not based on any individual scripture but on an analysis of the typical "way things seem to have happened" in Biblical society when things were described as pleasing to God, I think that the above is basically in-line with scripture. I'll admit that it's difficult for me to identify whether any part of this is too heavily influenced by my cultural biases; I would love it if someone would use scripture to explain to me where I'm wrong.

The NT instruction to believers under a pagan government was that Christians should never file lawsuits against one another in court (1 Cor 1:6-8). Instead of that, the Biblical steps for resolving conflict are: 1. Confront in private; 2. Bring it to the elders; 3. Bring it before the church body; and 4. Church discipline. (Mat 18:15-21). Notice that step 2 is "the elders"! I want to suggest that this is the interim government, in place over Christians only, while we wait for opportunity to peacefully establish our own government (at which time, the elders become the judicial government, and execution of civil law takes a different form). Remember that Paul clearly tells us in 2 Cor 10, the weapons of our warfare to conquer for God's kingdom are arguments and scripture. God promised land to Abraham in the OT and told them to conquer it with the sword, but the land which he promised to Christians in the new covenant is the whole world, and it is said to be conquered via the "weapons of our warfare", which again he says are arguments and scripture. Basically, we gain this land by converting everyone to Christianity.

So let me close this out with a description of Church discipline, just to paint a more complete picture. As far as I can tell, from the descriptions of Church discipline in the NT, it is a unique form of justice, different from civil execution of OT penal sanctions. Remember, this post is not about establishing the Christian State - this is about separating the Christian judicial system while still living inside a secular state. Church discipline is described in the NT in two ways (off the top of my head). First, "treat them as you would a pagan or tax collector" (Mat 18:17), which basically means that an unrepentant sinner is no longer to be considered part of the body, and the victim (and everyone else) should limit association with that person in order to avoid further harm. The person is thereafter a target for ministry, rather than a trusted family member. Second, "turn them  over to the devil for the destruction of the flesh" (1 Cor 5:5), which I understand to mean basically the same thing as Matthew 18:17 says. The person who knowingly continues in sin without repentance, even after having been confronted, is not a child of God, and is therefore given back to his true master until he repents. This doesn't mean that any member of the church actually causes physical harm to the perpetrator, but rather that they spiritually give him over -- he's not a member of the church anymore. He can continue attending church; it doesn't say that we shun or banish the person. The penalty is entirely spiritual with respect to the rest of the church, but we know that the devil can affect the physical world when given permission (Job). Church discipline in the case of a person who evidences himself to be unrepentant is this: we just call it what it is, and let God and the devil sort out the rest.

Conclusion: basically, there are a lot of churches in the States which, in practice, have the right idea already. I guess that for the meantime, the church as a whole just needs to get more organized.

"Now from his pocket quick he flashes the crayon, on the wall he slashes, deep upon the advertising, a single worded poem comprised of four letters."

On this past Sunday, February 3rd, my wife gave birth to our first child, a 9lb boy, and we named him Isaac Asaph. I typically blog when I'm stressed, and I do feel stressed, but I actually am not in the mood for blogging (which mood typically prompts a post). I just figured I should write my initial thoughts down for posterity, and I hope all will forgive me if I say something stupid, because I'm tired.

First of all, I'm really excited about this child. I quickly experienced a strong emotional bond to the baby, and in spite of much time spent scouring his features, I fail to find anything visually disagreeable about him. That said, at this point in his maturing, he's measurably selfish, and he's rarely awake except to complain loudly about hunger.

I wanted to issue some kind of dramatic introduction to him when he first came out -- something like "welcome to God's Empire!". But it felt weird to do that with all the doctors and Chowon's family there. I imagine I will have plenty of opportunity to talk with him about the war he's been thrust into after Chowon's family leaves.

Chowon's labor was intense, and the recovery has been hard. The first few days of childcare were supplemented by my wife's family, whose actions enabled my wife and I to get much needed sleep during that time, and I am obliged to be grateful to them for the work they've done.

In my wife's face, I can see a deep mix of nervousness, apprehension, joy, fear, insecurity, love, concern, and anticipation. She is so beautiful, and I can already see how excellent she is as a mother. Isaac is such a lucky and blessed young man to have such a wonderful mother. I wish I could untangle those emotions and prove to her that she's already the best mother in the world for our little Isaac. But I know that the question, "am I doing it right?", is one which we might not be able to escape, from now until the day we die.

In the months leading up to this, I've thought quite a bit about what it will mean to be a father -- the changes to my self-perceived identity which accompanied marriage will no doubt be compounded by fatherhood. What parts of my interests or personality I shed are easy payment for the rewards which I anticipate receiving by interaction with this, my very own child. If he is a mirror to show me my shortcomings, I know that God will sanctify us both and good fruit will come from it for the glory of God's kingdom; it will be my honor and pride to wrestle with myself, continually praying for wisdom to bring my family completely washed into the gates of God's kingdom. If he is an arrow well aimed, with a double-edged tip sharpened by God's spirit, piercing the hearts of lost sheep in God's fold, then I pray that my God will bless me with duration of life to see him achieve his mark. In either case, I'm proud and it is an honor to be entrusted with so much as the formative years of this eternal soul. I'm thoroughly excited to see little Isaac grow up and reach his potential. No matter what, I'm proud to have been given the opportunity to father him here on earth.

The above are my thoughts about the people and events around me, but when I try to examine my own immediate emotions more directly with questions like "how do I feel?", I can't think of a good answer. I try to make the question more useful, but I can't think of a better question. It bums me out a little bit that I can't seem to self-evaluate with clarity. Maybe that's the reason I write these blogs in the first place, to help me self-evaluate.

I expected to have readily accessible wellsprings of joy and wonder, and I do, but those wellsprings don't feel so much like they are a part of me as that they are somewhere external to me, and it almost feels laborious to draw from them, but I do it anyway, and I do certainly experience that joy and wonder. When I think hard about how those feelings seem so non-intrinsic to me, it leaves me feeling like I have no positive emotions of my own, in spite of the way I'm continually experiencing them. It's like I'm a puppet, and the puppet master is expressing emotions vicariously through my personal experience. Are these really my feelings? If not, whose are they?

All that said, as I write this post, I feel like I'm trying to describe a picture which isn't complete yet in reality. I would have waited a little longer for it to complete before I wrote about it, but I wonder if it will ever seem to be complete, or if it will rather just change. I didn't want to let this moment pass without giving an honest account of my immediate state of mind -- if only for my own future reference.


"
"Then," I said, "our guardians must lay the foundations of their fortress in music?"

"Yes," he said; "the lawlessness of which you speak too easily steals in."

"Yes," I replied, "in the form of amusement; and at first sight it appears harmless."

"Why, yes," he said, "and there is no harm; were it not that little by little this spirit of licence, finding a home, imperceptibly penetrates into manners and customs; whence, issuing with greater force, it invades contracts between man and man, and from contracts goes on to laws and constitutions, in utter recklessness, ending at last, Socrates, by an overthrow of all rights, private as well as public. "
"

I was checking out some new (to me) webcomics during a break at work. I found myself at an apparently dead webcomic with the URL "dord.horse". The domain appears to be abandoned, but the URL was intriguing enough to get me to look up whatever it used to be there. I found the following permalinks on the internet archive. (It seems the site was intended to be read from bottom to top, and these links seem to represent chronologically adjacent comic pages).

https://perma.cc/D5EB-24WC
https://perma.cc/GX4S-6FMR
https://perma.cc/NH5E-JY5H

The webcomic is about two solar-power-generating satellites in a huge network. The satelites have gained, or "were given" sentience by "the makers", and so they kill time with conversation. Occasionally in the conversation, the satellites talk about their theories about what happened to the makers. A part of the conversation which I found particularly interesting was where one of the satellites proposes that the makers upgraded their consciousness continually until they transcended reality, "bootstrap[ing] themselves to godhood". The satellite continues to suggest that, perhaps the dull existence of the satellites is a test, and that if a satellite behaves well then the makers will upgrade the satellite's consciousness into the same postreality that the makers have achieved. The second satellite responds with, "Didn't the makers used to have a word for believing in an untestable hypothesis?"

The first word that came to my mind on reading that was, "religion". That's a word that might be used to describe belief in an untestable hypothesis. I think the comic does an interesting job of making such beliefs appear silly, but there's an irony in it and I can't tell if the author included this intentionally or not. The satellites proceed with all their conversations about the makers on the hitherto unproven assumption that the makers existed. It seems like a natural assumption for satellites to make, because they represent a rather complex arrangement of metals and minerals, and the reader knows that arrangements such as those do not appear naturally. They have inexplicable memories of the activities of the long-gone makers, but in other comics they express that the memories are unreliable, and may have been imagined. There's no reason offered for their assumption that the makers existed.

If we found a set of satellites such as these, orbiting a planet, we would immediately assume that they were built by a higher species. In the same way, if Neil Armstrong found a Rolex watch on the moon, the natural assumption would be that Neil was not the first man on the moon.

Only, consider our actual experiences, in real life. We have explored a planet in space. And we didn't just find a Rolex watch or a group of sentient satellites. We found a group of sentient factories, which produce more factories like themselves, which in turn produce Rolex watches and satellites alike. We found something much more complex on that planet than the machines depicted in that comic. And rather than assuming that it was built there by a higher species, we assumed that the particles forming these great machines just fell into place randomly, by accident. And we berate and mock anyone who supposes otherwise.

We, ourselves, are the factories producing more like ourselves, and we discovered others like us on our own planet. It's imminently ridiculous to ignore the possibility that we were put here by an intelligent designer, or to bar people from academic discussion who consider the available evidence about our origins with the possibility of our own intelligent design as a premise.

...But I'll stop there before I get too carried away. If I go much further then I think I will have to discuss the nature of a proof, and why a belief in God is prerequisite for provability in general, and discussing that will require me to dive into the same epistemological topics which I have already discussed ad nauseam in prior posts on this blog. On the topic of espistemological methods, though, my quote today is from the end of book 5 of The Republic (I offer the conclusion here -- read the rest of The Republic to get the argument). I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Plato for, at length, demonstrating the ridiculousness of the the many arguments I've thus-far heard from atheist 'philosophers' about epistemology. Here Socrates is discussing a related topic with Glaucon.

"
[Socrates]Yes; and we had before agreed that anything of this kind which we might find was to be described as matter of opinion, and not as matter of knowledge; being the intermediate flux which is caught and detained by the intermediate faculty.

[Glaucon]Quite true.

Then those who see the many beautiful, and who yet neither see absolute beauty, nor can follow any guide who points the way thither; who see the many just, and not absolute justice, and the like,–such persons may be said to have opinion but not knowledge?

That is certain.

But those who see the absolute and eternal and immutable may be said to know, and not to have opinion only?

Neither can that be denied.

The one love and embrace the subjects of knowledge, the other those of opinion? The latter are the same, as I dare say you will remember, who listened to sweet sounds and gazed upon fair colours, but would not tolerate the existence of absolute beauty.

Yes, I remember.

Shall we then be guilty of any impropriety in calling them lovers of opinion rather than lovers of wisdom, and will they be very angry with us for thus describing them?

I shall tell them not to be angry; no man should be angry at what is true.

But those who love the truth in each thing are to be called lovers of wisdom and not lovers of opinion.

Assuredly

And thus, Glaucon, after the argument has gone a weary way, the true and the false philosophers have at length appeared in view.

I do not think, he said, that the way could have been shortened.
"

I want to write about theonomy today, with the border wall in-mind because it's a hot topic, and because I keep hearing the notion that Christians should side with Republicans (i.e. Trump) on border security, or that border security is somehow a Biblical mandate.

Here's the TLDR: The Bible outlines a complete government system in its first half (and was, as such, used as the law book for an actual nation for a few thousand years). It does not have any direct civil instructions either to establish a secure national border, or to let everyone through. However, it does have very clear moral commands about being kind to sojourners, and helping needy people in general.

Having read through the Bible a couple of times, my understanding is that God's expectation on Israel was that they would accept sojourners into their land liberally, be hospitable, apply the same laws for the native born and for the foreigner, and trust God (rather than walls, explicitly if my memory serves) for their own defense. I'm going to do some Googling, and see if the internet can change my mind.

[Googling]

OK, I did some Googling to try to find and understand Biblical arguments in favor of strong border control. I put links to all the sites I've just read near the bottom. I'm going to do my best to resist the urge to rant about how dismissive they are about the relevance of the entire OT to us today (even though that was the main point of at least one of the posts I put below). Instead, I'll just share the verses I found, and try to give face-value interpretations of their actual relevance to border security, with the assumption that you know my arguments for the continuity of OT rules, and the precise limitations on their relevance to us today.

Acts 17:26, paralleled in Deut 32:8, says that God divided up mankind into nations, and appointed times and boundaries for their land. This verse is used by almost every site in favor of strong border security. It doesn't actually say anything about border control, it only mentions borders themselves. Some websites suggest that, since God designated the borders, we should respect them by "defending" them [by restricting travel across them?]; but the same verse says that God also designated times for the inhabitants to change, so who's to say that God isn't changing the inhabitants of the land, and that our "defense" of the border isn't disrespectful to God's plan for change? Anyway, the verses are not really usable in an argument in favor of closed borders over open borders, or vice versa; because the verses only advocate the existence of borders without mentioning anything about restriction of travel across them.

Some sites also mentioned verses where the Bible details the specific locations of borders in the OT, (such as Joshua 15:3-4); again I don't see anything in these verses which advocates any kind of border control. It's only making geographic delineations between places and people groups.

Numbers 20:14-21 talks about how Israel didn't push through Edom when Edom said "you can't pass through here". One of the sites I read, (Renew America -- I name them here only because I'm going to take significant space on this point), claims that, since Israel turned away when it was rejected, Israel was demonstrating Edom's "moral right" to decide who is given permission to enter. I agree that every land owner has the right to choose who will enter their land, but the Biblical government isn't, in itself, a land owner.

Let's be clear: Edom was not a Biblical government, operating under the Law of God (given through Moses). Land in the Bible is divided into tribes, and owned by individual families in those tribes. So, there are only two ways for traffic across the national border to be limited in a Biblical government.

The first way is that the government could muster troops to militarily block the border from an invading army -- but the Biblical government has no command from God to establish a standing army. In fact, one time when David tried to take a census of the fighting men between wars, (afaict during a time of peace), the Bible says it was an evil thing (1 Chron 21). A Biblical government musters troops by gathering men from among the people on-the-spot, without promise of pay. It's an activity which requires the immediate, willing participation of every soldier involved. In Deut 20, it says that after gathering up the troops, they should all be given the option to go back home freely in case they just planted a vineyard, or they're afraid, or they just had kids, or they just don't want to participate, and anyone who wants to leave should be allowed. And if the battle must be fought, then it is fought by willing persons and with the help of God. All that said, we know that sojourners and invading armies are categorically different things.

The second way that border traffic can be regulated in the context of a Biblical government is by the authority which individual land owners near the border have over their own personal property. Individual land owners in the context of a Biblical government have the civil right to refuse to allow people on their land. Now, that said, remember that Renew America called it a land owner's "moral right" to refuse access to their land. The wording here is important. it's not actually a land owner's "moral right" to refuse access to their land; it's their "civil right". The difference is important. God gave us civil laws to judge in matters where we have authority, and he gave us moral laws without prescribing any civil penalty for them. We are to obey the moral law or else be judged by God. So, if a consensus can be reached among border land-owners to close down the border, they may do it. The question is not simply whether the decision to reject immigrants is our God-given civil prerogative, because if we were actually trying to adhere to God's civil laws then there would be no legislative process in America (the Bible would be the law). The question is about whether it is the moral duty of our government to allow or reject immigrants.

Let me give an example to demonstrate the principle at work here: If I own food, but my neighbor does not, my neighbor may not steal food from me. It is my food. (Proverbs 6:30-31). If my neighbor asks for my food, there is no civil (human-government) penalty prescribed anywhere in the Bible for my refusal to give it to him. However, there are explicit commands in the Bible to share the food willingly (Deut 15:11), and it is thus a moral obligation for me to do so. If I don't do so, I face no human penalty, but I face the wrath of God (Matt 25:31-46). And, on the other hand, if I willingly give, I receive the blessings of God (Prov 19:17, 22:9, Isa 58:10) Furthermore, (and I'm getting ahead of myself a little here) the Bible even goes so far as to offer rules about people who enter other people's vineyards unannounced to glean food, with the implicit (but plainly evident) note that it is permissible for them to do so (Deut 23:24-25).

The point I'm making with that is, just because I have the legal right to do something (and every human must allow for my decision as long as it is permitted by the law), that does not mean that I have the moral right to do something. And, in fact, the only potentially applicable moral indictment in the Bible is that we should be hospitable to all strangers and foreigners (Deut 10:19, Heb 13:2 and others).

OK, let's move on to the next passage used in favor of strict border control. Romans 13:1-4 is cited to say, rightly, that governments are God's servants with the responsibility to protect their citizens from wrongdoers. However, again, the parameters around how that protection is to be carried out are very clearly described in the OT, and they are not clearly described in any different way in the NT, so we do not say, "if it isn't clearly repeated in the NT then it's void", or we lose a lot of really important moral commands which are issued only in the OT and not repeated in the NT, and not to mention, the Bible explicitly tells us not to interpret it that way (Mat 5:17-20) [resisting the urge to talk more on this].

Next one, Romans 13 is cited by one website with the words, "the chapter where the Apostle Paul tells us how individuals should obey the laws set forth by God's duly selected government leaders -- meaning, of course, even illegals". Well fine, but Romans 13 also defines "duly selected government leaders" in that passage as leaders who "promote good and terrorize evil", so we need to define good and evil before we can use that passage to support closed borders. The passage does not advocate blind obedience to all laws. (That Washington post author has obviously never read Samuel Rutherford).

The last one I saw that might be worth mentioning was "give to Caesar what is Caesar's". First of all, just because something belongs to Caesar, doesn't mean that Caesar is a good government, and this debate exists because we have the power to change our laws for the better. Second, that passage was actually talking about paying taxes to Rome, which is something that Israel would not have had to do if they would have been obedient to God in the first place, because then they would have had God's protection from Rome. So, if you're going to depend on Caesar's protection, and if you're going to use Caesar's coins, then you're under Caesar's thumb. The coins never really belonged to Israel anyway -- they only denoted value inasmuch as they were Caesar's coins.

And, unless I missed something, those are the only real passages I saw advocating strict borders. I think that the source below, "biola", gives a fair evangelical discussion about the importance of immigration in scripture. I won't dive into it, because I don't have much else to add to what they said. The Bible seems to have no explicit command either to control the borders or not to control them, but it has several commands about being hospitable to foreigners. (see the link from Open Bible).

And, in general, I think we should be relying on God to protect us, rather than the apparent strength of our physical armies. (1 Sam 17, 2 Chron 16:7). If you read through Kings and Chronicles, (I'm using the whole books as reference now) and look at all the times when the Bible says that the land had peace and prosperity, it generally gives the reason why they were successful. It doesn't say that they had peace because of their strong military defense, or prosperity because of their careful border control. It says they had peace and prosperity because their King loved God and executed God's Laws in the land, so God protected them. This might seem naive or unrealistic if you don't think that God is real, or if you don't think that He is actively involved in our lives today... but I really believe that it's not the military strength of a people which enables it to defend its borders. If a nation submits itself to God, then God promises that He will defend it (Jeremiah 18:7-10). And He demonstrated that over and over in history. I really believe that a nation can be completely surrounded by hostile enemies with large armies, having for itself no physical defense at all, and yet remain in perfect, tranquil security, because that nation is submissive to God.

Sources:
For Closed Borders:
Renew America: The Bible and Borders
Religion News: What would Jesus do? Help the Dreamers and secure the border
Bible Mesh: The Bible and National Borders
The Aquila Report: Open Borders and the Bible
The Washington Times:The Biblical Case for Closed Borders

For Open Borders:
biola: Borders & The Bible
Open Bible: Immigration

I want to conclude with a practical note. If we were to open the border in America, today, I think it would be a disaster. The Bible is a complete system -- you have to commit to all of it or it won't work. If America conformed all the rest of its laws to the Bible, (establishing stronger local governments, quicker justice, better judicial processes, more philosophically well-grounded conditions for citizenship, fairer and more ideologically consistent benefits for citizenship, very different tax laws, very different processes for government aid, clearer and better parameters for extradition, more actualized individual ownership of property -- all of which might be topics for later blogs), then I propose, even from a practical perspective, ignoring God's supernatural protection, that we wouldn't need national border regulation at all. The other laws account for sojourners in good ways. We shoot ourselves in the foot by having laws which just don't work when applied to everyone in our borders at once.

"There is a certain people dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom who keep themselves separate. Their customs are different from those of all other people, and they do not obey the king's laws; it is not in the king's best interest to tolerate them."

Just found this band, and I can't stop listening to this album:

Today I wrote another non-rhyming poem. I'm calling this one "Submission".

----------------------

Like a stalk of wheat,
I wait for the harvest.

Cut down by the reaper,
I learn how true love is expressed.

Though my sheaved body cracks in the heat,
I know this chaff will be taken from me.

Will I be scattered
making many more like me?

Will I be crushed
into something beautiful?

Willingly I die, knowing
the reaper was also the sower.

------------------------

Being loved by an infinite being is not exactly an easy thing to accept. God is constantly behaving in ways which we don't understand; especially by choosing not to enable us to understand it. Nonetheless, there's no doubt that it is indeed love, and that it is indeed for our good.

"It's nobody's strong point. It's not even its own strong point!"

Can't help myself today after reading this article, by Pulpit and Pen, which comes really close to presenting legitimate criticisms of Apologia Church, but seems to preferentially spend words misrepresenting Jeff Durbin.

Don't get me wrong, I am the last person on earth who has any right to criticize someone for wasting words on unworthy topics; it's the misrepresentation that bothers me. I don't think we should misrepresent our friends or our enemies if we can help it. The truth is always best, even if it means truthfully divulging the actual content of beliefs with which we disagree.

I went to Apologia Church for a while, and so I hope I don't poison the water when I say I quite like Jeff, and I find his ministry and theology to be generally agreeable. I do disagree with him on a few adiophoral points (about eschatology and politics, mostly), but for the record, I don't personally see a problem with Christians drinking alcohol together as long as it does not lead people to sin. The difference between medicine and poison is the dose, right? You get a little alcohol whenever you use vanilla extract; there's nothing wrong with it. Scripture plainly allows alcohol, but draws the line at drunkenness.

The argument made in the article is that "most consider [alcohol] a vice". I don't know what weight P&P puts on the word "vice", but I think it's fair to say that there's a difference between partaking in something which "most" consider to be a vice, and partaking in sin. Again, scripture draws the line at drunkenness, so any distinctions prior to drunkenness are left to the conscience of each person. The question, then, is, 'has Apologia caused someone to sin by drinking'? P&P gives the example of White's son-in-law. I happen to know a little about that story -- details which I'm fairly certain P&P does not know -- because I was attending the church at the time. I do not believe that White's son-in-law's actions were a result of either Apologia's tattoo-fundraiser or the beer-flights which the article references over-and-over. And I think it's very insensitive of them to use the event as an attack on Pittman; what if White's daughter reads P&P's article? The only legitimate example I see of Apologia potentially causing someone to sin is when P&P heard about Apologia's ministry and then judged it in a way contravening Romans 14:3b.

And to answer their quote from Ryan Denton (who I've never heard of), let me give a quote from Martin Luther: "Whoever drinks beer, he is quick to sleep; whoever sleeps long, does not sin; whoever does not sin, enters Heaven! Thus, let us drink beer!"

But on to the misrepresentations in the article. I don't want to spend much more time picking apart the article, so I'll just give a few. One should be enough, really.

First, they evidence that they haven't really kept up with Jeff's teachings by saying, "Durbin claimed only several years ago to hold to theonomy". I mean.... try several weeks ago! When was the last time these guys listened to any of Jeff's sermons? There're tons of them on youtube!

Second, They say that Apologia is not confessionally reformed. That's a surprising statement, since all the kids in the church are memorizing Piper's Baptist Catechism, and when I was attending, Jeff introduced nearly every sermon and communion by describing the church as one which adheres to the 1689 Baptist confession. I get that they don't mention 1689 on the website, but does that really matter? Really?

Third, they say "Durbin seemed to agree with Robert Jeffress last year that there are many saved Roman Catholics". I mean, wasn't there some context to that statement? Jeff Durbin regularly preaches on why Catholicism is wrong. I used to think Catholics were saved, until I listened to Jeff! Not surprisingly, the link for P&P's reference on this point was to one of their own articles. But even if we only look at what P&P actually did quote from Durbin in their article, how does the clause, "despite the Roman Catholic church", add to the meaning of that sentence? It seems like an important clause to me. I have to give credit where credit is due, though -- they used the word "seemed", which basically means they have no idea what Jeff actually meant, and everything after that word is an extrapolation intended to support their prior points.

In any case, P&P and JD Hall are primary reasons why I intentionally do not categorize my blog as a polemics journal, Christian news outlet, or really anything else if I can help it. What I write here are just my thoughts -- mine alone. I'm sure P&P does plenty of good when they're not skipping the first two steps of Matthew 18:15-17 (which, in a sense, is what I've just done). The world needs more Christians writing good things about Christianity online, so God bless and sanctify us all.

"Durbin again made headlines when..."

This week, I caught myself remembering things I regret from when I was young. I couldn't stop thinking about it, and so I wrote another non-rhyming poem to blow off steam. Since I suppose poems should be named, I'll call this one, 'Slow to Speak'.

--------------------------------
A bat hangs sleepily below the frame of a window, decorated with etchings of false gods. Here, midway up the towering walls of a weathered castle, the bat is gently stirred by a cool wind, alleging a lack of security here.

This structure is haunted by the ghost of a nameless king, who impersonates a thief, taking things which are already his. And, though the walls are here and there preserved by invisible tapestries, depicting a tragic beauty, she is only ever an unseen image on the wall.

If words alone could build shape back into that cloth, then the sound of it might echo against those otherwise flat and colorless threads, but there are no meaningful sounds here; only wind. The bat learns nothing, sees nothing, fails to perceive the safety just beyond these easily surmountable barriers, and prepares to leave.

Black, featherless wings beat chaotically against a wind that ebbs and flows like an oncoming tide. Looking for shelter, it passes a bird, whose eyes search the ground. The bat passes a statue of a dog with a gift in its mouth. The oncoming horizon seems to grow taller, but the bat pushes forward, determined not to ask, "was that place better than this?". It has never wandered far from home, and it never will.

Humble raindrops transform the bat into a heavier creature, which falls slowly toward a small and well-hidden residence. The bat waits hungrily for quiet, its senses battered by loud calls from a great shepherd, driving dark grey sheep with quick strokes of his rod and staff.
--------------------------------

I might come back and edit this, because I don't feel 100% content with it.... but for now, I'm thinking I'll go ahead and post it here just to finalize the process of releasing these thoughts.