Civil Rights and Sovereignty
By J. Jeff Toler for Shenandoah Christian Alliance j.toler@sca4christ.org
- Then he taught me, and he said to me, “Take hold of my words with all your heart; keep my commands, and you will live. —Proverbs 4:4
Monday, the House of Representatives “certified” the Electoral College vote count and determined the election for Donald J. Trump. For the first time since 1988, no Democrats in Congress objected to the results of the counting.
In truth Congress doesn’t actually certify the election insomuch as they tally the vote. It’s not even the same as UL Certified which means a product meets a certain testing requirement. UL’s certification is awarded to a product that is tested for one specific standard.
Regardless, certification is still a valuable tool in safeguarding both tradition and the rule of law.
To certify, is verb transitive to testify to in writing; to make a declaration in writing, under hand, or hand and seal, to make known or establish a fact. [https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/certify]
To be clear, the metric of 1988 is used because the House would have hardly objected to the count in 1992, since Bill Clinton handily won the election that year. But they certainly did in 2000. For the benefit of the Millennials, that year was the most contentious in modern history regarding the Electoral College count.
In Bush v. Gore legal case, decided on December 12, 2000, in which the Supreme Court of the United States reversed an order by the Florida Supreme Court for a selective manual recount of that state’s U.S. presidential election ballots. The 5–4 per curiam (unsigned) decision effectively awarded Florida’s 25 Electoral College votes to Republican candidate George W. Bush, thereby ensuring his victory over Democratic candidate Al Gore.
The 2000 election sparked certain Democrat leaders like Bill Clinton and Barak Obama to advocate for scrapping the electoral college.
But unlike 25 years prior, this election was not even close. An exhausted, weary, and increasingly wary electorate—which is “we the people,” discovered just how bad government could get.
By most metrics, it would be the people who decided the civil authorities were no longer civil.
“The mission of civil government,” writes Gerald R. Thompson, “is therefore two-fold: a) to punish wrongdoers; and b) to commend what is right (in the American tradition, to secure individual rights). As to punishing wrongdoers, this includes not only punishing criminals, but also providing a means of redress for private litigants who have disputes over breaches of contract, property claims, injuries to persons, or other damages, etc. These are essentially the same means used for protecting individual rights.” [https://lonang.com/commentaries/foundation/romans-13-a-short-primer/]
It would seem impossible to consider prehistorical man without acknowledging and understanding the story of man as explained in the book of Genesis. One reason so many people don’t appreciate the role the Bible plays in the modern understanding of history is due to the century long depreciation of it by unbelieving malefactors.
You will hear some tell you the Bible is not a history book. But the Bible does indeed contain historical stories. The issue with these people is these stories have not always aligned with what are excepted historical facts.
What are the historical facts? What is the historical record?
A historical record is a collection of sources of information about the past that provide insights into people, events, and societies. These records can include:
- written documents, artifacts, oral histories, government documents, newspapers, personal letters, and photographs.
- Historical records can be kept permanently because of their long-term research use. They can exist in a variety of formats, including: digital, audio, video, film, and microfilm.
- Examples of historical records include:
- Marriage licenses, Draft cards, Birth certificates, Census records, Military service records, Immigration records, and Naturalization records.
Historical records are important for understanding past events, cultures, and societies. They help historians piece together narratives and analyze the factors that led to significant changes.
What better source than the Bible to aid historians in this endeavor?
Russell Crow in “Noah”
Ironically, most historians, apart from the honest ones, accept Noah as merely a mythical figure. For them, “there is no evidence for his existence outside ancient folkloric tradition,” according to The Guardian in their review of the 2014 movie disaster of the same name. For them, the Bible is only folklore. [https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2014/apr/10/reel-history-noah-drowning-unbiblical-detail]
Even so, for the people of book, we might think of this election as cause for hope of a return to the First Principles:
- Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. (1 Pet. 2:13-14)
- Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. (Rom. 13:1)
Consider: Among the things just these last four years in particular have shown us are our national sins: the blasphemy of pride, the dominion of the powerful, the assault on women, the butchery of children, the elevation of ideologies over truth, the loss of the family, and the defilement of God’s covenants.
But the last four years also showed us how many made assumptions concerning our understanding of the civil authorities as instituted by God.
These same authorities first accepted, then endorsed, then promoted, then legislated these sins against God. It seems even the unsaved have come to understand this now.
While many are understandably taking a victory lap over Trump’s win, there are plenty who don’t consider it a victory at all. They only see instead, the loss of the very things I listed as abominations to the Lord. The God of the Bible—the book they say that history sees only as mythology.
They will not easily loosen their grip on power.
The true power of the government is in the hands of the governed. It must be the governed who advance needed reforms. But how?
Voting is but one part of the equation. Education is another. Within the framework of socialist doctrine, everything must be centralized. This results in the loss of subsidiarity.
Subsidiarity is the principle of social organization that holds that local authorities are better suited to perform certain functions than a central authority. There is at least one other important factor that must be observed.
Interestingly, this will be the resurgence of Christianity attributed to an increase of certain immigration groups, which in turn is being attributed to its rapid rise around the world. [https://wheatonbillygraham.com/to-america-with-love-why-u-s-christianitys-resurgence-will-come-from-immigrants/]
These same people are rejecting the Marxist/socialist/centralized schemes we have endured these last four years. It’s funny how God, in time, will work these things out.
