Yesterday I took my two sons to a rally protesting vaccine mandates in our city. It was a pretty good turn out as far as rallys go, maybe a couple thousand. The numbers were smudged by the first snowfall of the year: a fluffy, meandering fall that gave the whole episode a St. Crispin’s Day sentiment. It was a good opportunity to teach civic duties, Christian joy and godly restraint. The presiding lesson for the boys was being sober minded as you find yourself in a group walking in the same direction but with sometimes vastly different motivations.
As there were lots of mama bears in attendance, some growling was inevitable. And growling by its nature is not nuanced and is meant to be intimidating. So the first lesson was not getting drunk on the spirit of a crowd, which have high ABV.
The next obvious lesson not to get swept up in the pathos of the speakers. This has been known to go awry from time to time, when speakers are tickling the ears of the crowd and sloganeering with a resonant frequency to get that standing wave of emotion. Such phrases are good to get momentum, but provided very little in the way of substance. I realize rallies are not meant for in depth and nuanced dissertations, but it is good to be aware that the free drinks needs to be eventually be followed with a hearty meal.
To all of you that have boys, it is necessary to be aware that there is a draw to the power of the crowd for them in particular. They are young, they want to use their strength. It is important for parents to know the proclivity of young men looking for an outlet of their energies and there is no shortage of organizations what will provide identity in exchange for that potent vigor any day of the week. Boys need a bit and bridle, and it ought to be snug or that horse will run.
Ah, the protest signs: the thought bubbles of democracy in motion. Now I probably wouldn’t volunteer to hold more than 15% of these signs we saw. Some were comparing vaccine mandates directly to the Third Reich. Some championed the freedom of choice. Others decrying the vaccine as poison to its core and some having a preponderance of four letter words. My friend brought a sign that read “Help ME help YOU” which I thought was funny, and did hold that one for a bit. At one point the euphemistic “Let’s Go, Brandon!” chant began to gather some force. I told the boys we would not participate in the chant since we all know what it means, and I can’t square that chant with God’s command to “honor the king”, even though his acting like a monarch is precisely what instigated the chant to come about in the first place. But as a whole, we agreed with the general direction of the protest and believed our participation was an action we could take with a clean conscience before God and man.
But the dominant feeling I left the rally with was the need for Christians to have a solid, deep and living understanding of Christian resistance. There were plenty of people there who were standing on the inalienable freedoms, but I wondered how many could give unimpeachable reasons for why that should be. What reason does a conservative have that freedoms are better than government imposition other than tradition? There is nothing about conservatism, per se, or tradition for that matter, that provides a strong foundation for its defense. Just because a thing is doesn’t mean it should always be. I mean, there was a time when absolute monarchies were the tradition and defended as such.
The Christian must be able to give cogent reasons for why the freedoms and rights expressed in the US Constitution are tied to Biblical truths. If we cannot, then conservatism is just one other idea in the marketplace of ideas, tethered to the shifting soil of human preference. Catchy slogans and Gadsden flags are not a foundation for freedom of any more clout than the intransigence of the one holding the pike staff. We must be able to tie the Freedom of God to the inherent freedom of man to the limited constitutional government of America capturing these freedoms in the structure of the body politic.
American Christianity has taken a nice long rest on our laurels and the tumult of scattering freedoms has woken us up bleary eyed and soft footed. But at least we are waking. Top of the priority list is to know our Bibles. It is there we will find the whole counsel of God illuminating our situation and not limit our actions on complex problems to what we can find searching verses with a pen light.
Next is to know our history. Did you know limited government and resistance theory was developed by Bible-minded, stout-hearted Protestants? Monks tied private property to Biblical principles. A Huguenot, writing under the pseudonym Stephan Junius Brutus, wrote Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos and packed his exposition of Christian resistance to tyranny so full of Bible you couldn’t swallow another quiet time for a month. They had to have the courage to not only stand before the pyre and give an account for disobedience, but before God Almighty and justify their actions with His word. “History doesn’t always repeat itself” as Twain said, “but it often rhymes.” So I would encourage you to read up on things that rhyme with oppression. Because when it comes down to it, it is only the resistance that has divine cement in its shoes that will hold its ground.
Lastly, we need to know civics. About 57% of Americans have never read the Constitution. Still less the constitution of their own state. Knowing the laws of our land are going to help us navigate what we are being obedient to, if a law is godly, or if a new law is actually against the law of the land (read: lockdowns). Before you can play any sport you have to have a basic understanding of the rules. Same with our political life.
Weak minds resort to strong arms is a slogan repeated often in our house. This is true regardless of any side of the isle you are on. We must be able to have strong minds to resist the strong arming of both Left and Right, because both are equally as capable of going over the top. After admonishing a sharp turn of the steering wheel to the right, we have to be ready to correct the inevitable overcorrection, lest we find out what rhymes historically with the French Revolution. And if you do not get that historical reference, let that be a spur to get your nose in some books.
Christians must lead this charge on a grassroots level. Because atheistic Leftism has no stopping point and godless Righties have lost any legitimate beginning point. One is driving off the cliff at 90 mph, the other at 65. At this point, being a backseat driver ain’t a bad thing. It is we who must be the voice to reason, wisdom and truth the only place it can be found: in the Bible, by the understanding of the Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
If you are interested, a good starting point for understanding protestant resistance theory is Glen Sunshine’s Slaying Leviathan. For a comparison of the American and French revolutions, German Friedrich Gentz wrote The Origin and Principles of the American Revolutions Compared with the Origin and Principles of the French Revolution. Not the briefest of titles, but written shortly after the French Revolution and translated into English by John Q. Adams, our 6th president. Of course, Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos is also good, but thick. The latter two can be found online for free.
Thought Butter 