Thank God for the Rule of Law
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Man-made laws are a mixed bag. Motivations range from desire to build a better society to desire to pander to a constituency, increase personal power, settle a score, or cover up wrongdoing. Even when well meant, laws often bring unintended consequences.
Rule of law, though, is better. As an alternative to the rule of mere men, it’s a rare and precious blessing. A portion of the Oxford English Dictionary definition captures what I mean by the term.
… the principle whereby all members of a society (including those in government) are considered equally subject to publicly disclosed legal codes and processes.
Events of the past four years, especially the last four weeks, have exposed the fact that many who ought to be the most devoted and disciplined in support of the rule of law have lost sight of its value and importance.
Rule of law is God’s invention.
When God organized ancient Israel into a nation, He chose to do more than put Moses in charge and rule through him. He provided words etched in stone (Exodus 32:16). Eventually He provided the entire Torah (Pentateuch), and Moses and later rulers were expected to apply it to the needs of the nation—and also obey it themselves.
We might argue that Hammurabi introduced the rule of law first. Regardless, its invention was an act of God’s gracious providence in the world (James 1:17). By providing a written law to Israel, God made that clear.
Rule of law points to greater realities.
Decrees from autocrats and oligarchies inspire people to look no further than the arbitrary will of humans. They’re the ones in control and we do what they want.
Rule of law separates authority from personality, basing it outside the people in charge. But it does even more: it appeals to moral principles that are bigger than us—even all of us collectively.
In Israel’s case, those principles included “you shall be holy” (Exod. 22:32; Lev. 11:44, 19:2, 20:26) as well as principles such as the rightness of being kind to foreigners (Lev. 19:34, Deut. 10:19), respecting other people’s property (Exod. 20:15), and taking responsibility for unintended harm (Exod. 21:33, Deut. 22:4).
From a natural law perspective, the rule of law points to a transcendent order built into creation itself. From a biblical perspective, it points to the Transcendent Orderer who created. Either way, though secularists may try to deny it, law points beyond the merely human.
Of all people, Christians should treasure and zealously uphold the rule of law!
Rule of law seeks wisdom.
Legal proceedings privilege facts and reasoning over the passions of the moment, and it’s a blessing to all of us that they do. Scripture reveals that this elevation of careful though over emotion is characteristic of wisdom.
- Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly. (Prov. 14:29)
- Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered. (Prov. 28:26)
- An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge. (Prov. 18:15)
- If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame. (Prov. 18:13)
- The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him. (Prov. 18:17)
- The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things. (Prov. 15:28)
- But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. (James 3:17)
- By me [wisdom] kings reign, and rulers decree what is just; (Prov. 8:15)
The conflict over the 2020 presidential election result boils down to one question: Will the political right honor the rule of law—in most cases, long-standing state laws—or will we be ruled by our passions? The latter is the path of folly but also the path of instability and oppression. The fact that the left demonstrated the same tendencies (though on a far smaller scale) in 2016 only underscores the point. If the right doesn’t champion the rule of law, who do we think we should leave that job to?
Many conservatives believe claims of large scale election fraud and efforts to keep Donald Trump in power are honoring the rule of law. But there’s a fundamental problem with that view: the rule of law includes due process and the burden of proof placed on accusers. Accusers are required to prove that their accusations are true using credible evidence (which is not the same as “someone saying what we want to hear;” see Prov. 19:28).
Any attempt to shift the burden of proof from “innocent until proven guilty” to “guilty until proven innocent” is a direct assault on the rule of law. It’s not how we do law in America—and that reality is a blessing to all of us every day we live here.
Rule of law resists idolatry.
It’s easy to idolize a Queen Elizabeth or a Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, or a President Donald… or Ronald, or Barack or Joe. We’re constantly tempted to “put our trust in princes” (Psalm 146:3, 118:8-9).
It’s harder to idolize laws. It can be done (Rom. 10:2-4), but we’re much more prone to idolize people.
Where law is king (see Rutherford and Paine), power is distributed in written codes across regimes and generations. In the U.S., the law embodied in the Constitution spreads power across the legislative, judicial, and executive branches, and also spreads it across states. Though candidates and voters often act as though the President gets all the credit for national accomplishments, that’s not really how it works. U.S. presidents have substantial policy power, strong influence over what happens in Congress, and enormous cultural influence. But the rule of law ensures that achievements are the result of many individuals and groups working together.
It also has a way of throwing a wet blanket on our hero worship. We need that. We should thank God for it.
Rule of law is defining.
Given our national cultural decay, I think this is not overstatement: If we don’t have the rule of law, we don’t—as a nation, have anything. It’s ultimately all that keeps us from becoming Venezuela, Somalia, Russia, or China.
It’s also what makes all our other policy pursuits worthwhile. There’s no point in electing officials who are against murder if those officials are against the rule of law. This remains true if the murder we’re talking about is the killing of human children still in the womb.
This is a major shift in where we are as a nation, and one that many conservatives don’t yet seem to recognize. The rule of law used to be assumed on both the left and the right, but we can no longer take that commitment for granted—on the left or the right. Our first question about any potential president or legislator or judge can no longer be “are they pro-life”? Our first question must now be, are they pro-rule-of-law? Do they contribute to the strength of our national commitment to the rule of law or do they—directly or indirectly, through policy or rhetoric—weaken it?
Other things might be equally important to our national life. Nothing is more important.
Photo: Bill Oxford.
Aaron Blumer 2016 Bio
Aaron Blumer is a Michigan native and graduate of Bob Jones University and Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). He and his family live in small-town western Wisconsin, not far from where he pastored for thirteen years. In his full time job, he is content manager for a law-enforcement digital library service. (Views expressed are the author's own and not his employer's, church's, etc.)
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Mataxas has gone mad. Perhaps he always was mad. Have you seen his “Biden Did You Know?” video? In a recent interview with Charlie Kirk, he says he is ready to die in the fight for President Trump against election fraud. I suspect he is truly mentally deranged. More recently, he appeared as the emcee for the Jericho March this weekend alongside maniacs who called for armed revolt, whilst a My Pillow ad appeared in split screen during the broadcast.
Jenna Ellis is a young lawyer with no relevant experience who is essentially a public relations shill for Christian Nationalism. She has hitched her star to the Falkirk Center, and looks to have a great career as a pundit ahead of her. Good for her, I suppose.
These are dangerous individuals who no sane Christian should follow or support.
To the charge of slander: I find it ironic that many people on this thread have no problem slandering untold thousands of civil servants at local in local and state bureaucracies as criminals who perpetrated election fraud (for who else could have done the evil deed, if it indeed happened?), whilst providing no predication for such an astounding claim, and yet cry out because certain Christian Nationalist figures are criticized.
I leave you now. We will likely never be on the same page. Take care.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
Tyler. imagine if multiple witnesses came forward and said that someone in your church was sexually abusing children and a day after hearing the accusations, you said that you looked into it and that there was nothing to investigate. If someone said that because of the multiple witnesses there should be an investigation, would you accuse them of slandering you? That seems to be your standard with the election questions. I hope it would not be your standard in the church. As a pastor I would hope you have thought these things through. I also hope you do not treat the people in your congregation who you disagree with the way you write on SI. It may get you results as a schoolyard bully, or move you up the pecking order in the military, but it is not the way to pastor. BTW, I was not the one who clicked dislike on your post.
JD wrote:
Tyler. imagine if multiple witnesses came forward and said that someone in your church was sexually abusing children and a day after hearing the accusations, you said that you looked into it and that there was nothing to investigate. If someone said that because of the multiple witnesses there should be an investigation, would you accuse them of slandering you? That seems to be your standard with the election questions.
That is not a proper parallel. Again, multiple courts in multiple jurisdictions, including the Supreme Court, have determined there is no merit to the allegations. The Secretaries of State in multiple jurisdictions have found no reason to not certify the results. They based those decisions on reports from county auditors in multiple jurisdictions. The system has worked. You continue to misunderstand the nature of probable cause and predication. You just do not know what you’re talking about, in this regard.
I hope it would not be your standard in the church. As a pastor I would hope you have thought these things through.
I have.
I also hope you do not treat the people in your congregation who you disagree with the way you write on SI.
I am not sure what you mean. I just disagree that there is election fraud. Mataxas’ antics speak for themselves. I routinely criticize Christian Nationalism from the pulpit. My favorite line yet was when I was mentioned that Jesus isn’t a Republican, he didn’t vote for Reagan, and his kingdom will not resemble the GOP party platform. I have had multiple conversations with many church members about COVID conspiracies, the election, and Donald Trump. I have been as straightforward with them as I am here. I have even suggested to one man that he will likely never feel comfortable at our congregation, because I am not a Christian Nationalist (he suggested I do a special 4th of July sermon event).
On a related note, yesterday during a church business meeting, I said there was no conspiracy related to WA State’s COVID restrictions and we would not be “going there” whatsoever as we discussed how we would implement the latest directives. You seem to imagine me spitting at a keyboard in a rage as I wrote. The more accurate picture is of a guy just standing there chatting with you.
It may get you results as a schoolyard bully,
Oh my. Who’s doing the slandering now?
or move you up the pecking order in the military,
It won’t. The military is a highly bureaucratic machine and there are multiple interlocking criteria for advancement. “Bullying” gets you nowhere.
but it is not the way to pastor.
I agree. I have not bullied you. I just disagree with you. Again, who is doing the slandering now?
BTW, I was not the one who clicked dislike on your post.
I do not care who likes or dislikes my posts.
Can we please just leave it alone, now? We don’t agree. It’s ok. I don’t worry about it. Nor should you. Have a happy Monday.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
If you are one of the people who have opposed Trump and even his opposition to the results of the election, can you you answer these questions?
Do you believe that the changes to the old way of how elections were done brought on by COVID were done correctly in the 5 or 6 states under contention here? In other words, do you think the Supreme Court of PA has the authority to extend dates ballots were allowed to be counted over the explicit direction of the state legislature? Do you think signature matching was properly done in these states? Can you explain why absentee ballot rejection rates were historically at a significant percentage of the ballots received, but this year in several Democrat leaning counties they dropped to insignificant numbers? Does it bother you that some election officials allowed people to “cure” their ballot applications while others did not, when state law forbid it?
These are just a short list of objections to the results of the election that no court case has settled, and that no investigation looked into properly.
The Allied Security Operations Group explains:
We conclude that the Dominion Voting System is intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results. The system intentionally generates an enormously high number of ballot errors. The electronic ballots are then transferred for adjudication. The intentional errors lead to bulk adjudication of ballots with no oversight, no transparency, and no audit trail. This leads to voter or election fraud.
https://thenationalpulse.com/breaking/michigan-dominion-report/
Some will look at this report and believe the above quote without further investigation. Others will say that there is no way that quote could be true. I would hope that most of us would want more information and more investigation based on this strong evidence.
What I find especially interesting is that this evidence has been available for quite some time, but it could not be released until a judge allowed it to be released today. The Secretary of State and the Attorney General of Michigan went to court to block the release of this evidence. Today a judge said it could be released. When there is evidence but it cannot be released until a judge says so, it makes the task of justice very slow.
The Dominion stories have been debunked many times over. I sincerely hope they sue for defamation.
In Wisconsin for example, multiple hand audits of the data have been conducted and they’ve all found the machines to be accurate.
You have to do some scrolling, but The Dispatch has about half a dozen debunkers on bogus Dominion system claims. https://factcheck.thedispatch.com/archive?sort=new
But the courts are going to continue to insist on evidence, regardless. Thank God for the rule of law!
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
According to 19 congressional leaders, it seems that SCOTUS and many other courts so far have not been willing to do what they are supposed to do. These congressional leaders want to hold hearings about fraud in this election.
This effort is not about who worships Trump and who does not. It has everything to do with whether we have had free and fair elections in our country this past November.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/rep-mo-brooks-18-colleagues-re…
You should read the entire letter from these congressmen to understand what they are concerned about and want to address.
It’s politics, Rajesh.
I don’t object to hearings into individual cases of suspected fraud. Lots of that has happened across the states and it helps states develop refinements to their procedures and laws. I don’t really object to Congress doing it either, but let’s keep something in mind: everything that happens in Congress is politics. There may also be some sincere desire to solve problems mixed in there also, but there will always be spin. The courts are far less oriented toward that, since they don’t have to be re-elected every few years. (This is by design in our Constitution.)
But simply as a matter of probability: which is more likely to make somewhat objective assessments of evidence and law? Judges (quite a few of them Republican-appointed conservatives) or politicians who are always campaigning, always going for the optics, always pandering to a base to some extent?
I’m all for fact finding investigations, whoever does them. But declaring the conclusion first (a made up large scale fraud story) then trying repeatedly to find evidence and convince courts is completely backwards—and anti-rule of law.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
ALARMING: OFFICIAL MICHIGAN ELECTION REPORT Blatantly States More Than 174,000 ABSENTEE BALLOTS HAVE NO VOTER RECORD, Yet Were Counted Anyway
https://www.thedailyfodder.com/2020/12/alarming-official-michigan-election.html
The election officials in Wayne County admit that there are no voter registration number on these ballots, yet they counted them anyway. When they can do this and the Secretary of State and Attorney General do not look into it, we have a huge problem. The theory is that these ballots do not have registration numbers because these were the ballots that were counted multiple times or they were the ballots that came in the “food trucks” in the middle of the night. When these matters are not allowed to be investigated, we should be concerned.
We also need to remember that just because the prominent media sources are not reporting about this does not mean that it did not happen. We have election officials admitting that there are no voter registration numbers and we also have witnesses testifying that laws were broken. Even if you are suspicious of Mellissa Carone’s testimony- as I am- there are other witnesses as well. Further, there is a request for video footage to back up the witness testimony:
Gateway Pundit Requests 3:30 AM TCF Center Footage of Detroit’s Biden Ballot Dump
This article is worth reading. It shows why we want more answers. I also see no reason why the video footage should not be released.
I heard about the 174,000 votes on a local radio show and wanted to find an article, so I did a Bing search. I found that it is much more likely to find this info doing a Bing search than a Google search. Some have said that Google is censoring these things. I cannot prove that, but I do know that I get more balanced results with Bing when it comes to political issues (they seem to give links to articles from both sides of the political spectrum more often than Google- not that Google never gives both sides).
[Aaron Blumer]How do you explain courts, including SCOTUS, that are doing things like this?It’s politics, Rajesh.
I don’t object to hearings into individual cases of suspected fraud. Lots of that has happened across the states and it helps states develop refinements to their procedures and laws. I don’t really object to Congress doing it either, but let’s keep something in mind: everything that happens in Congress is politics. There may also be some sincere desire to solve problems mixed in there also, but there will always be spin. The courts are far less oriented toward that, since they don’t have to be re-elected every few years. (This is by design in our Constitution.)
But simply as a matter of probability: which is more likely to make somewhat objective assessments of evidence and law? Judges (quite a few of them Republican-appointed conservatives) or politicians who are always campaigning, always going for the optics, always pandering to a base to some extent?
I’m all for fact finding investigations, whoever does them. But declaring the conclusion first (a made up large scale fraud story) then trying repeatedly to find evidence and convince courts is completely backwards—and anti-rule of law.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/georgia-supreme-court-slow-wal…
[Aaron Blumer]Here is a brief video (around 7 minutes) that you and everyone else should watch. In the video, the key IT expert who was involved with the forensic audit in Antrim, MI, denies what you (and others on SI) say about courts (so far) ruling objectively based on the evidence. He categorically asserts that there was voter fraud with the voting machines used in the election.It’s politics, Rajesh.
I don’t object to hearings into individual cases of suspected fraud. Lots of that has happened across the states and it helps states develop refinements to their procedures and laws. I don’t really object to Congress doing it either, but let’s keep something in mind: everything that happens in Congress is politics. There may also be some sincere desire to solve problems mixed in there also, but there will always be spin. The courts are far less oriented toward that, since they don’t have to be re-elected every few years. (This is by design in our Constitution.)
But simply as a matter of probability: which is more likely to make somewhat objective assessments of evidence and law? Judges (quite a few of them Republican-appointed conservatives) or politicians who are always campaigning, always going for the optics, always pandering to a base to some extent?
I’m all for fact finding investigations, whoever dhttps://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/going-evidence-comes-forward-n… them. But declaring the conclusion first (a made up large scale fraud story) then trying repeatedly to find evidence and convince courts is completely backwards—and anti-rule of law.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/going-evidence-comes-forward-n…
I’ve already called it what it is. Courts doing their job vs. politicians playing politics.
Recommend reading better sources.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Recommend reading better sources.
One of the huge challenges that we face is difficulty in knowing what sources are reliable and which sources are not. Many of us are convinced that the traditional news sources are not always reliable and that they even have a clear bias. No doubt the source Rajesh quoted above has a right leaning bias, but we also know that the traditional news sources have a left leaning bias. The solution is not to just ignore all news nor is it to say that only that SI approved sources should be used (I doubt we could agree on what those approved sources would be anyway).
The media bias has even crept into how our state of South Dakota and our governor are represented (see Joab’s post above). We have had a few covid outbreaks here, but so have other states. Our state is not way worse than others. We live about 10 miles from Sioux Falls, the largest city in SD. I have a neighbor who was quite sick with covid (he is under 70) but I know of no one personally who has died from it. I am not saying no one has. We have a good friend who had a loved one die of it. I am simply pointing out that South Dakota does not have people dropping like flies over covid.
South Dakota did make recommendations, but did not implement extreme lockdowns. Businesses were allowed to function, although many have allowed employees to work from home and safety measures were taken to promote social distancing. Because we did not have extreme lockdowns, our economy has done well. Our state has had plenty of tax revenue this year and again has a surplus. Our budget is balanced. The city of Sioux Falls is within a couple percentage points of the tax revenue that they had last year. The unemployment rate is the same as it was a year ago.
You are free to disagree with our governor’s support for the president, but it is unfair to say that her covid response was a disaster. I am here living in South Dakota. The info I am giving you has not been filtered through News Max or CNN. Her response has been a success.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/a-whopper-of-an-election-rigging…
There is symmetry, then, in that Antrim is central to the latest fraud claim: namely, that a long sought “forensic imaging” investigation has shown that the software used in Dominion voting machines has a 68 percent error rate!
The claim is false. President Trump retweeted it all the same, notwithstanding that, for the source of the claim, Russell Ramsland Jr., a personal 68 percent error rate might be something to strive for at this point…..
This figure, in an apples-to-oranges manner, refers not to an error rate but to an alert rate, and not to ballots but to the election-management system’s tabulation logs.
It’s instructive to note the differences in tone and quality and quantity of reasoning in this piece vs. what one finds at gateway pundit.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Writing as someone in MN, COVID got here in spades way before Sturgis. Moreover, if you look at the COVID infection/death rates in South Dakota, there’s really not a spike after August. There was the famous (German? infamous?) prognosis that Sturgis would lead to half a million deaths back in August, but the data simply don’t bear that out.
I’m not quite sure why there wasn’t a spike. Maybe it’s because revelers stayed in their tents and campers when they were feeling down, and maybe it’s because most activities were outside to begin with. But what’s going on in South Dakota now is simply that the virus eventually got there and took off. They’re getting hit harder than MN because their age and weight demographics are worse, IMO. Lots of farmers in their seventies carrying a lot of extra weight is not a good recipe for fixing things.
(there were spikes in August and September around colleges that re-opened, but not clearly due to Sturgis)
The correlation I see in the nationwide data do seem to indicate a big spike after the beginning of November, but whether that’s people coming out for election rallies, the onset of winter, or what is anyone’s guess. My personal guess is a bit of everything.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
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