TheonomicPacifism.com

All Christians Should be Theonomists
All Theonomists Should be Anarchists

If you haven't done so, I recommend reading www.Anarcho-Theonomy.com first, as it contains a defense of Theonomy. This website presupposes that defense.

A pacifist opposes violence. The State is institutionalized, systematic violence. Therefore the consistent pacifist is an anarchist.

Definition of Terms

In a nutshell, "Theonomy" comes from two Greek words meaning "God's Law," and stands for the proposition that the Christian should obey the entire Bible -- all the Scriptures, including "the Old Testament." Obviously, the laws concerning the Levitical priesthood, temple sacrifices, etc., can now (under the New Covenant) only be obeyed through Jesus Christ, "a priest after the order of Melchizedek."

"Pacifist," derived from the Latin for peace, usually means "opposition to all war." We begin our definition with the 6th Commandment: "Thou shalt not kill." If someone comes at you with a sword, every pacifist believes you may defend yourself with a shield. If you're Capt. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, set your phaser to "stun" and put the sword-bearer to sleep. But do not kill him. Witness to him of Christ the Savior. The English word "witness" translates the Greek word "μάρτυς" (martus), from which we get the English word "martyr." Christian ethics teaches that it is better to witness and be killed than to kill. "When a man’s ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him." Proverbs 16:7

"Anarchist" means "not an archist." An archist believes he has the right to impose his will on others by force or threats of violence.

A Christian is a Theonomic Non-archist, which is to say, a Theonomic Pacifist.

"Everybody knows" that Jesus taught His followers to be "pacifists."

God says "Thou shalt not kill." 

The non-pacifist says Christians must not refuse to kill.

Jesus says "Love your enemies."

The non-pacifist says, Kill your enemies.

Jesus says "He who lives by the sword will die by the sword." (Matthew 26:52)

The non-pacifist says He who will not kill with a sword will be killed by a sword.

God says we must beat our swords into plowshares.

The non-pacifist says we must beat our plowshares into swords.

Jesus says "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends" (John 15:13).

The non-pacifist says we must make the bad guy lay down his life for us.

Many people who call themselves "Theonomists" support war and lethal self-defense because of the presence of many wars and military imagery in the Old Testament. But this is as logical as a Theonomist supporting the Roman Catholic Church because there are lots of priests and sacrifices in the Old Testament. There is, in fact, a clear relationship between the ritual shedding of blood which Theonomists call "the ceremonial law" and the shedding of blood involved in the so-called "judicial law." This is explained here. But it takes more than one webpage to really understand this complex issue. That's why we have a complete program offered on this website.

Why You Don't Understand that
Theonomy Requires Christians to be Pacifists

Most "Theonomists" believe that the Bible requires a strong state to execute all the homosexuals and defend us from Commies. Certainly left-wing Theonomist-watchers believe Theonomists believe this. Why do so many Theonomists give the misleading impression that the Bible defends acts of mass violence and doesn't command Christians to be pacifists?

Because Theonomists are Victims of
Educational Malpractice

The entire concept of "public schools" some 350 years ago was created by Bible-believing Christians following the Protestant Reformation in order to make sure every citizen could read the Bible. But you never had a chance to go to such a public school, because the now-atheistic U.S. Empire banned the Bible from public schools.* And because you're not a pacifist, you haven't taken effective action against the anti-pacifist atheistic U.S. Empire.

One of the first public school laws in America is known today as "The Old Deluder Satan Act" because it began with these words:

It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former times by keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times by persuading from the use of tongues, that so that at least the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded and corrupted...; and to the end that learning may not be buried in the grave of our forefathers, in church and commonwealth.... It is therefore ordered that every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to fifty households shall forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read, whose wages shall be paid either by the parents or masters of such children, or by the inhabitants in general....
"The Old Deluder Satan Act," Massachusetts, 1647

The 1636 rules of Harvard declared:

Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17.3) and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning. And seeing the Lord only giveth wisdom, let every one seriously set himself by prayer in secret to seek it of Him (Prov. 2, 3). Every one shall so exercise himself in reading the Scriptures twice a day that he shall be ready to give such an account of his proficiency therein

Did you do this for 12 straight years: Read the Bible twice a day? If not, you didn't get a Harvard education like Samuel Adams. You're a victim of educational malpractice. No wonder you're not a pacifist.

The 1690 Connecticut law declared:

This [legislature] observing that... there are many persons unable to read the English tongue and thereby incapable to read the holy Word of God or the good laws of this colony... it is ordered that all parents and masters shall cause their respective children and servants, as they are capable, to be taught to read distinctly the English tongue.

You were denied this kind of Bible-centered Education. In the early 1960's, the U.S. Supreme Court banned the Bible* from public schools, along with voluntary prayer. One of the Justices who concurred in this secularization was honest enough to admit that removing religion from public schools was directly contrary to the intentions of America's Founders:

Religion was once deemed to be a function of the public school system. The Northwest Ordinance, which antedated the First Amendment, provided in Article III that

"Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

Most Americans have never heard of the "Northwest Ordinance" (1787).  It was a benchmark for the drafting of state constitutions by Territories when they applied for admission to the union. The states often repeated those words verbatim in their state constitutions. Nebraska in 1875 was the last state to copy these words into their constitution.

• "Religion" in 1787 meant "Christianity"; more about the Christian religion.
• "Morality" meant "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God," which Blackstone said are to be found only in the holy scriptures.  Some call this "Theonomy." More about Christian morality.
• "Knowledge" meant knowledge of how the world works;
  • How "Divine Providence" acts as "an invisible hand" to ensure a "harmony of interests."
  • Why liberty is better than tyranny, and capitalism better than socialism.
  • Why we have a "duty" to "abolish" any government that threatens the "unalienable rights" with which we were endowed by our Creator.

The Government today prevents students from being taught the Bible, "religion, morality, and knowledge." Every single person who signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution would say that secular schools are a threat to "good government and the happiness of mankind," and a government that imposes secularism on the people should be "abolished," just as they abolished the British government over the colonies for offenses far less serious.

Samuel Adams, the "Anti-Federalist," did not always agree with his cousin John Adams, the "Federalist." Sam wrote:

The "Christian system" is different from the Secular Humanist system, the Moslem system, and the Soviet system. If you'll follow my argument for Theonomic Pacifism to the very end, you can compensate for what the federal government denied you as a little boy or girl by committing to "the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system," as laid out by the Prince of Peace, Jesus the Executed Pacifist.

It's true that America's Founding Fathers believed that violent revolution was justified even though taxes in 1776 were about 1/20th what they are today, and our government is more tyrannical than theirs.

If America's Founding Fathers could travel through time, what would they say is America's Most Pressing Problem?

Not taxes or tyranny. I think they would say it is the fact that America is no longer a nation "Under God," but is an atheistic nation ("secular" sounds so much nicer than "atheistic"). The nation that once sent missionaries and Bibles around the world is now the world's greatest exporter of weapons and pornography.

And the root of this problem is a national system of compulsory atheistic education for all children 5-17 years of age. America's Founders would be horrified, outraged, apoplectic. Princeton professor Archibald Hodge saw the trend back in 1887, and sounded this alarm:

. . . I am as sure as I am of Christ's reign that a comprehensive and centralized system of national education, separated from religion, as is now commonly proposed, will prove the most appalling enginery for the propagation of anti-Christian and atheistic unbelief, and of anti-social nihilistic ethics, individual, social and political, which this sin-rent world has ever seen.[1]

What are you doing about this? Of course, you are paying for this propagation of atheism and immorality. Are you doing as much to stop it or counter it as the danger warrants?

Then you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Have you taken your own kids out of public schools? Terrific. But you yourself are still a victim of educational malpractice.

Because of their Biblical education, America's Founding Fathers realized that "the Divine Right of Kings" was not a Biblical doctrine. You have been denied this education by an imperialist regime that can only be described as "the enemy of mankind." You don't see half of what America's Founders saw. If they were here today, they would see not only that the "divine right of kings" is an unChristian concept, but the entire concept of "the nation-state" is a complete failure, having been invented by rebels and nowhere commanded or endorsed in the Bible. "The State" is institutionalized violence, and utterly contrary to Christian pacifism.

Overview: The Teachings of Christianity:
No Violence Toward Our Neighbors

That Christianity teaches non-violence is almost as universally acknowledged as it is universally ignored.

Moses gave the command of God, "Thou shalt not kill" (Exodus 20:13). John Calvin recognized that "The sum of this Commandment is, that we should not unjustly do violence to any one. [U]nder the word 'kill' is included by synecdoche all violence, smiting, and aggression."[1] More than 50 other texts in the Bible which explicitly mention "violence" clearly condemn violence to our neighbor.[2] And Leviticus 19:18 informs us that life begins in our hearts: "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the LORD."

Affirmatively, the Command "Thou shalt not kill" includes acts which promote or restore life, even among those who do not share our citizenship or political philosophy.[3] The Bible forbids violent acts even toward our enemies. The ethic of Love of Enemy receives the classic statement in Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount,"[4] which is almost universally known and understood, even among those who do not claim to be Christian.

It is to be conceded that there are many sincere Christians who do not believe that the Bible condemns all acts of violence, but I believe these beliefs result from "practical" (read: "political") considerations. These and other clear commands of non-violence are set aside as "utopian," "unrealistic," or as unattainable "counsels of perfection" even by those who claim to be Christians. Elizabeth Flower, of the University of Pennsylvania, writing in The Dictionary of the History of Ideas, observes,

The perplexing issue is why such straightforward and unambiguous teaching came to be ignored, or at least taken as a counsel of perfection impossible of realization in this world. In any case, . . . Christians began to accommodate to the social realities of civil government, military service, taxation, etc.; and then to develop their own political power. Yet the literal directives of the Sermon [on the Mount] were time-resistant and Christian pacifism has not lacked for bold and uncompromising advocates in such early Church Fathers as Clement, Justin, and above all Origen, in sects such as the Quakers, Schwenkenfelders, and Doukhobors, and in such modern proponents as Leo Tolstoy, Jacques Maritain, and A.J. Muste. . . . Yet historical Christianity generally compromised its pacifist commitments.[5]

Many Theonomists associate pacifism with deviant theological camps, like the "Schwenkenfelders and Doukhobors" mentioned above. But there is no inherent connection between pacifism and bad theology. A pacifist can be a 5-point Calvinist.

Probably you already know all the verses from God's Law that command pacifism:

• "Thou shalt not kill"
• "Love your enemy"
• "Resist not evil."
• "Go the second mile."
• "Follow in His steps"

If you're open-minded on the subject of pacifism, you might review those passages and similar ones to become persuaded of pacifism. But if you're not open-minded, it's probably because you believe there are a handful of "exceptions" to the rule against violence that inevitably swallow up the rule. The Westminster Larger Catechism's exposition of the 6th Commandment ("Thou shalt not kill") is a veritable treasure-trove of pacifism, but with three exceptions:

• Public Justice (i.e., "capital punishment")
• Lawful War
• Necessary [Self-]Defense

Take your pick: review the pacifism verses in Biblical Law, or click through to the "exceptions" and we'll see if those are valid exceptions to the rule of "Thou shalt not kill" and "Love your enemy."

The Meaning of "Pacifism"

The word "pacifist" does not mean "passive." It is related to the word "pacific," from the Latin pācificus literally, peacemaking, from pāx, peace

1. tending to make or preserve peace; conciliatory:

pacific overtures.

2. not warlike; peaceable; mild:

a pacific disposition.

3. at peace; peaceful:

a pacific era in history.

4. calm; tranquil:

The Wabash is a pacific river

“Vine & Fig Tree”

 My favorite pacifist passage is Micah 4:1-7

And it will come about in the last days
That the mountain of the House of the LORD
Will be established as the chief of the mountains
And it will be raised above the hills

And the peoples will stream to it.
And many nations will come and say,
"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD
And to the House of the God of Jacob,

That He may teach us about His ways
And that we may walk in His paths."
For from Zion will go forth the Law
Even the Word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

And He will judge between many peoples
And render decisions for mighty, distant nations.
Then they will hammer their
swords into plowshares
And their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation will not lift up sword against nation
And never again will they train for war.

And each of them will sit under his
Vine and under his fig tree,
With no one to make them afraid.
For the LORD of hosts has spoken.

Though all the peoples walk
Each in the name of his god,
As for us, we will walk
In the Name of the LORD our God
forever and ever.
In that day, saith the LORD,
will I assemble her that halteth,
and I will gather her that is driven out,
and her that I have afflicted;
And I will make her that halted a remnant,
and her that was cast far off a strong nation:
and the LORD shall reign over them in mount Zion
from henceforth, even for ever.
[See also Isaiah 2:2-5]

Pacifism is not about a few verses here and there. It is about a Biblical Worldview. An anarcho-pacifist worldview looks at the world very differently from one who supports mass murder and destruction of private property. To see how a Biblical Worldview interlaces pacifism and anarchism, see this critique of the political theory of John M. Frame. The non-pacifist American can criticize Bill Clinton, but fail to see that the United States is the most evil and most dangerous entity on the planet. Indeed, the U.S. is the enemy of Christianity and the enemy of mankind.

Pacifism requires a wholesale reformation of one's worldview.

"Love your enemy"

"Theonomy" (God's Law) means that every word of the Scriptures is the Word of God, and every Word of a Sovereign is Law. The whole Bible must be consulted. At one point, our Sovereign declared that the blood of a spotless lamb must be shed in order for sins to be forgiven. Later, our Sovereign declared that Jesus Christ was "the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world." That means you don't need to buy anything from your neighbor's flock to sacrifice.

At one point God commanded, "Thou shalt not kill." Did God subsequently or additionally say something that could lead a rational and faithful Christian to go to the Gun Show, stock up, and start killing?

Jesus certainly never said anything that could lead someone to that conclusion. He commanded His followers to be "pacifists." The word "pacifist" in this context means loving one's enemies and being willing to be killed rather than to kill.

Matthew 5:9,38-48,  Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
³⁸ “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ ³⁹ But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. ⁴⁰ If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. ⁴¹ And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. ⁴² Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.
⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’⁴⁴ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. ⁴⁶ For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷ And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? ⁴⁸ Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

"Thou shalt not kill"

Pacifism is described in the Westminster Larger Catechism's exposition of the 6th Commandment.

Question 134: Which is the sixth commandment?
Answer: The sixth commandment is, Thou shalt not kill.

Question 135: What are the duties required in the sixth commandment?
Answer: The duties required in the sixth commandment are, all careful studies, and lawful endeavors, to preserve the life of ourselves and others by resisting all thoughts and purposes, subduing all passions, and avoiding all occasions, temptations, and practices, which tend to the unjust taking away the life of any; by just defense thereof against violence, patient bearing of the hand of God, quietness of mind, cheerfulness of spirit; a sober use of meat, drink, physic, sleep, labor, and recreations; by charitable thoughts, love, compassion, meekness, gentleness, kindness; peaceable, mild and courteous speeches and behavior; forbearance, readiness to be reconciled, patient bearing and forgiving of injuries, and requiting good for evil; comforting and succoring the distressed, and protecting and defending the innocent.

Question 136: What are the sins forbidden in the sixth commandment?
Answer: The sins forbidden in the sixth commandment are, all taking away the life of ourselves, or of others,
except in case of
          • public justice,
          • lawful war, or
          • necessary defense;
the neglecting or withdrawing the lawful and necessary means of preservation of life; sinful anger, hatred, envy, desire of revenge; all excessive passions, distracting cares; immoderate use of meat, drink, labor, and recreations; provoking words, oppression, quarreling, striking, wounding, and: Whatsoever else tends to the destruction of the life of any.

Click those links above for a fuller exposition of the 6th Commandment.

You do not love your enemy if you kill your enemy. The Apostle Paul says that Biblical "love" is defined by obedience to God's Law, including the commandment "Thou shalt not kill."

Romans 13:8-10
⁹ For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
¹⁰ Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

The New King James Version adds this caption to Romans 13:8-10:

Love Your Neighbor

The English Standard Version's caption reads:

Fulfilling the Law Through Love

This is misleading. If I kill my neighbor, steal his stuff, and rape his wife, can it still be said that I fulfilled God's Law with respect to my neighbor if I had a warm fuzzy feeling of "love" in my heart? You cannot fulfill God's Law through the feeling of "love." What Paul is saying is if you want to obey the command to "love thy neighbor," obey all of God's Commandments with respect to your neighbor. "Love" is the opposite of killing and stealing.

John 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

You do not love your neighbor if you kill him.
You do not love your enemy if you kill him.
Therefore a Christian is a pacifist who would rather be killed than to kill.

"Resist not evil." (Matthew 5:39)

If I give your daughter a "date-rape" drug, like Rohypnol, without her consent, it is legally considered an act of violence, even if no sexual assault occurs. If I see your daughter being assaulted and I use a tranquilizer gun with Rohypnol to quickly and gently "pacify" the attacker, no pacifist would consider that an act of violence. It would not violate Jesus' command to "resist not evil." The context is the mis-use of the Old Testament guard against excessive vengeance, "one eye for one eye." If Smith does damage to one of your children, you don't get to inflict damage on four of his, or compel four times the amount needed for fair compensation.

I believe "turn the other cheek" is hyperbole. Jesus did not really command anyone to pluck their eyes out (Matthew 5:29). Jesus did not say that if you are a victim of assault and battery, you should say to the evil-doer, "please commit another crime against me." And in fact, Jesus did not say this when He was slapped:

one of the officers standing nearby struck Jesus, saying, “Is that the way You answer the high priest?” 23 Jesus answered him, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify of the wrong; but if rightly, why do you strike Me?”
John 18:22-23

The Apostle Paul, when he was ordered to be slapped, also appealed to God's Law:

Do you sit to try me according to the Law, and in violation of the Law order me to be struck?
Acts 23:3

There are non-violent ways to prevent crimes, if we are creative (and love motivates imagination), but if you can't employ a non-violent method of protection, you should be willing to suffer rather than inflict suffering.

"Go the second mile."

The context of this axiom is the military occupation of Israel by Italy (Rome), Roman law permitted a Roman soldier to "conscript" (enslave) any Israeli to carry the soldier's provisions for up to one mile. The "Zealots" hated this pagan occupation and were plotting a violent overthrow of the Empire. Jesus repudiated this idea. He told His followers to go an extra mile with the forces of military occupation.

Romans 13 adds to this by commanding us to "be subject" to "the powers that be." If we are to be subject to an invading force, we are not allowed to kill them while they are invading us. This rules out "national defense." Who cares if our socialist government is led by Barack Obama or the Supreme Leader of China. Jesus didn't care. (That's not to say that invaders and politicians will not be judged by "the Supreme Judge of the World," it's only to say that the governed must behave as pacifists toward the governors.

"But if we don't defend ourselves, foreign invaders will enslave us."

Then we must get used to being slaves.

"Follow in His steps"

Jesus did not defend His life by killing those who threatened Him (John 18:36), and we are commanded to follow His example:

1 Peter 2:21-24
²¹ For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps:
      ²² “Who committed no sin,
      Nor was deceit found in His mouth”; [Isaiah 53:9]
²³ who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; ²⁴ who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.

 

Matthew 26:47-53 And while [Jesus] was still talking, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a band armed with swords and sticks, from the chief priests and those in authority over the people. 48 Now the false one had given them a sign saying, The one to whom I give a kiss, that is he: take him. 49 And straight away he came to Jesus and said, Master! and gave him a kiss. 50 And Jesus said to him, Friend, do that for which you have come. Then they came and put hands on Jesus, and took Him. 51 And one of those who were with Jesus put out his hand, and took out his sword and gave the servant of the high priest a blow, cutting off his ear. 52 Then says Jesus to him, Put up your sword again into its place: for all those who take the sword will come to death by the sword. 53 Does it not seem possible to you that if I make request to my Father he will even now send Me an army of angels?

 

John 18:36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

Some have misunderstood Jesus' words in Luke 22:36. Here's an example from a group called "The National Reform Association":

No it wouldn't have, because Christ really wasn't telling the disciples to sell their clothes and buy a sword, any more than he was telling the disciples never to take an oath (Matthew 5:34) or to pluck their eyes out (Matthew 5:29). Christ used hyperbolic language which is not easily understood by victims of educational malpractice. By saying the disciples should sell their clothes and buy a sword, Christ was vividly telling the disciples that persecution was coming. By saying, "Look, Lord, here are two swords!" the disciples exasperated the Lord, Who said, in effect, "I've had enough" (Luke 22:38). Two swords would hardly have been sufficient for twelve disciples. Jesus was not telling them to buy weapons, as Greg Bahnsen has taught. These were "disappointing disciples." John Calvin commented:

In metaphorical language He threatens that they will soon meet with great troubles and fierce attacks; just as when a general, intending to lead the soldiers into the field of battle, calls them to arms, and orders them to lay aside every other care, and think of nothing else than fighting, not even to take any thought about procuring food. For He shows them -- as is usually done in cases of extreme danger -- that every thing must be sold, even to the scrip and the purse, in order to supply them with arms. And yet He does not call them to an outward conflict, but only, under the comparison of fighting, He warns them of the sever struggles of temptations which they must undergo, and of the fierce attacks which they must sustain in spiritual contests.

It was truly shameful and stupid ignorance, that the disciples, after having been so often informed about bearing the cross, imagine that they must fight with swords of iron. When they say that they have two swords, it is uncertain whether they mean that they are well prepared against their enemies, or complain that they are ill provided with arms. It is evident, at least, that they were so stupid as not to think of a spiritual enemy.

Luke 22 is not commanding us to abandon pacifism. More on Luke 22.

Peace

R.J Rushdoony has said:

If you were to go through scripture and collect the passages that deal with peace, you would find it surprising how many such passages there are. Very clearly, peace is a central purpose of God's plan for man and the earth. Peace as scripture describes it is first and foremost peace with God. Then when man is at peace with God, there is peace between man and man, and man and nature.

Let us now look a little further into the doctrine of peace. Peace is a translation of a Hebrew word, Shalom. We have it in ‘Jerusalem’. Salem. It is the greeting in Hebrew. Instead of saying hello, it is: ‘Shalom’. Peace. Now, peace, shalom, in Hebrew, comes from the root ‘to be whole’ wholeness, soundness, health, well-being, prosperity, peace as opposed to war, concord as opposed to strife.

As a result the Biblical doctrine of peace is very closely related to the Biblical doctrine of salvation. This is why throughout the New Testament, as well as in Old Testament prophesy, the culmination of Christ’s work is peace. And Christ even in the midst of trouble and of strife and turmoil, gives us peace.

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

Peace, thus, is a present possession in Christ; and it is a future possession as Christ’s reign is extended throughout the world

Peace is thus, that order of peace and prosperity, a salvation of health, which flows out of our reconciliation to God in Jesus Christ, and our restoration to life under God. Life in Eden was a life of peace with God, therefore peace with yourself, peace with nature. The source of that peace is the primary relationship with God, and Christ having restored it, all other forms of peace shall flow out of that peace we have with God, in Jesus Christ.

Statist peace, on the other hand, is simply an absence of hostility. It means that war has ended. That there has been a suppression, perhaps, of criminal activity. The state cannot regenerate man. It cannot even establish the limited peace it aims at, because the power of the state is essentially the power of the sword. The state cannot order [compel] men to love one another, or to live in peace, and when it tries to do so it only aggravates the situation.

The state therefore can never bring about peace. As a matter of fact, the state, when it tries to make peace its goal, only destroys the peace of citizens and usurps God's peace and the free-man’s peace in Christ. The state can only be an instrument of peace when it ... acknowledges that peace can only come when man is redeemed by God in Christ.

Thus the doctrine of peace is a very important one in law, because it is first of all important in terms of the doctrine of salvation. The vine and the fig tree imagery are thus essential to scripture. They are God-centered doctrines, God-centered symbols, setting forth the peace, the salvation, the fulfillment of man in prosperity, in joy, and in wellbeing. In God through Christ.

There is no peace, no fulfillment for man in any other way.

You can read some of those "peace" passages here.

"Thou shalt not kill" and "Love your enemy" provide an air-tight case for pacifism. But most people find excuses for using violence, probably because everybody would rather make the other guy suffer than to suffer themselves. The Westminster Larger Catechism spells out the demands of the 6th Commandment, but then leaves three exceptions.

• Public Justice (i.e., "capital punishment")
• Lawful War
• Necessary [Self-]Defense

As a result of those three exceptions, we have replaced the “Vine & Fig Tree” society with Socialism, Fascism, Keynesianism, the military-industrial complex, the murders of hundreds of millions of human beings, the enslavement of billions, and the destruction of trillions of dollars of private property in the 20th century alone. Because pacifism is "unrealistic" and "impractical."

Let's give those three exceptions a Theonomic analysis.

1. "Public Justice"

Does a Theonomic follower of Jesus Christ have a right to kill someone in the name of "public justice?"

a. "Public"

For a consistent pacifist (opponent of violence), there is no such thing as "public justice."
"Public" is a euphemism for "the State," which is systematic, institutionalized vengeance, theft, murder, kidnapping, and other forms of violence.
A consistent pacifist is an "anarchist."
A consistent Theonomist is an anarchist.

Many will claim that "capital punishment" can only be meted out by a "civil magistrate."

But God never commanded the creation or maintenance of "civil magistrates."

Many will object to a stateless society based on Romans 13, contending that Romans 13 commands the creation and continued maintenance of a "civil government" or "State," which is authorized by God to kill people and behave in a notably un-pacifist manner. In fact, Romans 13 commands pacifism, not patriotism. It does not condone the organized violence which we call "the State," it simply commands us to "be subject" to it. Romans 12:9ff is a pacifist passage. Romans 13 is a continuation of the pacifist argument which began in Romans 12. For an anarchist analysis of Romans 13, see www.Romans13.com.

There is nothing in the Bible that prohibits "private justice." There is nothing in the Bible that prohibits a man from "executing" his brother if his brother commits a "capital crime" -- solely because he is the criminal's nearest relative.

When a murder takes place in our day, politicians and police can often be heard saying things like, "We are working hard to bring the killer to justice." That is, to kill him.

b. "Justice"

The Bible, taken as a whole, is against "capital punishment."

"Capital punishment" in western civilization is historically derived from Biblical passages* which demanded that the blood of capital criminals be shed:

But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. ⁵ Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man. ⁶ Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.
Genesis 9:4-6

Smaller sins could be atoned for through the temple sacrifices: lambs, turtledoves, etc., but some crimes were so serious that atonement could not be made in any other way than by the shedding of the blood of the criminal himself:

So you shall not pollute the land where you are; for blood defiles the land, and no atonement can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it.
Numbers 35:33

That God does not require the shedding of blood after Christ's work on Calvary is seen in the case of an unsolved homicide; Deuteronomy 21:1-9 required the tribal elders to shed the blood of a heifer in order to atone for the shedding of innocent blood, following the directions of the priests:

{5} Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near, for the LORD your God has chosen them to minister to Him and to bless in the name of the LORD; by their word every controversy and every assault shall be settled. 
{7} "Then they shall answer and say, 'Our hands have not shed this blood, nor have our eyes seen it.
{8} 'Provide atonement, O LORD, for Your people Israel, whom You have redeemed, and do not lay innocent blood to the charge of Your people Israel.' And atonement shall be provided on their behalf for the blood.
{9} "So you shall put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you when you do what is right in the sight of the LORD.

Nobody advocates the literal application of Deuteronomy 21 after the Cross. Christian theologians for 2000 years have rightly concluded that in our day only the blood of Christ can provide such atonement in cases of an unsolved homicide. Yet they persist in requiring the shedding of the criminal's blood when the homicide is solved.

What politicians call "capital punishment" is actually part of the "ceremonial law," overseen by the Levitical priests.

Deuteronomy 17
⁸ “If a matter arises which is too hard for you to judge, between degrees of guilt for bloodshed, between one judgment or another, or between one punishment or another, matters of controversy within your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the LORD your God chooses. ⁹ And you shall come to the priests, the Levites, and to the judge there in those days, and inquire of them; they shall pronounce upon you the word [dâbâr] of judgment [mishpâṭ]. ¹⁰ You shall do according to the mouth [peh] of the word [dâbâr] which they pronounce upon you in that place which the LORD chooses. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they teach you. ¹¹ According to the mouth [peh] of the law [tôrâh] in which they instruct you, according to the judgment [mishpâṭ] which they tell you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left from the word [dâbâr] which they pronounce upon you. ¹² Now the man who acts presumptuously and will not heed the priest who stands to minister there before the LORD your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall put away the evil from Israel. ¹³ And all the people shall hear and fear, and no longer act presumptuously.

This has foreign policy implications. "Holy war" in the Old Testament was "capital punishment" on a national scale. The Promised Land was being cleansed of heinous sins committed by the pagans who inhabited the land promised to Abraham. Anyone using Old Testament texts to justify U.S. invasion of a non-Christian land is denying the efficacy of Christ's blood as the only means of atonement, and abusing the Bible.

2. Holy War

I believe the Bible should be used as a blueprint for all political policies. I don't believe it should be mis-used, however.

There are many Christians who use Old Testament "holy wars" as a justification for war, capital punishment, and self-defense in our day. This is a mistake. These wars were not "military" in the modern secular sense. They were religious and priestly. They were part of the "ceremonial law."

Bible scholars often divide Old Testament laws into three categories:
      • "Moral,"
      • "ceremonial," and
      • "civil" (or "judicial").
The category of "judicial law" presupposes that God commanded mankind to form empires or "states." This is a mistaken assumption. When we hear the phrase "separation of church and state" we understand a priestly or religious institution ("church") and a "secular" institution of power and violence ("state"). Go through the Bible from cover to cover. You will never hear God say to man, "Form a State." The formation of "the State" was and is an act of rebellion against God's commandments against murder, theft, and vengeance. "The State" does what we all know is sinful if it were to be done in our families, businesses, churches, and charities.

There really is no "judicial law." Only "moral" and "ceremonial" law.

The "ceremonial law" is priestly law. It is generally about cleansing from sin, or making "atonement" for sin. And this generally involves the shedding of blood. The "ceremonial law" was fulfilled by Christ when He shed His blood on the Cross. In our day, no other blood has any power to atone for sins.

In the Old Covenant, before Christ shed His blood, God required the shedding of blood of both man and beast to atone for sins. Some sins required more than the shedding of the blood of a dove or lamb. They required the shedding of the blood of the perpetrator himself. Today we call these ritual acts of bloodshed “capital punishment,” or in the case of entire nations in the Promised Land, "holy war." Old Testament wars were acts of cleansing or atonement on a national scale.

Neither “capital punishment” or "holy war" are required or even permitted under the New Covenant.

Christians who justify modern secular militarism and imperialism with Old Testament "holy wars" also use Romans 13 as an excuse for war in our day. This too is a mistake.

For Further Reading:
www.GodandtheDeathPenalty.com
God Ordains Evil
Is War Ever "Just?"

This thesis is a linchpin.
If true, it destroys both war and capital punishment as legitimate functions of "the State," and effectively destroys the necessity or even legitimacy of "the State."
If false, it is still true that all legitimate social functions (which would include vengeance, war, and capital punishment if this thesis is false) can be carried out by the Family (patriarchy) in a Freed Market rather than the State (polis).

What follows are excerpts from leading "Christian Reconstructionists" showing that "holy war" was priestly and religious, not secular/civil. [Skip and go to "self-defense"]

Gary North,
Inheritance and Dominion
An Economic Commentary on Deuteronomy

Chapter 46

LIMITS TO EMPIRE

The Whole Burnt Offering and Disinheritance

The Israelites were told to show no mercy to the nations inside Canaan's boundaries (Deut. 7:16). These nations had practiced such great evil that they had become abominations in the sight of God. "For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee" (Deut. 18:12). The language of Deuteronomy 20:10-18 indicates that every living thing inside the boundaries of Canaan was to be killed: "thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth." With respect to the first city to fall, Jericho, this law applied literally (Josh. 6:15-21). But it did not apply literally to the other cities of Canaan. After the destruction of Jericho, the first city inside Canaan to be defeated, cattle became lawful spoils for the Israelites. "And thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves: lay thee an ambush for the city behind it" (Josh. 8:2). The word "breatheth" did not apply to Canaan's cattle; it applied only to the human population. "And all the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves; but every man they smote with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them, neither left they any to breathe" (Josh. 11:14).

Jericho was the representative example of God's total wrath against covenant-breakers who follow their religious presuppositions to their ultimate conclusion: death.⁽³⁾ Jericho came under God's total ban: hormah.⁽⁴⁾ This was the equivalent of a whole burnt offering: almost all of it had to be consumed by fire. In the whole burnt offering, all of the beast was consumed on the altar (Lev. 1:9, 13), except for the skin, which went to the officiating priest (Lev. 7:8). Similarly, all of Jericho was burnt except for the precious metals, which went to the tabernacle as firstfruits (Josh. 6:24).⁽⁵⁾ Nevertheless, because God wanted His people to reap the inheritance of the Canaanites, He allowed them to confiscate the cattle and precious goods of the other conquered Canaanite cities. This illustrated another important biblical principle of inheritance: "A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just" (Prov. 13:22). Canaan's capital, except in Jericho, was part of Israel's lawful inheritance. The Canaanites had accumulated wealth; the Israelites were to inherit all of it. This comprehensive inheritance was to become a model of God's total victory at the end of history. Their failure to exterminate the Canaanites, placing some of them under tribute instead (Josh. 16:10; 17:13), eventually led to the apostasy of Israel and the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, just as Moses prophesied in this passage (vv. 17-18; cf. 7:1-5; 12:30-31).

The annihilation of every living soul in Canaan was mandatory. "And thou shalt consume all the people which the LORD thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee" (Deut. 7:16). This was a model of God's final judgment. But it was a model in the same way that Jericho was a model: a one-time event. Jericho was to be totally destroyed, including the animals; this was not true of the other cities of Canaan. Similarly, the Canaanites were to be totally annihilated; this was not true of residents of cities outside Canaan. In this sense, Jericho was to Canaan what Canaan was to cities outside the land: a down payment ("earnest") on God's final judgment -- final disinheritance -- at the end of time. This earnest payment in history on the final disinheritance is matched by the earnest payment in history on the final inheritance. This is surely the case in spiritual affairs.⁽⁶⁾ Debates over eschatology are debates over the extent to which these earnest payments in history are also cultural and civilizational, and whether they image the final judgment, i.e., to what extent history is an earnest on eternity.⁽⁷⁾

James B. Jordan
Judges: God's War Against Humanism

Hormah

17. Then Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they struck the Canaanites living in Zephath, and utterly destroyed it. So the name of the city was called Hormah. Now we see Judah making good her bargain with Simeon. The destruction of Canaanite Zephath was total, so that the place was called Hormah.

This is not the only “Hormah,” for we read in Numbers 21:1-3 of a place that was also “devoted to destruction,” and as a result was called Hormah.

Hormah means “placed under the ban, totally destroyed.” To be placed under the ban is to be devoted to death. Just as the Nazirite was devoted to God in life (for instance, Samson, Samuel), so the banned person or city was devoted wholly to God in death. To put under the ban means to curse and to devote to total destruction.

The preeminent example of a city devoted to total destruction is Jericho, the story of which is recorded in Joshua 6:15-19. Everything living was to be killed, all the treasures brought to the house of God, and the city was to be burned with fire. No personal booty was allowed.

More light is shed on this matter in Deuteronomy 13:12-18. The apostate city is to be banned, and “then you shall gather all its booty into the middle of its open square and burn the city and all its booty with fire as a whole burnt sacrifice to the LORD your God; and it shall be a ruin forever. It shall never be rebuilt” (v. 16).

From this we learn that it was God’s fire, lit by Himself from heaven (Lev. 9:24; 2 Chron. 7:1), kept burning perpetually on the altar, which was used to ignite the city placed under the ban. (See also Gen. 22:6 and 1 Ki. 18:38.) The fact that God starts His fire shows that the sacrifice is His sacrifice, the sacrifice that He Himself provides to propitiate His own fiery wrath. Man has no hand in it, and only an ordained priest may handle it. Man is impotent in his salvation, so that man cannot even light the sacrificial fire. If he dares to do so, God destroys him (Lev. 10:1-2).

All men stand on God’s altar. Those who accept God’s Substitute, the very Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, can step off the altar and escape the fire. Jesus takes the fire for them. He becomes the whole burnt sacrifice. Those who refuse the Substitute, however, are left on the altar, and are burnt up by the fire of God. (See Gen. 19:24; Rev. 18:8; Rev. 20:14f.; and for further study, Heb. 12:29; Ex. 3:2-5; Heb. 12:18; Num. 11:1-3; Num. 16:35; Num. 21:6; Gen. 3:25; 2 Pet. 3:9-12; Rev. 8:3-5).

Thus, the destruction of Hormah was a priestly act, issuing from the flaming swords of the cherubic (priestly) guardians of the land, a revelation of God’s direct fiery judgment against the wicked. Not every city was to be destroyed in this fashion, but certain ones were, as types of the wrath of God. This horrible judgment, introduced here at the beginning of Judges, comes again in Judges 20:40, when it is an apostate Israelite city that is burnt up as a sacrifice to God.

R. J. Rushdoony argued that Exodus 30 -- a man's payment of half a shekel upon reaching age 20 -- was a head tax. He was incorrect. The payment went to the priests, not to a civil magistrate ("captain"). The tip-off was that it was calculated as a shekel of the sanctuary, which was a separate, ecclesiastical coin. This was blood money. It was paid on a man's entry into God's holy army, which was both priestly and civil. I discuss this in Chapter 32 of Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus (1990).

(That the army was "priestly" can be seen directly from Scripture. That the army was "civil" may be reading modern categories into the text.)

The military was not necessarily a state function over against a Church function in the Old Covenant. Indeed, holy war was a specifically priestly function. The torching of cities is to be understood as taking God's fire off from His altar and applying His holy fiery wrath to his enemies. Thus, the torched cities were called "whole burnt sacrifices" in the Hebrew Old Testament (Deut. 13:16; Judg. 1:17, 20:40, in Hebrew). During the holy war, the men became temporary priests by taking the Nazirite vow (Num. 6; 2 Sam. 11:11 + Exo. 19:15; Deut. 23:9-14; Judg. 5:2, "That long locks of hair hung loose in Israel. . ."). This is all to say that the rendering of specific judgments is a sabbatical and priestly function, not a kingly one.... The sword of the state executes according to the judgments rendered by the priests....

Thus, the military duty is priestly, and a duty of every believer-priest. Both Church and state are involved in it, since the Church must say whether the war is just and holy, and the state must organize the believer-priests for battle. The mustering of the host for a census is, then, not a "civil" function as opposed to an ecclesiastical one, and the atonement money of Exodus 30 is not a poll tax, as some have alleged.

James Jordan, "Appendix D: State Financing in the Bible," in The Law of the Covenant, 231-32 (1984), at http://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/: HTML, DjVu.

Biblical salvation entails not simply the establishment of the Church, but entails the restoration of the whole fabric of life, including social life. Perhaps then we should expect to find God giving us a blueprint of the perfect civil government, of the Christian state. Some people in history have thought that the Bible, in the Mosaic law, was doing just that, but in fact there is no corpus as such of judicial laws in the Bible. The reason why so many people have erred in looking at the Old Testament laws as if they were judicial laws designed for some state is that since the rebellion of man, the human race has been infected with Statism, and thus men tend to look at the Bible through glasses tinted with this Statism.

This explains why we do not find a set of judicial laws in the Bible. All the laws of Scripture, including the social laws, are religious. The social laws are God-centered. Some of them relate to Christian civil government, but there is no corpus of civil law or judicial law because the Bible is not a Statist document.

James Jordan, "Appendix E: Salvation and Statism," in The Law of the Covenant, 240-42 (1984), at http://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/: HTML, DjVu.

---

“In the literature of Protestantism, it is assumed that the law of God comes in three categories: moral, judicial, and ceremonial. The criticism rightly shows that this category scheme is erroneous. What has been termed ‘judicial law’ is not in fact a legal code, but rather is a set of explanations of the moral law.”
James B. Jordan, “Calvinism and ‘The Judicial Law of Moses': An Historical Survey,” Journal of Christian Reconstruction 5(1978-79):19:

THEONOMY: AN INFORMED RESPONSE
Gary North, p. 259-60

At this point, I am suggesting a weakness in the Westminster
Confession's tripartite division of biblical law: moral, ceremonial,
and judicial. The moral law is said to be permanently binding
(XIX:2). The ceremonial law is said to have been abrogated by [260]
the New Covenant (XIX:3). The judicial law is said to have applied
only to national Israel and not to the New Covenant era,
except insofar as a law was (is) part of something called the
"general equity" (XIX:4) This formulation assumes that the
judicial law applied only to Israel's "body politic." But what of
the family? It is a separate covenantal administration, bound by
a lawful oath under God. Which civil laws in Israel protected
the family? To what extent have these laws been annulled or
modified (perhaps tightened) by the New Covenant? And why?

I am here suggesting the need for a restructuring of this
traditional tripartite division into civil, ecclesiastical, and familial.
In other words, the divisions should match the Bible's tripartite
covenantal and institutional division. There are continuities
(moral law) and discontinuities (redemptive-historical applications)
in all three covenantal law-orders. It is the task of the
interpreter to make these distinctions and interrelationships
clear. The church has been avoiding this crucial task (exegetical
and applicational) for over three centuries. The result has been
the dominance of ethical dualism in Christian social theory:
natural law theory coupled with pietism and/or mysticism.

• No war in the history of the United States has been justified from a Biblical perspective.
• The "Good War" was a Bad War.
• The United States is a "warlord state," having killed, crippled, or made homeless tens of millions of innocent non-combatant civilians in the last half century, in a state where the Constitution is a fiction and the "military-industrial complex" is actually dictating public policy.
• The non-pacifist United States is the enemy of humanity.

related: Swords into Plowshares

3. Self-Defense

The final justification for not being a follower of the Prince of Peace is the idea of "self-defense."

The Christian position is that it is better to be killed than to kill. You should not take someone else's life just to preserve your own.

If someone threatens to kill you, you "witness" to him, announcing the good news of the Gospel. "Witness" here includes the demand for repentance from violations of God's Law, including, obviously, the harm being threatened. The Holy Sprit promises that God's Word will not return void. "When a man’s ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him" (Proverbs 16:7).  If the Lord does not do this, then you may become a "martyr," which comes from the Greek word for "witness." There is no evidence in the New Testament than any faithful Christian chose to kill someone in "self-defense" rather than be a martyr. They followed the example of Jesus.

"National Defense'

This means "defense of the State." Since the State is an unlawful entity, killing someone created in the Image of God in order to protect systematic rebellion against God is not an ethical option. Christ clearly taught it was better to be occupied and put under tribute than to engage in violent revolution against "the powers that be," or "national defense" against the powers that wanna be.

Anarcho-Slavery

"Protection"

Some will quote Old Testament verses on protecting the poor and oppressed, and use these verses to defend killing people. In most cases, these verses command us to protect the poor and oppressed from the State and its corrupt judges. The same State whose existence is defended by the anti-pacifists. If pacifists had their way, "the State" would be abolished and 99% of the oppression of the poor would cease. Of whatever oppression remains, most can be dealt with without killing the oppressor. God does not require killing to deal with the tiny, infinitesimal amount of oppression that remains. We are commanded to do our best to protect the weak, but there are limits to that. "Thou shalt not kill" is one of those limits.

Conclusion

A Theonomic analysis of the three most popular exceptions to the Theonomic rule of pacifism shows they don't stand up. Jesus came to bring "Peace on Earth," not what we have as a result of dismissing pacifism.

(1) Cited by R.J. Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law, 219 (1973). See the discussion, below, p. 7. [Back to text]

(2) From the King James Version (1611): Genesis 6:11-13; Genesis 21:25; Leviticus 6:2-4; Deuteronomy 28:31; 2 Samuel 22:3; 2 Samuel 22:49; Job 20:19; Job 24:2; Psalm 7:16; Psalm 11:5; Psalm 18:48; Psalm 55:9; Psalm 58:2; Psalm 72:14; Psalm 73:6; Psalm 86:14; Psalm 140:1; Psalm 140:4; Psalm 140:11; Proverbs 4:14-17; Proverbs 10:6; Proverbs 10:11; Proverbs 13:2; Proverbs 16:29; Proverbs 28:17; Ecclesiastes 5:8; Isaiah 53:9; Isaiah 59:1-15; Jeremiah 6:7; Jeremiah 22:3; Jeremiah 22:15-17; Ezekiel 7:11; Ezekiel 7:23; Ezekiel 8:17; Ezekiel 12:19; Ezekiel 18:7-8; Ezekiel 18:12-13; Ezekiel 18:16-18; Ezekiel 28:16; Ezekiel 45:9-10; Joel 3:19; Amos 3:10; Amos 6:3; Obadiah 1:10; Jonah 3:8; Micah 2:2; Micah 6:11-12; Habakkuk 1:2-4; Habakkuk 1:9; Habakkuk 2:8; Habakkuk 2:17; Zephaniah 1:9; Zephaniah 3:4; Malachi 2:16; Luke 3:14. [Back to text]

(3) Exodus 22:4-5 ("If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again. [5] If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, and you would refrain from helping it, you shall surely help him with it.") Luke 10:33-34 ("But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, {34} And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.") [Back to text]

(4) Matthew 5-7, passim. ("Blessed are the peacemakers," "Love your enemy," "Turn the other cheek," etc.) [Back to text]

(5) "Peace, Ethics of," 3 Dictionary of the History of Ideas, 441 (1973). [Back to text]

* Did the Supreme Court really "ban the Bible" from public schools?

Public school students can certainly be taught that the Bible exists. But they cannot be taught that it is true, and that it is a "sacred" book because it is the Word of God. In other words, the Court banned the teaching of the Bible as the Bible would be taught by those who wrote it. The Court also banned the Bible as the Supreme Court ruled 150 years earlier it "must" be taught.

An 1844 U.S. Supreme Court case involved a wealthy Frenchman who left a large sum of money in his will to the City of Philadelphia to build a school in which no clergy would teach. (Virtually all schools back then were run by churches or Christian organizations and clergy often taught the classes Mon-Fri.) There was a great controversy over whether the will of this obviously deistic Frenchman should be enforced. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that just because clergy couldn't teach, didn't mean that lay teachers could not continue to teach the Bible as the Word of God in a school administered by the city government. In fact, the Court said -- and the City of Philadelphia enthusiastically agreed -- that teachers "must" teach Christianity and the Bible as a "divine revelation" and a "sacred volume." Here are the words of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1844:

But the objection itself assumes the proposition that Christianity is not to be taught, because ecclesiastics [clergy] are not to be instructors or officers. But this is by no means a necessary or legitimate inference from the premises. Why may not laymen instruct in the general principles of Christianity as well as ecclesiastics. There is no restriction as to the religious opinions of the instructors and officers. They may be, and doubtless, under the auspices of the city government, they will always be, men, not only distinguished for learning and talent, but for piety and elevated virtue, and holy lives and characters. And we cannot overlook the blessings, which such men by their conduct, as well as their instructions, may, nay must impart to their youthful pupils. Why may not the Bible, and especially the New Testament, without note or comment, be read and taught as a divine revelation in the college -- its general precepts expounded, its evidences explained, and its glorious principles of morality inculcated? What is there to prevent a work, not sectarian, upon the general evidences of Christianity, from being read and taught in the college by lay-teachers? Certainly there is nothing in the will, that proscribes such studies. Above all, the testator positively enjoins, "that all the instructors and teachers in the college shall take pains to instil into the minds of the scholars the purest principles of morality, so that on their entrance into active life they may from inclination and habit evince benevolence towards their fellow-creatures, and a love of truth, sobriety, and industry, adopting at the same time such religious tenets as their matured reason may enable them to prefer." Now, it may well be asked, what is there in all this, which is positively enjoined, inconsistent with the spirit or truths of Christianity? Are not these truths all taught by Christianity, although it teaches much more? Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the New Testament? Where are benevolence, the love of truth, sobriety, and industry, so powerfully and irresistibly inculcated as in the sacred volume? The testator has not said how these great principles are to be taught, or by whom, except it be by laymen, nor what books are to be used to explain or enforce them. All that we can gather from his language is, that he desired to exclude sectarians and sectarianism from the college, leaving the instructors and officers free to teach the purest morality, the love of truth, sobriety, and industry, by all appropriate means; and of course including the best, the surest, and the most impressive.

There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution which forced the Supreme Court in the early 1960's to repudiate Christianity and remove the Bible "as a divine revelation" from public schools.

Why do I say the U.S. Empire is "Anti-Pacifist?"

Because I studied law, passed the California Bar Exam, and was denied a license to practice law because I'm a pacifist. If the government took a blood test of my parents, and concluded that my parents were a high-risk to burden the Medicare and Social Security systems, and the government ordered me to put my parents to "sleep" in order to help ensure the solvency of the entitlement system, I would defiantly (but respectfully) disobey the order. The Bible says "Thou shalt not kill," so I'm a pacifist. The Bible says "Honor your father and mother," and "We must obey God rather than man." I normally obey all government laws and pay all taxes, but if there's a conflict between God's Law and man's laws, I know in advance that I'm going to disobey the government. Based on this case, a Federal District Court in Los Angeles ruled that my predisposition to disobey the government's mandatory violence disqualified me from being permitted to take the oath to "support the Constitution" which all attorneys must take. The Ninth Circuit Court  upheld the District Court. My Pro Bono Legal Dream Team before the 9th Circuit included the current Dean of the Law School at the University of California,  Irvine, two of the authors of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (passed by Congress during the Clinton Administration), and a former California State Supreme Court Justice. They lost. The United States Supreme Court would not hear my appeal. So I am not a lawyer, I am a pacifist. A fair trade, if you ask me.

Other than that, the United States Empire is the enemy of mankind because it rejects pacifism.

 Pacifists are often told that pacifism is "unrealistic" and "impractical," because if it were even implemented across an entire society, that society would immediately be invaded and enslaved.

We now set about to prove that "national defense" is sinful, by proving that:

• Christians are prohibited from resisting their own enslavement.
• As opponents of the use of force, Christians are necessarily to be anarchists, because the essence of "the State" is the use of "the sword."
• That means Christians should oppose "national defense" in its entirety and be willing to be "slaves."

Pacifism

Let's review. The word "pacifism" comes from the Latin word for "peace." It is not related to the word "passive." Christians actively oppose violence and evil, and are willing to give their own lives to save another, but Christians are commanded to
     • love their enemies (Matthew 5:44),
     • put away their sword (Matthew 26:52), and
     • follow Christ's example of non-defense (1 Peter 2:21-24).
I used to believe in "just wars," but I think my views are more Biblical now. Here is how I became a pacifist. The verses quoted in that deposition constitute a "prima facie case" for pacifism. An anthropologist from another planet, here to study the human race, specializing in the teachings and influence of Jesus Christ, would see immediately that Christ and the Bible advocate pacifism. Christ did not defend Himself against attack, and we are to follow "in His steps" (1 Peter 2:18-24). "Thou shalt not kill" and "love your enemies" are clear commands. Elizabeth Flower, of the University of Pennsylvania, writing in The Dictionary of the History of Ideas, observes,

The perplexing issue is why such straightforward and unambiguous teaching came to be ignored, or at least taken as a "counsel of perfection" impossible of realization in this world. In any case, . . . Christians began to accommodate to the social realities of civil government, military service, taxation, etc.; and then to develop their own political power. Yet the literal directives of the Sermon [on the Mount] were time-resistant and Christian pacifism has not lacked for bold and uncompromising advocates in such early Church Fathers as Clement, Justin, and above all Origen, in sects such as the Quakers, Schwenkenfelders, and Doukhobors, and in such modern proponents as Leo Tolstoy, Jacques Maritain, and A.J. Muste. . . . Yet historical Christianity generally compromised its pacifist commitments.

"Just War Theory" is one such accommodation to "social realities." It is an attempt to escape the clear teaching of Christ and the Scripture.

Anarchism

Jesus Christ commanded His followers to be "anarchists."

The word "anarchist" literally means "not an archist."

But what's an archist?

An "archist" is someone
   who believes he has a right to
   impose his will on others by force.

Jesus told His disciples not to be "archists." Christians are not to impose Christianity on the world by government force ("the sword")

In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10, Jesus discovers His disciples arguing about who is going to be the "greatest" in the Kingdom of God.

They didn't understand that Jesus' Kingdom was quite unlike the kingdoms of the world.

The Greek word translated "rulers" is the Greek word from which we derive our English word "anarchist."

"Lords," "rulers" and "great ones" are "archists."

Jesus clearly says His followers are not to be "archists." They are to be "servants" instead.

The same Greek word for "servant" in Mark 10 occurs in these passages:

As "servants," Christians are to do whatever the boss says to do (unless the boss orders the servant to disobey God [Acts 5:29]).

It is often objected that if Christian pacifists had enough votes to abolish "national defense," that America would be invaded and taken over by the Communists, the Jihadists, or the enemy-du-jour, and we would all be enslaved.
  

1. America is so socialist at this point, it is unlikely that any American would be able to detect if the current socialist regime (Bush-Obama) were to be replaced by another (Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, Vladamir Putin, etc.).
2. North Korea would never send a million troops to the U.S. to invade/enslave us, because as soon as the North Korean troops invaded Wal-Mart, they would see the loot all around them, quickly size up their options (destroy Wal-Mart and go back to dirt-poor North Korea?) then defect and become Americans, grab their spoils and move to Ferguson, MO.
   In other words, the poorest people on earth, subjugated by an elite Party of rich people, are never dispatched to invade and enslave the wealthiest nation on earth, because the entire invading army would realize instantly that they would be better off defecting and joining the "invaded" nation.

3. Christians are commanded to accept their role as slaves.
   This is true in two ways.
          First, Christians are "capitalists" (or more accurately, "anarcho-capitalists," because socialism, fascism, communism, Keynesianism, and all other political economies, are based on violence, which Christians oppose). Christians support a "freed market" freed from government coercion. Christians are also characterized by "the Protestant Work Ethic." Working and being productive are core Christian values because this is one way we serve others. In the New Testament, Christian slaves are commanded to work for their non-Christian masters as if they were working for Christ Himself. It is a common saying among capitalists that "The Customer is King." That means capitalists serve the consumers. The poor benefit from the work of rich capitalists like Rockefeller. If Americans would be even more willing to serve communists, Muslims, and other "bad guys," and if Americans would place a high value on continuing lifelong learning and increasing job skills, America would lead the world in productivity and invention, the "bad guys" would be hooked on our consumer goods and the rising standard of living we provide, and would be less inclined to invade, conquer, and destroy the goose that lays the golden eggs. Free trade prevents war. But we must have something to trade, and that means work, and that means serving consumers around the world, and that means "slavery."
          In a second way, Christians are commanded to accept their role as slaves. If a non-Christian nation actually invades a Christian nation, Christians are commanded by their Lord not to engage in "national defense." Let's look at that proposition in more detail.

refers to acts of service for others that go beyond what is required or expected. The expression probably comes from the Bible, when Jesus declares in his Sermon on the Mount, "Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two." (Matthew 5:41, (NASB))

But then Wikipedia accurately notes that:

The verse is a reference to the practice of "impressment" which, among other things, allowed a Roman soldier to conscript a Jewish native to carry his equipment for one Roman mile (milion = 1,000 paces, about 1,611 yards or 1,473 metres) -- no easy task considering a Roman soldier's backpack could weigh upwards of 100 pounds (45.4 kg).

"Going the extra mile" is thus not a feel-good Hallmark Card. As Wikipedia used to note:

Jesus' point was that his followers must relinquish their individual "rights" in order to advance God's kingdom through self-sacrifice.

We as Americans don't want to hear that last point. We don't want to "relinquish our rights." We don't like to hear anything about "self-sacrifice." Perhaps that's why the most recent edition of Wikipedia removed that last line and substituted this:

The editors of the New Oxford Annotated Study Bible have suggested that going the second mile would perhaps spare another from such compulsion.

In other words, "Don't ask ME to go the extra mile -- make my oppressors go the extra mile for me." Self-centered Americans. Wikipedia (and the New Oxford Annotated Study Bible) thereby completely negates what Jesus was saying. Turns it upside down and backwards. 

If you want an example of "oppression," imagine Jews in first-century Israel being subjected to military occupation by unclean pagans from Rome. Then imagine Americans having their one-party government of Democrats and Republicans replaced by members of ISIS.  

Are you ready for that?

Do you think the government will protect you from ISIS? Mitch McConnell is not going to grab a gun and personally protect your neighborhood from ISIS. He might conscript you to grab a gun and go protect someone else's neighborhood from ISIS. Will you obey the government and go fight ISIS? Will you be like the "zealots" and attempt to overthrow the military occupation of your "homeland?"

Or will you obey Jesus?