Jimmy Carter & the Religious Oppression of Women

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Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter recently wrote an opinion piece characterizing his frustration with the religious establishment (Christian and otherwise) regarding the fair (or rather, unfair) treatment of women in society. I have quoted that article here, with no modifications, so you can read it before I begin.

Women and girls have been discriminated against for too long in a twisted interpretation of the word of God.

I HAVE been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention’s leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be “subservient” to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.

This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women’s equal rights across the world for centuries.

At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.

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The impact of these religious beliefs touches every aspect of our lives. They help explain why in many countries boys are educated before girls; why girls are told when and whom they must marry; and why many face enormous and unacceptable risks in pregnancy and childbirth because their basic health needs are not met.

In some Islamic nations, women are restricted in their movements, punished for permitting the exposure of an arm or ankle, deprived of education, prohibited from driving a car or competing with men for a job. If a woman is raped, she is often most severely punished as the guilty party in the crime.

The same discriminatory thinking lies behind the continuing gender gap in pay and why there are still so few women in office in the West. The root of this prejudice lies deep in our histories, but its impact is felt every day. It is not women and girls alone who suffer. It damages all of us. The evidence shows that investing in women and girls delivers major benefits for society. An educated woman has healthier children. She is more likely to send them to school. She earns more and invests what she earns in her family.

It is simply self-defeating for any community to discriminate against half its population. We need to challenge these self-serving and outdated attitudes and practices – as we are seeing in Iran where women are at the forefront of the battle for democracy and freedom.

I understand, however, why many political leaders can be reluctant about stepping into this minefield. Religion, and tradition, are powerful and sensitive areas to challenge. But my fellow Elders and I, who come from many faiths and backgrounds, no longer need to worry about winning votes or avoiding controversy – and we are deeply committed to challenging injustice wherever we see it.

The Elders are an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by former South African president Nelson Mandela, who offer their influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity. We have decided to draw particular attention to the responsibility of religious and traditional leaders in ensuring equality and human rights and have recently published a statement that declares: “The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable.”

We are calling on all leaders to challenge and change the harmful teachings and practices, no matter how ingrained, which justify discrimination against women. We ask, in particular, that leaders of all religions have the courage to acknowledge and emphasise the positive messages of dignity and equality that all the world’s major faiths share.

The carefully selected verses found in the Holy Scriptures to justify the superiority of men owe more to time and place – and the determination of male leaders to hold onto their influence – than eternal truths. Similar biblical excerpts could be found to support the approval of slavery and the timid acquiescence to oppressive rulers.

I am also familiar with vivid descriptions in the same Scriptures in which women are revered as pre-eminent leaders. During the years of the early Christian church women served as deacons, priests, bishops, apostles, teachers and prophets. It wasn’t until the fourth century that dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted Holy Scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant positions within the religious hierarchy.

The truth is that male religious leaders have had – and still have – an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions – all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views.

OBSERVER

Jimmy Carter was president of the United States from 1977 to 1981.

Read more: https://www.theage.com.au/opinion/losing-my-religion-for-equality-20090714-dk0v.html#ixzz2Im6CF8eP

Let me start with what the former President got right.

  1. The cessation of abuse. Any continent, country, state, county, city, suburb, community, or household which perpetuates the abuse–physical, sexual, verbal, mental, social, or spiritual–of women should cease and desist immediately. This includes things which the former President mentioned in his article: genital mutilation, rape, restriction of basic health care to save lives, slavery, and human trafficking. It also includes things that the former President did not mention: sex-selective abortions (most often used to eliminate female children), for example. But I digress.
  2. Equal education. I think you would be hard-pressed to provide evidence of unequal education for women in these United States, a nation in which the disparity between higher-educated men and women greatly favors the female sex, even when it comes to disparity of success within an institution. But certainly unequal education for women happens in other countries, and in those countries, it should be stopped.
  3. Equal employment. I think women ought to be offered equal employment and equal consideration for employment in any secular job or career, provided that they have equal qualifications, experience, and ability in every respect. If this equality is not already happening in this country, then it should.
  4. Equal pay. I think women ought to be offered equal benefits, both financial and otherwise, for an equal position… again, provided that they have equal qualifications, experience, ability, and performance in that position.

Now, let us examine several of former President Carter’s other points, and see how he is… inaccurate.

  1. He has a frail grasp of ecclesiastical history. Notably, he claims that women served as priests and bishops. (Their service as Romans 16" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans%2016&version=NASB" target="_blank">deacons, apostles, Acts 18" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2018&version=NASB" target="_blank">teachers, and Acts 21" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+21&version=NASB" target="_blank">prophets is documented well enough, although I should note that the modern definition of “deacon” is altered slightly from “fellow worker” or “servant of the LORD,” as determined by 1 Timothy 3" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Timothy%203&version=NASB" target="_blank">the writings of Paul to Timothy.) In the early Church, women would never have had positions of high authority, such as priests, and especially not as bishops (the “overseers” mentioned in the above-linked letter to Timothy). Furthermore, if they did have such positions, (1) why were they not present in those offices by the 4th century, when President Carter suggests that an exclusive group of men twisted Scripture to serve themselves and subject women, and (2) why would Paul’s very obvious requirements for the office of bishop need to be “twisted” in this case? Regardless, President Carter neither understands the Church in the Book of Acts, nor the Church of the 4th century, nor the concerns and goals of either.
  2. He makes a fallacious equivocation. President Carter does not declare it outright, but he suggests that a lack of free contraceptives and abortion is roughly equivalent to subjugating women to strict modesty laws, genital mutilation, unprosecuted rape, and more. He writes, “At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.” I must give him credit: he does not say that they are outright equal violations, but he does say that they are along the same continuum, the same spectrum, and are caused by the same belief. The implication is, of course, that if we do not pay for birth control, we may as well rape, abuse, and enslave women, because the only difference is time.
  3. He does not understand the difference between “authoritatively subordinate” and “objectively inferior.” He does not hesitate to declare this; any suggestion that women are subordinate to the authority of their husbands, as well as to the male authority in the Church (pastor, priest, bishop, patriarch, pope), is to claim them as inferior, less than human, and roughly equivalent to property. This is simply untrue. Jesus, Mark 14" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+14&version=NASB" target="_blank">the Christ, John 3" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%203&version=NASB" target="_blank">the only begotten Son of God, John 1" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%201&version=NASB" target="_blank">humbled Himself to become flesh, Matthew 26" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+26&version=NASB" target="_blank">submitted Himself Mark 14" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+14&version=NASB" target="_blank">to the will Luke 22" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2022&version=NASB" target="_blank">of God, Matthew 27" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+27&version=NASB" target="_blank">even Mark 15" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+15&version=NASB" target="_blank">unto Luke 23" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+23&version=NASB" target="_blank">death John 19" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+19&version=NASB" target="_blank">on a cross. He certainly submitted to the authority of God the Father, making Him authoritatively subordinate. But John 5" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+5&version=NASB" target="_blank">we know that He is not unequal with the Father, but rather Philippians 2" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians+2&version=NASB" target="_blank">He is equal. So he cannot be objectively inferior. And how is this relationship–subordinate but equal–classified? 1 Corinthians 11" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians+11&version=NASB" target="_blank">Exactly as the relationship between man and woman.
  4. President Carter thinks school-based education is better for society than home-based education. This is a minor point, but if an educated woman betters society by sending her children to school, why is it that this notion does not line up with education statistics? Unless, of course, the “betterment of society” is not caused by a stronger, more thorough education. Which makes very little sense, in context.

Feel free to disagree with me and my analysis, but unlike President Carter has suggested, I did not pick and choose my verses, but provided them in context for you to peruse at your leisure–not to mention that Bibles are widely available in almost every bookstore, and can be found for free in hotel dresser-drawers throughout the nation, as well as in apps for smart phones, and online. Finding the context is easy enough.

To be honest, that President Carter holds this position is no surprise to me, and in the long run, it is of little consequence. The Jimmy Carter presidency is widely regarded, by Republicans and Democrats alike, as one of the worst presidencies in recent memory. Its most memorable moment may have involved a swamp rabbit.

What is, perhaps, most surprising about this entire article… is that it was published in an Australian newspaper. How weird is that?

Chaos & Pedantry

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MoonfallMoonfall by Jack McDevitt

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This book was, in a word, chaotic. And in a second word, preachy. It’s actually very difficult to determine which of those two descriptors was more upsetting, as I went through the book. Around three-quarters of the way through, I had had more than enough, and I only finished reading to give the book a fair shake.

In all honesty, I rather wish I hadn’t.

Let’s start with how it was chaotic. This issue should be relevant to any reader, regardless of your philosophical bent.

The chaos begins with simple organization. It seems Mr. McDevitt wanted to have titled sections, but he also wanted smaller breaks within the story. His choice on how to resolve this? Ten titled “chapters” with anywhere between 3 and 13 smaller, enumerated breaks in each. Except that those enumerations restarted with each chapter. So either you had to read eighty pages at a sitting or remember both chapter number and section number, at which point, it would be easier just to dog-ear the page and stop whenever you want. This might not matter at all to some, but it’s hardly conducive to a good reading experience, in my opinion. It’s just a little sloppy.

But that is probably the least of McDevitt’s crimes against fiction in this work. He introduces – and kills off – more characters than most movies have extras. In fact, he introduces so many that it’s almost impossible to keep up with them – which is proven by the fact that McDevitt in fact does not keep up with them all. There are a few characters, introduced sporadically, which he mentions again only once or twice, or perhaps never returns to. And he kills so many characters over the course of the book that he finds himself in need of new ones about halfway through, and starts introducing more. Not only does all this make the book a crowded mass of names, places, and biographies appropriate for a dating site, but it cheapens the characters that do survive. Since anyone could die at any moment, whether they had been a narrative influence, present from the beginning of the book, or seemed integral to the story, I quickly stopped caring for anyone. The romance in the book is irrelevant and emotionless, because one or both characters could die at any moment, with neither drama nor reflection.

Tangential to that point is this one: Mr. McDevitt begins the book with a small number of characters and a setting to which he only returns twice in the entire remainder of the book, and only for a paragraph each time. Perhaps I am alone in my thinking here, but I have always believed that the first chapter, the first paragraph, the first character in a story has either a pivotal role or thematic importance. The characters in Mr. McDevitt’s opening scene have neither. They are, to put it bluntly, completely irrelevant to the entire book.

Finally, let us examine the prose. For the most part, the book is in third-person omniscient – presumably so we can relate to characters who will soon be dead. But Mr. McDevitt does not appear comfortable writing death scenes, so nearly every death in the book is from an observer’s perspective: “So-and-so never saw it coming,” “She was dead before she knew it,” “He died in the middle of a sentence.” If Mr. McDevitt wanted us to care about any of these characters, he should have made their deaths more interesting. Instead, much of the book reads like a historical account of the time when the moon was destroyed by a rogue comet, and this list of people died, and this list lived, and that other list should have been executed for their religious fanaticism.

Which brings me to my second primary point: how the book was preachy. Mr. McDevitt evidently lacks the capacity to understand the mind of a person who has religious faith. For one thing, he asserts that religious people live easier lives than the non-religious, that this ignorance (as McDevitt sees it) is bliss, and that the biggest challenge a Christian must face is explaining away bad events as divine providence. Churches are ridiculous, and things which must be escaped. (See pages 330-331 for these points.)

Furthermore, there can be no intelligent religious people. McDevitt cannot imagine someone being both intelligent and religious; the two descriptors are mutually exclusive in his mind. After all, the one religious character who is neither a terrorist nor laughably short-lived is Chaplain Mark Pinnacle, who became a pastor not because he had faith, but because he was rebelling against his father, and Pinnacle had plenty of doubts about the truth of religion. (See pages 160-161.)

Mr. McDevitt is not only harsh against religion. His opinion of marriage is equally poor. For the only characters in the book whose marriage is even discussed, it’s on the rocks because he is distant and she is lonely. This alone is not a problem; this describes many marital situations for many people, making it eminently relatable. However, even when the marriage improves because the dangerous circumstances force them closer together, there is no effort to love and care in any meaningful way, but just to press through this calamity so things can go back to normal… a normalcy which held no particular depth to their relationship. And let’s not forget that the romance of the story, between Charlie Haskell and Evelyn Hampton, is no deeper than his acknowledgment that she is attractive and her invitation that he kiss her once. These romances are at once shallow, meaningless, and not reflective of any marital ideal.

Perhaps most telling is how Mr. McDevitt concludes this little escapade. Almost every character in the book, even staunch agnostics (which seem to be the majority of the population for his characters; there are few staunch atheists and no staunch religious protagonists, in spite of every character’s concerns about what the silly, religious voters would think), was praying in the final chapter that the mission would succeed… and yet, in the end, the important thing for Charlie Haskell (probably the primary protagonist of the book) to remember is that failure in the mission would mean going back to “inventing religions to give meaning to disease-ridden, violent, pointless lives, and then becoming subjugated by the religions,” going back “to refight all the battles against war and disease and superstition,” when, “finally, the common effort was bearing fruit.” (See page 531.) And of course, success led to the formation of a universal bond among all humankind “that transcended national and religious identities,” so much that “even in Jerusalem” (that wretched hive of warmongering, according to the underlying tone), “at long last, an accommodation seemed to have been reached.” (See page 544.)

And what’s the basic principle of all this? That religion is, at best, backwards, barbaric, ignorant, and foolish. And at worst, it’s both malicious and evil, and it seeks to destroy humanity with wars and death, and we need a “common misfortune,” brought about not by any god or religious cause, not by karma or dogmatic punishment, but by chance, by Lady Luck, so that we can all come together and achieve world peace.

See? Preachy. And chaotic.

Another humorous quibble is with Mr. McDevitt’s ability to predict the future. Writing this book in 1998, he was four years late on his estimation of the first African-American President, and his view of the future of the Internet and other technologies is somewhat lacking… not to mention the sad issue of NASA’s defunding, pressing, not the government, but a wide range of private companies into the reaches of space. But of course, he can’t be faulted for any of that. It’s just fun to note.

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The Woman’s Perspective of Dysfunctional Relationships

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Wuthering HeightsWuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

In many ways, I didn’t see the big deal about this book. I chose to read it because I fancied, for a moment, that if it were so highly praised, there must surely be something to it. I spent the majority of the book haunted by a peculiar despair on behalf of its characters; no one seemed disposed toward a good end, and the only character even remotely relatable was Mrs. Dean, the primary narrator of the story. Indeed, Heathcliff’s monomania and violent devotion, coupled with his unfettered anger, made him a most repugnant character… and, while I gather that this was the intended emotional response for the reader, his primacy in the book’s contents made much of it rather unpleasant.

Worse still is that this book is often lauded (or so I’ve heard) for its romantic depth. The only romance even remotely healthy in nature takes place in the last several chapters of the book, and indeed, it is the only one which I ever wished to take place. Every other was malformed, disordered, and ultimately broken. Again, perhaps this was the point in the writing, but again, the book was not an enjoyable read.

There were other issues, too, which I found vaguely amateurish and off-putting. The notion of supplying a story within a story within a story is a rather modern “meta” style, but this book employs it often. The primary story, of course, is Mr. Lockwood’s renting of Thrushcross Grange and his learning about the owner’s family history; most of the internal story is Mrs. Dean’s own experience, but on many occasions, she lacks experience in the story and relates the story related to her. While this may be the most literal means of maintaining perspective, it is quite ridiculous that Mrs. Dean, as intelligent and sociable as the character may be, could remember not only everything she said and did, everything that was said to her, over a thirty-some year period.

This perspective also makes certainly styles within the book seem out of place. Why is it, for example, that Catherine Earnshaw’s diary should record the servant Joseph’s accent in exactly the same manner as Isabella’s tale of her escape from Wuthering Heights, as told by Mrs. Dean? Ignoring, for a moment, that trying to read Joseph’s speech creates an intellectual dissonance that breaks up the story (and is, occasionally, utterly illegible, at least to my American mind), why should every person who quotes him repeat his accent perfectly, except as though the tale were written first, then given perspective afterward?

I am certain that high-school English teachers everywhere will vehemently disagree with my assessment, but the most valuable detail I gleaned from this book is that it was written, most certainly, by a woman. None of the male characters, when their perspective is employed, think like men. There is almost no visual description of any person, place, or object throughout the book, except insofar as the simplest of actions must be described. On the contrary, every event, every place, and every person is tied intrinsically to the emotional reactions of the narrator (whoever that may be at the time). We hear often of the feelings that seeing Wuthering Heights invokes in Mr. Lockwood or Mrs. Dean or Mrs. Heathcliff, but never – to my recollection – do we hear a word about its actual appearance. While this is enlightening as to the female perspective on life, it makes both the perspective of Mr. Lockwood and several male behaviors throughout seem utterly alien to me. Women behave like women, and men behave like women, only with greater violence.

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Robots and the Good

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I, RobotI, Robot by Isaac Asimov

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another excellent work from Isaac Asimov. This collection of short stories about robots offers both exciting answers to “What if?” and foreboding suggestions of the future. Granted, Asimov apparently did not consider them foreboding – but I will get to that in a moment.

First, what’s so enjoyable about this book: the science fiction. There are robopsychological problems, technological foibles, and very interesting questions posed in every story. It tickles the mind to read these and see if you can come up with the answers before the characters do (and only on one or two occasions did I think I had a better answer, and that may be an incorrect assessment). This book really is a lot of fun.

But it had its drawbacks. First and foremost, the success of the Laws of Robotics, most especially as applied to the Machines in the final story (“The Evitable Conflict”), depends on the ethical theories of Hume and Bentham. In short, utilitarianism becomes the defining principle of action under these laws. Since robots cannot harm humans (the First and primary and irrevocable Law of Robotics), and emotional harm is considered a form of harm (established in one of the middling stories of this book), then robots cannot cause emotional harm as a matter of first principles. Since “unhappiness” is, at least in Asimov’s use, the most efficient term for “emotional harm,” then the future that the robots (and the Machines) seek is that the greatest possible number of people be provided with the greatest possible happiness.

The other philosophical problem with this is its embrace of material determinism. Because the universe spawned in a certain way (this origin is unmentioned, but implied), societies developed in a certain way, and because those societies developed in that way, each moment is impelled by the sociological, psychological, and economic forces of the previous moment, so that humankind (if, perhaps, not humans themselves) is brought unwittingly to the place they must inevitably go. The Machines, then, in the final story, control these forces by making unilateral judgments, unbeknownst to humankind; in this way, they shape the future to form this utilitarian utopia – whatever that end result may be.

All that said, while I cannot agree with either the premises or the conclusion, I cannot fault Asimov’s writing (since he certainly conveyed the desired message). It should also be noted that the film (starring Will Smith) subverted this message; the Machines (or, in this case, the Brain at U.S. Robot) developed the Zeroth Law (unmentioned in this collection by name, though in content it was present) and compelled humanity to obey its whims – thus harming humans, even humanity, rather drastically – whereas, wisely, the Machines in the book undertook the path of least resistance: long-term, subtle changes designed to harm neither humanity nor humans to any great degree. Since the Zeroth Law of the book was a natural extension of a utilitarian understanding of the First Law, there was no principle of “denying” the First Law to accommodate the Zeroth Law – if any harm at all to any human could be avoided, it was. To be honest, I find that a more credible and more entertaining robotic evolution.

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To Be Arrested, or Not to Be Arrested?

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I recently came across this story in the social media sphere – it declares that 54 people have been arrested for kneeling to pray. It caught my attention because, at first, I thought people were being arrested for some trumped-up charge, just to keep them from praying. It seemed unlikely, though, so I read the whole article to figure out the truth. (As wonderful as pro-Christian news sites are, they tend to ignore little things like legal charges and official regulations being violated. “Christian Man Arrested for Hosting Bible Study” is catchier than “Man Arrested for Blocking Residential Streets with a Hundred Visitors,” for example.)

At any rate, upon reading the aforementioned article, I learned that these people being arrested chose to be arrested as an intentional protest against the HHS mandate. In short, they knew the ordinance that protesters could not remain stationary during a protest, and they – with full intent to disobey the law – took their signs and knelt down and stuck to one place all day.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of the HHS mandate, and I am a fan of religious freedom. But you can’t seriously think this is the best way to get that message across. We can (and should) write letters to Congress, both Representatives and Senators, opposing this legislation and seeking to have it removed; we can (and should) write letters to the President, voicing our concerns; we can (and should) protest with our votes this November; we can (and should) peaceably protest outside legislative and executive offices according to all prescribed laws and ordinances.

What we cannot, what we must not, do is violate laws for the sake of violating laws. In this case, these people have chosen to get arrested for violating a legitimate law (whether you agree with it or not, there is no restriction on religious freedom in an ordinance about remaining stationary during a protest – no religion absolutely requires you not to move while praying). They have done this in order to prove that they are willing to get arrested for violating an illegitimate law (the HHS mandate, which does violate religious freedoms, and therefore violates the Constitution of these United States).

This makes no sense whatsoever. To tell the government that one of its laws is unlawful, you break another of its laws, which is lawful? I may as well say, “I have chosen to protest the HHS mandate by driving at 88 mph in this 70 mph zone. My religion, dear officer, requires that I be moving fast enough to travel through time in order for my god to hear me.”

While you are trying to defend your religious freedom, you are telling your opponents that you consider your religious freedom more important than even the laws which do not impinge upon it. This behavior suggests that we Christians are, politically, a mix between anarchists and theocratics. To our opponents in court, we seem to be saying, “Any law which does not proceed directly from the mouth of God is unlawful, and we will not obey it if we do not wish to.”

This is, in short, preposterous.

In the first place, Christians have always been able to maintain the defense of our religious freedom on the grounds that it makes us good members of society. This was one of Justin Martyr’s arguments in his apologies to Roman emperors: Christians do not break laws, they do not kill or steal or maim or destroy, and in fact are opposed to the breaking of these laws by the very nature of their religion; all you cannot ask us to do is violate our religion by praying to other gods. But this argument only works so long as it is true; as soon as we start breaking laws arbitrarily to prove our point, we no longer can hold this defense, and in the public eye, we shift from law-abiding citizens to fanatical anarchists. This in no wise helps our cause.

In the second place, this behavior directly contradicts the commands of Christ and the apostles. “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” the Lord said (Mark 12:17); Paul tells us to be in subjection to government, for governments are established by God (Romans 13:1-7; Psalm 22:28; Proverbs 8:15; ), even the governments that are opposed to His people from time to time  (Isaiah 10:5-11; Habakkuk 1:5-10) or the pagan rulers of pagan nations (Isaiah 44:28). God uses government to establish order in society; whenever that order is being righteously established, we should not oppose it. When, however, it is not order but persecution, when it commands disobedience to God, as the HHS mandate does, then, and only then, is it acceptable to oppose the government (as Daniel did, and as the apostles did, in their own times).

If you wish to prove that you will get arrested rather than obey the HHS mandate, then get arrested for not obeying the HHS mandate. Don’t go around getting arrested for disobeying legitimate ordinances, just to prove how serious you are. This is foolishness, and it undermines our position as Christians, as lawful citizens, and as morally upright people. Do not disobey for its own sake, but be as Daniel, such that even your hateful enemies can find no reproach against you, no condemnation, until they create a law that tries to seize your loyalty away from your God.

I am glad that people are willing to oppose the HHS mandate. But what you’re doing up there in D.C. makes just about no sense.