abstract: the Christian also prays to the Triune God for divine protection, in acknowledgment of his absolute need and reliance on His protective hand.

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by Thomas Beresford

Synergistic efforts of ubiquitous Western statism have penetrated our constitutional republic under the banner of "Homeland Security." Such measures are predictable humanistic outcomes in the wake of Jehovah's gracious wake-up call this past September at "Ground Zero." Certainly, the resulting consequences from that day are many. However, the biblical antidote (2 Chron. 7:14) remains on the infirmary shelf, untouched by the mainstream evangelical pietists who have blithely grabbed the counterfeit bottle of sugar pills from the hands of the elected politicos.

In efforts to quickly feel better, devoid of the repugnant, humbling theonomic cure, depraved man (both regenerate and unregenerate) has foolishly gravitated towards further irresponsible enslavement provided by an imposter that claims to be infallible. For Rousseau, "the State is the order of salvation. Hence, 'anyone who dares to say outside the church there can be no salvation,' should be banished from the State."1

The theology behind such a movement can be traced, but not exclusively bound, to the doctrine of inspiratio fundamentalis. Such a doctrine teaches biblical authority on matters of faith and morals but that "History and Nature are outside its province."2 We err when we limit the scope of infallibility to simply theology. Competing imposters always have and will continue to claim this incommunicable attribute of God for themselves and their self-centered agenda. In contrast to these counterfeits, the Psalmist tells us where authority lies, and who alone provides security:

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God (Ps. 20:7).

The security of the covenant family comes solely from and rests squarely on the shoulders of the Triune God, Elohim . Make no mistake, magistrates still have the scriptural responsibility of obedience and the citizens the duty of self-defense. But having done all to protect person and property (covenant inheritance), the Christian also prays to the Triune God for divine protection, in acknowledgment of his absolute need and reliance on His protective hand.

When was the last time political leaders or the mass of religionists explicitly expressed such a reliance in protection by the Trinitarian God? As destructive as it is to "only" pray for security, making no preparations for it, it is just as fatal to prepare for security solely on humanistic terms--any terms which do not explicitly request protection from the God of the Bible. Such an error produces a vacuum.

Few can deny the reality that liberties have been lost, or soon will be truncated, because of the September 11 attacks. Since that day, the unsettling sights of National Guard troops policing our airports and Washington D.C. streets are accepted. Military aircraft are now flying over major metropolitan skies. The future of national I.D. cards, military police, and governmental eavesdropping into conversations between clients and attorneys appears to be the "next logical step." Only fools would assume that new surveillance powers will only be confined to turbaned foreigners, but, as the Justice Department warned recently, the "Feds" might begin monitoring domestics that are political or religious terrorist suspects. How would the government discover who was a potential threat? Who would inform them?

Such "heads up" terrorist tips are currently coming from self-appointed watchdog groups. These groups act as informants on the basis of mere assumed guilt and values as processed through their own watchdog grid. Attorney Bernard Sussman suggested that "Homeland Security" seek out the expertise of the watchdog group SLATT:

It would seem to me that this new Homeland Security agency would be perfect to adopt SLATT and get really cordial relations with the other watchdog-type organizations that already have some insight into domestic troublemakers.3

Chip Berlet, President of the watchdog group entitled, "SLATT" (State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training Program), and located in Boston said:

Possible domestic Terrorism suspects, the Right Wing, can be divided into three sections. You have the Christian Right, the patriot/militia movement and then the extreme right where you find neo-Nazis, the Klan, and so on.4

No mention of Mediterranean Islamic males. Why? Who is watching the watchdog? Christians are now being mentioned in the same breath as the Klan and Nazis. What a conditioning masterpiece! "Domestic troublemakers" and the "Christian Right" are designations that are similar to the description of the early Christians in the book of Acts who were charged as those who "turned the world upside down."

But is the so-called "Christian Right" really following in the train of the early church? Are these the followers of Paul, or are they solitary monastic contemporaries of Simon the pole-sitter? Are those in the church bent on personal piety to the exclusion or marginalization of applying all of Scripture to all of life the offspring of the First Century Christians, or the kissing cousins of Gnosticism? Are pastors more like Isaiah and Jeremiah or like the prophets who were sought out by the sinning nation of Israel during the days of Isaiah:

See not and prophesy not unto us the right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits (Isa. 30:10).

Joseph Stalin called the Russian clergy "useful idiots." During WWII, Adolf Hitler commented to one of his advisors that German pulpits didn't need to be censored because, "They [the clergy] will sell their souls for their miserable pensions." Those not subservient to the statist "Third Reich" were viewed as trouble-makers, warring against "Vox populi, vox Dei" (the voice of the people is the voice of God). Therefore, salty Christian pastors holding to and preaching the exclusive infallibility of the Triune God were quickly sent to the camps and "silenced" for being enemies of the state and anti-patriotic. Deitrich Bonhoffer was such a pastor, irritating the state (and compromising ministers) with truth (salt). Christ says if you are not living and teaching the truth (being salt), you are simply good for nothing (Matt. 5:13). The preaching of the authority of God's law (theonomy) is inherently destructive to statist claims to infallibility as table salt is to the flesh of a moist forest slug.

The vast NBC, ABC, and CBS American listening audiences see the increasing loss of liberty as only slight "inconveniences" and a necessary expedient for safety. However, back in 1775, Benjamin Franklin said,

Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety.

Such "inconveniences" are as lethal to freedom as termites to a house. Destroying, multiplying, and eventually, leaving a refuse heap of something that was once grandiose. The view that our loss of essential liberties for the sake of safety is merely an inconvenience is a classic example of the "Hegelian Dialectic"5 at work.

The executive order of "Homeland Security" signed by President Bush on October 8, 2001 oversees anything remotely associated with security inside the United States. In effect, it transfers all functions of state, local, and federal security to the Executive branch. Due to man's depravity, centralized power is innately volatile, conspiratorial, and dangerous by its very nature. Such centralized power is precisely why the Almighty commanded the covenant family of Israel to disperse, or spread out, governmental power by families, clans, and tribes, etc. This pattern of government remains consistent with the form of church government established in the New Testament. This separation of powers was also the base of our constitutional republic which the colonial fathers crafted. Alexander Hamilton warned,

An entire consolidation of the States into one complete national sovereignty would imply an entire subordination of the parts; and whatever powers might remain in them would be altogether dependent on the general will.

Is "Homeland Security" a hidden reef of bondage? Does it move us towards Marxism? Or, does it strengthen our republic? Is it consistent with biblical law and sound principles of civil government? Does it support and cater to God's Covenant, or war against it? Are we to believe that the "security measures" will be removed following the end of the undeclared war on terrorism? (Congress has yet to declare a war by the Executive's request.) Or, will these measures be kept in place to "maintain" safety?

Honest principled answers require honest principled actions. The loss of liberties can and will be stopped when the antidote of 2 Chronicles 7:14 is taken by the covenant family. When the crusading preachers, "healing" evangelists, and the evangelical hordes, who have forsaken Jehovah's Law and have built their religious epistemology and liturgy around man instead of the Almighty, return to the faith of our Fathers, then we will have liberty and security. God-centered and Sola Scriptura -driven nations are divinely protected and necessarily free. When biblically responsible social action takes place by obedient Christians, the sovereign Triune God grants covenantal blessings by the work of His Spirit. The only question to be asked is when such progressive golden years will be had: in our generation or in future generations? All of which is contingent upon obedience.

Thomas Beresford is the pastor of Jupiter Presbyterian and Reformed Covenant Church, Jupiter, Florida. He can be reached at pastorthom@juno.com.

Endnotes

1. Rousas John Rushdoony, Systematic Theology, vol . 1 (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1994), p. 28.

2. Ibid., p. 22.

3. William Norman Grigg: The New American, Vol. 17, No.27, December 31, 2001, "Flag Waving Terrorists," p. 17.

4. Ibid., p. 18.

5. Hegelian Dialectic is a concept whereby one enters a philosophic closed box and functions in it by positioning himself to the left or right of the discussion. That box of discussion or ideas is in a much larger permanent box whereby the framers manipulate the discussion to guide the small (irrelevant) box toward one direction or the other based on their given and hidden agenda. In this way, an individual can come to or hold a position of conservatism while the idea he has of conservatism has been gradually taken to the liberal extreme, and he doesn't even know it.

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