Theocrats, All
A Course Proposal Sent to Wilmington College (Wilmington, Ohio)
27 April 2012
“Theocracy is an inescapable concept. The source of law in any given society is de facto that society’s God—whether it be the God of the Bible, Allah, or ‘the People,’ or a dictator, or secular humanist elites. It doesn’t matter, whoever defines your legal code and the punishments and/or rewards for adhering to that code is inescapably your supreme being. So we are all theocrats, even leftists and atheists, and even evangelicals like Colson—we just argue over the correct theos and what His law is. Choose this day whom you will serve.” (Joel McDurmon, M.Div., Reformed Episcopal Theological Seminary, is the Director of Research for American Vision.) http://americanvision.org/5133/chuck-colson-theocrat/
“It is not to Plato’s Republic nor to Aristotle’s Politics, not to the Greek city-states nor the City and Empire of Rome, and not to the Code of Hammurabi or Solon that we must look for a model of good government and a competent defense of a fee society, but to the Bible and the Hebrew republic. Because the Bible is divinely revealed information, it furnishes us with the principles we need to defend a free society.” (John Robbins, “The Sine Qua Non of Enduring Freedom,” Trinityfoundation.org, The Trinity Review, no. 295).
I propose a fresh course which will examine the theological, philosophical and legal assumptions which form the creedal basis of any society. It is the connection between the legal system and the presuppositions of the society concerning God and His Law which shapes a culture. Simply put, every culture has its cultus. Our Christian “cult” has been abandoned as the source of law in the West and we now descend into Lawlessness from which we may be “rescued,” albeit temporarily, by some form of anarchy or tyranny.
Proceeding from the assumption that some form of Christian base is not only “ideal” but right and good as well True, we will develop at the conclusion of the course proposals for a Christian Law-based society by drawing from the wisdom of the past and reviewing the Scriptures and considering what they may say about the issues at hand.
In particular, we will consider the role of the New Covenant as a sort of filter which reforms the Law of the Old Covenant as it is advanced as the foundation of civil orders throughout the world. What does the ideal society grounded in Christian Law look like?
However different the approaches of the interpreters, we will uphold the proposition that Christ is the ruler of the nations and that His Law guides them in justice and righteousness. He rules, in fact, as the Sovereign who even now “sits at the right hand of the Father.” He, by the Spirit, raises up and brings down governments as the Spirit moves among men and as they embrace or reject Him and His Law as Truth and the source of Justice.
Michael Bray
Hmm. I don’t recall the courtesy of a reply from that local “higher education” institution. (Posted here on 23 March, 2016 Anno Domini)
Comments are currently closed.