The question arises then: if it only takes two believers to establish a Christian church and a Christian state, then can a husband and wife bind themselves together to formally create such a relationship? The question may sound ludicrous, but a fundamental issue of authority is at stake here. If there is no earthly mediator between God and man, save the man Jesus Christ; and if there is no earthly mediator between man and his neighbor save the Law of God, then we must answer the question in the affirmative. The rule of Christ flows directly to His people, and from His people, it flows to society at large. If we accept the opposite theory which says that there is a depository of authority on Earth which does not originate from the will of Christian men, yet can control our lives in the name of God, then we must also repudiate the truths of the American Declaration of Independence and the Protestant Reformation. For in accepting such a theory, we accept the notion that some men have the divine right to rule over other men, without their consent.[1]

The Christian Home is an independent law-sphere subject only to the rule of Christ. All powers of church and state originate in the people who create them. Therefore, such institutions are the servants of the people, not their masters. Christians have been empowered by Christ to petition the Father, to administer baptism and holy communion, to proclaim and teach the Gospel, and to administer the discipline of excommunication to all apostates. The gifts of the Spirit are available to all believers who will make use of them. You will have to answer for yourself on Judgment Day, not your pastor. This is Protestantism.

Therefore, a husband, with his wife, may become a church if they choose to do so.

Christians have the right to use physical force and coercion to govern their homes. Parents have the right to administer corporal punishment, to impose servitude for the purposes of restitution, to expel offending family members (I am speaking of adult children here), and to use deadly force against any external or internal threat to the life of the family. I cannot imagine what more a family or a state would need in the way of authority to govern. This is the premise of the Declaration of Independence.

Therefore, a husband, with his wife, can become a government, if they choose to do so.

Let me put this in more concrete terms. As a baptized believer, I have the right to baptize my children, without being ordained. Ordination is the work of man, not the work of God. It may be useful to establish the credibility of a Christian worker, but it does not increase or diminish my Apostolic position in my home. And from where did I obtain that Apostolic authority? Answer: from procreation. In His sovereignty God gave my children to me, not to the preacher nor to the governor. They came from my body; they are a part of my corpus (see Biblical Midwifery on "Birth as a Sacred Rite").

What is the central institution of society? Church, State, or Home? Are they independent of each other? Interdependent? Or are two the outgrowth of the third?

My position is that the Home is the central institution of society. Church government and Civil government are an extension of delegated powers which originate in the covenanting between Home governments to create specialists for specific tasks.

If a Christian Home is governed according to the Bible, then there is no grounds for meddling by church or state. For "against such there is no law" (Galatians 5:23). It is when things go wrong and the internal government of the home ceases to function properly, that forces from the outside must intervene. The authority of the church and state are measures by society to protect itself from the consequences of families which fail in their home governments. The state is created to use force to lower the level of violence. The church, as an institution, is formed to raise the level of righteousness.

The origin of the auxiliary institutions of society, institutions which receive delegated authority from Christians who covenant together to create them, is found in the obvious fact that most people do not have large enough families to perform the services which they can provide. Christians join together to create an institution which can raise an army to protect themselves against violent men, whether they be foreign governments, pirates, or outlaws. This is the primary task of the state. Christians may also join together to create an institution which can send preachers to evangelize the heathen or help the unfortunate around them. Here we see the work of the church.

Churches and states are formed for expediency only. There is nothing sacred about them, except that the duties they perform are required by God. If those institutions fail in their primary duties, then the Christian must seek new measures to remedy the problem (e.g. establish a new church or form a new government).

To illustrate the point further, consider the matter of national defense against a nuclear attack. The federal government has been delegated this responsibility. It collects my taxes to protect me from nuclear weapons. Has it performed its duty? No. There is no defense against nuclear weapons. Oh, there is talk about it occasionally, but instead, they keep building more bombs and other offensive weapons. What should I do? Do I wring my hands and say, "I wish the government would protect me"? Of course, not. If my servant fails to perform the task I assign him, either I must fire him and hire someone else who will; or if there is none to be found, I must perform the task myself. Protecting myself against nuclear weapons is a big job. I would rather the government do it. But if it will not, I can do it myself and deduct it from my taxes.

Now, the Founding Fathers would have taken my logic one step further. They would have started a revolution. But back then, a lot of people agreed with the idea. Today, I am just one voice crying in the wilderness. It would be foolish and a waste of time trying to change governments - whether it is through the electoral process or force of arms. So, for the time being, I submit to the existing authorities and do what has to be done myself. In the case of protection against nuclear weapons. I have got a shovel; I can dig my own hole.

You see, then, that one of my concerns is the failure of existing institutions and professions to do the jobs for which they have been handsomely paid. Church, government, education, health care, and so on - there is a vast cleavage between their messianic claims and what they deliver. They have become too bureaucratic and too alien to the Scriptures to be of any value, except "to be trodden under the foot of men". We must return to the self-help concept of society which created America. You must take your destiny into your own hands and rely, not upon man, but upon God to make that destiny a reality. If you cannot make this kind of commitment, then you cannot become a patriarch.

It is a waste of time trying to reform the present order. Christians must find the zones of freedom still left in our society and exploit them to become self-sufficient. And then, they must create an enclave of Christian rule, even if it is only their own homes and estates, so that a new America can be built after Divine judgment clears the decks.

The division of church and state is a bit of a myth. It was useful during the Reformation to disestablish the Roman Catholic institution, but it is not a sound Biblical doctrine. Justice is not just a civil matter; it is religious, as well. Worship is obeisance to Christ as King, Ruler of the Nations. So to separate church and state is a Biblical impossibility.

Christ is both king and priest; and as Christians, we are also. In our persons and in our homes, we exercise eminent domain - we control all aspects of life, including faith, worship, and conduct. These are religious and civil in nature.

The division of church and state into separate offices and functions has been a useful institutional check upon the tyrannical tendencies of men who have been committed with a public trust. This separation of powers existed in the ancient Hebrew republic, although very much different from the humanistic isolation of religion that we see today.

Because the foundations have been destroyed, the contest between church and state is not the critical issue of our time. The burning issue is the liberty of the Christian man, which has come under assault from both state and church. The twentieth century has been the century of the all-powerful professional class, lording over the ignorant layman. This is a very un-American and unchristian concept of society. We have created a society of arrogant specialists and incompetent laymen. Bureaucracies abound in every institution, which are concerned with only self-perpetuation. There was a time when Americans did their own doctoring and their own arguing in court. Today, that is considered a pernicious novelty. Physicians and attorneys carefully guard their trade secrets and persecute self-help groups. Adequate healthcare and access to justice is becoming inaccessible except for the rich. Yet, ministers will universally counsel their flocks to seek "professional" help, when problems develop in their lives. There was a time when people criticized the Roman Catholics for their Latin mass. But law and medicine are two of the few professions in our society which still rely upon such esotericism to confuse the layman.

We have replaced a goal-oriented society with a role-oriented one. No wonder it is stagnant with little progress. Rushdoony is correct when he asserts that clericalism is the result of abandoning postmillennialism: the clergy become concerned with preserving their denomination in a society they view as static, instead of realizing their duty to work themselves out of a job. The auxiliary institutions of society are provisional, until mankind comes into the "fullness of the stature of Christ, unto a perfect man" (Ephesians 4:13) and the blessings of His Millennial Kingdom.

We may never entirely understand all the reasons for God’s prohibition of sodomy. But the issue of authority, I believe, is a prominent concern. Sexual intercourse is a symbolic assertion of authority. The penis is the active instrument; the vagina is the passive one. In any sexual encounter involving the male sex organ, there is an assertion of dominance of the male over the female.

The male asserts his dominance by using his penis to implant his seed into her womb, just as the farmer asserts his ownership over his field by preparing the soil to increase fertility and then sowing the seed.

The heinousness of this sin is manifested in its marring of God’s image in the male who must play the role of the female in the respective sexual encounter. It is a perverting of the hierarchy God has ordained for authority, accountability, and dominion on the earth. It is confusion, and God is not the author of confusion.

By simple extrapolation, institutionalism (by that I mean a total subordination of men to other men) is a form of structural homosexuality. And it is no accident that in the two great institutions of society - the church and state - any attempt toward absolutism is also accompanied by a rise in the incidence of homosexuality. And it is no accident that in urban areas, where institutions and specialization are thought necessary to maintain order, are also the settings for decadence and widespread homosexual practices.

In the church, we see this refusal of the woman’s use in celibacy and the degenerate sexual practices of the Papal courts which are well recorded by historians. In the state realm, we see celibacy imposed upon the professional soldier, for whom a normal family life is impossible, and for whom sodomy becomes all too convenient (as the knightly religious orders shockingly manifested in the Middle Ages). It is no coincidence that James I, the most vociferous advocate of "the divine right of kings" in the modern era, and a theologian, is alleged to have been a sodomite.

It must flatter the egos of such institutional tyrants to not only possess the bodies of women, but the bodies of men, also. No doubt, such perversions were manifested in the era of the tyrants before the Great Flood, which justly received annihilation at the hands of an angry Creator. And the problem of sodomy in our nation’s capital should advise us that tyranny is its companion, with Divine retribution not far behind.

(See The Pink Swastika by Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams, Founders Publishing Corp., 1996, for a description of this phallic religion in ancient and modern times.)

The only remedy to this problem lies with Christian men who are willing and competent to have large families - large enough to have institutional power in society. This is what we find in Psalms 127, where the children "contend with their enemies at the gate", the places of power and judgment in society. A large family, enhanced by polygamy, can enjoy a collective strength, a division of labor, and an expertise which can make them a formidable foe. The Jews have known this fact and have exploited it for centuries. It is time for Christians to do the same.

Footnotes:

[1] This assertion does not preclude the need for a discipling ministry which is provided by the Desposyni. It is best for fathers to be ordained as priests and kings to their households for the benefit of avoiding schism and presumption. See Appendix

Previous Chapter

Next Chapter