What is the Christians responsibility in government?

"But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government." -- Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address, March 4, 1837


"LK 12:42 The Lord answered, "Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? 43 It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. 44 I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 45 But suppose the servant says to himself, `My master is taking a long time in coming,' and he then begins to beat the menservants and maidservants and to eat and drink and get drunk. 46 The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.
LK 12:47 "That servant who knows his master's will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. 48 But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked." -- Jesus Christ

What is the Christians responsibility in regards to his involvement in government? The answer to that question depends on in which country you live in. Let me try and explain.

Christians are like about anyone else, they have certain paradigms they have grown up with they just don't question. I have a curse, I didn't grow up in church so when I came to Christ I didn't have any idea what church and the Christian life were supposed to look like. I would read the Bible, compare that with what we actually did and wonder why the difference. We have an unfortunate habit of reading the Bible as a collection of individual sentences (verses) that one may pick and choose from, pasting them together to "show" what the Bible says on a particular subject, instead of as a whole, in context like one would read any other book.

For example, look at the way we do church. We build huge buildings, hire pastors and staffs and require that people be at that building every time the doors open. If anyone questions why we do so one will commonly hear two things quoted. Do not muzzle the ox and do not forsake the gathering together of the brethren. Even if those verses aren't taken out of context I don't really see how they equate to "Thou shalt build a building, hire a staff and attend the services faithfully".

When I look at the New Testament I see churches who met in homes, had no paid staff, didn't necessarily have one pastor and they didn't consider the people they met with as distinct from the church at large. Now, I am not trying to insinuate that any pastors or denominations have any less than honorable intentions, I am suggesting that things like this are done the way they are done because we have always done it that way and it doesn't even occur to anyone to question it.

A verse that is commonly quoted to discourage Christians from being involved in government is:
ROMANS 13:1 Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves."

As Paul wrote these words his "governing authority" was the Roman Government and ultimately Caesar. The Roman empire started out as a Republic much the same as our country but by paul's time it had pretty much deteriorated into a dictatorship. Another interesting thing is that Paul spent a great deal of time in Roman prisons, wrote many of his epistles from prison and was eventually executed by the Roman government. So, in the above passage do you think Paul intended for us to passively go along with anything the government tells us to do?

Lets look at the United States, who are the governing authorities here? Is it the President? Maybe Congress? How about the ultimate authority, Supreme Court Justices? I think that is what our paradigm tells us. Lets look at the truth.

We live in a country that started out as a republic, evolved into a quasi-democracy and is fast approaching an oligarchy (an oligarchy is rule by a group of dictators). The dictionary definition of a republic is, "A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them. "

You and I are the governing authorities in America, the "supreme power" if you will. As Abraham Lincoln said, we have "government of the people, by the people and for the people". As the first three words of the constitution state "We the people". The next time you question God's wisdom in putting Clinton or Bush or whoever in the White House remember; God put you and I in charge and WE put the President in office. I believe that we, like other leaders, are going to be called to account for what we did with the power He entrusted us with.

We need to let remind our leaders who the boss is. When they get out of line and do things that are unconstitutional we need to let them know that they serve us, not us them. We, as Americans have been dropping the ball for quite a long time. The first big fumble happened in the Supreme Court case Marbury vs. Madison. The Court bestowed the power of judicial review on themselves in the case, effectively setting themselves up as the supreme legislators of this country. This power was not bestowed on the Supreme Court by the constitution. The Constitution actually gave them a very narrow set of powers and purposely made them the weakest branch of the three. I can't quite figure out how the court got by with this coup, especially since the Madison in the case was none other than James Madison, the man who wrote the constitution. Nonetheless, they did and we the people did nothing to stop it.

I think Thomas Jefferson's response to Marbury vs. Madison is quite instructive:

"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves."

"But the Chief Justice says, 'There must be an ultimate arbiter somewhere.' True, there must; but does that prove it is either party? The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union, assembled by their deputies in convention, at the call of Congress or of two-thirds of the States. Let them decide to which they mean to give an authority claimed by two of their organs. And it has been the peculiar wisdom and felicity of our Constitution, to have provided this peaceable appeal, where that of other nations is at once to force."

Just to illustrate the evils of this power grab, the next time they overturned the legislature, was the abominable Dred Scott case. If you are not familiar with the case, the illustrious court determined that blacks were "beings of an inferior order" and as such could never be citizens of the United States and were not included in the "all men" of the Declaration of Independence and had no rights under the Constitution.

In our time, in Roe vs. Wade they declared the unborn sub-humans who could be killed for any and all reasons because of some phantom "right to privacy" which I have yet to find in the Constitution. The courts are in the process of declaring the handicapped non-humans with no right to life as in the case of Terri Schiavo.

Judge Roy Moore has rightly noted in his travails with the courts that case law is nothing more than fiats that amount to judicial legislation. The rule of law requires we adhere to laws made in the legislature and given in the US Constitution and the various state constitutions.

So what can we do? Most Christian leaders propose amending the Constitution to prevent judges from legalizing same sex marriage or other ficticious "rights" they "find" in the Constitution. I believe this is an unwise trend to start. Besides, they are ignoring the Constitution as written, what makes anyone think they won't ignore anything else added to it?

The constitution provides methods of controlling judges. One is impeachment. We need to put the pressure on the legislature to impeach these usurpors for bad behavior and illegal conduct. The legislature can also just ignore the courts edicts and tell them to try to enforce them without the aid of money and resources that must be given to them by the legislature.

We must also put pressure on these judges ourselves. When the courts rule that some child cannot mention God in a commencement speech because of the First amendment we need to inundate them with letters demanding they explain how they came to this conclusion. The First Amendment states: "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion; nor preventing the free exercise thereof...". Ask the judges what in the blue blazes congress had to do with the child's speech. The justification for this in their alleged minds is that through a misuse of the 14th Amendment "Congress" can be applied to state and local governments, school boards, etc.

Fine, my next question to them would be who made a law? The child, the school board, the principal? Think of the absurdity of such a ruling. The courts arguments hold absolutely no water and we need to let them know that we are not stupid enough to fall for it and we will hold them to account.

Even if we lived in a totalitarian government we still have an obligation to put God before the Government no matter the consequences. As followers of Christ we must follow the example of the Apostles, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego and many others. If the government mandates that we follow other gods or even no god at all, we must follow God rather than man. Even if we must pay a price.

Whom do you fear, God or man?