politics

The Christian America Project 2.0

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In the previous two articles on issues related to the separation of church and state, we traced the history of the formation of the idea of the great separation and the threats posed to it by human nature and contemporary global trends in politics, society, and religion. In this article, I would like to look at selected historical and contemporary examples of the crumbling of the wall separating church and state.

A brief history of religious freedom in the Roman Empire

In the November issue of LandMarks, I wrote that man’s age-old thinking about politics is political theology, that is, politics as a sphere of social life regulated by religion. From its beginnings, Christianity has stood in steadfast opposition to the pagan world, a world that requires conversion and lives under the rule of demonic supremacy. Therefore, Christians have sought to maintain a biblical separation from the pagan world, not accepting the relationship between light and darkness. To put it another way, Christians did not think about political theology. However, in the fourth century, an epochal change occurred. Emperor Constantine created a new world order.

In 313, the Edict of Milan was promulgated jointly by the emperor of the western part of the Roman Empire, Constantine the Great, and the emperor of the eastern part, Licinius. The promulgation of this document established religious freedom in the Roman Empire because the imperial document was not merely tolerant but expressed the idea of religious freedom based on the belief that true faith and worship could not come from coercion. Until then, Christianity had been an illegal and persecuted religion, but from then on, Christianity became a legal religion and, more specifically, was legally equated with other religions of the Roman Empire.1

Certainly, the religious freedom brought about by the promulgation of the Edict of Milan was extremely valuable and good. What is worth noting is that religious freedom was something unusual in the ancient world, something unprecedented. The Edict of Milan was promulgated not in the vacuum of socio-religious life but in the specific religious and political context of the ancient world. This context assumes a symbiotic relationship between religion and politics, creating a homogeneous social system in which religion and the state are mutually supportive. The Edict of Milan did not fit into such a world. It is also clear that Christianity, with its religious-political dualism, i.e., the professed principle of separation of religion and politics, in line with Jesus’ words on paying taxes: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God, the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21), did not fit the pagan world of the time. “In the ancient states, political purpose was equated with religious purpose and political power with religious power. The monarch was both ruler of the state and high priest.”2

Beginnings of the union of church and state

Christians now had to choose to transform and overcome the prevailing pagan principle of the union of religion and state or to submit completely to this principle. Unfortunately, Christianity chose the second option. Within a relatively short period of time, after the edict was issued, the Christian Church merged with state power, using the state’s coercion to enforce what it considered to be orthodoxy and exterminate what it considered to be heresy.

The birth of the Christian state

In 380 A.D., Emperor Theodosius issued the Thessalonian Edict, which established Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire.3 The church gained influence over the state, but the state also gained influence over the church. The balance of gains and losses of the union of church and state seemed unequivocally positive but led to the greatest deviation in Christianity. Christians, led by church leaders, adapted very quickly and very easily to the new order of things, recognizing in it the restoration of God’s theocratic covenant with Israel. Christian dissidents who did not benefit from this union were persecuted by the state and established Catholicism.4

Thus was born a political-religious alliance, its roots dating back to the Tower of Babel, which would later develop into a power that would usher in a theocratic totalitarian system in medieval Europe, bloodily persecuting all opposition. The Bible calls this political-religious power the beast. Nimrod founded the world’s first empire in which religion and the state were one.5

Christian inspired legislation

The construction of a new political-religious system was highly promising, and it may have seemed that Christianity had achieved a transformation in the cruel and decadent pagan culture of the Roman Empire, influencing the state to make legal and social changes. The Roman state passed many Church-inspired laws: the abolishment of crucifixion as a punishment, the elimination of bloody gladiatorial performances, and banned other cruel rituals. The state abolished the burning of birthmarks on the faces of slaves, and their liberation was encouraged. Pro-family laws emerged: the prohibition of abortion, adultery, and concubinage, restrictions regarding divorce, and assistance for widows and orphans. In addition, the emperor ordered soldiers to say public prayers on Sunday, supported the Church’s finances, placed Christian symbols in public places, and legally sanctioned Sunday, banning work on that day.6

Initially, the Edict of Milan by Emperor Constantine granted everyone the freedom to practice their religion according to their conscience, but later the Edict of Thessalonica by Emperor Theodosius established Christianity as the state religion, thereby invalidating the right to practice religion according to one’s conscience.

However, morality and religion imposed by state laws never lead to a true renewal of the heart. Religious legislation resulted in intolerance, and it didn’t take long before using state coercion to enforce religious laws was established. In short order came persecution—first of non-Christians, and later of Christians who disagreed with the official Church in something. Finally, Pope Leo I sanctioned the death penalty for heresy in the fifth heresy.7 Only those Christians who led lives in desolate places where the power of the imperial might of papal Rome did not reach remained free from persecution.

Christian America before the Constitution

We should note that Protestantism has also proved vulnerable to the temptation to use state coercion in matters of faith. Political theology is written into human sinful nature more strongly than we may think. Yes, the Reformation brought to the world the extraordinary light of God’s truth, progress, and much good for humanity. However, it did not abolish the church-state connection in Europe, which was the root cause of intolerance and lack of freedom of conscience and speech. Anabaptists, persecuted by both Catholics and most Protestants, were among the few Protestants who denied the church-state connection.8

A historical example is the Anglican Church’s persecution of dissenters. During the 16th and 17th centuries, thousands of religious nonconformists were forced to seek refuge on the American continent. Many of those who failed to escape were imprisoned, tortured, and killed. Therefore, America is referred to in Revelation as the “land” that came to the aid of God’s people (Revelation 12:15, 16). Here, we find another paradox of history, which is not a paradox but a confirmation that the mentality of people operating in terms of political theology is extremely difficult to eradicate. The same people who found refuge from religious persecution in Europe on American soil persecuted Christian minorities, such as Baptists and Quakers.9

The lack of separation of church and state in America caused Protestant newcomers, mainly Puritans, to try to transfer the model of church-state relations to American soil. How oppressive and tyrannical a social system can be when the church influences politics is shown by the example of religious laws introduced in the state of Virginia in 1610; of particular interest is the law on the observance of the so-called Christian Sabbath, or Sunday: “Every man and woman shall repair in the morning to the divine service and sermons preached upon the Sabbath day, and in the afternoon to divine service, and catechising, upon pain for the first fault to lose their provision and the allowance for the whole week following; for the second, to lose the said allowance and also be whipped; and for the third to suffer death.”10

The Christian America Project

Just as in the days of the Roman Empire, the church, through its influence on politics, sought the moral renewal of the empire, so today, the religious right in the U.S. is influencing politics and the government to enact legislation that the Christian right believes will halt the moral decline of the American people and lead to their moral renewal.

Social barometer—the Supreme Court

In relation to the wall of separation of church and state, a peculiar barometer of changes is taking place in politics, society, and religion. This barometer is the Supreme Court of the United States and its decisions because “the responsibility for interpreting American constitutional principles lies precisely with the Supreme Court, its jurisprudence clarifies the understanding of all principles, including those relating to religious freedom. The endless number of new doubts related to the interpretation of constitutional principles also allows the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence to admit a certain amount of dynamism. It is all the greater because this institution is not an interpretive monolith, but a place where different positions and opinions clash. An example of such divergence is precisely the coexistence in the Supreme Court of different positions on the assessment of the degree of separation of state and church between supporters of strict separation and supporters of symbiosis of the spheres of politics and religion, allowing the state to adapt, in a certain way, to the religious needs of citizens. The problem of the degree of separation of church and state is often an issue of public debate, in which the opinion of the Supreme Court is treated as conclusive.”11

The role of the President of the United States

However, let us remember that the Supreme Court does not operate in a vacuum. The President of the United States has a fundamental influence on public opinion on this issue, and his attitude, both formal and informal, to religious freedom and the social role of churches, has repeatedly set the boundaries of the separation of state and church.12

If the influence on the understanding of the separation of church and state becomes a question not of constitutional guarantees but more of the will of the majority, then we have a problem that threatens the very existence of the separation of state and church. A democratic majority elects the President, and the President appoints certain judges whose ideological profile agrees with the ideological profile of the democratic majority. The Supreme Court, structured in this way, then decides the degree of separation of church and state by a majority vote. We must then ask: Is the United States a democracy, ruled by a majority, or is it a constitutional republic, in which it is decided not only by the electoral vote of the people but also by constitutional principles that stand above the current majority?

Pro-religious Supreme Court of a global superpower

We certainly are living in perilous times for the idea of separation of church and state, for the Supreme Court, in which conservatives are in the majority, in a series of recent rulings, has undermined this wall of separation, thus undermining American legal traditions designed to prevent government officials from promoting any particular faith.13

Conservative judges appointed by President Donald Trump seek to minimize the impact of President Jefferson’s separation wall. In three 2022 cases, the court backed a Washington State soccer coach who officials suspended for leading a Christian prayer with players after a game. Using the doctrine of free speech and the right to the free exercise of religion, the judges found that the coach had the right as a citizen to lead the post-game prayer. In addition, the judges approved taxpayer money for students to attend religious schools in rural areas without public high schools nearby. Finally, the Supreme Court overturned the City of Boston’s decision to remove a flag with a cross from the front of City Hall. In that case, too, the right to free speech and the right to the free exercise of religion provided the basis for supporting the display of the flag on public property. Currently, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court supports the trend of linking free speech to religiously motivated activities.14

However, as Judge Sonia Sotomayor, quoted by Reuters, accurately noted, such an approach “brings us to a place where the separation of church and state becomes a violation of the Constitution.”15

Now let’s take a look at the composition of the Supreme Court, because something is very wrong here. “The current Court consists of six conservative Catholics in the majority: Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, as well as a liberal Catholic (Justice Sotomayor), a Jew (Justice Kagan) and a Protestant (Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson).”16

These decisions of the Supreme Court in a country with hundreds of different faiths are alarming and puzzling. The Supreme Court now has a majority of Catholic justices who will be able to advance their interests and political-religious agenda. This was not an accident but a deliberate, planned action. Random events do not exist in big politics, and it is all the more frightening because, as Ellen White noted: “The Roman Catholic Church, with all its ramifications throughout the world, forms one vast organization under the control, and designed to serve the interests, of the papal see. Its millions of communicants, in every country on the globe, are instructed to hold themselves as bound in allegiance to the pope. Whatever their nationality or their government, they are to regard the authority of the church as above all others. Though they may take the oath pledging their loyalty to the state, yet back of this lies the vow of obedience to Rome, absolving them from every pledge inimical to her interests.”17

Pro-religious President of global superpower

President Donald Trump believes he received miraculous divine protection during a near-fatal attack in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024.18 In other words, President Trump feels anointed by God to play a historical role and repay the debt of gratitude for saving his life by divine intervention on the day of the assassination attempt. How can such a debt be repaid? If only by implementing a Christian-nationalist agenda allowing churches to participate in power, giving Christians a privileged position in the country, and thus disregarding the separation of church and state. This is what the Christian right wants, and this is what President Trump promised at the National Religious Broadcasters annual meeting in Nashville on February 22, 2024, attended by leaders of the largest evangelical communications media. “If I get in, you’re going to be using that power at a level that you’ve never used before.”19 He continued: “I really believe it’s the biggest thing missing from this country, the biggest thing missing. We have to bring back our religion. We have to bring back Christianity in this country.”20

The horizon of prophetic time

Under these conditions, the majority of Christian churches in the U.S. will gain influence similar to that which the churches held over the government in the days of Constantine the Great. Then, an alliance of Catholics and Protestants will use the state’s authority to implement a religious agenda, just as in the Middle Ages. This is the future. The U.S. still upholds religious freedom and the separation of church and state. However, history does not stand still. Current societal trends, Christianity, and politics are causing the eschatological perspective to accelerate sharply. The wall that separates church and state stands, but we must fervently defend it. In the dynamically changing world around us, let us be vigilant. Let us prudently read the signs of the times and be ready to bear witness to truth and freedom.

Marcin Watras lives in Katowice, Poland. He is interested in the philosophy of religion and trends in society. He works for the European Union.

 Endnotes:

  1. Zbigniew Jaworski, Wolność religijna według Edyktu Mediolańskiego – w 1700 rocznicę wydania, published by Biuletyn SAWP June 2014, Vol. 9, No. 11 (1), pp. 17–29
  2. , p. 22
  3. The Edict of Thessalonica, February 2, 2021, historytoday.com/archive/months-past/edict-thessalonica, accessibility: 01.08.2025
  4. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Volume III: Nicene and Post-Nicene Christianity. D. 311–600, Publisher Grand Rapids 2002, p. 55
  5. Dave Hunt, Kobieta jadąca na bestii, publishing house Fundacja Świadome Chrześcijaństwo 2024, p. 51
  6. , pp. 54–75
  7. Jonatan Dunkel, Apokalipsa, publishing house Orion plus 2001, p. 93
  8. , p. 85
  9. Mark A. Noll, Protestantyzm, publishing house Uniwersytet Łódzki 2017, pp. 59, 60
  10. Articles, Lawes, and Orders, Divine, Politique, and Martiall for the Colony of Virginea, in William Strachey, For the Colony in Virginea Britannia: Lawes, Divine, Morall, and Martiall, etc. (London: Walter Barre, 1612), 1–7, 19, from the website: religioninamerica.org/rahp_objects/excerpts-of-colonial-laws-related-to-religious-establishment-and-toleration/, accessibility:
    01.12.2025
  11. Marcin Pomarański, Współczesny amerykański fundamentalizm protestancki, publishing house UMCS, p. 75
  12. , p. 78
  13. Lawrence Hurley, Andrew Chung, U.S. Supreme Court takes aim at separation of church and state, June 29, 2022, reuters.com/legal/government/us-supreme-court-takes-aim-separation-church-state-2022-06-28/, accessibility: 01.15.2025
  14. Michael Kryzanek, The Doctrine of Separation of Church and State, 30 May, 2023, bridgew.edu/stories/2023/doctrine-separation-church-and-state, accessibility: 15.01.2025
  15. Lawrence Hurley, Andrew Chung, U.S. Supreme Court takes aim at separation of church and state, 29 June 2022, reuters.com/legal/government/us-supreme-court-takes-aim-separation-church-state-2022-06-28/, accessibility: 01.15.2025
  16. Marci A. Hamilton and Leslie C. Griffin, How Did Six Conservative Catholics Become Supreme Court Justices Together?, 3 May 2023, https://verdict.justia.com/2023/05/03/how-did-six-conservative-catholics-become-supreme-court-justices-together, accessibility: 01.16.2025
  17. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 580
  18. Peter Smith, White evangelical voters show steadfast support for Donald Trump’s presidency, 7 Nov 2024, pbs.org/newshour/politics/white-evangelical-voters-show-steadfast-support-for-donald-trumps-presidency, accessibility: 01.19.2025
  19. Trump Promises to Grant Christians Unprecedented Political Power, youtube.com/watch?v=CbVqE6pacc8, accessibility: 01.19.2025
  20. Ibid.

Eradication of Liberty

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“Romanism as a system is no more in harmony with the gospel of Christ now than at any former period in her history. The Protestant churches are in great darkness, or they would discern the signs of the times. The Roman Church is far-reaching in her plans and modes of operation. She is employing every device to extend her influence and increase her power in preparation for a fierce and determined conflict to regain control of the world, to re-establish persecution, and to undo all that Protestantism has done. Catholicism is gaining ground upon every side.” The Great Controversy, 565, 566

Rome has a great history behind her of 1,500 years of exercising supremacy and control over the nations of the world. At this moment, she is moving in Eastern Europe, in Russia, and in Mexico. She is moving in the United States. In one month, our President goes to meet with the pope at the Vatican. This President is Jesuit-trained; and from all indications, he is forming his policy, at home and abroad, in accordance with the general features of liberal Jesuitism that have developed since Vatican II. Rome is moving very swiftly. Through His inspired Word, Christ enables us to cut through the propaganda of the media of our day to get to the bottom of what is happening.

A Roman Catholic conservative author has written that the United States Civil War was a religious war. In her astounding book, The Star Spangled Heresy, Americanism, 110, Solange Hertz writes, “One aspect of the Civil War which has been studiously ignored by establishment historians is its character as a war of religion. Protestants found themselves pitted against Catholics and Anglo-Catholics in a death struggle over two incompatible ways of life.” There is no getting around the fact that the only foreign power to recognize the Confederacy and receive its envoys was the Vatican from whose vantage point in the already-threatened papal states the issues could be distinguished with excessive clarity. When the U.S. authorities remonstrated with the Vatican, Secretary of State Cardinal Antonelli, for providing asylum to Confederates, according to an official report, the Cardinal replied that he intended to take such rebels under his special protection. Mary Surratt’s son, John, sought for complicity in Lincoln’s assassination, was even admitted into the papal states.

A physician friend recently sent me a most significant document. It is an article entitled The Vatican and Russia, by Deacon Herman Ivanov Treenadzaty, of the St. Nicholas Parish in Lyon, France. It opens to us a field of view of Rome’s activity with reference to Russia for hundreds of years. You see, ever since the split with Eastern Orthodoxy in A.D. 1054, Rome has been the implacable enemy of Greek and Russian Orthodoxy. This man, obviously a Russian Orthodox cleric living in Lyon, France, delivered the lecture in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, at the 24th Russian Youth Congress in the Jubilee Year of the Millennium of the Baptism of Rus’. He states, “It appears to us that Roman Catholicism is a great danger, threatening both present and future Russia; more dangerous than communism which is already on the decline.” And I would submit that it would not be so much on the decline as might be thought. It is assuming a new form because Rome has, in its encyclical, indicated that she is not in favor of the Stalinistic type of communistic or the laissez faire capitalism, but wants a middle path between the two. Quoting from Dostoyevesky, a Russian writer. He states that, “Roman Catholicism is more dangerous than atheism since it presents to us a profane and desecrated Christ, usurping the earthly throne. The pope took the sword and added lies, intrigue, deception, fanaticism and villiany.” Ivanov then comments that Catholicism is dangerous precisely because it offers a counterfeit Christ.

Ivanov reviewed hundreds of years of Russian history with reference to all of the political, psychological, and diplomatic efforts that the Vatican has made to try to overthrow Orthodoxy in Russia, showing how the Vatican has tried to rewrite the history of the introduction of Christianity to Russia. He reveals how propaganda was introduced through the media in Russia to try to destabilize the situation and pave the way for the Vatican to increase its power there. And even this current pope, today, is part of this picture, he points out. Soon after the overthrow of the czar Nicholas II in 1917, the Fatima visions which have indicated that if certain conditions were fulfilled, Russia would be converted to the papacy. It is now believed that those conditions have been met and that Perestroika is the conversion of Russia to the papacy.

All this sheds light on the gigantic struggle between Orthodoxy and the papacy. It reveals that though historians believed that the Crimean War was largely a human, political, and inter-governmental war, the archbishop of Paris, at the start of the Crimean War, declared that “it is a sacred deed, a God-pleasing deed, to ward off the Orthodox heresy, subjugate, and destroy it with a new crusade. This is the clear goal of today’s crusade. Such was the goal of all the crusades, even if all their participants were not fully aware of it. The war which France is now preparing to wage against Russia is not a political war, but a holy war. It is not a war between two governments or between two peoples, but it is precisely a religious war and other reasons presented are only pretext.” And then he comments that the case could not be more clearly stated.

He pointed out that the Vatican found the destruction of the czar, who had been the protector of Orthodoxy, and the Bolshevik Revolution a great opportunity to gain control in Russia and how disappointed they were when things did not work out the way that they had expected. And yet, they felt that somehow communism could alter the whole picture in Russia so that ultimately the Vatican could move in and take advantage of the devastation wrought by communism.

Why is this so significant? Well, by the early 1980s, more than half of the Orthodox priests in Eastern Europe were prepared to accept the primacy of the pope; and Rome realized that the time had come to strike. Using the solidarity Labor Union, which had been largely developed and fostered by the papacy, she began a chain of evolution in Eastern Europe that toppled one government after another with breath-taking speed.

Rome wants to radicalize nations, to drive them into left wing and right wing, and then, out of the insecurity that develops because of the contending factions, she feels that she can take advantage of the situation to impose a new order. This is exactly what took place in pre-war Germany. The communists were fighting the Free Corps which ultimately became the Nazi Wehrmacht. Both national socialism in Germany and international socialism in Russia had the same common basis. Friederick A. Hayek, an Austrian-born author who was a co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1974, has written several volumes exposing how the very principles that led to Nazism’s triumph in Germany and Stalinist communism’s triumph in Germany and Stalinist communism’s triumph in Russia are at work in the Western countries through socialism. We are now, in our nation, going into an enormous plunge of socialism based upon the thinking that has been developed in the Institute of Policy Studies. The social security card which was to be kept inviolately secret when it was introduced, never to be known publicly, has now essentially become our national ID card. Now, when through a health care program you have to fill out forms in order to get any medical assistance, delineating every aspect of your life, and the government can begin to control people from birth to death, all your privacy is gone.

The Russian constitution, under the USSR, made provision for religious liberty; but it also stated that if the security of the state was at risk, then those liberties could be suspended in the name of protecting the state. The very same thing happened in World War II in America when tens of thousands of Japanese were interned under the Preamble of the Constitution that it was for the common good. Socialism has, at its basis, the basic Jesuit principle that the end justifies the means.

The European Community is headed by Jacques Delors who is a devout Roman Catholic. When he took control about ten or eleven years ago, he took the European Community from a state of shambles and made it into a very dynamic force. Now we have the North American Free Trade Agreement which is similar in nature.

We have had in our country, for decades now, the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. This organization is now exerting enormous influence in this country. In his book, Secret, F. Stephen Powell documents how the Institute for Policy Studies, started by a communist a number of decades ago, has now found hundreds of front organizations for influencing American policy. It reveals that some of the top advisors to Bill and Hillary Clinton are some of the chief figures in this organization which has worked closely with the KGB for years.

Speaking of the treaty-making power of the United States, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “I say the same as to the opinions of those who consider the grant of the treaty-making power as boundless. If it is, then we have no Constitution.” On April 11, 1952, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles said, “Treaties make international law and also they make domestic law. Under our Constitution, treaties become the supreme law of the land. Treaty law can override the Constitution. Treaties, for example can cut across the rights given the people by their constitutional Bill of Rights.” What better way to repudiate the Constitution than to bring in a whole new framework of law. How acquainted are you with the North American Free Trade Agreement? It was written in such ambiguous language that there is a ninety-man commission that will be required to interpret it. Does that sound familiar?

Do you remember what happened to the Bohemians? When Rome wanted to subjugate Bohemia, she brought against them the greatest forces in Europe. She marshaled all of the nations of Europe, virtually, against little Bohemia. She gave the promises of paradise to thieves and murderers and brigands if they would only join and fight against Bohemia and subjugate it for the papacy. But as long as the Bohemians were faithful to the Lord, they could not be overcome, even by the most mighty armies. But there came a day when Bohemia decided to enter into a treaty with Rome. Rome granted all kinds of liberties, but they reserved the right to interpret this treaty. Bohemia was thrown into civil war, and it was a great catastrophe.

Now think of a ninety-man commission, with thirty from Mexico, thirty from Canada, and thirty from the United States. What is the religion of Mexico? There is a large portion of Canada which is French Canadian, which is what religion? Much of the rest of Canada is Anglican which is a step-sister; in fact, Solange Hertz calls them Anglo-Catholics. And then there is the United States. What is the premier school that produces foreign service personnel, the excerpts on international law? Georgetown University, the premier Jesuit university form which Bill Clinton graduated. The administration has chosen to keep secret the names of the people who will be on the commission from United States. They were going to release, them, but then they decided to keep them secret.

Meanwhile, from the Washington Post, Sunday, April 17, 1994, I read, “Clinton Policy Allows Public Housing To Be Searched Without a Warrant.” As you know, this has becoming a growing issue. “The Clinton administration yesterday introduced a new policy to permit police without warrants to raid and search apartments in gang-ridden public housing, but said the plan will not violate the constitutional rights of tenants.”

Harry Martin, editor of the Napa Sentinal, who has been editor and involved in at least six different defense intelligence magazines, has released the contents of a secret memo from the White House regarding the plans of the Administration to completely exterminate private weapons ownership and even camouflage clothing, ultimately, or anything having to do with anything that will enable the citizenry to resist a tyrannical government. This is the very reason, according to our founding fathers, why the Second Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights.

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John F. Kennedy conceived of the plan for all of the armies of the world’s nations to be downscaled gradually, while an international force, such as the UN, would be continually building up and increasing in power. Now, as our nation’s military is scaled back, there are reports of foreign vehicles, foreign military aircraft, and other troops pouring in.

At the same time, we see the UN decide to invade Somolia without being asked to come, setting a precedent for UN intervention. We see environmental laws blanketing the globe and a call for an environmental police force to enforce this internationally.

We know, according to Revelation 17, that ultimately there will be a grand unity of the nations. “The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast. These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful.” Revelation 17:12-14

Commenting on this passage, the Spirit of Prophecy tells us, that, “‘These have one mind.’ There will be a universal bond of union, one great harmony, a confederacy of Satan’s forces. ‘And shall give their power and strength unto the beast.’ Thus is manifested the same arbitrary, oppressive power against religious liberty, freedom to worship God according to the dictates of conscience, as was manifested by the papacy, when in the past it persecuted those who dared to refuse to conform with the religious rites and ceremonies of Romanism. In the warfare to be waged in the last days there will be united, in opposition to God’s people, all the corrupt powers that have apostatized from allegiance to the law of Jehovah.” Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 7, 983

The law of Jehovah is the foundational question. The law of God is the expression of His character. It is the foundation of His government, and rebellion against His law is rebellion against God. “In this warfare the Sabbath of the fourth commandment will be the great point at issue; for in the Sabbath commandment the great Lawgiver identifies Himself as the Creator of the heavens and the earth.” Ibid., So we have been warned that there is going to be a grand confederacy at the end of time. There will be a grand union, a grand harmony of all of the forces opposed to God’s law; and it will ultimately come down to the testing of spiritual loyalty to God and to His law or else unity with these forces that have confederated themselves against the government of God.

“Oh, clap your hands, all you peoples! Shout to God with the voice of triumph! For the Lord Most High is awesome; He is a great King over all the earth. He will subdue the peoples under us, and the nations under our feet. He will choose our inheritance for us, the excellence of Jacob whom He loves. Selah.” Psalm 47:1-4. He is awesome in His power. His glory, and His majesty. He will arise one day and vindicate the honor of His law which has been violated by puny man. These little specks of dust down here think to enter into rebellion against the great King of the universe.

God calls upon us to have spiritual loyalty in these last days, to know our King, and to act upon His principles. For the gospel of Jesus Christ provides a solution for every human contingency that we may be called upon to face in these last days so that we may emerge as overcomers—more than overcomers—triumphant in Christ.

The End