“Since tyranny is satanic, not to resist is to resist God. To resist tyranny is to honor God.” – Francis Schaeffer: A Christian Manifesto
The bummer about clichés is that they’re almost always true. It feels trite to say, “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” but that’s only because everyone nods in agreement without doing anything about it. We’ve heard that warning about history so many times it’s become a proverb, and like a lot of proverbs, we just ignore it and move on to the next shiny thing without pausing to take the warning serious.
Take a second to look around your world. All of the things we’re seeing lately – freakishness in the arts, increased desire to live off the state, enthusiasm pretending to be creativity, a mounting love of show and luxury, an obsession with sex and especially homosexuality – have manifested before. If that sounds familiar maybe it’s because you’ve heard it before. Edward Gibbons characterized those things as the five attributes that marked the fall of the Roman Empire. It’s one of those history-repeating-itself things we tend to miss in the hubbub of routine life. History is repeating itself in more ways than one.
When Joe Biden stood in front of a blood red background and delivered a manifesto against his political enemies, he was reliving the past. Coming on the cusp of weaponizing the entire federal law enforcement against ordinary Americans demanding justice, he’s repeating history from the wrong side of the coin. In doing so, Biden (but really his handlers, for he is a dementia-ridden shell) mimics the modus operandi of historical monsters who came before by silencing dissenting voices, labeling them clear and present dangers, terrorizing their families with jackboot style raids, and rounding them up and throwing away the key.
The evil unleashed is bad enough, but perhaps even worse is the ineptitude of the Christian church to call it out and oppose it. The American church is now repeating one of history’s darkest days as it downplays, capitulates to, or outright ignores the infringement of its sovereignty and the dousing of its message. This is huge. But many Christians aren’t attuned to it; they’re too busy with other matters to deal with a threat kicking in doors down the road.
The threat isn’t getting closer though. It’s already here.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I spent the better part of my weekend reading about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. For those of you unfamiliar with the name, Bonhoeffer was one the Christian pastors who fought the National Socialists’ infestation of the German church in the mid 1930’s – one of the few Christian pastors willing to make that fight. It cost him his life but not before it cost the Christian church in Germany its soul. If we’re not willing to learn from that history, the American church may soon suffer the same fate. In many ways it already has.
Reading through Bonhoeffer’s letters and sermons, one feels his frustration with the complacency of his contemporaries:
“I find myself in radical opposition to all my friends; I became increasingly isolated with my views of things, even though I was and remain personally close to these people.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christian leaders in Germany were unwilling or unable to grasp what was happening, or discern what was coming, or respond to the threat that would eventually wipe them and a few million people out of existence – Christian and non-Christian alike. They watered down their sermons, agreed to restrictions on when, where, and what they could preach, and eventually just tossed out whole sections of scripture that didn’t gel with the insanity gripping the country. Sound familiar?
Bonhoeffer saw the evil infestation of his country early on. It was partially because he’d spent time abroad and had experienced the clarity afforded by distance and exposure to different cultures (he loved his time in the black American churches) but he also had a simple understanding of the scriptures and didn’t water them down with high theology.
Right is right and wrong is always wrong. But in Germany then, and in American now, pastors and leaders are desperate not to take sides. They’re so preoccupied with not offending anyone that they’ve bastardized biblical standards, so terrified of taking a stand on political issues that they’ve neutered themselves.
“[Bonhoeffer] had begun to see that the overemphasis on the cerebral and the intellectual side of the theological training had produced pastors who didn’t know how to live as Christians, but who knew only how to think theologically.” – Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
American pastors recently closed their doors because the state told them to, and they’ve been focused on surviving and growing their base ever since. Hard rules about morality and righteousness just aren’t in vogue these days because confronting a government that openly mocks God has consequences; the church would rather avoid those topics and fill the chairs speaking about a safe and loving father who understands our angst. They don’t like to point out that He’s also a dad who will open up a can on those who pervert his instructions and harm children.
If you’ve been sitting through sermons these last few years wondering if your church leaders have all gone mad, or if it feels like you’ve just missed some important theological nugget somewhere along the way – like a kid in class who didn’t catch what page the teacher told everyone to turn to – you’re not alone. You may have been confused, angry, or dispirited by your pastor’s silence from the pulpit after the Roe v. Wade victory or frustrated by their wholesale embrace of corrupt Eastern European countries, or wondering why they never mention the latest LGBTLMNOP nonsense.
Maybe you expected your minister to deliver an impassioned sermon after the arrests and persecution of American and Canadian pastors daring to defy Covidiocy, but instead you got hand sanitizer stations and a fifty-person limit on gatherings. Perhaps you wondered why your pastors gave a nod to Black Lives Matter, called supporting President Trump political idolatry, or never questioned the legitimacy of a government’s jurisdiction over where and when they could meet.
Just so you know, you’re not crazy or wrong, and neither was Bonhoeffer.
“All of this has frightened me and shaken my confidence so that I began to fear that dogmatism might be leading me astray – since there seemed no particular reason why my own view in these matters should be any better, any more right, than the views of many really capable pastors whom I sincerely respect.”
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I hear Christians often denouncing those who jump into the political sphere, as though politics is somehow one of those no-no institutions that the church has no business getting involved in. Poppycock. That’s the nicest thing I can say about that.
Any Christian leader who says the church has no role in politics doesn’t understand history or religion, and probably shouldn’t be driving a garbage truck much less a church. Politics is merely an extension of the people concerning self-rule, or as Noah Webster in 1828 defined it: The science of government; that part of ethics which consists in the regulation and government of a nation or state, for the preservation of its safety, peace and prosperity.
Is that something the church has no part in? Guess what happens when the church in silent about the regulation of government, or unconcerned with the safety and prosperity of the country it governs? Here’s a hint: Go watch that Biden speech.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“We forget that man stands alone before the ultimate authority and that anyone who lays violent hands on man here is infringing eternal laws and taking upon himself superhuman authority which will eventually crush him.
It’s imperative that God is at the center of the table of government, as the Founders recognized. When He isn’t, you get the dastardly output of evil men, and when that happens it’s time to fight.
“The Nazis were canny and careful. They were exceedingly sensitive to public opinion and their approach to the Confessing Church was mostly of ever-increasing and ever-tightening regulations…gradually liquidating through intimidation and suppression of individual activities.” – Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
Being involved in the political sphere is what prevents evil from gaining a stronghold over the nation. Christians holding the line in the political sphere makes evangelism easier not harder, as some misguided influencers would have you believe.
A problem lies in what Christians believe about the state, and what their obligation to it entails.
God and The State
When you talk to most Christians about the government they tend to fall back on Romans 13:
“Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.” Romans 13: 1-7 NKJ
So, every ruler is appointed by God to do His work, right?
Let’s think about that for a moment, shall we?
Was Pol Pot a terror to the 2 million people he killed in Cambodia? Was Truman resisting the ordinance of God when he dropped the bomb (no pun intended) on Heidiki Tojo? If that’s what we’re to believe, then I guess we’ve got a few million Americans who’ve died in foreign wars violating scripture by fighting against God’s chosen leaders.
Again, poppycock.
If you believe that Idi Amin, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Muhammad Omar, Saddam Hussein, Hirohito, King George III, Bashar al-Assad, Kim Il Sung, Stalin, Ho Chi Minh, Khrushchev, etcetera were appointed by God, then how were good Christians justified in opposing them with bombs and bullets? For that matter, why was God always instructing the kings of Israel to take out Phillistines? Why was Nathan sent to confront David?
The answer is right up there in the scripture, but Christians tend to miss it and some cowardly pastors ignore it, opting instead for an easy out over matters that might otherwise land them on a government watchlist.
For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil.
The role of the state as defined by God is to punish evil and condone good. It’s why God removed Nebuchadnezzar, why Israel was victorious time and time again, and why it eventually fell. Is the U.S. government punishing evil and condoning good? If you look around, you’ll have to conclude that our current government has got it backwards on just about every critical issue. They’re condoning evil and calling it good and God’s people have an obligation to confront it.
When a leader or a state is no longer in submission to God, he is no longer in the ordinance of God (the manner God ordained him to lead in). You are no longer called to be in submission to him because doing so would mean that you also must stray from submitting yourself to God – by condoning pedophiles as “minor attracted persons” or closing your church for a fake pandemic, for example. If you reject the government’s insistence that a man can choose to be a woman, you may lose your officer’s rank. Speak out about gender-neutral bathrooms and you may lose your teaching position. That is where we’re at. If you refuse a jab and protest it, the government may seize your bank account. If you refuse to wear a mask you may lose your business license. Don’t let the fact that the Covidiot stuff has receded for a season give you a false sense of security. The precedent was set, largely because Christians went along with the atrocious overstep of government singing the lament of Romans 13 with shrugged shoulders, and they will likely do so again. It’s time for the Christian church – American and elsewhere – to grow a pair and, like Bonhoeffer, speak up in opposition to a state that rejects the ordinance of God for the ordinance of a deranged culture.
This isn’t a suggestion. It’s your duty to oppose evil with every means at your disposal; it always has been. And it’s always meant taking a side. But squishy Christians don’t like to take sides. It’s icky.
Taking sides means some people on the other side may not like you. Signing your name to a declaration opposing a tyrannical king might get your name on a list, in 1776 as well as today. It means people might leave your church, drop you on social media or…or…say bad things about you. The appeasement class says you might damage your witness by preaching something other than fluffy clouds and inclusiveness. They think that if you attend a few trans-friendly conferences then people will want to hear more about this Jesus who doesn’t judge your lifestyle choices. At that point we’ve denigrated Jesus into a buddy we’ll invite over for a beer (just so long as there’s no morality talk) instead of a Lord whom we follow on His terms.
The idea that making an alliance with someone’s mental illness is somehow a better witness than standing on Biblical truth is absurd. Worse, it’s satanic.
Which side are you on? Can you even discern anymore which side God wants you to be on? If you’re tuned into the cultural, political, and spiritual battle that’s raging around us you’re probably getting pretty frustrated with those who fail to grasp the larger implications of appeasement.
“Although I am working with all my might for the church opposition, it is perfectly clear to me that this opposition is only a very temporary transition to an opposition of a very different kind, and that very few of those engaged in this preliminary skirmish will be part of the next struggle.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
In America that next struggle is brewing. Just ask anyone who’s been fighting for election integrity, or those demanding transparency in government, or even those who merely want the government to follow its own laws.
But Biden’s our president
First off, no, he’s not. He was never elected, and despite hundreds of challenges nobody has ever provided the requisite proof to confirm that he was. They’ve denied every attempt at auditing the election results and where ones have proceeded anyway, more than enough widespread fraud was discovered in multiple states to change the outcome. The evidence that he is a usurper who unlawfully seized the office is overwhelming. A man who steals a cop car and a uniform isn’t authorized to pull you over and arrest you, he’s just pretending he is. He may sit in an office designated for the nation’s leader, but so have hundreds of lying dictators over the years, thumbing their noses at the law, daring anyone to stop them, and killing or imprisoning anyone who tries.
History repeats itself, remember? By the way, have you heard much about those January 6th political prisoners lately? What about the prosecution of FBI agents who lied and concealed evidence, or who covered up rape and pedophilia cases?
This is not a government in submission to God. This is a government that openly defies Him.
I’ve often heard Christians saying we need to pray for our leaders. And to them, that means Biden. But does it? Even if he were elected in a free and fair manner (which he wasn’t, but let’s say he was) he’s absolutely not ruling in submission to God. That matters in two ways:
1) Only a leader who is granted the authority of the civil magistrate is authorized to initiate the wrath of God (Romans 13).
2) The leader must be submitted to God to carry out that authority (Romans 12).
So let’s ask the question that the founding fathers asked: Is the king submitted to God? And if so, is he fulfilling his oath of leading his subjects in the ordinance of God? If not, then he is not a leader whom God anointed for the throne, and history is replete with examples of leaders being removed from those positions, often by force. Even in the Bible.
If you’ll recall the line of kings of Judah, you might remember an oddity. A queen named Athaliah stands out, often with a notation of “usurper” next to her name. She was never the rightful leader of Judah; she claimed a mantle that was never designated to her by God, and soon initiated Baal worship, and killed off her political opposition. (2 Kings 11)
It’s another one of those history-repeating-itself things that a lot of Christians forget about; it’s also how Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Saddam Hussein, and yes, Joe Biden took office – by theft and deceit in allegiance with those opposed to God in order to initiate a satanic agenda on the country they seized.
German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel once famously stated that “the state is the march of God on Earth.” Bonhoeffer would have called that a load of bullenschide – German for bravo sierra – and so should you.
“As would happen so often in the future, [Bonhoeffer] was deeply disappointed in the ability of his fellow Christians to take a definite stand. They always erred on the side of conceding too much, of trying too hard to ingratiate themselves with their opponents.” – Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
America was founded under the precept that liberty is irrevocably linked to moral governance and that the barometer of that morality is God’s design. History has testified that a nation detaching itself from that tether spells its doom. We have a chance to reattach to that rock before our country is destroyed, but to do so we’ll first need to recognize our peril. Bonhoeffer’s Germany didn’t understand the need to speak boldly until long after it was too late. If today’s church doesn’t understand the need to speak boldly now it’s because we refuse to read the history and learn from it.
Follow me on Telegram, Substack, Truth Social, and Gab.
You can subscribe to receive new post to you inbox as well as get information on my latest novel, book four in my modern war series.
Looking for a fun new story to share as a family? Check out my book, The Dread Pirate Roberts, my fan fiction sequel to The Princess Bride. New episodes post every Monday. Subscribe to get each episode in your inbox.
If you’d like to purchase a copy of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas you can do so here. In fact, any Eric Metaxas book is worth the money, especially his book on William Wilberforce, Amazing Grace, and his latest work, Letter to the American Church. Here is a podcast where he describes why we need to fight for our country more than ever.
Featured Image: Above Westminster Abbey’s Great West Door stand ten statues to modern martyrs – Christians who gave up their lives for their beliefs. From left, St Maximilian Kolbe from Poland, Manche Masemola from South Africa, Janani Luwum from Uganda, Mother Elizabeth of Russia, Martin Luther King Jr., Óscar Romero and Dietrich Bonhoeffer of Germany.