Mohler whether meaning to or not strikes at the core of the
issue. The notion of the Lesser Magistrate is about violence and revolution. He
correctly notes that without this doctrine there would have been no American
Revolution.
Even that is misleading. While there were perhaps some who
conscientiously employed the doctrine to justify their actions, the bulk of
those embracing the idea of revolting against Britain were far more rooted in
Enlightenment ideals than a speculative doctrine flowing from Calvinistic
theology.
The 1776 Rebellion is the unrecognized albatross of American
Evangelicalism. Their narrative assumes and celebrates the validity of the
revolution. They have pegged their Christian identity to the nation and a
nation born in blood and violence.
If America was some kind of Christian nation, though the very
notion is spurious and anti-Biblical, then it must be identified as a Heretic
Nation. From the outset it has been a nation which confuses God's Kingdom with
civil government and thus violence.
Mohler's words and all those who are promoting this doctrine
are in the end promoting violence. That's where this road ends. Right now it's
just a defiant clerk, but soon it will be someone else in a similar position
surrounded by militia men with guns. Christo-Americanism is heresy. It's a form
of Sacralism, a confusion of culture and God's Kingdom. It necessitates
violence, for the government is in the end nothing more than the sword.
While necessary and purposeful, the world's government is
contrasted with the New Testament Church. It is false prophets who confuse the
two and seduce the Church into idolatry and the worship of power and money.
Until the American Revolution is cast down and denounced as a
heresy the American Church has no hope of escaping this net.
This does not mean we have undo the present civil order and
swear allegiance to Britain. We cannot change the past but we must abandon the
theology which covenantalizes it and turns the covetous bloodbath into an act
of devotion.
It was a sinful act and one that divided the Church of that era.
The history of the Loyalists, both those who fought for Britain and those who
stayed loyal by staying out of the fighting, has been revised, erased and all
but ignored. There were many powerful voices speaking out against what was
happening.
We need to hear those voices once more. And we need to ignore
the voices of blood, heretics like Mohler, Trewhella and for that matter... the
whole of the Christian Right.
The 2016 Republican candidates are a frightening lot but what
is more terrifying is the thought that so-called Christians would consider
supporting any of them.
God help us.
And by us I mean the Church. That statement alone is enough
to generate confusion. How many Christians when uttering such a phrase cannot
divorce the Church from American Society?
