please govern yourself
Please, govern yourself!
Continuation of a series on the separation of church and state...
Faith Fellowship Church...PO Box 1586 Broken Arrow, OK
74013...Terry Dashner
The American Constitution was written for people that are able
to govern themselves. John Adams wrote, "Our Constitution was
made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly
inadequate to the government of any other." Historian and author
Gary DeMar wrote as a follow up to Adams' statement, "When
self-government is abandoned for self-serving opportunism, we
should expect a decline in the health of the nation."
What is government anyway?
Before World War I, textbooks dealing with national government
were qualified with the title "Civil." According to Gary DeMar's
book entitled, God and Government (American Vision, INC. 2001,
page 3), "An example of this can be seen in a textbook used in
1903: Elements of Civil Government. According to its author,
'The family...is a form of government, established for the good
of children themselves, and the first government that each of us
must obey' (p. 18). The book continues by defining five areas of
civil government: 'the township or civil district, the village
or the city, the county, the State, and the United States' (p.
18). The term 'government,' as the older educational definition
indicates, is broader than the state. Textbook writers were
aware that there were personal, family, church, school, and
civil governments, each having a legitimate realm of government.
The state was seen as only one government among many."
Not so today. Currently, all entities of government are lumped
into one general definition--the government. It seems that the
civil government has assumed responsibility to be the
government. Washington has relieved us from what we believe is
the heavy burden of governing ourselves, our families, our
churches, and our schools. Again DeMar writes, "If the people of
the United States do not once again establish self, family,
church, local, state, and national governments to their proper
places of power and authority, our nation is doomed." Good point.
Concluding remarks...
Noah Webster stated that government begins with the individual
and the "regulation" and his "conduct." Government, in the older
definition, is moral and personal before it is practical and
institutional. Without self-governed individuals who follow some
moral code, we cannot expect good family, church, and civil
government to be developed. Self-government (or self-control)
under God is the foundation of any society (ibid. p. 11).
We can not force morality on the citizens of this nation. Nor
can we govern the ungovernable by simply adding more laws. Civil
law is for those who obey authority. Those who have no
self-control, who care nothing about civil harmony and law,
wouldn't obey authority and live in peace with their neighbor no
matter how many laws were put on the books. What is important to
America's survival is family government. It is the
responsibility of the parents to train up their children in the
"nurture and admonition of the Lord." To fear God is to govern
oneself according to the moral instructions of the Bible. If
self-government is taught in this fashion, national government
will find its proper sphere. Pastor T.