No King But Jesus

I don't know if Christians have always favored statism, or if modern American Christians are just a wonderful example of the success of government schooling. It is a subject I must study further, as I seem to remember reading about certain Christians in the past claiming "No King But King Jesus" and being persecuted for it. Perhaps a reader can enlighten me.

The overwhelming majority of believers with whom I speak and whose stuff I read on the internet and in books seem to think that God wants to rule us through an earthly intermediary, an earthly ruler. I have heard it said countless times that God created 3 institutions, the Church, the family and government. And yet I find no place in Scripture where God instituted government. Romans 13 is used as a proof text, and yet it fails to guide God's people up to the time Paul wrote his letter. Where in God's Law does he ordain governments? Where does He say that His Law is to be executed by governments? To whom was the Law of God given? To His people.

In fact, I see the exact opposite. God wanted to rule His people directly. The book of Judges demonstrates what I believe to be the closest look at how God intended to govern. The Law had been given to Moses, then Joshua led the people of God into the promised land. There is no evidence that they tried to establish a government over all of the land. There are places in Judges where we read of kings within the Israelite lands. These were likely tribal leaders or rulers of cities, but they were not set up to execute God's Laws. The cities also had elders, which is a natural sort of government, if you want to call it that. Elders would hear disputes, represent the city in negotiations with other cities, etc. But they didn't "rule" because the Law of God ruled.

In Judges 8 we see Gideon dealing with city elders who are violating God's command to help their brethren drive out the heathen. After Gideon takes care of that problem and saves Israel from the oppression of foreign kings the people cry out to Gideon to rule over them:

Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy son's son also: for thou has delivered us from the hand of Midian. Judges 8:22

But Gideon, a type of Christ and a deliverer answers this way:

And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the LORD shall rule over you. Judges 8:23

It isn't recorded that the people didn't understand what it meant for God to rule over them without a king. I guess it was clear to them. But we modern people just can't grasp it. We know that we won't go on a spree of murder, mayhem and robbery, but our neighbor might. I guess.  If an earthly government isn't controlling our every move and writing thousands upon thousands of laws we are going to destroy each other and the earth? When did we get such an idea? Not from the Bible. The Bible doesn't even hint that God's Law was a good start, but we really need to legislate every tiny detail. The pharisees did just that, and Jesus did not have kind words for them.

What does God say about a people that demand a king? Has God spoken? Is Jesus the same yesterday, today and forever? Did God intend to rule directly over His people by means of His Law? I say that He did and here is where God said the same:

Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah. And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in the thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD. And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.  1 Samuel 8:4-7

 Could it be that it pleases God if, when given the choice, we choose to govern ourselves with the Law of God only and reject an earthly government? Is God inadequate for the job? If not, then why subject ourselves to so much tyranny? We are worse than the fools at Galatia who wanted to earn their salvation by works according to the Law. We want to please God by obeying man's Law.

O foolish (Americans), who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?  Galatians 3:1, my paraphrase

 American Christians will reject any notion that they should obey the Law of God, and those same Christians will assert that disobedience to any of the thousands of local, state and federal laws, plus incorporated laws of other nations is sin because God wants us to "obey every ordinance."

If the laws of man contradict or add to the Law of God, are we obligated to obey them while we ignore the commands of the living God? When we measure our righteousness by the standard of man's laws, are we not idolators?

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. Joshua 24:15

 How does one know if he has a king?  The borders of a kingdom are determined by where the kingdom's laws are obeyed. All who obey the law of the king are his subjects. Subjecting oneself to the king means subjecting oneself to the law of the king. If his laws are not obeyed, then he is not the sovereign. Obeying the laws of another realm is evidence of loyalty to that realm.

No king but King Jesus!

A Working Definition of Marriage

For several years now I have been continuing to study marriage. Primarily I want my understanding of it to be formed by what God has revealed in the Scriptures. God ordained and instituted marriage, so any definition or description that contradicts what He ordained must necessarily be incorrect.

In addition to the Scriptures, I have also looked at history, at culture, and into the writings of others on the subject. In order for a working definition of marriage to be accurate, it must be universal. I covered this in an earlier post, but I will repeat it here because it is important to my conclusion. A marriage must be a marriage in every time, in every country, in every culture, or else it isn't a marriage in any. An accurate definition of marriage can be held up to any putative marriage and everyone should be able to conclude whether the relationship we are examining IS or IS NOT a marriage. There should be no question. This would include the first marriage, of Adam and Eve, and the marriages of tribal people, modern western people, and even the marriages formed under the auspices of pagan religions.

I would also like to address the question, "Why does this matter?" It matters because God has said that the transgression of His Law is sin. As believers, we are to purify ourselves, we are to repent of sin and to walk in righteousness. In order to do that, we must be able to identify sin and righteousness. In addition, since God has declared that marriages are created as a picture of the relationship between Christ and the Church, if we have an inaccurate view of marriage, we are lying about the gospel. God has said, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." God regulates sexual activity and He has stated the only place that sexual relations are permitted is within marriage. All sexual relations outside of marriage violate His command. This means that we must know whether we are in a marriage or not, and in terms of dealing with sin in the church and the greater community, we must know if other people are in marriages or not.

So here it is, my working definition of marriage:

A life-long union between a man and woman which has been publicly declared and sexually consummated, and where the union is not otherwise prohibited by the Law of God.

It has 5 elements which can be compared to any alleged marriage to see if it is, in fact, a marriage. Firstly a marriage is to last for the entire life of either the husband or wife. In some marriage ceremonies we hear the words, "For as long as you both shall live." Marriages do not extend beyong the death of one of the parties, they don't last into heaven, but neither can they be temporary, ending before the death of one of the parties.

In the past it would have seemed silly to mention that one party to a marriage needs to be a man and one needs to be a woman, but recent history requires me to assert that if this second element is not present, there is no marriage. This is true because God specifically ordained the sexes for marriage at the time He instituted marriage and also because God has prohibited sexual relations between those of the same sex in His Law.

The third element is a public declaration. There is no such thing as a secret marriage. Violating a marriage can be a death penalty offense, so those who are married have a duty to the rest of the world to hold themselves out as married.

The fourth element is sexual consummation. Husbands and wives are not mere roommates, they are sexual partners. There is no such thing as a platonic marriage.  We also need the fifth element, where no marriage can exist contrary to the Law of God because God has specifically forbidden certain people from marrying each other, even if they meet all the elements, such as mothers and sons.

Some people would try to add other elements or place other types burdens on the simplicity of marriage, but that becomes problematic when questions start to be asked, such as, "Were Adam and Eve married?" "Are people who were forced into marriages really married?" "How can we determine if the people in our church who are living together and/or having sex are actually married?"

This simple definition of marriage also makes it easy to distinguish between a man and woman who are betrothed (covenanted to marry) and a man and woman who are married. 

Arranging a Marriage - Part 2

If you haven't yet read Part 1 of  "Arranging a Marriage" you may want to do that before jumping in here, although it isn't absolutely necessary.

After the marriage of our first daughter, my husband (hereinafter "Dad") approached our second daughter with a very serious proposition. She was 16 years old at that time. Dad asked our daughter (Let's call her Jennifer) to trust him to find a husband for her. By this he meant that she would agree not to pursue the attraction of any man and would not dwell on or try to form any relationship with any man. He also told her that she must not attempt to steer him toward any particular man and that if she brought up the name of any man in that context that the young man would be scratched from the list of potential suitors. Much to our surprise and pleasure, she assented immediately and never wavered from her commitment.

One of the benefits of this agreement which we predicted and which we observed to have been true was that our daughter was liberated from the competitive nature of social interactions. When we attended events ranging from picnics to dances to potlucks, she never had to view them as opportunities to snag a fellow or to attempt to out-shine her young lady acquaintances.  This is not to say that she didn't feel the pressure that all young ladies feel to present herself as an attractive person and wife-material, but that she was able to rest in the promise of her father and could therefore enjoy all outings with the liberty of treating all others equally and without testing whether she could monopolize the attentions of any single person. For example, at dances, she didn't have to despair if the evening passed and one certain young man didn't ask her to dance, because if he was to be her husband, her Dad would take care of it, regardless of the young man's dancing partner choices.

From the time of the agreement's commencement, Dad began to take very seriously his promise to find a husband for Jennifer. He even left her an out. If Dad failed to find a husband for Jennifer by the age of 26, he would release her from her commitment and she would be  permitted to seek a husband in any manner that she believed would work. Naturally Dad intended to work very hard to make sure that clause of the agreement would never come into play!

As I relate my version of how Jennifer came to be married I want to emphasize, as I did in Part 1, that while facts are facts, my perceptions and therefore my descriptions of what took place may not exactly match how my husband or daughter would describe it. As Jennifer's mother I was not an outsider to the process and the events, but I was on the fringes, not in the middle, as the bulk of the negotiations, questioning and arranging took place between Dad and the father of the groom. Sometimes I knew about their discussions, sometimes I did not. My husband consulted me whenever he knew that my input would be valuable or when my knowledge of plans would further our goals of confidentiality and discretion.

On to the story! The church that we attend does not have any other families in it. Because of that, we had to travel in order to come into contact with men and to form networks of friends and acquaintances from which we could find a husband for Jennifer. Dad called this "trolling my daughter." In case you are not familiar with fishing terms, it refers to dragging a baited hook behind a boat while the boat moves through the water. Our other option was to sit at home and pray for a husband to come. While this is certainly within God's abilities, we did not feel it was an appropriate option. There is no other important thing in our life in which we sit at home and just wait, or even just wait and pray, for a great thing to occur. We don't do this with getting food or clothing, we don't do it concerning work or forming other relationships, and we don't believe the Bible teaches that it is the norm for God to just send a husband out into the boondocks to our door to obtain our daughter as his wife. So we took action.

In this case, we visited other churches where we knew there were like-minded families. This networking led to us forming friendships with families who would introduce us to other families. This sort of thing can be done on the internet, and that may work well for some families. We had really wanted to give our daughter in marriage to a family with which we had formed a friendship that included the parents as well as the potential suitor. Our first choice would be for Dad to be arranging a marriage with another father, rather than directly with the would-be husband, and therefore in-person friendships seemed a better route to that particular destination. Also, in our particular situation with this daughter, we didn't want her marrying someone who had no intention of  living near us, so arranging a marriage with a man who lived in anther country or on the other side of this one was not an option for this daughter.

After several years of trolling and of Dad making inquiries with other fathers, we received a communication from some very close friends inviting us to visit the church they had recently started attending. Our friends live in a largish city about 3 hours from our home and we had attended worship with them at their former church on several occasions without furthering the goal of finding a husband for our daughter. This new church, they informed us, was made up mostly of very large home-educating families and many of these families had adult sons who needed wives. We were intrigued by the prospect and made plans to spend a weekend with our friends.

The first thing I noticed when I walked into their church was the small children out-numbered the adults by about 2  to 1. The second thing I noticed was a large number of young adults, both men and women, which was something completely lacking in our own congregation. After worship, we were invited to the home of one of the larger families. Our friends were also invited so we all made our way to the rural home of our new friends. I walked into the living room of their home and there were 4 or 5 young men scattered around the large room. I thought to myself, "How many families did they invite over here?" In a few minutes I discovered that all of these young men were the sons of the family who lived here. In fact, they have 10 sons and 3 daughters. None of them are married. Four of the sons were wanting to be married, the four oldest ranged in age from 20 to 26. Naturally, I tried to contain my obvious interest and excitement, this was like the suitor jackpot!

Because the time-line of events will be of interest to some readers, I will state that this first meeting took place on the 14th of December, 2014. Just slightly over one year from the date of this writing.  There was no talk of marriage during this visit but it was clear that, marriage or no marriage, these people were going to be our friends for life. We had much in common, we had children close in ages, we shared philosophies about politics, government, home education, the Kingdom of God, etc.

About a month later, in mid January, we made a second visit. This visit included attending worship with them, having a meal at their home and attending an evening social event. After this visit, Dad began an email exchange with the father (Let's call him James) with the express purpose of discussing arranged marriage. James had never even given arranged marriage any thought, their family was more courtship-minded, and so the first email exchanges consisted of Dad describing what he meant by the term arranged marriage and how he thought such a thing might go. James was taking it all in and evaluating whether he liked the idea and whether any of his sons would possibly be open to an arranged marriage.

During these talks, no son was singled out as the object of interest, as the discussion involved mostly principles and not details. How would they arrange a marriage if they decided to do that? How long would it take? Who would be involved? What would be the process? Etc. Their goal was to bring the marrying couple into the process as late in the game as practically possible.

Both fathers were committed to complete discretion. And by that, I mean secrecy. Only the parents would know about the negotiations. This was for the protection of the sons and the daughter (we only had one daughter of age to marry, so it was clear that it was Jennifer). If for any reason the fathers decided that the process should not move forward, the children would be none the wiser and no one would be hurt or have their reputations damaged by a "failed"  relationship. In fact, there would be no relationship to fail.

During that time, and all the way up to the wedding itself, there was no relationship, or special romantic relationship between Jennifer and the young man she married (We will call him Robert). For most of the time she did not know about the negotiations between Dad and James, and even when she began to suspect something, she did not know which son was being discussed. The only contact she had with Robert was through church and social events involving both families, and usually other families as well. For example, we attended an event with them towards the end of January, a beach birthday party for a home-educated mutual friend. During these contacts there was no special contact between Jennifer and Robert, they did not single each other out for special treatment or spend time together. They played games and danced and sang and treated each other in the same manner as they treated everyone else.

This might be a good point to explain our policy about the "no romantic involvement". It is explained more completely in my post "To Court or Not to Court", so I will just address it briefly here. To a man, every woman in the world can be placed into two distinct categories for him. The first category is "my wife." For the sake of argument, let's just say that only one woman could fit in that category and for many young men, NO woman fits in that category. EVERY OTHER woman is in the other category, "not my wife." The women who are not his wife, are going to be, or already are the wives of other men. Since no man can lawfully be in a romantic relationship with the wife of another man, Dad cannot justify any sort of romantic involvement between Jennifer and any man until they are married. Period. There is no biblical category such as girlfriend or finance where a woman is not the wife, but is something more than other women.

We didn't see James' family at all in February, although Dad and James continued their email correspondence where they were finding out about and evaluating each other, and by proxy evaluating their children. In the beginning of March our family hosted a dance and James' family attended and spent the night with our family.  Because of the distance between our homes, we rarely, if ever, had a visit that was just for one day. Dad's parents have a large home with many guest rooms and they live next door to us, so we were able to accommodate James' large family for overnight visits without compromising the morals of our children. When we visited their family we stayed with friends or with Dad's brother, who lives only 20 minutes drive from James' family. Additionally, James has a rental home on the property adjacent to his own home which was not occupied during the time of our visitations and we sometimes stayed there. The week following our dance, James' family hosted a dance and we traveled to their town to attend the dance, attend worship and share a meal with them. In case you are keeping track, by the end of March our families had visited together 5 times.

We saw James' family one time during April and by that time the communications concerning the possible arranged marriage had been narrowed down to the son Robert, with another son as possible choice. Two sons had been eliminated. From our perspective, all four of the sons would have made acceptable husbands for our daughter, it was their father who had determined that only two would be good matches for Jennifer based upon many factors including timing, common interests, etc. At that time, Robert was finishing up his college studies and was working on a senior project and James did not want to distract him from that with marriage talk until after graduation.

We did not see James' family in May, but Robert graduated in the middle of the month and his father approached him with the idea of arranging a marriage for him with Jennifer and Robert said that, yes, he would like his father to continue pursuing that route. Jennifer was still not told anything although she was aware that Dad was talking to James, she was unaware of the particulars and she did not know that Robert was the son being discussed.

Once Robert was brought into the process Dad presented him with a questionnaire covering many aspects of life including theology, future plans, marriage, health, children, finances, etc. The purpose of the questionnaire was not to rule Robert out as a suitor, as we were pretty sure at that point there was nothing about this young man that would disqualify him. The purpose was to make sure he was aware of the many, many potential friction areas in marriage and to know ahead of the marriage which ones were going to be in question between Jennifer and himself. Also it would provide an opportunity to offer teaching or counseling if he expressed ideas that were unbiblical or if he needed further instruction in any area. After Robert answered the questions and there were follow-up questions to some of his responses, we asked him to prepare questions for Jennifer.

The questions prepared for Jennifer did not reveal that Robert was the suitor and we did not tell her because we wanted her to answer the questions as honestly as possible without attempting to tailor her answers to a certain man. After she had submitted her responses to Robert, we allowed her to see how he had answered the questionnaire and told her that Robert was the man. They were then permitted to ask each other follow-up questions through Dad. They were not permitted to email each other directly.

During the course of the questions going back and forth James' family visited with us twice as they stayed with us while going to and coming from their family vacation in California. For those keeping track, at that point we had visited together 8 times.

As soon as the two of them were satisfied that they understood each other's answers, Robert asked Dad if he could propose marriage to Jennifer.  This was merely a formality and a romantic nod to the culture. On June 20, 2015, our two families attended a dance and Robert proposed to Jennifer on the dance floor. She said, "Yes." At that point, Robert announced loudly to everyone in the room, "Jennifer and I are engaged." There was complete shock. The only people who knew a proposal was coming were Robert and both sets of parents. None of his siblings had any idea that anything was happening.

The rest of the evening was great fun for us as we answered the question, "How long have they been courting?" with "They haven't been courting at all." Dad was able to corral a bunch of other fathers into a group and extol the benefits of arranged marriage. Because we are strong supporters of short engagements, by the end of the night we had pretty much settled on August 29, 2015 for the wedding date.

The next morning, at James' church, after worship James announced the engagement to the absolute astonishment of everyone in the room. We had lunch with James' family before heading back to our own home.

Between the time of the engagement and the wedding we visited with James' family twice. The only communication between Robert and Jennifer was via group email as we made plans for the wedding. Robert and Jennifer had no sort of romantic involvement at all. When Dad presented Jennifer to Robert, as his wife, the entire crowd of witnesses literally witnessed the very beginning of their romance as Robert kissed Jennifer.

You can use the comments below to ask questions, I will do my best to answer them. My husband is still working on writing more about how we came to choose an arranged marriage and how we did it. It is turning into a small book, but when finished it will be available through my blog or directly through him. If you would like to talk with him directly, let me know in the comments and I will connect you.

Arranging a Marriage - Part One

I don't usually talk about myself or my family on my blog. For the most part, I prefer to muse aloud about various topics and to speak of those subjects in principle. The whole point, however, in trying to figure out what the Bible says and what God requires from us, is that I might conform my behavior, as well as my thoughts, to what is good and what is right. When it comes to my family, I don't do this alone. I am married and my husband is the leader, so I don't want it to sound like I come up with these bright ideas and then force him to implement them. Rather, we usually study together and much conversation takes place before and during changes in our lifestyle, and it is my husband who makes the final call. In the case of arranged marriage, my husband was also the initiator and I had to be convinced (it wasn't that difficult of a case for him to make, though) that changes needed to be made in how we approached obtaining husbands and wives for our children.

We have two married children, both are daughters. The first daughter participated in what we were calling courtship. The second daughter had her marriage arranged by her father. Both marriages are good. We didn't decide to use arrangement because we believe it is the only way for a marriage to succeed, but because we believe it offers the least chance for moral failure, broken hearts and abuse of young men. We also believe it most closely follows the way God the Father chose a bride for His Son. My conclusions about courtship can be found in my post "To Court or Not to Court."

The story about how we arranged a marriage for our second daughter will be divided into 2 parts, to make it easier to swallow. Part One will be my description of the courtship of our oldest daughter, so you can see the comparison and see how we changed things for our second daughter. What you are reading here is my recollection only, from my point of view as her mother. I don't pretend to speak for my husband or daughter in this narrative and I don't doubt that some aspects would be described differently by them. To help protect their identities, I will refer to my daughter and son-in-law as Mary and John.

During the first week of January, 2009, John contacted my husband to ask if he could pursue our daughter. I don't recall if that was the precise term he used, but it adequately expresses what was about to occur. My husband (I'll call him Dad) already knew this young man and his family. John's father was an elder at our church. At that point, Dad approved John as a husband for Mary and gave John permission to convince Mary that they should marry. Dad outlined the ground rules as follows:
1. No dating
2. Communication was to be by mail or email only
3. They were to focus their communications specifically on finding out where they stood on various issues that could result in them eliminating the other as a spouse. Find out as quickly as possible whether they want to marry. No subjects were off-limits.

The "no dating" rule was very easy to comply with, because they were living on opposite coasts. They were not happy about not being able to speak on the phone, but Dad felt they needed to avoid unnecessary emotional attachment in case it didn't work out. They failed pretty much completely to ask each other good questions. As it turns out, people who have never been married don't have really good ideas about what is important in marriage, they assume they know where the other person stands, or they are too embarrassed to ask.

Around May, Mary told us that she "just wasn't feeling it." She didn't feel they were connecting very well. On Memorial Day weekend, John flew out to our place for a surprise visit. When he walked into our house, there was a palpable energy. We could almost see the hearts fluttering out of Mary's chest. She was completely smitten by his presence and it was so hot in the room that I thought fireworks were about to erupt. He took her out to eat and proposed marriage. She accepted. He returned to the city of his employment and we set the wedding for the latter part of August. From the day of his proposal, Mary was so distracted and twitterpated that she was nearly useless in her household duties. We prefer short engagements for this reason (and others) and this engagement wasn't nearly short enough. During the engagement period they were permitted to continue emailing and Dad also permitted a weekly phone call and any phone calls necessary for the wedding preparations. If they had been living close together, I don't think we could have limited their romantic involvement with any measure of success.

One of the huge downfalls to this whole affair was that John's family let everyone in church know about the courtship as soon as it began. I couldn't talk to any of the women at church without someone asking me about the "couple" until I made it clear that they were not a couple and that it wasn't open for discussion. I'm glad they got married, because if Mary had rejected John,  it would have been a complete humiliation for him. It would have damaged his reputation with the other young ladies to the point that he probably wouldn't have been able to pursue any of them. I understand the excitement of the church. The prospect of two member families having their children marry was a dream-come-true for the young church. But it doesn't excuse the junior-high level silliness that proceeded from most of the women and some of the men. 

Over all, it was not a great experience and there were many potential disasters that, thankfully, didn't happen. Dad decided that it would be different next time, and it was.

I'll be posting the link to Part Two of the story right here after I write it.

What Does the Bible Primarily Teach?

I love the catechism. I love the wisdom of my forefathers in the faith who knew concepts can be better grasped when reduced to clear statements. I pity modern evangelicals who believe they are too pure to resort to such man-made documents and believe they only need read the Bible and all will be made clear. To them I ask, "What is God?" If they can answer that by using the Bible alone, I will agree that they have no use for the catechism or any of the accumulated wisdom of the elders.

I stumbled onto the catechism quite by accident. One day while attending an event at my local Christian radio station I was given the opportunity to choose a book for myself from a table. The station was giving the books away and listeners who attended the event were given first choice. Upon seeing the title "Training Hearts Teaching Minds" by Starr Meade, I was intrigued. Most of the other books were devotional in nature and did not appeal to me, so this title was my choice, sort of by default. The subtitle of the book is "Family Devotions Based on the Shorter Catechism." At that time, I was under the impression that only the Roman church used a catechism, so I took the book prepared to be critical.

Let's just say that after reading the first question and answer, I was curious.  I had heard my pastor recite this question and answer during a sermon, but I had no idea it was from the Westminster Shorter Catechism. By the time I got to question number 4, my mind was, as they say, blown. I won't spoil it for you if you haven't read it yet. It's free on the internet, go read it.

Question number 3 (In modern  English) says this:

What does the Bible primarily teach?

Simple question, right? And the answer is not exactly amazing, except that it sums up what could be a dissertation into one sentence. Here is the answer:

The Bible primarily teaches what man must believe about God and what God requires of man.

After learning this answer, it changed the way I understood the Scripture. Now, while reading, I am continually asking myself if what I am reading is telling something about God, or is it telling me something that God is requiring of me? Life changing, really. 

I thought of this today when I read this quote from Vaughn Olhman at Let Them Marry

But the point of coming to Scripture is to be changed by it   (From the post "Why Aren't you Married?")

Exactly.

Identity Abuse? Are You Serious?

There is a young woman in Texas who has rebelled against her parents and left her family against their wishes. I'm not sure exactly what her plans were, other than what she says in the video, that she wants to travel, get an education and get a job. I will let her speak for herself here, then I will provide my opinion on this issue.

This video has, not surprisingly, resulted in a bunch of other rebellious home schooled adults to jump in and shout, "Me, too! Me, too!" and "Her parents just want to control her" and "This is identity abuse!". The young woman herself barely mentions her parents except to say they refuse to help her. They have denied this. I don't know who is telling the truth. My bias is with the parents, because the girl has shown herself to be a deceiver. She conspired with her grandparents to leave her parents' home, purposefully concealing her plans from her parents. Both of her parents have dedicated their lives to raising their children in a way the parents deemed to be proper and that is their right. They have wronged no one.

Also asserted in the video is that she has no medical records and no education records. While her grandparents may have convinced her that this is terrible, I have to say that those are not the sort of records that I have ever been asked to present. Not even when I joined the Army. As a parent of home educated adults, I also know that it is possible -- and not even difficult -- to apply for college admission without a certificate of graduation from high school. Colleges know that most home schoolers don't have them and permit alternative ways to demonstrate readiness for college, such as college entrance exams. 

As to the assertion by some, such as the proprietor of Home Schoolers Annonymous, that her parents have committed the unforgivable crime of  "identity abuse" I say, stop trying to turn every thing you don't like into some sort of crime. Parents have no duty to their children to make sure that the children will be able to comply with every totalitarian government requirement.

What really bothers me about his whole scenario is that I don't hear anyone saying how ridiculous and tyrannical it is that in the "land of the free" a person can't get government permission to drive a car on a public roadway unless the person has fully registered themselves and received the proper government identification number. How is that rationally related to driving? How is the Social Security Act of 1935 related to getting in a car and making it go in an orderly and safe manner?  When did we become such sheep that obtaining employment doing the most menial of tasks is prohibited without your papers?  What interests do colleges have in knowing a person's federal tax identification number? Hint: follow the money. Note also that such identification is NOT required to run for office or to the hold the office of President of the United States.

So this young woman wants to submit herself to the tyranny and get all the proper paperwork. She now needs to provide sufficient proof to a judge as to the circumstances of her birth. He won't accept her sworn affidavit or the affidavits of her grandparents? Their sworn statements would be sufficient in a court to send a man to the electric chair in Texas, but their combined testimonies can't be trusted when they say that they would like to register her birth as having happened on a certain date, at a certain place and to certain parents, who are citizens of the United States?

I have given birth at home several times. I have registered births in two states and in both states I filled out and signed the form. I promised that I was telling the truth and that was enough. In a few weeks, I would receive a copy of the birth certificate in the mail. (After paying the fee and requesting the copy. The copy doesn't come automatically on the basis of registering the birth.) No one ever came to my house to verify if a baby had, in fact, been born. Because we didn't hire a midwife, I believe I also had to provide an affidavit of a person who had seen me pregnant and then saw the baby after its birth and was aware of the date and location of the birth. This information could just as easily be provided the day after the birth as it could 18 years later. The information is no more trustworthy or less trustworthy just because a few years went by. We aren't asking if someone remembers seeing a bear cross the road, we are talking about if they remember the birth of a person who is alive and standing there right now! In one state, there was a box I could check on the form if I wanted the State to register the birth with the Social Security Administration for me. I did NOT check the box, and yet, a few weeks later, her Social Security Card arrived in the mail. She received the mark of the beast, whether she wanted to or not.  That's why we practice paedobaptism. (Not really, that was joke, folks.)

Wouldn't it be great if we had some sort of uprising where masses of people sued their states to able to exercise their right to drive a car without possessing a federal identification number? Since when did moving around on public roads become a privilege granted only when the proper obiesence has been paid? Instead of petitioning a judge to be permitted to register her birth, she should be petitioning to be able to drive without having to a show a document which proves nothing other than her parents filed some paperwork 18 years ago.

There is identity abuse going on this country. And it is being perpetuated by the government, not parents.

The Measles - I'm Not Frightened

At some point we need to wake up to the fact that our government, in order to remain relevant and to make sure we understand how desperately we need it, is continually manufacturing fear. Terrorists! Ebola! Vampires! and now Measles! 

Don't believe the hype. Don't get frightened. The chance of someone dying from measles in the United States is something like .2% And that would require that a person actually contract measles. Currently there have been about 100 cases in the current outbreak. So that is 100 out of 350,000,000 people, right? Last year there were between 600 and 700 cases nationwide.

One of the most interesting things about this scare compared to past scares is the the thing itself is not even all that scary. If you happen to be the one poor soul who encounters a murderous terrorist or contracts ebola, you are in deep doo-doo. But even if, regardless of the narrow odds, you DO contract measles, it is not likely to change your life at all.

Take positive actions to keep yourself healthy and resistant to all infectious diseases, not just measles, by eating real food, keeping sugar to a minimum and making sure you have sufficient vitamin D.  No need to let fear cause you to inject poisons into your body (or the bodies of your children) under the false belief that it will make you safe. Life isn't safe. But we can make it safer. Wellness isn't something you put into your body, it is something your body gives you as a reward for treating it as the Designer intended.