The Growing Bayonet
Posted on May 27, 2007
Filed Under Worldview |
The AP news today from London is that the British are contemplating legislation that will increase the power of the police to stop anyone without cause and apparently request identification papers and ask questions like, “Where have you been?” and “Where are you going?” and “Why?”
All of this is part of a new anti-terrorism bill that Tony Blair believes is important for the security of Britain. In an editorial in The Sunday Times, Blair accused judges, activists, and opposition lawmakers of valuing civil liberties above Britain’s security. He stated that any outcry about recent inabilities to combat terrorism should be understood in the context of courts and a parliament that have consistently blunted previous attempts to introduce stronger powers to mitigate the problem.
Let’s ponder this for a moment. What are we to think about all of this?
Early on in America, there was a very clear perspective that the establishment of a civil government designed to provide freedom and liberty would have to be resting upon two foundations: religion (by which was meant biblical Christianity) and morality. I briefly blogged on that before (”Christian Education”) and won’t belabor it now.
However, from that perspective, the founders understood that if a people ever walked away from the first foundation, the resulting lack of morality would require a requisite decrease in freedom and liberty and an increase in the power of the state to govern the lack of personal self-control.
Benjamin Franklin expressed it like this:
[O]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.
Robert Winthrop (former Speaker of the House) stated it this way:
Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.
Britain is beginning to recognize this stark reality and is trying to increase the size of the bayonet to survive. Whether or not the Brits accept this decrease in their freedoms, I cannot predict. But this I can: any country that cannot deal with the erosion of true morality within its borders will certainly have to respond with curtailing freedom and granting expansive powers to police force. Like the law of supply and demand, the law of morality and force is also inversely proportional.
For years, western civilization has been fairly unified on certain ethical notions that we deemed to be morally wrong. Wanton destruction of innocent human life and property was considered at, or near, the bottom rung of human actions. Islamic terrorism has turned this on its head. Destruction of innocent life and property is considered not only ethically right but an obligation exists to do so. Whether a nation allows those who hold these beliefs to immigrate into its citizenry or to be homegrown, the size of the bayonet is going to have to grow exceedingly large to arrest it. If the number of those who hold this worldview position grows to some tipping point within a nation, it is possible that ultimately only a tyrannical form of government will be capable of suppressing it. A ruthless bayonet and a stripping of all freedoms may be the only solution to an unwillingness to stop it earlier through other means.
But Islamic terrorism is not the only perpetrator of this situation. The founders didn’t need to point to any specific cause, only the reality of what would happen when we abandoned biblical Christianity and began to live as if we were accountable to no one but ourselves—doing what was right in our own eyes.
We are confronted, this Memorial Day, with a choice. Either we are going to reject the continual pressure of hedonistic relativism and the rising hostility to anything biblically Christian and return to embrace the foundations that are the prerequisites to freedom and liberty, or we will wake up soon to the reality that those freedoms will have to be replaced with a very long and very sharp bayonet.
We cannot have it both ways. Neither can the Brits.
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8 Responses to “The Growing Bayonet”
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Dr. Del Tackett is president of the Focus on the Family Institute and Senior Vice President to Focus on the Family. He is also the architect and chief spokesperson for Focus on the Family's The Truth Project--a nationwide initiative designed to bring the Christian worldview to the body of Christ.
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I’ve just recently found your blog, through FOTF. Thank you so much for your insight and willingness to speak truth.
This blog makes so much sense I could cry. This explains so many things: why I must now put up ‘No Trespassing’ signs around my yard (the police can’t enforce private property rights without it, and there is no respect for a neighbor’s property), why I was forced to make special request for a handicapped parking space (no one would willingly give me easy access), why I must change my online banking password every month (someone’s always trying to steal my personal information). It’s true that as personal morality decreases, external control must be imposed.
But I have hope. I believe this is what Jesus referred to in the parable of the wheat and the tares: evil IS increasing, but so is righteousness! We lose sight of the fact that there is an increase in what God is doing in our midst! We look around and we see our neighbors doing drugs in the midst of their drinking party, we see gay marriage promoted on TV shows, and we see mega-company executives sent to jail for fraud and embezzlement.
But we must balance those things with what God is doing in our midst: in one year the pregnancy center ministered to 397 young women in crisis who previously had no where to go (saving the lives of babies and preventing the devastation of the consequences of abortion), five new missionaries were sent out from our church to the far corners of the earth, and the Alliance Defense Fund wins yet another case in court against the onslaught of the ACLU.
Truly, the time of the Lord’s return is near. Let us be found faithful until the end! Let’s not grow weary, but trust in the loving sovereignty of our God.
Abundant blessings,
Cathie Ochoa
Dr. Tackett,
When I read the first few lines of your post, it chillingly reminded me of what life must have been like in Nazi occupied countries during WWII.
I do not fully understand why people are choosing to lose their civil liberties rather than to find freedom and liberty in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I suppose that most of us are scratching our heads on that one : )
Anyway, I am so thankful that you are “leading the charge” as it were for Truth. My husband and I are doing what we can to affect our little corner of the world, but boy its a BIG job!
God bless you and the work you do.
The quotes by Ben Franklin and Robert Winthrop reflect what the Bible already says.
Proverbs 28:2 “For the transgression of a land many [are] the princes” [bureaucrsts, policemen, etc.] “thereof: but by a man of understanding [and] knowledge the state [thereof] shall be prolonged.”
May God be pleased to bless this land with more, many, many more, men of understanding and knowledge like Dr. Tackett.
Hope I can leave a second.
Could it be tht Muslims in general, and governmental heads of Muslim countries specifically, are a whole lot smarter than Christians in the west? I think so. They do not allow Christian missionaries into their countries. They understand that a worldview is, at the end of the day, necessarily and inescapably RELIGIOUS is nature. It has been rightly observed that culture/politics is religion externalized. Muslims understand that a country/culture/political system that is atomized by “pluralism” or “multi-culturalism” is doomed to fail. They are watching the collapse of the west, and they know just exactly why it is collapsing. “Multi-culturalism”, “pluralism”, whatever label you want to put on the bottle doesn’t matter. The contents of that bottle are poison, spelling cultural collapse. Islam is seizing on the very obvious opportunity to make their “religion” the dominant one in the west. Is there not a school of Islamic Law at Harvard University? Do we not have at least one Muslim in or running for office now? Unless the Church of Jesus Christ in the west wakes up and gets out of the business of entertainment and narcissism, a temporary collapse would be a just judgement of God on us for our lack of repentance. Perhaps the pastor from the Soviet Union, Georgi Vins, is right when he says “God put an iron curtain around Russia to keep American Christianity OUT!!!”
I’m reminded of Patrick Henry’s famous statement: “Give me liberty or give me death.” It sounded very noble when I heard it in history class as a youngster. It sounds a lot more sobering now, in these days of Islamic fundamentalism and “homeland security.” Now, it’s a very real choice that we must make: our liberty or our safety.
Understanding the Biblical worldview has given me such great peace in all of this (that’s PEACE - not to be confused with APATHY). Knowing that God is ultimately in control of the world’s affairs, that He WILL accomplish His will, and that we can safely trust in Him, gives me great joy! Of course we must continue to actively participate in our governmental process and make Godly choices. And we must PRAY - like Jehoshaphat - for the battle (against terrorism in our case) is too great for us. We are the Church - God’s people - and He has clearly told us what we are to do if we are to see our land healed. We’d best be about it!!!
Dear Dr. Tackett:
Thank you for so clearly describing our culture’s troublesome problem in your essay, “The Growing Bayonet.”
Indeed, Benjamin Franklin was very clear on this subject, when he stated: “[O]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
Robert Winthrop, former Speaker of the House, agreed: “Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.”
As the wife of a recovering sex addict, I can validate your and their position. My husband turned away from a life of Biblical Christian principles, so “tough love” and the “bayonet” of the law was necessary to bring his life back to the Lord. I rejoice that he is back. The reality is that unless one lives his life following Jesus Christ, one is lost to the narcissism of our times, and the law will need to prevail. Thank you for your faithful understanding and for sharing your knowledge with others.
Sincerely,
Carol Ann
Dr. Tackett,
The points you bring up in this article, along with the two quotes, have pinpointed an area that has troubled me for some time about our country’s position in Iraq.
If these things are true, and they evidently are, how could we expect the people of Iraq to establish or perpetuate a constitutional democracy?
It isn’t going to happen, is it? At this point, I think the best we can hope for is to pull back and let the inevitable carnage take place, absent a sovereign move of the Spirit among the people until the population reaches the “tipping point” in the right direction.
Am I missing it?
Mr. Bishop,
The true Christian faith is a very personal choice made by souls that are free to choose and are not coerced or forced in any way. It is these souls that make up the “Body of Christ”. Along with this choice, comes the responsibility, or even better, a desire to follow a moral code that makes the need for the bayonet much smaller if necessary at all. You are correct in a way, that the heads of Muslim states fear the decadence of the West. And we, as a country, are certainly responsible for allowing our drift away from the true moral path given to us by our Creator. However, neither fanatical Islam, nor Communism allows for the exercise of personal choice, especially when it comes to choices of faith!
A coerced belief system doesn’t make Islamic leadership smarter. In fact it is just another form of man’s exercise in futility. It’s futile, because ignoring God’s supremacy in all things and trying to impose a faith (or no faith, as in Communism) on a people is not the path given to us by God. It is, in actuality, man’s foolish method of replacing God with an artificial and worldly set of rules. To force a faith, through coercion makes any result artificial, meaningless, and destructive. God happily welcomes those who choose the path he has defined. This path results in eternal life with Him. God also allows those who choose to turn away from His path, to earn the resulting destruction. Coercion is not His way.
The true Christian faith is not involved in the mainstream entertainment industry. In fact the majority of Christian churches are continuing to challenge the mainstream media industry to improve. They do this by offering alternative sources of information and entertainment. They also do this through purchasing decisions and letter writing etc. They do not force, through coercion, anything.
Christians are not perfect either! We have all faltered and sinned. However, the ability to falter and fall away from God’s given path is inherent with the gift of free-will. We as Christians know that the only way to be resolved with God is through faith in His Son. The God given gift of “free-will” cuts both ways! We can choose the true path as defined by God. Any other path leads to destruction. Freedom gives us the “freedom” to choose. Neither Islam nor Communism allows these faith choices to go unhindered. Both radical Islam and Communism fear freedom because neither could long survive in its presence.
I can’t verify your quote by the Baptist leader/pastor Georgi Vins. He was a Christian that led his church of followers in the former USSR. He and his followers were severely persecuted for their Christian faith. His father was also a religious leader and was executed for his labors. Mr. Vins came to the U.S. in 1979 in a spy trade; and lived the last 18 years of his life supporting his Russian congregation from his new home of Elkhart, Indiana. It was here in the lap of freedom, that he was free to choose and exercise his faith and continue to support his friends in the former USSR.