This conversation I had shows that someone that clearly hasn’t thought through things very deeply. I posted this initial sentence and picture in a Tea Party Facebook group. The conversation with a cop follows.
Finlay says, “This 20 year lawman is extremely offended by this outrageous propaganda.
American law enforcement officers are the best in the world.
They are not SOCIALIST! They fulfill the biblical mandates for law and order.
Before you post such foolishness, I suggest that you ride in a patrol car for awhile and learn the truth!”
——————————————————– My reply: “Police fit the exact definition of socialism. It is funded by people being forced to pay for a single provider. I don’t even see how anyone could argue other than it being socialist and anyone who supports it being a socialist.”
“The biblical mandate for law enforcement is carry out God’s wrath against evildoers (Romans 13:4). The government rejects Christ so it would be impossible for them to be biblical. The most obvious example being that 60 million Americans have murdered their unborn babies and haven’t faced justice, but protection–the exact opposite of what would happen under Romans 13:4.”
“What have you done to carry out God’s wrath against those involved in murdering babies?”
——————————————————– Finlay said, I’ve been publicly challenging the killing of children for over 20 years…..I spent 10 years as a national Tea Party Speaker from California to North Carolina.
Are you actually complaining because American law enforcement doesn’t execute abortionists?
Paying law enforcement via tax dollars is constitutional!
You need to tone down your nastiness and your propaganda falsehoods.
——————————————————– My reply: You said that American law enforcement fulfills the biblical mandate. I pointed out that it obviously doesn’t in the case of abortion at the cost of at least 60 million dead Americans. What do you think biblical law enforcement should do with murderers? It seems like someone who claims to be biblical law enforcement would know what should happen to murderers.
The police, as we know them today, are completely against the founding fathers’ intent and the Constitution. There were no police in this country until the 1840s.
If you think I’m nasty, I’ll try to tone it down for the more sensitive audience. Maybe you’d be more comfortable with gender-neutral pronouns or something.
——————————————————– You are a real ass.
I worked with many excellent men and women in law enforcement who strived to serve well and do their best.
You do NOT KNOW them….I do.
I am not going to waste time on a pathological fool like you.
——————————————————– it’s hard to understand logical arguments when your paycheck and retirement depend on you not understanding.
——————————————————– End of conversation.
He obviously has no good response to my arguments and I think it’s funny how he thinks I’m nasty while he’s willing to actually call me names. He said I was nasty before I even implied that he’s a snowflake.
I happened across this fantastic paragraph dripping with Scripture in a longer comment written by Matt Mannucci.
The scripture is clear: the role of the Civil government is to be a servant of God to punish evil and not good (Romans 13:3-4). Good and evil is not determined by the arbitrary imaginations of men through the use of so called “natural law”, but rather good is the very character of God (Matthew 19:17, Mark 10:18, Psalm 11:7) as revealed to us in His Law-Word (Deuteronomy 4:5-6, John 1, Psalm 119:68). Civil rulers are to judge according to God’s Law (Psalm 119:46), not adding or taking away a single dot or iota (Deteronomy 4:2, Matthew 5:18). We are not to lean on our own understanding ( 3:5, 14:12, 16:25, Psalm 119:9) in order to reach our conclusions about policies (even if we want to rebrand our own understanding as “Natural Law” as the thomists like to do), but rather we are to study and lean on God’s Word, and He will make out path’s straight ( Proverbs 3:6, Psalm 119:24).
We went to an event where a large church in town had a fall fair type of thing with games for the kids. They had a crane set up in the parking lot where they were flying a large American flag. Is this appropriate? What is the point they’re trying to make?
First off, I don’t think they’ve thought it through like I have. They are proud of America and they want to fly the flag. While maybe they haven’t thought about it as much as I have, they went through the effort of getting a huge flag and getting a crane. All of this while there was tons of effort going into getting ready for a complicated event. I would encourage them to think about it as I don’t think it’s defensible for any Christian who has thought about it.
The most obvious thing to me is that Americans have murdered 65 million babies since Roe v. Wade. The government has failed to do what they are ordained by God to do, which is punish murderers (Romans 13:4). 65 million murdered babies is about 10 times the number of Jews killed in Nazi Germany. What will it take before we stop supporting the government? Is it 100 million dead babies, 200 million? Where’s the line?
The next thing is that we are to seek first the kingdom of God. Most Christians don’t even know what that means. God’s kingdom has a king and we are citizens of that kingdom. We are to identify more with God’s kingdom than with any earthly kingdom. I would feel more affinity towards a foreigner who was a Christian than for an American atheist, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, etc.
We are to be more concerned with seeing God’s kingdom grow and His justice be done on earth than we are with advancing America.
I don’t see any defense for flying an American flag at a church at all.
I’m perplexed by the behavior of Christians I know, especially the men. I’m a theonomist. Theonomy is trying to apply all of Scripture to all of life. We reject the idea that the Bible doesn’t talk about politics. I have tried to engage Christians in conversation on biblical topics many times. I’ve tried in person. I’ve tried passing out pamphlets about theonomy in church. I’ve tried on Facebook. I’ve tried to be nice. I’ve tried to be provocative. I tried to get them to go witnessing with me. I taught a Way of the Master class and about 15 people attended. A few went witnessing, but no one stuck with it or ended up coming with us weekly.
No one has ever really engaged with my theonomic arguments. Some have said they agree with me but haven’t really seemed to dive into all the implications of applying the Bible to politics and all of life. Some have opposed what I’ve said, almost all of them women. But none of them have carried on with the discussion. They say I disagree, and some have even explained why they disagree, but they don’t carry on with the conversation. The men have almost all remained silent. A couple days ago, one didn’t remain silent, but didn’t explain why and refuses to carry on the conversation. Here’s that “discussion”. I left a comment on a newspaper article about raising taxes for a swimming pool.
My initial comment consisted of four sentences. Which of the sentences did he disagree with? The first two sentences are absolute statements of fact, so he can’t disagree with that. The third follows from Romans 13:3-4, and all of the Old Testament. The fourth follows logically from the first three sentences. It all seems pretty obvious and true to me.
On one hand, him disagreeing is more than I get from 90% of Calvary Chapel men. On the other hand, why is he not willing to explain himself? Does he not know Scripture? If that’s so, why would he comment? Is he scared of arguing in public? Then why say anything at all? He wants to take a stand and go public as not agreeing while not being in any way capable of defending his position.
I think all of this behavior from these people comes from two errors. 1. Having a false understanding Romans 13. 2. Having a false eschatology (end times view)–premillennialism.
They have been taught the bootlicking interpretation of Romans 13 over and over. They think the government has a blank check to do what it wants. Their pessimistic eschatology teaches that they will be defeated more and more soundly until they are raptured. So, they expect to lose and so they don’t apply Christian ethics to government. I’ve tried to explain this all many times and no one really seems to care. My arguments from Scripture apparently aren’t overcoming their pessimistic presuppositions.
Here’s a quick conversation I had with a Christian acquaintance. I posted about how voting for a tax increase is committing the sin of covetousness. I can’t remember ever getting a good argument against that. Here’s another terrible argument.
Her first argument is that voting for a tax increase isn’t covetousness because I don’t live in Canon City. The second response isn’t really an argument at all, just alleging that I’m a heretic without giving any reason at all. But she supports my First Amendment right to spread heresy. That certainly wouldn’t be my response if someone I knew was spreading heresy.
Her next comment is just to quote Romans 13. This happens so often that I coined this term a few years ago. I’m hoping the verb to “romansthirteen” someone catches on some day.
Romans 13, when properly understood, is dynamite laid at the foundation of tyrannical government. I would love it if as Romans 13 teaches, government left people doing good alone and pursued as criminals those who did something to earn God’s wrath.
Of course, no response to an actual explanation of what Romans 13 teaches except a laughing emoji. I think I’ve been Romansthirteened about 20 times by Calvary Chapel people.
Can someone please get these people some brain cells to rub together so I can have an actual conversation at some point? I don’t say that to sound pompous. I am the most humble man alive. The only reason I’m right is because I believe what the Bible teaches.
_______________________________________________________________________________The rest of this is the original post I wrote, to which she was responding:
Voting for a tax increase for a swimming pool is committing the sin of covetousness (the Tenth Commandment, Exodus 20:17). Coveting is wanting something to the point that you’re willing to get it by dishonest means.
Taxes are collected by government threatening to confiscate property or threatening imprisonment. What you are advocating when you vote for a tax increase is more violence, or at least threats of violence from government. I realize it rarely comes to violence, because most people would rather just pay than suffer serious loss. A mugger says “Give me your wallet or I’ll shoot you.” That is exactly what government does to collect taxes, except they do it through the mail and it takes longer. Voting is not a magic ritual that turns stealing into righteous taxation. Voting is just an attempt of a majority to force a minority to do something they don’t want to do.
If you are willing to pay for a pool, you’re free to do that. Rather than coveting, why don’t those who want a pool do honest work and raise money for it?
Often I espouse some principle that is a basic truth of Christianity and a basic truth of America’s founding and people oppose it outright and call me a liberal, even those who are in Facebook TEA Party groups who are supposed to be fans of America’s founding. I can assure you I’m not a liberal. Here is a quick list of some of America’s founding principles and the implications that “conservatives” hate.
1. Rights come from God.
Hated implication A: Immigrants have the same rights as Americans. How can you abuse immigrants or even joke about killing them at the border as I’ve seen many people do? (And I actually don’t think they were joking.) Hated implication B: If you reject God, there is no basis for rights at all. Any rights you may have could only come from men. In reality, our rights are to do whatever is not a sin (Romans 13:3-4).
2. Government is subject to the law.
Hated implication A: Cops are not above the law. Cops have to obey the law. Hated implication B: You better know the law and your rights because men have died for those rights and surrendering your rights is disrespecting their sacrifice. Stop licking boots.
3. Liberty is more important than life.
Hated implication A: Freedom is worth dying for. Ben Franklin said those who would give up freedom for security are worthy of neither. Hated implication B: If people doing legal activities make you mad, sorry, but life is tough.
4. Killing tyrants is perfectly acceptable.
Hated implication: You realize that the founding fathers were killing police, right?
5. People are to keep government accountable and within the bounds of the Constitution.
Hated implication: How in the world could we expect children who are educated by the government to keep government accountable? Don’t send your kids to public school.
I know people who don’t celebrate Christmas because they think Christmas trees and other Christmas traditions are pagan–same thing with Easter. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t celebrate Independence Day/Fourth of July. Of course, that is the date the Declaration of Independence was signed. That is, political leaders in the 13 colonies told the existing government that they were no longer going to submit to them. They were forming their own new government. They were no longer going to obey the King and his laws or pay their taxes to Britain. In fact, they ended up killing British government agents and soldiers.
The patriots wrote eloquently about resisting tyranny and the God-given rights of men. The king was abusive, but only a fraction as abusive as today’s U.S. government. He charged a very small, yet still unjust tax, a fraction of what we pay today, and the colonists revolted. The way the vast majority of Americans twist Romans 13 into teaching nearly blind obedience to government would indicate that the founding fathers were in grave sin. Yet I know of zero conservative Christian Americans who aren’t proud Americans who celebrate Independence Day with vim and vigor.
When I point out that inland immigration checkpoints are wicked, and police are an unamerican, socialist institution, public schools are funded by the most evil form of taxation–property taxes, and so forth, conservatives get mad at me and say I’m the unamerican one and I should leave the country. But who is really unamerican? What is the definition of what America is and what it ought to be? Is it defined by the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bible? Or is it defined by proudly pledging allegiance to whatever it is now? If what defines a good American is how proud you are of what America currently is and saying the pledge of allegiance, then I guess they’re right. I’m unamerican. I’m not pledging my allegiance to a country that has betrayed its founding values. I’m not pledging allegiance to a country that has allowed the murder of 60 million babies and takes 50% or more of our income through all forms of taxation or that stops people as they travel through the southern U.S. to ask them what their citizenship is. By that definition I’m definitely unamerican and so are the founding fathers. However, I think the Bible, the Declaration and to a lesser extent, the Constitution define what a true American is and I’m, unfortunately one of the few true Americans left.
Here’s a frustrating conversation. This is a woman from my old church. She completely misses the point and is unable to form a rational response to anything I said. She should be rebuked by her husband and her pastor for not having the ability to think rationally.
In reality, I don’t even know why she would be offended by my original meme calling those who support cops loyalists. If she has the typical erroneous understanding of Romans 13, she should be all about loyalty to the British and calling the Revolutionary War a sinful rebellion. I think she’s just generally offended that I don’t support police and she has a very emotional connection to the police. I have found this type of arguing to be very common.
What’s even more sad is the women will argue. Their husbands are silent. That has been the case now for 4 women. I’ve had one interaction with a man, who wanted to continue the conversation offline, which I did. And 4 women whose husbands are unwilling to talk in any way.
Unfortunately, I missed copying down one of her comments where she told me to call a crackhead rather than the police, and the original post was deleted. But here’s the conversation.
When AHA started doing “Church Repent” several years ago, I thought, “How can they go to a church they’ve never been to and pick on them?” Over the years, I’ve realized that you can go to any random church and exhort them and it is a great way to tell whether they are good or bad.
When confronting an American church with abortion apathy and IVF information, the typical, bad church will say, “Why are you picking on us? Have you listened to a sermon? We love the Bible!” A good church says, “What can we do to help? We want to repent of our apathy. We want to do something.”
If they’re a good church, you can go to them. If they’re a bad church you can go to them. The object is to raise awareness of the abortion holocaust and stand up for orphans. Not to please people. Here’s an example of a typical, worthless, wicked church and pastor. Maybe you can hold out hope that they were caught off guard or need more time to consider the situation, but I don’t think so, based on my analysis. I would hold out hope that if they were humble and studied the Bible a lot more, God could change them but their errors are just so basic and egregious.
It starts out with an off-duty cop working security for the church. That’s the first problem. Cops are contrary to Scripture in many ways, which I’ve gone over in the past many times. I don’t have a problem with someone trained with the ability to use a gun roaming around the church property to protect people who are to a certain extent sitting ducks for a random gunman, but I do have a problem with hiring a cop, but that’s just a minor point so far.
A huge problem is that the cop, as is typical, doesn’t have any idea that a sidewalk is a traditional public forum for free speech. Anyone can stand on a sidewalk in any neighborhood with a sidewalk running along a public street and hold any kind of sign, pass out literature and speak loudly any message they want, even if it’s offensive. I think this cop is stupid and ignorant rather than knowing the law and intending to deceive. This indicates that he is poorly trained, and also that Christians aren’t out spreading their message. There may be limitations to sound amplification, and that would depend on local ordinances.
The cop doubles down on the stupidity saying that if anyone is offended by the message, it is disorderly conduct. I don’t want to be too critical of Matt, but I want to point out a couple things that he could have done better (from my armchair quarterback, 20/20 hindisight position), so that we can all do better next time. Matt should have said he was offended by the cop and by the guy that walked up on him saying he doesn’t want Matt to mess with his kids and eventually the pastor. Would the cop have written himself and those other guys tickets? No, he’d be put to shame for saying that if anyone offends someone, they can be cited for disorderly conduct.
When the cop says the church has asked him to leave, so he has to leave, I kind of suspect that he’s lying. Can anyone be that stupid? Surely he’s deceiving, but maybe he actually is that stupid. You can tell he’s quite stupid, but is he that stupid? I don’t know. You decide whether he’s extremely stupid or just that evil.
Starting at 3:12, the cop says he has to provide ID, because he’s being detained. Over and over again, there are copious examples of Texas cops demanding IDs. They can ask and they can demand all they want. No one has to provide an ID unless they’re under arrest per Texas Penal Code 38.02. In a couple of videos I’ve seen Matt, while in Texas, identify himself even though he wasn’t under arrest. Every state is different, so look up the law in your state, and generally, I’d recommend obeying the law because police, lawyers and judges are psychopaths and unpredictable. You can sue them later. But, don’t identify if you’re not required by law, either.
At 3:56, the jackass in the blue plaid shirt says, “Your rights end where mine begin.” This is just absurd retardation. No one has the right to not be offended. This is just shocking stupidity. How did we get to this point in America where people can be this stupid?
As they go on making fools of themselves, the biggest fool walks up. While the lame-brain “pastor” talks, the disorderly conduct talk is put on the back burner. I would bet that if the pastor had stood up for common sense and Scripture and said that it’s the cop’s job to protect everyone’s right to free speech, the whole thing would have been over.
If you look at this church’s website, you’ll see that this is Doug, the senior pastor. If you read his bio, you might even be impressed. He has a pretty good pedigree, suggesting he may even be reformed, which would put him in the top 10% of pastors as far as I’m concerned. The website of the church looks very good and biblical. But the shocking stupidity that comes out of his mouth in this interaction is just such basic false teaching.
As soon as the “pastor” starts talking, it’s all about him and what he’s doing and there is zero humility. Matt is there about IVF. I’d bet $10,000 right now that that church has members who have taken part in IVF and those people currently have babies frozen in test tubes, and the “pastor” knows about it and can name their names. Even if they don’t, I would bet $10,000 that he’s never preached a sermon against IVF. I’d bet another $10,000 that they are doing nothing more to fight abortion than maybe an occasional sermon and maybe donating to a crisis pregnancy center. But no one will take those bets.
One million babies are murdered by abortion every year. NO ONE has a strategy to fight abortion that is 100% effective at this point. Abolition is a glimmer of hope that the vast majority of Christians know nothing about. It is at least Scripturally correct, even if it hasn’t produced a lot of results yet. Our hearts should break and we should humbly receive any ideas or correction on this issue. Orphans are being murdered among us and no American Christian at any church has any room to receive Matt’s exhortation with the conceit this guy has. The way we treat unborn babies is heartbreaking. Keep that in mind while listening to this pompous, lost (lost as in, unregenerate, unbelieving, dead in his sin and headed to hell) “pastor”.
At 6:35, this evil “pastor” says Matt should respect the dirty, ignorant cop. He would have told Jesus to stop calling Herod a fox. He takes the Hitler hermeneutic in his interpretation of Romans 13. That is the typical, but wrong, approach towards Romans 13 among most Christians.
At 7:29, he says that he’ll call out Matt’s sin of judging. This is absolutely moronic. There’s no way this guy has read the Bible in decades. The Bible teaches that judging is good. Hypocritical judging is bad, but one of the main goals in Christianity is to mature to the point that you can judge properly (John 7:24, 1 Cor. 2:15, Hebrews 5:14, etc.). And, if he thinks it’s a sin to judge, then when he tells Matt that it’s a sin to judge, he’s committing the type of hypocritical judging that is forbidden in Matthew 7. I feel like I learned this stuff so long ago and I cannot believe that someone who has read the New Testament once in the last 10 years could say anything this stupid. I’m shocked.
Furthermore, the “pastor” has obviously NEVER done any type of public evangelism. If you do any type of literature distribution or public evangelism more than a couple hours, you will have the cops called on you. You will learn very quick what the law says. You will learn to stand up for your right to preach the gospel publicly. So this idiot “pastor” turns Matt over to the state. Rather than being wronged (which he wasn’t being wronged) he turns the matter over to laws created by unbelievers.
At that point, the dirty cop asks for Matt’s ID. What I would have done at this point, were I Matt, is to tell him that I’m not required to identify. As I said earlier, I would generally recommend, if there is any doubt about the legality of the situation is to avoid arrest or citation and deal with the misunderstanding via lawyers. I’d pay a lawyer if needed or I’m sure Matt has a pro-bono Christian civil liberties lawyer. I’ve had two situations where I’ve needed a lawyer, and both times Liberty Counsel helped for free, and I later made a donation. There is no shortage of lawyers who will take a case like this. In this situation where Matt was obviously right, I’d ask for the dumb cop to call a supervisor. And if the supervisor is just as idiotic, which is a real possibility, I’d be tempted to take the ticket or even be arrested. If you’re arrested, you will sue and win a lot of money quite easily. The only gray area in this case was the use of amplification, which wasn’t in the video.
I hope Matt did something about this, but he could spend a lot of time on these types of situations at the detriment of preaching the gospel as well, so I don’t blame him if he didn’t.
What’s the lesson? As far as you could tell by looking at the website, or attending the service, this would appear to be a good church. You could attend for years and be content that the Bible is being preached. Matt comes along and exposes the idolatry and stupidity in a few minutes. I support Matt and Church Repent Project in general. I oppose ministry industrial complex businesses like this one.
There are good churches out there. They would respond humbly and with sorrow for the orphans who are being led to the slaughter in our country. But you can’t tell whether the church is good or bad by looking at their website or even attending their services for years. One way you can tell is by standing in front with a graphic abortion sign. You will find out what kind of church they are very quickly.
Working for the Secession of Fremont County from the Union
