Uhhh-Merican

  

I don’t say the Pledge of Allegiance. I haven’t said it in years.  If, by chance, I am someplace where a recitation is going on, I do stand quietly while other people say it. I do not, unless I am asked, go into the history of the socialist that wrote it, or of his purpose in writing it. I don’t bring up how weird it is that a ‘free’ society would compel schoolchildren to swear allegiance to it every morning. I don’t point out the fact that pledging allegiance to the flag and ‘to the republic for which it stands’ is, in essence a  pledge of fidelity to Obama and his minions.   Some would say I ought to raise a ruckus, but I don’t. I simply abstain.

  I abstain not because I’m trying to be a rabble rousing jerk or to be contrary just for the sake of being contrary. I abstain because I truly believe it to be a case of misplaced loyalties. I understand that, for many people, the pledge is a nostalgic remnant of a bygone era which may or may not have actually existed.  It’s a devotion to an idea and that their devotion to this oddly worded mantra (the flag? Which flag?  Just the one on front of me? What about the flag in that other building? Am I pledging allegiance to every American flag on earth? What sort of loyalty does a piece of fabric need from me anyway?) is so wrapped up in emotion that  logic would have a hard time penetrating.  I know that their heart is in the right place. I know they probably don’t know the history.  They probably haven’t thought it through. So I stand politely. But I don’t say it.  Some people ask me why. Some people are nice about it, and some people are belligerent. Some people just glare at me like I’m sort of commie Philistine.  But I abstain nonetheless, and in doing so, am considered un-American.

  I am former military, and I attend a church chock-full of current and former military. That also means it’s chock full of military spouses who relentlessly post and parrot pro-military propaganda on social media sites.  They do that, not because they are willing dupes of the American hegemony, but rather because they love their husbands.  It is not uncommon for a statement to be made like ‘we could never do too much for our troops’.  I know that’s not a rational statement, that’s an emotional statement, based on any number of false assumptions.  If that statement is carried to its logical conclusion, then it wouldn’t be ‘too much’ to erect a 500 ft. gold statue of every single military person. After all, ‘freedom isn’t free’.  To challenge such statements, however, is considered un-American.

  These same people will continually lobby for military pay increases.  My counterpart in the military sometimes works long hours, as I know from first-hand experience. I remember working 80 and 90 hour weeks.  I remember being awake for more than one day in a row. I also remember long periods of busy work and pointlessness.  To say that there is a certain point at which military pay outstrips the amount of work being done isn’t an act of disloyalty, it’s an act of economic logic.  Yes, they have a dangerous job, but not all of them are doing that job.  Aside from that, a less aggressive foreign policy would make that job way less dangerous.  Unfortunately, to suggest such a thing is also considered un-American.

  I am an American. I was born here, and so far I remain here by choice. But I don’t see, from scripture, that some sort of continual show pageantry of loyalty is required of me for my choice.  So in church when one particular song about God’s blessings is sung, and they get to the part about the blessedness of being an American, and somebody snatches the flag up located on the platform and everybody stands to their feet, I remain seated.  I consider it odd that when singing about God, who presumably is the reason we are all there, nobody stands up, but when a multi-colored piece of fabric is foisted at us, everyone stands.  Once again, for me, it’s a case of misplaced loyalties on their part. For others, it is a blatant act of un-American-ism on my part.

  It probably would be more fun to be a rabble-rouser, but less effective.  Most people have been so marinated in nationalistic propaganda that challenging the status quo even passively is akin to saying that the sky is pink.  It just never occurs to them. They do it, they grandparents did it, and so why aren’t you doing it, Mr. un-American?

  The tragically ironic part of all this is that I believe, with my small acts of going against the flow of the social norm, I am exhibiting the very essence of what it means to be a free person. I live according to the dictates of my conscience, and   give honor to whom honor is due. I stand politely, but unreservedly against peer pressure, and every once in a while someone will ask ‘What’s the deal with you and the Pledge?’  At that point, the real conversation can begin.

Still Not the Anarchists Cookbook

  A friend of mine has written something brilliant, and this brilliance grew out of an ongoing email discussion that we were having about government and its relationship to the Christian.   Now I feel I have to do some explaining to the readers who weren’t privy to the discussion, and also to do justice to his remarks.  This friend is genuinely one of the most thoughtful guys I know, and I’m not just saying this because he reads my blog. Even when we disagree, he makes me think, and what more could you ask?

  Although I do consider myself a libertarian, he does not. He wrote extensively on what he feels is a huge flaw in libertarian philosophy, and made some excellent points. He has been, in the past, highly critical of some people who espouse a philosophy of liberty but practice a philosophy of rebellion, and it’s an important distinction to draw since it is after all a condition of the heart.  His take on most libertarians is that they say what they say not necessarily because they want liberty, but rather out of resentment towards any sort of authority (2 Pet 2:19, 2 Pet 2:10).  I think that’s a valid observation, although it’s painting with a broad brush since any label you could pick  would cover a lot of people who may not even agree with each other.  But let me throw in my two cents, and we’ll see what happens.  I apologize in advance if I am just hitting the high points of my overall thoughts on this, but I’m trying to cover a lot of ground here.

  The source of all liberty is God (Luke 4:18, 2 Cor 3:17).  The source of all authority is also God (1 Pet 3:22, Dan 3:28, Col 1:16).  I believe in ‘natural rights’ although I’ve always found the term a little odd, because my rights are not derived from rocks and trees and rivers and streams, they come from God.  They didn’t  pop into existence in 1776.  I have the right to property defined as assets that are specifically mine and God weighs in with a commandment of “Thou shalt not steal”. I have a right to life, and God   confirms this with a commandment “Thou shalt not kill”.  God couples these rights with accountability to him as to how I use them.   After all, I wasn’t given eyes so that I could look at other men’s wives; I was given eyes so that I could perceive and marvel at his creation.   I wasn’t given a voice so that I could gossip, I was given a voice to praise him with. Since they are my eyes and my voice, I can use them either way, but I will give an account either way (Gal 5:13).  

  In the meantime, he institutes governing authorities in my life and over my life.  These range from my parents when I was a kid to my pastor to the local government to the court system to the federal government.  Some people are born to better parents than others just as some are born under governments that allow more freedom than others.  Some of these   authorities are temporary, like my parents.  Some of these authorities can be changed, like my pastor.  Some require tremendous changes, like expatriation.  But the fact is, somebody is always going to be in charge of you, to one   degree or another, and this is God’s will.

  When a people turn their back on God, generally speaking , they lose liberty (Prov 29:2). This is merely God withdrawing his favor from a people who do not want him.  People get the government that reflects their willingness to serve God.  .  He does this in a variety of ways.  Sometimes he allows corrupt people to seize the reins of power. Sometimes he allows an invading army to come in.  All of these reductions in practical liberty are a result of God’s judgment on people who have misused their initial liberty.  My favorite Biblical example is the Babylonian captivity, in which the children of Israel were rewarded for their idolatry by having a barbarian horde drag their children off in chains.  This judgment went on for 70 years, and people saw their children, and grand children and great grandchildren grow up surrounded by idolatry because they had loved their idols so much. They had misused their liberty, so God took it away.  But it would be incorrect to cite this as an example that God is against liberty.  God is for both liberty, and authority, as they both work hand in hand in a people whose heart is after God.

 If all that’s true, and I believe that it is, , then the real issue isn’t what Obama is going to do. The real issue is what are you going to do. If you are really in favor of liberty, then you have an obligation to live right, and obey the whole counsel of God, not just the parts you like or the parts line up with your philosophy (Psalm 119:45).  The strong  (and frankly mystifying) anti-God streak present in a lot of libertarian circles is the Achilles heel of the modern liberty movement, and it is quite likely the reason why  we have not seen the sort of success God gave to the colonial Americans in re-establishing liberty.

  So what, as a Christian, should be my position towards the authority God has put over my life?  Should I be shouting for its overthrow?  Should I be instigating violence against it?  Should I browbeat and belittle it at every opportunity?  Scripture is pretty clear on this.  I am supposed to live the best life possible under my current situation, with the idea in sight that I will give account to God as to how I lived and fared under an oppressive corrupt system ( Eph 6:1-10).  If I am in a position of authority, I should strive to be just. (2 Sam 23:3, Heb 13:17).  I should police my own life to ensure that I am not the part of the reason for God’s favor turning from us.  I should pray for the authority over me, not send out mocking emails (Jude 1:8).  In those prayers, I don’t ask for their death, but rather that God will turn their hearts (Matt 5:44, Prov 21:1).  In the meantime, I should try my best to live out the commandments of God as much as I can, and live under these temporary circumstances in light of an eternal reality.  And for the record, I’m not particularly good at anything I just listed. I probably have a lot more rebellion in my heart than I realize.

  Now I currently live under a system where I still have some  ability to at least make my disagreement known.  I have the right, under this authority, to protest policy. I have the right to call my Congressman, to vote, to make my voice heard.  It is legitmate to point out when those in authority overstep their  authority, but I don’t have the right, as a Christian, to rise up against what God has put over me (Titus 3:1).  I am not required to be a yes-man or a lapdog to corrupt men, but I must be very careful as a Christian to not step over from disagreement into rebellion.  I could go a bit further into where I think that line is, but that’s a topic for another time.

   I also have friends  who are  'anarchists' and 'stateless libertarians'  and 'anarchocaps' and all sorts of other interesting labels. I encourage them to  look up the verses, and by all means join the discusion.

The Preachers and the Patriot, Part 1

  It has been my great privilege to have lived my life in a land where great religious liberty still exists.  Even in it’s decline, America has seen more freedom than possibly any other nation, but it would do the reader well to understand that it was not always so.  The Puritans who had fled to the New World for the chance to exercise their own conscience in matters of worship eventually became the very thing they fled.  Colonial America wasn’t an idyllic utopia of liberty, but rather a patchwork quilt of different understandings and tolerances of what freedom was all about. In many places, especially in Church of England dominated-areas, the line between church and state was so blurry as to be almost non-existent.    Church officials held  political offices and  church  officials exercised police powers, with a careful eye towards maintaining the status quo of doctrinal purity. This mindset revealed itself in activities like the witch trials in Salem or the ordinance passed in Massachusetts in 1644 that specifically referred to Anabaptists as “the troublers of churches in all places where they have been”. In 1656 when the first Quakers began to arrive on the shores of Massachusetts, the Quakers in question were imprisoned by their Puritan brothers, the women strip-searched under pretense of looking for witches,  and their religious literature burned as heresy.

  It was this way, at least in the beginning because that was how the people of a community chose to live.  Those who disagreed could leave, and often did, starting their own small communities a bit deeper in the great American wilderness.   Some were banished. But not everyone could leave, and not everyone thought they should have to leave.  For those that stayed, life was harsh in the ‘land of the free’.  With the codification of church law into secular law came an entire hierarchy of church officials and creeds that   attempted to coerce the consciences of everyone under their jurisdiction to worship as the hierarchy decided.  James Madison had said “All men with power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree ” and that certainly  rang true as well-intentioned men persecuted their brothers and sisters , using the power of the state to enforce their religious convictions.

  Existing side by side with these large religious behemoths were small pockets of men and women who followed their conscience regardless of what the ruling powers thought.   They worshipped both in secret, and in open, and preached outside of the established church buildings, taking the gospel out in public as the Bible commands.  For this they were fined, banished, beaten, arrested, and imprisoned. Their ears were, in some cases, cut off, and hot irons   driven through their ‘blasphemous tongues’. Their church buildings were burned, their properties seized.  They were Quakers, and Baptists, and Anabaptists, and a variety of other groups who simply sought to live and worship according to the dictates of their own conscience. They sought to practice what would later be called ‘soul liberty’.

  From these oppressions came a shift in the way of colonial thinking.  The heavy heel of ecclesiastical oppression was fuel for the fire of soul liberty, and as men began to ask themselves what freedom was all about, there came a rebirth of the commitment to religious liberty.  People saw what they were becoming, and it shocked them enough to change course. Because of that change, generations have reaped the benefits of religious freedom.

  This story is just one small facet of that larger story.  It involves a handful of Baptist preachers, and a famous name among famous names; Patrick Henry of Virginia. This story covers one small trial, in one small area, just a little sliver of the life of one of America’s founders, but this sliver set the stage for a discussion, and eventually a debate that changed the course of history.   Of course for the sliver to have any context, the lives of the principals prior to the incident must be presented.  Let me take this opportunity to encourage the reader to read beyond this work and to dig further into the lives of John Waller, Lewis Craig, James Chiles, James Read and Patrick Henry.  If you are an American or a Christian or both, this is not only their story; it is your story, and a heritage undimmed by the passing of time.

  Keep in mind that these were men of like passions such as we are, with wives and children and expenses and reputations, but yet they risked all for the proclamation of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. As their legacy, we should be willing to do no less.

John Waller

  John Waller was born 2 days before Christmas in 1741 to a respectable family in Virginia.  He however, was not respectable. As a gambler with a bad temper, he was referred to as “Swearing Jack” or more colorfully as “the Devil’s Adjutant”. From a single incident in which he was involved, he reportedly had three separate warrants issued for his arrest.  He had some legal training, and took great pleasure in the persecution of Baptist in Spotsylvania County, which in the minds of some in Spotsylvania County, made up for  his self-destructive tendencies .  He was assigned to a grand jury in 1766 and it was in this capacity that he first met Lewis Craig.

  Craig had been brought to trial for holding ‘illegal religious meetings’.   This charge was often brought against non-church of England ministers and particularly publick ministers.  Craig had a history of this, and the grand jury decreed that evidence was sufficient for him to go to trial. Many of the grand jury members felt that not only had justice been served, but that yet another of those pesky Baptist street preachers had been dealt with. They adjourned to the local tavern to celebrate.

  What happened next was to affect John Waller’s life forever.  That pesky publick preacher Lewis Craig followed them to the tavern, and bought them a round of drinks, telling them:

“ I thank you, Gentlemen of the Grand Jury, for the honor you have done me. While I was wicked and injurious, you took no note of me, but since I altered my course of life and endeavored to reform my neighbors, you concern yourself much about me.  I have gotten this mug of grog, to treat you with, and shall take the spoiling of my goods joyfully.”

  Such talk bothered John Waller, but his well-earned reputation as an enemy of the faith prevented him from letting his disturbed conscience show.  He began to secretly attend Baptist meetings including those held by Lewis Craig.  When Craig and his company would hold their publick meetings, Waller would stay at the edge of the crowd, listening, but appearing not to. In 1767, less than a year after the grand jury experience, Waller surrendered his all to Jesus Christ. He relates it this way:

“ I had long felt the greatest abhorrence  of myself  and began almost to despair of the mercy of God.  However I determined never to rest until it pleased God to show mercy or cut me off. Under these impressions, I was at a certain place, sitting under preaching.  On a sudden, a man exclaimed that he had found mercy and began to praise God.  No mouth can describe the horror with which I was seized that instant. I began to conclude that my damnation was certain.  Leaving the meeting, I hastened unto a neighboring wood and dropped on my knees before God to beg for mercy. In an instant, I felt my heart melt, and the sweet application of the redeemer’s love to my poor soul.”

  Following his conversion, Waller became one of the most ardent proclaimers of the gospel in Orange and Spotsylvania County. He was baptized by James Read.  He sold his property to pay off his gambling debts, and became the firm companion for his new friend and brother in Christ, Lewis Craig.  By the ungodly he was considered “a bold, inexorable fanatic, which would do much mischief unless restrained.”

   In time he would organize a church and be their pastor. During the course of his life he endured great persecution including a beating in 1771 at the hands of the local sheriff that scarred him for the rest of his life.  He would spend 113 days in 4 different jails over the next 35 years. But it is his arrest in 1768, while still a young man, that we must concern ourselves.

Lewis Craig

  Lewis Craig was born in Virginia to a pious family of Puritans, but according to   all accounts, he was dead in trespasses in sins despite an outward religiosity until his conscience was pricked under the preaching of Samuel Harris when he was 25 or 26 years old. For months he would follow Samuel Harris around, peppering him with questions about eternal things, and lamenting that he must surely be lost and undone before God. When he was 27, he settled it all within his heart and  immediately began to preach, even attempting to give the gospel to his old Anglican priest.( Note: Some accounts list him as the child of a good devout Baptist family) This newfound zeal caused a split with his family, and with the Anglican community.  Soon Lewis Craig found himself   preaching all over Virginia. His soul winning efforts led to the establishment of the first Baptist church in Lower Spotsylvania, according to James Taylor.

“ He travelled almost  constantly, and the large congregations which everywhere attended his ministry, were entreated to escape the divine wrath, with the most impassioned earnestness.  Nothing could exceed the burning zeal with which he persuaded men to be reconciled to God. His sermons consisted in a plain pungent exhibition of the evil of sin, and its ruinous consequences, with the glad tidings of redeeming love, through a Saviour. Hundreds of his hearers found in these announcements, the means to salvation. The Gospel came to them not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, with much assurance.”

  In 1780, amidst the lingering persecution in Virginia, he took his congregation and headed to Kentucky with them, where he established a profitable work until his death in his eighties. He was one of those who lived on both sides of America’s experience with religious intolerance, and could tell the tale of the way things ‘used to be’.  So much of his life, and his ministry happened   after his arrest in 1768,  and they are stories worth telling, but alas, it is there, in  June of 1768 that we must focus our attentions.

James Chiles

  Even less is known about James Chiles.  He was said to possess “a sturdy set of limbs and a resolute spirit” which he used to  “bruise the  bodies of his countrymen”. Converted while in his  20’s, he was with Craig and Waller that day in Spotsylvania

The Trial

  The facts of the actual trial are very scanty, and no court records exist. The story has to be pieced together from multiple eyewitness accounts.

  On the 4^th of June 1768 John Waller, Lewis Craig, James Chiles and James Read were all arrested while preaching in publick.  The charge was that they were disturbing the peace, with the prosecutor at their trial claiming “May it please your worships, these men are great disturbers of the peace; they cannot meet a man upon the road but they must ram a text of Scripture down his throat.”  After their arrest, the charge of holding ‘religious meetings contrary to the law of the land’ was added as they had no license from the Church of England. The bond was set as 2000 pounds, which one historian cites as ‘a king’s ransom’.  John Corbly, a local preacher, met with them and offered to be surety for them, putting his family farm at risk, should they decide to   post bond. They declined.

 Waller, with his partial law school education, argued their case before the magistrates, and a deal was offered them.   They would be released on the condition that they agree to not preach in publick for the length of one year and one day. The preachers refused and were thusly marched to the jail in Fredericksburg. Along the way, they broke out in a chorus of an old Isaac watts hymn “Broad is the way that leadeth to death”:

Broad is the road that leads to death,

And thousands walk together there;

But wisdom shows a narrower path,

With here and there a traveler.

Deny thyself, and take thy cross,

Is the Redeemer’s great command:

Nature must count her gold but dross,

If she would gain this heavenly land.

The fearful soul that tires and faints,

And walks the ways of God no more,

Is but esteemed almost a saint,

And makes his own destruction sure.

Lord let all my hopes be not in vain,

Create my hope entirely new,

Which hypocrites could ne’er attain,

Which false apostates never knew.

   After a month in captivity, two of them had secured their release. Accounts differ as to whether it was Lewis Craig or Elijah Craig, but John Waller was certainly one of them.  The two preachers, whoever they were, made a trip to the Deputy Governor in Williamsburg to plead the case of their comrades still in jail. In July of 1768, a letter was written on their behalf from the deputy governor to the king’s attorney.

Sir,

  I lately received a letter signed by a good number of worthy gentlemen who are not here, complaining of the Baptists; the particulars of their misbehavior are not told any farther than their running into private houses and making dissensions. Mr. Craig and Mr. Waller are with me and deny the charge. They told me they are willing to take the oath as others have. I told them the attorney general is of the opinion that the general court only has the power to grant licenses and referred them to the court. But on their application to the attorney general they brought me his letter, advising me to write you that their petition is a matter of right and that you may not molest these conscientious people so long as they  behave themselves in a manner becoming pious Christians and in obedience to the laws, till the court, when they apply for their licenses and when the gentlemen who complain, may make their objections and be heard. The act of toleration (it being found by experience that persecuting dissenters increases their number) has given them a right to apply, in a proper manner, for licensed houses of worship of God according to their consciences; and I persuade myself that the gentlemen will quietly overlook their meetings till the court. I am told they administer the sacraments of the Lord’s supper near the manner we do but differ in nothing from our church but in that of baptism, and in their renewing of the ancient discipline...they have reformed some sinners and brought some to be truly penitent; nay if a man of theirs is idle and neglect to labour and provide for his family as he ought, he incurs their censures which have had good effects. If this be their behavior, it were to be wished we had some of it among us; but at least I hope all men may remain quiet until court. I am, with great respects to the gentlemen, your humble servant.

Williamsburg

July 16, 1768

 John Blair

  This  pleading failed, and  the case went to trial.