Biblical Governance

A faction within the “patriotic” Christian American nationalists aims to implement biblical law and has recently gained influence within the Republican Party. These individuals often exaggerate the role of the Bible in shaping the Founding Fathers’ ideals and the American Constitution. As David Barton, founder and CEO of WallBuilders, claimed, the recent Republican Party platform is “the most Biblically friendly platform we’ve had in my lifetime.” If this is so, does the American “religious right” truly align with biblical principles?

Under Biblical governance, God’s law does not change, and neither does morality, law, or justice. Like the Ten Commandments, they are set in stone for all people throughout all time. Looking at Biblical times there was no “active” form of government molding and adapting society. No professional “state” and paid politicians passing laws. Unlike elected republican politicians who can pass laws, in the Bible, no legislative ability existed as rulers only implemented what God had already declared. Further, God did not force anyone under his laws. In contrast, Republicans duke it out in political warfare, trying to impose their ways on Democrats, libertarians, and anyone else who dared resist majority rule.

Biblical law lacks the taxation, oppression, and regulations a professional state imposes; it only comes into play when one’s action injures another or if a serious moral violation of God’s law has occurred. Many sins in the Bible are between God and man, and the state is not authorized to intervene unless they harm another person. The government is severely limited, with no ability to gain or increase its power, and the people enjoyed liberty unknown in America’s history.

Biblical law severely limits rulers’ power, so much of what the American government does today under the Constitution endorsed by “the right” would be outside its jurisdiction. For example, there would be no allowance for governmental debt (America has the most significant debt in the world), foreign aid, intrusion on private property or rights, and the government cannot take from private citizens (eminent domain allows the U.S government to while a Biblical king could not Ezekiel 46.18): burdens of licenses, regulations, and permits. There are no allowances for subsidies, bailouts, the devaluing of money, government land ownership, and no legislators run by men adapting and creating laws, especially those that do not harm another individual. American politicians create tens of thousands of laws each year, thousands of times more than God gave in total!

There would be no IRS or income tax, heavy taxation, welfare, or property tax, and those living self-sufficient lifestyles would not even face a tax! Deuteronomy 14.22 lays a 10% tax, but this is on agriculture, and it is a fixed rate aimed only at the head of the household, not women or children. Further, these taxes are only placed on the increase, and the highest possible tax bracket would be 13.3%. Further, these taxes in the Bible were partly to upkeep the Temple. Since the sacrificial system is no longer in place, the tax would be reduced.

Further, all the indirect taxes placed on various objects that drive prices up on business in America, that pass to the consumers are not there in biblical taxation.

Our income is taxed, sent to someone else, and taxed again when spending money. So each time a dollar is spent, it is taxed in some way in America, leading each dollar actually to be taxed far more than it is worth; under Biblical tax, the tax is given once.

Under Biblical law, the tax-funded prison system would be abolished, and swift justice would return. Lawyers and insurance companies would be obsolete. Preventions for lying in court and false accusations would be instituted.

Crimes would not be against the state that punished people with jail time but based on the guilty party compensating the victim and also prevention of future crimes. The guilty would need to work off what they owe to the victim, and they would not receive tax-funded housing or food via prison. When crimes are declared “against the state,” it turns the goal of justice away from compensating the victim to punishing the criminal. For example, we unjustly handle robbery in the following way:

The victim is assaulted and robbed, and the attacker is imprisoned. Through taxation, the victim must pay for the police, judges, jail, housing, food, and other expenses to fund the prosecution, arrest, and housing of his assailant. Further, it costs the innocent taxpayer an incredible amount; in my state, it costs over $50,000 dollars a year to house a criminal. Victims receive no compensation; instead, they are financially punished. Meanwhile, the criminal lives off taxpayers who were not involved with the crime. Taxpayers fund the state apparatus, creating new victims not directly involved with the incident. There is no justice in this.

Think of another scenario from the viewpoint of a survivor of a serial rapist and murderer. Years after the attack, the victim still suffered mental and physical trauma while her assaulter was “eating three meals a day, had a television, and didn’t have to work or worry about rent. He had gotten married in prison and was having people write to him…he was costing the state $26,500 per year just in food and housing…I was a victim, yet no one was paying my rent or making sure I got three meals a day…he was sitting on death row with his every need being cared for.” We must ask ourselves, is the “justice” we receive from the state itself criminal?

In the Bible, justice was based on compensation to the victim by the guilty party and on discouraging future crimes. To prevent stealing, the Bible imposed an uneven punishment for theft; you had to give back more than you took. Exodus 22:1 reads, “If a man steals an ox or a sheep, and slaughters it or sells it, he shall restore five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep.” Proverbs 6:31 says, “Yet when he is found, he must restore sevenfold; He may have to give up all the substance of his house.”

In this system, neither the victim nor innocent bystanders are punished via tax to fund the system; the money goes to the victim (not the state), who is overcompensated for their loss, while future theft is discouraged by a heavy penalty. There is nothing immoral in the system.

In my state of Vermont, the police are notorious for abusing drivers. They hide their green vehicles in the brush or behind trees and sit in spots often where the speed limit changes drastically to “catch” law-abiding citizens, employees a bit late to work, parents driving kids to activities, and so on driving over the limit. They punish these tax-paying and law-abiding citizens for not following the rules.

These areas are often flats where accidents never occur; meanwhile, in more dangerous places where accidents occur, you are much more likely to find an ambulance than a cop car. Further, half the country’s murders go unresolved; few are prevented from occurring in the first place; we have blatant thievery, crime, drugs, and worse This is the inevitable long-term effect of “crimes against the state” is that “Police” enforcement becomes about funding itself rather than protecting people from others who would harm them.

This is why Walter E. Block argues private security is far better than our current socialist police forces. Block points out you are far safer at places like Disney and Walmart, where private security is used, than walking down the streets of America, where socialism dominates. If a private company can’t provide protection, it will lose to competitors, whereas the government has none. When a government service performs poorly, they often get money thrown at them by the socialist parties in D.C. Thus the government rewards poor performance while competition improves it.

In America, there is also a presumption of guilt where individuals are required to obtain licenses and undergo inspections to prove their innocence. In contrast, Biblical law operated on the assumption of innocence and only intervened after a crime had been committed to deliver justice.

Perhaps most vitally is the absence of modern obiance to the state. Under Biblical law, if a man in power places himself above God, seeks to impose his will instead of divine, and attempts to legislate, add to his powers, and so on, the people are to implement “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.” By law, they are to resist him, upholding the law and removing the tyrant.

A ruler was subject to both divine law and those he governed. In the eyes of God, a tyrant is no longer a lord since he has violated his design and is now acting on his own; he has replaced God with himself. Thus the tyrant is no longer to be followed by a Christian people; he no longer has any authority since authority comes from God, who only delegated specific duties to rulers. A tyrant becomes the enemy of the people, their customs, and God.

In the 12th century, John of Salisbury wrote, “By the authority of the divine book, it is lawful and glorious to kill public tyrants.” He also wrote, “I submit to his power…so long as it is exercised in subjection to God and follows His ordinances. But on the other hand if it resists and opposes the divine commandments, and wishes to make me share in its war against God; then with unrestrained voice I answer back that God must be preferred before any man on earth.” Saint Bonaventure taught that if a lord acts “contrary to God no man may obey him; moreover, since he who abuses the power committed to him has deserved to lose this power, he may be rightfully removed from it.”

How very different we are modern “patriotic” conservative Americans holding to the secular philosophy of obedience to the state. Who blindly follow any dictates coming from DC no matter how unconstitutional, immoral, or unlawful they are. We accept the “divine right of the state.” Anything it declares, any decree it passes, is now declared “law.” They have entirely changed our definitions of traitor and rebel based on blind obedience. Today, anyone who does not follow a federal declaration is a traitor or rebel. In Biblical law any ruler who went outside of law and his limitations was a rebel and traitor and was to be resisted by law.

American governance has no check on state authority, and thus, it has grown into a tyrannical monstrosity that enters all areas of life: our towns, our schools, our language, and our homes. It tries to mold us, direct us, and conform us to its will. Having no competition in the provision of law and little semblance of appropriate checks and balances in the branches, the state apparatus has fully completed its monopoly power.

Therefore, it appears that to be “biblical,” as Barton desires, much of what the Republicans endorse would need to be abolished, and should instead adopt libertarian principles of limited-to-zero government.