I am sure that others could come up with more (or even different) premises, but these are my own, and I recognize them as foundational for even starting to understand our reality – and of course, I am speaking mostly as an American, living in the United States of America; because I am speaking as such, I am forced to manage my life and my interaction with those around me based on these premises, and since these premises are non-negotiable, any attempt to violate them would result in my arrival at a wrong conclusion concerning reality and life. Since my goal is to interpret reality as accurately as possible, I will most certainly put my interpretation in the context that Jesus has already returned and that our reality, whatever it may be, it is encompassed by yet a larger one, which is the overwhelming presence of Christ and His Kingdom which permeates all aspects of life. This all-encompassing reality cannot be seen with human eyes, therefore it is hard to grasp it here and now. This raises even more questions: Should Christians even bother relating to society at all? In the scheme of things, does it make a difference? Millions of years from now, will it matter who won the elections in the U.S. in 2004? Since I don’t want to bore the reader, I will cover a few points rather quickly, and then hopefully later address comments and questions raised.

The Reality of Society

The reality of our society is something that is simply fascinating to me. It is interesting to note that God meant for us to live together with other people – that is why Adam was not created alone. Terry Hall often uses an interesting illustration to make a point: if one day you wake up and you realize that everyone but you on the entire planet has disappeared. You are the only one left. Suddenly you realize that everything in the world belongs to you – all the cars, money, homes, food, etc. All of it belongs to you! How often did we all as children imagine this sci-fi scenario and thought how “cool” it would be to own the planet? It is a great thing to dream about and imagine, however it becomes problematic in that soon you will realize that you would be miserable and unhappy because you have nobody to share your life with. This safely leads us to the conclusion that societal value comes from a variety of people interacting with each other. Therefore variety and interaction creates value!

Legalizing Morality

In their book “The Social Construction of Reality”, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman approached the issue of reality in a straightforward manner: “I know that my natural attitude of others, that they also comprehend the objectifications by which this world is ordered, that they also organize this world around the “here and now” of their being, in it and have projects for working in it. I also know, of course, that the others have a perspective on this common world that is not identical with me. My “here” is not their “there.” My “now” does not fully overlap with theirs. My projects differ from and may even conflict with theirs. All the same, I know that I live with them in a common world. Most importantly, I know that there is an ongoing correspondence between my meanings and their meanings in this world, that we share a common sense about its reality. The natural attitude is the attitude of commonsense consciousness precisely because it refers to a world that is common to many men. Commonsense knowledge is the knowledge I share with others in the normal, self-evidence routines of everyday life.” (pp. 23) What is interesting about Berger and Luckman’s perspective, is that they recognize both a global reality – “I know it is self-evident and real” – and a personal reality – “My ‘here’ is not your ‘there’” – existing simultaneously, and simultaneously being valid. Now before our brains explode from confusion overload, can we at least agree that “morality” is not as black and white as like to think? One story which comes to my mind that would help everyone relate to my point is the story of the very first American missionaries going to Africa to preach the Gospel. When they arrived, they immediately communicated to the native women that it was “wrong” to walk around without covering their breasts. Clearly in some of the African cultures, a woman’s breasts being displayed in public is a non-issue, while in our culture we perceive it as morally “wrong”, which is why we have laws banning it. So how do we then reconcile these two diametrically opposing views?

The Importance of the States

The idea of the States being a haven for freedom and independence goes all the way back to the Federalist Papers. In No. 45, Madison wrote: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”

So then it is not unreasonable to expect the federal government to fail when attempting to pass and enforce laws regulating morality. While Madison may have not had the insight to predict that in year 2004 women would be willing to kill their own babies, and men would want to marry other men, he certainly had the sense to understand that any federal attempt to curb such immoral behavior would be futile. In fact, Madison expected a system in which “without the intervention of the State legislatures, the President of the United States cannot be elected at all.” He continued saying, “They must in all cases have a great share in his appointment, and will, perhaps, in most cases, of themselves determine it.” Madison saw even the Senate of the United States as being appointed by Sates legislatures, “thus each of the principal branches of the federal government will owe its existence more or less to the favor of the State governments, and must consequently feel a dependence...” (The Federalist Papers, No. 45: Madison). It is not unreasonable to claim therefore that the founding fathers of our country did not envision a federal government which passes laws which attempt to reconcile Western and African moral differences for example.

Those of you who are strongly – and maybe justifiably so – supporting a third-party presidential candidate, are supporting him based on promises made by the candidate. Both the Constitutional Party candidate and the Libertarian candidate promised to “abolish the 16th amendment and the IRS.” As I commented before, I would like both these candidates to explain to us in great detail how they will go about doing this. The President does not have the authority to abolish constitutional amendments, nor can he abolish a government agency that handles government income created by a constitutional amendment. Thus in quite a clear sense, those of you supporting a third-party presidential candidate are in fact acting against the most basic institutional guiding lines of our country. You are in a direct and unequivocal way taking power from the States and give it to the federal government. How then, can you be so outraged over the lacking performance of President Bush? Should you not then abstain from voting altogether in order to protect the constitutional elements and the limited form of government expected by our founding fathers?

In his paper “Can we legislate morality”, Rushdoony wrote “Law is good, proper, and essential in its place, but law can save no man, nor can law remake man and society.” I couldn’t agree more. Which is why I believe in a federal government which does not pass laws which regulate murder, abortion, homosexuality or any other thing which we would deem “immoral.” Only in case of war, in which the reality of imminent danger is palpable should the federal government exercise its enforcing authority and destroy the enemies of our States. And most certainly, since Christ’s Kingdom is all encompassing, why should we even consider legislating anything related to individual rights at a federal level? As we can plainly see as Preterists, the gates of the New Jerusalem are wide open allowing everyone to enter and leave as they wish, therefore it is quite evident that the States should handle their own moral legislation – be it biblical or not – and thus deal with the consequences of their good or bad choices. Only a system implemented this way would allow biblical morality and legislation to shine and prove itself to the world. With the federal boot on out throats, today we are in the unfortunate situation of not being able to ban abortion and homosexuality if we so wish, which is why only when States are allowed to be truly independent from federal intervention – be it moral or otherwise – can true moral value be created by the variety and differences in state laws!

Conclusion

So is morality as black and white as we think? Could it be that God allows us to bear some degree of error in our personal understanding of the world, while the larger, and more complete truth will be revealed to us later on, maybe after we physically die? Regardless, we need to understand that uniformity, in the form of socialism, communism, Christian legalism, etc, devalues both the society and the individual, while variety creates value. Jesus never once forced people to follow him. He never used force to stop people from sinning, otherwise grace would have been diminished and made inconsequential. Was Paul also not an advocate of unbridled freedom and personal choice as well? In Romans 5, he wrote “The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” This is by no means a license to sin more, but it does provide a brilliant insight into the mind of God: freedom brings grace to light, and legalism will hide salvation.

Since our understanding of the reality of our society appears to be to some degree subjective, we should, especially as Preterists, understand and profess our differences in regards to society and we should all be unified. Thousands of years from now, we may look back and laugh at our insistence on the importance of November 2, 2004, but our children and grandchildren may not have the luxury to do it a few decades from now. Those of you proposing a third-party candidate as the savior of our society should not forget that a direct vote for President is an aberration in itself. Still, you continue to refuse to be consistent and are still willingly ready to hand over power to yet another federal suit.