This is not in regards to actual plans. I’m seeking to draw a picture of what Biblical Law says about certain issues. This is how I understand the revelation of our Creator.
After Cain murdered his brother, God confronted him about Abel. His tart reply to God was, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The question missed the point, of course. One does not prey on family unless one has formally renounced them as enemies. Staying inside the family community is a lie when you consider any of them an enemy. Deal with your conflict openly and in love, or the wrath of God will fall on you.
It is our duty to support, protect and love our covenant family. Yes, Cain was under a covenant, but it’s not one specifically revealed in Scripture. Yet we know from what Scripture does tell us that Creation itself is covenantal in nature, among other things. That first covenant to which Cain was liable was written into Creation itself. It is the moral character of our Creator, which Scripture says anyone can discern if they want.
It’s not that Cain had a duty to keep his brother on a leash. He knew that. His duty was that filial piety written in our very genes, the human instinct for guarding one’s blood kin. A proper moral orientation awakens that instinct, and it becomes possible to include as family folks who aren’t blood kin, but who embrace the same moral covenant.
A covenant brother is still my brother. The communist antifa thug down the street is not my brother. The islamo-fascist jihadi across the sea is not my brother. The pagan African bushman is not my brother. They all could become my brother is they embrace the same faith covenant on some level, but until they do, they are potential enemies. But there will be no conflict until they threaten my divine mission calling.
At that point, it’s between me and God how I respond. I may be called on to explain my choices, but I am accountable to God alone. If my choice threatens your mission, then I would expect you to dissent or even fight, but you would be obliged to declare a separation, a perceived rupture in the covenant that binds us. There has to be a procedure for separating peacefully; that’s part of the moral fabric of the universe. Without that honest and open confrontation, the Lord allows me to treat you differently, and handle you more severely than I would a brother in contention. The moment I see you betraying the broader covenant with Creation, that’s when you forfeit all consideration.
When that communist antifa thug acts against me on his convictions, I am free in my conscience to choose whatever tactic seems to best answer my sense of divine mission. When that islamo-fascist jihadi seeks to migrate into my world, my conscience is free to organize and lead a defense force to keep him out. The same goes with the pagan African bushman. I could care less if you imagine my opposition is racist or imperialist, or whatever. God’s Word says I have grounds to be violent in opposing the immigration of someone who doesn’t love my Savior and hates what God has called me to do, and seeks by any means to force a change against that calling. God put me here first, and those invaders had best live in peace with what already stands here when they arrive.
What prevents me forming an anti-immigrant militia is not any kind of “human rights” magic wand. And you would be a Satanic liar if you claimed the Bible says I shouldn’t. Rather, it is the tactical guidance of my Father in Heaven under the provisions of Biblical Law. I am not guilty of ruining their lives wherever they came from; I have been telling my government how wrong that was. But I confess to the guilt of America, and that I live among a morally unclean people. Those immigrants have come because that’s how reality works; that’s what is written into the moral fabric of Creation. Instead, I am limited by that moral fabric to preparing the defense of my mission close in, on a smaller geographical scale.
They are invaders. The antifa thug is a political traitor to the nation. There are some differences in how Biblical Law says I should treat them. But then, I include American Zionists as traitors, along with the political elite who plunder this country. I must as elder distinguish between a covenant brother who betrays the covenant of the faith community, and as a military veteran the political traitor who seeks to destroy the wider secular stability that comes from following the system of government, regardless of whether that secular system adheres to any part of Biblical Law. When they succeed in destroying that system, they also lose the protections of that system for themselves.
While my actions may seem ostensibly the same when I move to defend my divine mission against these various threats, the details will vary considerably. A threat from within the covenant community is wholly different than a threat from without. But the idea that violence is not on the menu is a blasphemous lie, a demonic notion that comes from outside of Scripture. Every one of those threat models asserts a priori a false moral system that comes from Hell.
If the Good Samaritan had participated in the broader Samaritan political intrigue of provoking Rome to come down harder on the Jews, he would not have been a “Good Samaritan.” But in the parable as Jesus told it, that Samaritan was not so inclined. Thus, the Jewish hatred for Samaritans as a race was unwarranted, but a guarded readiness to get rough with him was entirely justified. Once it becomes clear that he tends to act according to the same moral law as what the Jews were supposed to hold, he could not be regarded as an enemy. Instead, he was a covenant brother who qualified as “neighbor” in that broader sense of people who serve God’s revelation. If he treats an unfortunate Jew as neighbor, then he is a neighbor to all Jews.
In the Hebrew approach to things, it was necessary to think about things on multiple levels. Because of my oath to the US Constitution, I have a duty to defend certain aspects of American life in the US. That duty is moderated somewhat by how well I can perceive the people to keep that constitutional system alive. It won’t matter a whit to me how some officious idiot interprets my duty under that oath, except as a matter of contextual response. My duty to folks who share my faith covenant under Radix Fidem is yet a different layer of consideration. And on still another level is my commitment to Christ under His Covenant, of which Radix Fidem is a subsidiary.
How I juggle the various demands on me are between me and God. One of the biggest hassles I face on a regular basis in declaring my faith is the confusion in people’s minds that arises from a damned American culture of linear thinking and legalism about words. Sometimes just wrestling with this consumes a major portion of my writing. I’m not telling you what to choose. I’m telling you how I approach things, and marking out issues over which I cannot debate without disobeying the Lord. I simply will not debate whether violence is a valid option in that obedience.
This is not a cult and nothing binds you to my teaching except what’s in your own heart. But if you feel called to follow my lead, know that violence is on the menu, even if I bear a potent self-restraint about it.
