Southern Bread Blog

I have an internal policy that I try to never speak of politics in church. Especially during bible study or the like. If I’m specifically asked what I think about an issue during small talk, I’ll go ahead and answer. But, as a general rule, I use this blog as my outlet for my thoughts on those issues so that I can leave that kind of talk out of the church. The last thing I want to do during a bible study is say, “well, I’m an anarchist, so I believe so and so about that issue.” That would sideline the study of God’s word into something very unproductive.

In a similar vein, I tend not to discuss purely theological issues on this blog. You won’t see me expositing scripture very often. Even though I have very strong theological convictions, I know there are a million other people better qualified than I when it comes to theological studies. Thus, I generally just keep my mouth shut and let those with more skill do the heavy lifting. But, there are instances where I feel it’s justified to address a scriptural issue. One of those instances is when people use scripture to give open ended justification to the State.

I saw this done recently in the comments section on one of the Stand to Reason blog entries. Here’s the comment:

According to Romans 13:3, God’s authority flows through secular powers through channels apart from his Church. The secular powers, of whatever faith–or lack of faith–[t]hey have, answer to God directly.

–Johnnie, Comment on STR Blog

I’ve given what I consider to be a very logical analysis of Romans 13 in the past, here and here. I suggest you read those posts if you haven’t already.

Johnnie says that Romans 13:3 declares that “God’s authority flows through secular powers.” Well, first let’s read what Romans 13:3 actually says:

[3] For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same;

–Romans 13:3, NASB

I can only assume that when he says “God’s authority” he means some type of moral imperative. Otherwise what he says doesn’t make any sense. But, we know that governments don’t always do what Paul describes here. Governments often punish good, praise evil, imprison the innocent and celebrate iniquity. Therefore, Paul is either completely ignorant, which he’s not, or he doesn’t mean it that way. Obviously, I think it’s the latter. What Paul is doing here is describing what proper government is and what our relationship to it should be. He’s talking about government in it’s definitional sense. The problem is that pure government rarely exists. We’ve only seen it a few times in human history. Most of what we get isn’t government at all. It’s various gangs of thugs holding people hostage with guns.

There are further problems with the standard interpretation of Romans 13. Firstly, if we are “to be in subjection to the governing authorities” (Rom 13:1) without qualification, then why do we constantly break that rule when it comes to governments that are not our own. For instance, there are hundreds of missionaries in China that are there under work visas. This is a violation of Chinese law, as is smuggling in Bibles, which is also constantly done. Where in Romans 13 does Paul exclude Asian governments from his dictate?

And, for those Christians who have supported all of the recent foreign wars the U.S. has been waging, why is it ok for us to advocate the overthrow of a foreign government? Are they not also “established by God?” (Rom 13:1) What part of Romans 13 excludes Saddam Hussein as having gotten his “authority” “from God?” (Rom 13:1) If Iran wants a nuke, which part of Romans 13 would indicate that it’s ok to oppose them in that endeavor?

See what I mean? If you take the man-on-the-street interpretation of Romans 13, it creates not only logical problems, but practical problems for the modern church’s behavior. It would seem to make those things which we know are right(like getting Bibles into China) into sin. And, perhaps worse, it would seem to excuse the very tyranny that creates a government which bans bibles in the first place. Romans 13 is not governmental carte blanche and we must stop using it that way.

While reading some more in the excellent book Destroying the Republic by John Chodes, I ran across a section where he mentions President Hayes’ promise to end Southern occupation. I instantly thought of Obama’s recent declaration that the war in Iraq is over and he’s bringing the combat troops home. Of course, he’s done nothing of the sort. There are still thousands of combat troops on the ground in Iraq, and there will be for a long, long, long time. But, evidently the practice of pronouncing an end to an occupation that you never intend to actually end is in the presidential DNA. Here’s what he says:

In order to make them accept him as president and to prevent endless legal roadblocks to his placement in the White House, and to diffuse the probability of another war, Rutherford B Hayes promised the Democrats he would withdraw the Federal troops from the South and end Reconstruction.

But – even in his nomination speech, Hayes said that the government would “protect all classes of citizens in their political rights”: a veiled threat often stated by Ulysses S. Grant, Oliver Otis Howard and the Republican governors, implying that Washington would continue to generate fraudulent stories of race war to justify a continued military presence.

In addition, “Hayes, had promised to withdraw troops from South Carolina and Louisiana. But this would mean the collapse of Republican governors Packard and Chamberlain… Deposing Packard and Chamberlain would split the Republican Party. Twelve Republican Congressmen announced they would vote with Northern Democrats if this was done. Then Hayes would be unable to get any legislation approved by Congress.”

…

Hayes made this comment in his diary for May 11, 1879, nearly two years after he said he would pull Federal troops out of the South: The Democrats “have passed on an affirmative new measure which repeals for the day of elections many valuable laws. They call them war measures, and seem to think that as the war is over [yes, fifteen years before!], these laws should be mustered out. We are ready to muster out the soldiers but… we don’t muster in again the evils that caused the war. Besides, it is for the victors to say who shall remain, not the vanquished.”

Twenty years later the threat of military intervention was still a reality for the South. And Curry, possibly coming to his senses at last, described the truth: “A studied effort is being made to induce the South to believe that under McKinley as President there will be no danger of another attempt to re-enact the Force Bill to oppress us with sectional legislation. These spurious representations may guile those who wish to be deceived; but they are too ‘thin’ to impose on any who have recollections of the past.”

–Chodes, Destroying the Republic

I’ll repeat what I’ve said before: we in the South have been occupied by foreign aggressors before. We’ve been objectified as “rebels” and “backwards” before to justify keeping us under military supervision. Yet, for some reason Southerners are, today, robust advocates for the military and war. We should know better. We should understand well how presidents and politicians lie us into war for their own benefit and then lie their way through occupation in order to keep us in fear.

We should know better than to believe that Iraqi’s are backwards terrorists that want to kill us because they hate our freedom. No. They are God’s precious creations just like us. And just like us, they don’t want to be ruled by some foreign army. They want to live in peace. They weep for their war-dead children just like an ante-bellum Carolinian woman would have done – holding her tender child in her arms after having to see them killed by a stray bullet or cannon shot. All because some far off government felt it was “necessary to preserve the union” or the more modern version: “to preserve freedom.”

It wasn’t the war that preserved “the union”, it was the brutality of the post-war occupation, misleadingly called Reconstruction. It took nearly 30 years of military occupation before the South had finally been sufficiently beaten into submission enough to just give up and let their wills die in their own chests. And along with the death of that unique Southern spirit died it’s culture. That was the plan all along, and that’s the plan in the middle-east as well: to break their will and destroy their culture in the name of democracy and freedom. Not because that’s somehow a good idea, but because it expands and preserves power and money for the political class. There’s always some noble political cause to be commandeered to justify the satiation of a politician’s lust for bloodshed and war profits. The money might be made during war, but the empire is built through occupation.

I think it’s safe to say that the debate over the size and scope of the American government is over. This is a new ad from the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue. The message is clear: pay up or we’ll send Vinny and the boys to your house to break your kneecaps slave.

[H.T. ZeroHedge]

This is pretty scary stuff.

Again, we see that JFK wasn’t following the rules. Here he is advocating for reducing the tax burden. Of course, he didn’t pair that with a call for reduced spending, and he was still a war monger, but hey, I’m trying to be charitable here.

Part 1:

Part 2:

I want to start doing some historical analysis of some of the Presidents. Many of them are much worse than we’ve been taught, and on the flip side, there are a few that aren’t nearly as bad. The best way to see this is to look at their own words; See what they actually said. I’ll start it off with John F. Kennedy.

I think many conservatives have mistakenly thought that they must hate JFK because he had a “D” after his name. But, you must remember that “D” and “R” are meaningless. What matters is who is pulling the strings. In Kennedy’s case, there weren’t many string pullers behind him. He was a rare example of a semi-independent political figure, so the real string pullers had to take him out.

This is the kind of speech that got him killed:

*Previous game day food posts.

This dip is awesome. Make it this weekend in a small crockpot as a good alternative to Rotel cheese dip. Better yet, buy another crockpot and serve ‘em both up.

• 10 oz. shredded deli corned beef
• 1 (16 oz.) can sauerkraut
• 1 c. Thousand Island dressing
• 10 oz. shredded Swiss cheese

Dump it all in the crockpot and go.

What a ridiculous piece of propaganda:

Look. I fully appreciate the moral significance of sacrificing yourself for someone else. After all, our Lord said, “greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13 KJV) But, I don’t appreciate having some generic “you better thank me for what I did for you” nonsense shoved down my throat. I happen to think that WWII was a waste of American lives. I think that we should have let the Germans and Russians war themselves into bankruptcy. I am of the opinion that fewer Jews would have died if we hadn’t pushed our way across the Rhine. Now, remind me again of what I’m thanking you for? Or am I supposed to just shut up and worship the state and it’s big stick.

There is one way to never get respect, and that’s to get up in somebody’s face and demand they give it to you. I have no idea what SermonSpice is, but I’m sure it’s just another religious organization that’s in love with the state’s war machine.

I guess I’ve been on an anti-war kick lately. I’ll try and post something different next.

This is a great interview. Lew gives a good overview of why central banking is the best thing that ever happened to the warfare state and why Republican statists and Democrat statists have a love affair with the Fed. Listen to it:

Scott Horton – Interview with Lew Rockwell: