Rubbing Elbows with the Amorites

So here's a little blip I wrote for my applications to UVA and Washington and Lee...

“I am a Christian.” This is a statement that many people can make with varying degrees of sincerity and truthfulness. For my own part, this statement means much more than a mere social affiliation, and it is written with the utmost conviction. This is a declaration of my allegiance to a specific set of beliefs and principals which shape my personal moral parameters, as well as my views on the broader fields of law and social justice. I understand that for many people today, perhaps especially in the legal profession, the idea of Christianity as a guiding light is not only preposterous, but abhorrent. With history referenced as a guide, modern men view Christianity as merely one of myriad human superstitions adopted by mankind to protect themselves from the unknown, and to use as a tool of domination. But such a view is based not only on a narrow view of Christianity historically, but also on an impoverished understanding of the tenets of the Christian faith. As a Christian it is not my duty to hoodwink the ignorant or domineer the fearful, as many characterizations suggests. Rather, my obligation is to live a faithful Christian life, a life which provides a good example to those around me of what a Christian is, and who Jesus is. What this means for my career, both academic and professional, is that I am necessarily predisposed towards honesty, and towards promoting the justice and welfare of the American society. Because my presuppositions differ from the majority of people currently involved in government and law, I will obviously have a somewhat different vision of a just society and how such an ideal ought to be pursued. However, the fact that I am a Christian ought in no way to preclude my participation in the struggle for a good society, and indeed actually increases my ability to contribute to this good fight. Honesty and morality are always valuable commodities in an honorable society, and my religious beliefs serve only to better those qualities in myself.

           Furthermore, my commitment to my religion would be just as useful in the classroom as in the workplace. Though there is a certain camaraderie and comfort endemic to an ideologically homogenous group of people, it takes opposition and argumentation to truly sharpen the minds and hone the ideas of developing students. To this point, I believe my religiously founded mindset would be valuable both to myself and my potential classmates. By standing in opposition to one another on any number of legal and moral questions, we would automatically force each other to truly examine our beliefs, and to defend or abandon them based on their actual merits, not merely on the basis of comfortable misconceptions about our entrenched suppositions.             

          Thus while I represent no ethnic minority or favored social group, I am confident that my religious outlook, as well as my academic ability and enthusiasm, would be invaluable to the diversity and competitive environment of this institution, and would provide my fellow students and I with vital opportunities for intellectual stimulation and, therefore, intellectual growth. 

 

A-Whoring After Strange gods

There is a great idol being worshipped in America today. It is no new creation of the modern mind. Rather, it is an old evil, as old as creation itself. The idol I speak of is Reason, and it is indeed a violent god. Unbound by law or custom, Reason destroys culture and rips apart the well-woven fabric of society. For Reason is not rational. Reason does not play by nature’s rules and Reason does not acknowledge order in the cosmos. Far from bowing to the will of Jehovah, Reason crowns itself emperor over creation and jealously protects its perceived suzerainty by tearing down its opponents through scorn and brutality.

Ever heard of these two? Morons

Adam and his overweening desire to know as God knows brought about the Fall of mankind. The Athenians with all their wisdom and democracy were destroyed by a bunch of Spartan jocks. The French thought they had it all figured out, lost their heads, and acquired an absolute despot in the process. The list could go on indefinitely, but the point is clear. When man takes it upon himself to march to his own tune, establishing his own rules of morality and defining truth on his own terms, failure and destruction are the inevitable results. This incontrovertible fact derives from the Fall of Man. When Adam sinned all men, and all of man fell. No aspect of human nature was left untainted. Thus man’s reason exists in a broken state and fallen man is unable to achieve any good thing on his own. Without the guidance of God, humanity is utterly lost in its sin and stupidity.

Voltaire, whose philosophy was no better than his hair

Unfortunately, mankind has not historically admitted a need for God’s guidance. The ancient pagans denied God’s leadership by creating deities to worship which simply reflected their own fears and desires. Modern man has done away with such formalities and openly admits his trust in himself. From Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire, Rousseau, and Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II to the likes of Obama, Romney, and Ron Paul today, men delude themselves into thinking that the wisdom of man can prevail against the entropy of the fallen world. “I can create the good society,” they think. “Others have failed, but I will emerge victorious over social ills and economic woes.” Now certainly this is a harmful mindset to have, and it is a philosophy at the root of all bad policy making, but there is an evil far more devious that exists, an evil with a much greater capacity to destroy this nation and any other.

The evil I speak of is Christian Rationalism. This belief has wormed its way to the very heart of the American Church, and it threatens to destroy the strength of the Christian United States. Christian Rationalism is the belief that when man fell his reason remained intact, undamaged by Adam’s break with the Father. What this means is that any man, be he heathen or otherwise, is fully capable of arriving at truth on his own. Under this philosophy, if men just think hard enough they can come to righteous decisions and create a good, moral society—even if that society does not swear fealty to Yahweh.

In truth, God controls all things, rules all men, and deserves worship from every person. To suggest otherwise is to make God a liar, and to hold that man can achieve goodness outside Christ is to infringe on God’s moral jurisdiction. The Bible says that no man but Christ has done good, and that without the Holy Spirit—sent by the Savior—man cannot obey his Lord. Therefore, Christian Rationalism stands in direct opposition to the Word of God and seeks to cheapen the world-healing sacrifice of Jesus.

The god Baal

What is so saddening about the widespread acceptance of Reason within the evangelical community is the fact that Christians ought to be working to create a society that abides by God’s eternal laws. Instead, Christians side with their enemies and celebrate the wisdom of Man at the expense of the wisdom of God. The results of this attitude are widespread and uncomfortably obvious. Thanks to Christian apathy, or—more accurately—Christian treason, our secularized society supports infanticide, homosexuality, infidelity, and a thousand other evils. The roots of these sins are cultivated within the Church itself as the evangelical world embraces effeminacy, a disregard for both the family and for the broader catholic community in favor of individualism, and a foundational rejection of scriptural infallibility. Just as Israel followed after Baal and fornicated with the proscribed Amorites, so to do Christians offer sacrifice at the altar of Reason and commit abomination with the heathen.

The Christian hope points toward the future and the establishment of God’s Millennial Kingdom among all nations of the earth. However, this belief does not preclude much chastisement and suffering for those peoples who resist God’s lordship. I trust that God will be merciful and restore this nation, but history shows that though Jehovah is a jealous God, He will at times relinquish His people to their idols. If this is indeed what comes to pass, America will take its place in the company of those great nations of man that exalted their own genius and fell into ignominious destruction like Dagon before the Ark. 

Christian Law in America

This is the personal mission statement I wrote for my application to LU Law. I think it articulates pretty well my thoughts on theonomy and the role of Christians in secular society. 

The United States was formed as a Christian nation. Consequently, Her laws were first formed with the understanding that there is an omnipotent creator in heaven who presides over the destinies of nations and imbues mankind with His own perfect knowledge of good and evil. However, a brief glance at the historical record evinces a constant human design to break from the eternal laws established in the Godhead of the Trinity and to set up false laws and religions instead. From the rebellion on the plains of Shinar to the monumental disobedience of the Jews and the apostasy of the Roman Church it is clear that men, even those closest to God, have an innate desire to throw of the liberating chains of God’s authority and make something new and, necessarily, antithetical to justice and truth. This innate desire is born out of man’s fallen nature and reveals a corrupted understanding of the created order.

Genesis makes it clear that God installed man as the ruler over nature and charged him the able governance of earthly creation, but God did not then remove himself from the picture. He is a constant presence throughout history reminding His people of their duty to Him and their great work of exercising dominion over the creatures. However, it is God, not man, who is responsible for setting moral parameters and showing His people how they are to accomplish their task. Sadly and destructively, a great many people no longer acknowledge this basic fact. So it is that the genius of man has been elevated over the omnipotence of God. Mankind being a diverse bunch of sinners, this rebellion against God has resulted in the abandonment of absolute principles altogether and the wholehearted adoption of a fickle relativism, under whose auspices the cultural conscience is constantly and drastically swayed. It is because of such a mindset that the cultural ills of abortion, homosexuality, and a socialist regime have found purchase in our American society. The Church, in places too weak and in places unwilling, has of yet been unable to make an effective stand against the encroaching evil so rampant in every area of life. 

The future prospects of this country are, it would seem, somewhat grim. The political machine churns on, spitting out equally incompetent leaders to the left and right and it is yet to be proven whether widespread grassroots movements will make it much further than the root. Thankfully, however, the current hope and future assurance of American liberty does not rest in any political system and is not tied to any mortal leader. The security of each individual citizen and the safety of the nation as a whole rests securely in the hands of the Almighty. Thus Christians can remain hopeful and confident even in the midst of the rebellious turmoil of the twenty-first century. Indeed, the Scriptures assure us of the ultimate victory of Christ on this earth during the age of man. Jesus’ charge to his disciples to bring all nations underneath his rule was no idle pep-talk, it was a promise that the prophecies would be fulfilled and all people would be put beneath God’s feet. As it says in Isaiah: “Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this” (Isaiah 9:7 KJV). There is no room for doubt, God will have His victory over the nations, and they will all bow to His beneficent hegemony. 

Christ has died, risen, and ascended to his throne. The endgame is no longer in doubt, but the race must still be run. God has chosen to accomplish His extraordinary plan through the ordinary means of human beings, and so it is incumbent upon His followers to obey the Great Commission. Obedience to that command means different things to different people. For some it is a call to missionary work or a pastorate. For others it is a call to be an athlete or business executive. For my own part, I wish to fulfill God’s commissioning in the field of law. It is in this field that I believe I can most effectively work to redress the many wrongs plaguing our country and hindering the advance of Christ’s kingdom. 

Perhaps no area of non-ecclesiastical work has such a dramatic effect on the lives of people as does the law. The law is intimately connected to how people live their lives every day for it is a constant barrier established to limit what people can do in their work and personal lives. While such limitations are liberating when they follow the guidelines established in the Bible and the Law of God, they can easily become oppressive when man takes upon himself the duty of making laws from his own mind. Thus it is vital that Christian lawyers and judges and legislators fight against the humanistic law of the land and work to establish God’s Law in its place. No nation can be happy and prosperous when it has bad laws, and no nation can have good laws when it ignores the guidance of Jehovah in the legislative and judicial process. Therefore I want to attend law school so that I may join the fight for the true justice that flows from God’s Law established on earth.

In fighting for a godly legal system I will also be fighting for the broader establishment of the Kingdom. Were a biblical system of law to be established, the citizens of this nation would not only be constrained to live by Christian principles, but the door would be thrown wide open for the voluntary and lasting conversion of the hearts and souls of the people. Though the reality of a Christian nation governed by God’s law likely belongs to a future century, I am wholeheartedly committed to fighting for that goal as an attorney and, perhaps, legislator. As a Christian I am called to seek not only the welfare of Christianity, but of my own country. Conveniently, I can accomplish both tasks by fighting against man’s fallen and rebellious nature and pursuing the purity of God’s law in my own heart and in broader society.                    

Evolutionary Foundationalism

Politics in America are now divided into two fundamental cliques, namely liberal and conservative. The first of these is composed of adherents devoted to the advancement of society into an unknown future where the hallmark of existence, whatever that existence might actually look like, will be total difference from the forms and functions of the past. Conscious of the real failings of their own time, these apologists of liberalism ascribe to a creed of reaction. Far from examining root causes and underlying principles, they merely lurch back and forth, ever determined to advance the opposite ideology of the competition. Clearly this is a poor method of policy making, but it is no worse than the alternative. 
Contemporary political conservatism is itself mired in the equal and opposite foolishness of senseless preservation of existing forms in an attempt to combat the violent advance of the liberals. Fully aware of the impotence of liberal ideology and completely convinced of the wisdom of their forbears, the conservatives exert all their energies in a desperate attempt to preserve those aspects of former policy and political theory which still exist, and to return to those which have become extinct. Today’s conservatives encourage themselves with references to Reagan and the founders, apparently hoping that by invoking those venerated names they will be imbued with the power necessary to reestablishing the world of yesteryear. 

What is forgotten in the midst of the methodological melee is that the vitality of ideology, past, present, or future, is found not in the acceptance or denial of specific forms, but in the adoption of transcendent, foundational principles not bound by time, place, or form. These basic truths, which are established in the Bible, cannot be divorced from any working society; any society, that is, which is truly protective of freedom and supportive of prosperity. Thus it is the duty of citizens and governors to ensure the establishment of those principles with a relative disregard for the actual forms which government must take, and the actual functions it must perform.

The role of the true conservative, then, is to adapt to his current situation and mold his policy in view of the domestic and international cultural context. The point of such malleability is not a progressive ideal, but a protection and preservation of the eternal truths without which society cannot function. Furthermore, a commitment to such an ideology necessitates an emphasis on gradual change supported by an optimistic cultural eschatology. Violent, abrupt change, even if well intentioned, inevitably results in losing the baby along with the bathwater. Indeed, true revolution tends to end up where it started, only in a more fragile state then before as the last vestiges of the foundational principles are relegated the bourn of history. 
Therefore, if the true conservatives wish to achieve their goals they must do so by working with what they have. Alterations and improvements to existing systems are desirable, so long as they are not fundamentally opposed to the transcendent principles, and the retention of tradition as a basis for progress is important. Widespread, fundamental change is slow and often unrecognizable at any one point in the process, but care and circumspection are central to eventual success. Ultimately, such a well conducted reformation will result in a well ordered society free from many of the problems endemic to cultures that have rejected the foundations of human existence.