Having a cookout. Ribs, beans, fixin's, friends, fireworks. The usual. There is a slight difference that I have with my fellow traveling evangelicals. They want to have the current citizen remember the sanctity of the Founders to inspire a better patriotism. I want the current citizen to be a patriot for the country as it stands today. If they think at all of the Founders, they should briefly consign such Founder's souls to a place of unremitting torment where the worm dieth not.
For the easily confused"
1. The Founders were not patriots, they were sinful rebels against their nation's king and God's anointed.
2. You can be a patriot, but love it for what it is today with today's authorities.
3. Putting a powdered wig on an evil man will not make him godly.
4., Our later benefit (financially and politically) is a crass reason to stand the teaching of Christ and His apostles on its head.
5. "Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment." Romans 13:2
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Given that the mandate of governance has long since passed to the U.S. of A. I would, in the sense mentioned, be a patriot. As a word is is almost too connected to the Founder's ideals (which contained many good things as well as bad) and offers a mythology of belief regarding their actions which I find unsupportable. It might be better to describe me as a loyalist.
In another place at another time, The Oracle has declared that 'There is no authority without police action.' From this we can certainly infer that the ability to enforce one's will(police action), is definitional to having authority. If you can't control your borders you are not the authority there. Whether King George had authority over the Colonies was exactly what was tested in the War for Independence. If the Colonists would have lost they would have found that indeed George DOES have authority in their part of the universe, and they would have paid dearly for debating the issue. However, what the war proved was the opposite. George could NOT enforce his will via police action, that is proven by the troublesome(to some)fact that we won. Obviously, the King of England only had authority in the Colonies because the colonists allowed it, and when they ceased to allow it, his 'authority' was reavealed to be what it actually was, unreal. So, it turns out, the Colonists were never rebelling against any authority, duly appointed, ordained or otherwise. They turned out to be the real authority, at least according to you.
IF your son at fourteen could successfully fight you and your authority claims would his rebellion be merely called "a testing of claimed authority which was found absent"?
This is a secondary issue which is addressed as "what are the moral tests placed on a claimed border of authority?".
Rebellion presumes the answer before it is given.
Well, what does 'There is no authority without police action.' mean if it doesn't mean that someone who claims to have authority must be able to enforce his claims or he isn't an authority? Are you claiming that King George could have just stomped his feet and spit in the Atlantic and the colonists were bound because of his ordained power to bow and scrape? If a country claims authority over a certain land, it better be able to enfoce it's will on that land, or it has no authority there no matter what its claims. Just because a monarch SAYS he is king doesn't MAKE him king. Besides these are your words not mine. 'There is no authority without police action.' As I see it, you need to either amend the pronouncement, disown it, or show why it doesn't apply to England.
I suppose there could be other possiblities. I might not understand your argument, or I might not know what I'm talking about. I'm certainly willing to consider either of those.
"Given that the mandate of governance has long since passed to the U.S. of A."
-What determines this in your worldview? When did this happen? Immediately after the war? Was it only rebellion for those in the Colonial Army to be in that army until they won at which point it became proper loyalty to the governing authority? How does one determine the mandate of governance? Is it possible to lose this so that a populace is right to depose such a regime?
nuallain asks some good questions, Evan. What say ye?
While "might makes right" in terms of power mandate it does not make "right" ethically. David, before he was king, knew, of a certain, that the mandate was to pass to him. Even with that knowledge, he did not raise his hand against the Lord's annointed. It would be immoral for him to do so. In fact, those that claimed to have killed Saul he had slain for their helpful efforts.
Think of it in terms of marriage. Christ says if you marry a divorced woman you commit adultery. You are no less married in the new relationship, you just got there in error. You must confess the sin of adultery and remain married. The Law forbids a woman, if divorced from the second husband, to go back to the first. It would be an "abomination". Political power is a social state of being like marriage. Certain conditions bring it definitionally into existence. It can be brought on correctly or incorrectly but it doesn't change the condition if reached. A seperate discussion could be followed by which we would define the condition and thereby know when a mandate had passed just as we would with marriage. I could marry "in the passion of lust like the heathen who do not know God" and be just as married as the the man who did so by "befitting godliness".
The distinction: social institutions and ethical actions are different categories. The Chistian will enter those institutions as God commands. If not, he may not justify his action because he had successfully entered the institution.
You didn't answer the last question. Which is perhaps the most interesting: "Is it possible to lose this so that a populace is right to depose such a regime?"
If not what do you make of Jeroboam's actions? Was he right do take the kingdom? (1 Ki 11:31) Furthermore, if not does that mean that once a dynasty is established that it cannot be rightfully deposed except by the natural death of the line or conquest by foreign powers? Which would imply that no new dynasties could arise by righteous means. Furthermore, Saul had a surviving son, why was it right for David to claim the kingdom before this son was dead?
So, the question is again posed: Are there lawful conditions by which a reigning government may be deposed?
In fact let me ask a specific addendum to that last set of questions. What of the Maccabean revolt? Were they wrong to revolt against Antiocus Epiphanes?
A government may relinquish power themselves or they may have it taken from them. The only lawful taking is by an agent not under their authority, meaning either another parallel govennment (as in another nation) or a higher (as in God, or the Federal vs. State).
As to the Maccabean Revolt, it depends. Does a close examination reveal either that the Lord "directly" commanded Judas' uprising (as with Gideon) or that the claim to rule of the Seleucids were only defined and certain at the distance of two millenia? The secondary issue is "does the invalidity of a revolt become valid if prophesied by God".
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