Posts Tagged ‘civil disobedience’

Abraham Lincoln & Judicial Activism

September 14th, 2009 No comments

We are living in a time of growing judicial activism, where an unelected minority of black robed activists impose their leftist agenda on the electorate. In state after state, the will of the people is overturned by an “enlightened” Court who believe they know better than the citizens they are appointed to serve. How do we stop this madness? What can we do to hold the judiciary accountable?

I like the approach taken by one of our greatest American presidents, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln watched as the Supreme Court in his day ruled that the Missouri Compromise, which banished slavery in some states, was unconstitutional. The Court ruled that Congress lacked the authority to forbid and abolish slavery in federal territories. This ruling meant that a slave named Dred Scott had to be returned to his owner and to his horrible life as a slave.

Here we have an example of an unjust law. We also have an example of  the Court thrusting itself into a divisive and morally charged issue, as it did in 1973 when it ruled on Roe v. Wade. So what was Lincoln’s response to this horrid ruling?

When Lincoln became president, he simply ignored the Court’s decision! He viewed the Dred Scott decision with moral outrage. As Colson comments, “Not only because the Court came down on the wrong side, but because the Court claimed authority to decide for other branches of government once and for all what the Constitution required.” What effectively happened was that the Court placed the Executive and Legislative branches of government in a position of inferiority and subservience. This is something our Founders specifically avoided and rejected.

Lincoln understood our system of checks and balances. Our Legislative branch is responsible for enacting law; not the Courts. Since the Courts over-stepped their legitimate sphere of authority, their ruling was without merit. Instead of obeying a morally bankrupt and illegitimate ruling, Lincoln’s administration treated free blacks as citizens, issuing them passports and other documents. He openly defied the “law” and signed legislation restricting slavery in the western territories. In short, he put the courts in their place!

How we need some legislators with the conviction and courage of Abraham Lincoln in our day! Where are the leaders who are willing to tell the Courts, “Sorry, the people have spoken. We choose to disregard your ruling. Thanks for your opinion, but the people have determined otherwise.”

Imagine  where we would be as a nation if Abraham Lincoln was president during the infamous and illegitimate Roe v. Wade ruling. Fifty million babies can only imagine.

The Church as a Moral Conscience

September 11th, 2009 No comments

As I shared in my last blog entry, there are times when it is our moral obligation as believers to disobey our government and the laws our elected representatives enact. The reason is simple. We are called to represent the Kingdom of God in the earth and to hold our civil authorities accountable to their God-given task. While our main assignment from Jesus is to win the lost and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20), we share the additional responsibility of being the conscience of our nation and the instrument of moral accountability.

Once again, I find inspiration from the words of Martin Luther King, Jr:

“The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”

Richard Neuhaus agrees. He eloquently wrote that, “the Church can and should subject to moral questioning every political agenda or cause, thus keeping the entirety of human politics under the transcendent judgment of God.”

God forbid we that we ever become the “irrelevant social club” King warned would happen if we cowardly retreat to the cloistered confines of our church buildings. We have been given an important mandate from our Lord to be the moral conscience of our nation. May we never shrink from this essential task.

Our Moral Obligation to Disobey

September 9th, 2009 No comments

I just finished teaching a class entitled, God & Government, at our Living Stones College. We had approximately 35 eager and excited students take part and a good time was had by all! In the class we discussed the thorny and complex issue of civil disobedience. When is it right for a law abiding, authority honoring Christian to disobey civil authories and the laws they create?

Martin Luther King, Jr. in his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail, argued that an unjust law is no law at all. Every elected official, whether they choose to acknowledge it or not, is accountable to God and His Law. When elected officials pass laws in direct opposition to the Scriptures, these laws become unjust laws and must be disobeyed. Charles Colson, in his book God & Government, explains, “Any government that violates the law that is higher than its own is exceeding the legitimate authority God has granted.”

I have had to wrestle with all of the “what ifs” of life under the Obama administration. What if the government run health care plan is enacted and I am forced to use my tax dollars to pay for abortion. Do I peacefully stop paying taxes and pay the consequences?

What if hate crime legislation is enacted and it becomes against the law to preach on the wickedness of sexual perversion? Do I preach the whole counsel of God anyway?

What if you work in the health care industry and you are now federally mandated to provide abortions or to fill prescriptions for medications that destroy life. Do you follow your conscience even though it may cost you your job?

These are the real life issues Christians must face when the government violates its sacred trust with God and the people. Dietrich Bonhoffer, the Christian pastor murdered by the Nazis for his bold,  prophetic resistance to their wicked agenda wrote, “If government persistently and arbitrarily violates its assigned task, then the divine mandate lapses.”

I believe we are dangerously close to witnessing a “divine lapse” in our day.