Government Lawlessness and the Rise of Vigilantism
Frédéric Bastiat, in his 1850 work The Law, wrote, “When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.”
Bastiat’s warning in The Law is one of the most precise critiques ever penned about what happens when government power drifts away from justice and under the color of law promotes lawlessness. It is common sense that laws should never be used to authorize what is unjust. The main purpose of a just government and its laws is to protect the life, liberty, and property of its law-abiding citizens. This ethos is reflected in our very own Declaration of Independence.
Furthermore, all laws are based upon someone’s definition of morality, and all morality is based upon a religious foundation. Show me a nation’s set of laws and I’ll show you the gods they worship. The questions that remain are whose definition of morality is established and what is the religion that provides its basis. In Western Civilization, the morality of law rested on the firm foundation of Christianity.
Historically, what has been the foundation of Western civilization’s liberty are two primary Biblical principles. When the state commands what God prohibits, or prohibits what God commands, mankind must obey God rather than man. These were the checks and balances that decentralized power and safeguarded freedom.
When lawmakers and its citizens reject those two principles and use the law to enforce something evil—like theft through excessive taxation, restricting freedoms by over regulation, or favor corrupt, wicked, criminals and penalize the law abiding, i.e. abortion and sodomy—they corrupt the very concept of law.
This travesty of justice inverts the scared text written by the Apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, “For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil” (Romans 13:3a). When governments issue laws that protect the evildoer, and penalize the good, it betrays the scared trust of civil government, which ends up defending the indefensible.
At that point, the citizens are faced with two bad options: First, obey the law and participate in injustice whereby they can lose their moral sensibilities and second, if they disobey the law to remain moral, they can end up losing their respect for government. This is the “cruel alternative” which can facilitate establishing tyranny in the government and anarchy in the culture.
The problem with this dilemma is three-fold. The laws of that nation no longer reflect justice. Second, the citizens no longer trust their government. Third, morality and legality drift apart. Once that happens, social cohesion breaks down and chaos reigns. We have been there for decades, and it appears there is no end in sight.
In Europe, the citizens have been subject to the perfect storm. Their immigration laws, along with the increase of illegal immigration, have created intolerable conditions for the citizens of Europe. The governments of Europe have consciously decided to not only reject the concerns of its citizens as they are being harmed but take the side of the immigrant criminals who harm them. If they do complain, they are the ones being prosecuted.
As a result, citizens are starting to take matters into their own hands to protect their communities from those who are raping their wives and daughters and murderously massacring their fellow citizens. They are organizing to do what should be done by civil authorities. Vigilantism is now on the rise in Europe.
Closer to home in America, for years, Christians who rescued the preborn from death by exercising the doctrine of interposition were arrested for doing the duty of the civil magistrate. The unjust law that allowed the murder of the preborn also provided protection for those who murdered them. The criminal was defended and those who were good in God’s sight were penalized.
Abortion established a double abomination, “He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 17:15). Besides the injustices of these abominations, many times Christians were assaulted by pro-abortion supporters.
The attitude and actions of law enforcement were deplorable. They rarely prosecuted those who broke the law. When challenged by this obvious discrepancy, their attitude was Christians deserved it for being there in the first place. Here again, the problem was not that innocent children were being murdered. The real problem was Christians exposing this evil and demanding this criminal activity be abolished. Time and again, the criminal was coddled and those who did good were penalized.
In a recent case, a pastor from Louisiana made headlines for beating up his neighbor. It is a controversial case, and Christians are divided over whether this man was justified in his actions. Some say it was understandable but not justified. Others claim it brings a stain upon Christianity, while others hail him a hero and want to bestow upon him the “Pastor of the Year” award.
If the back story is true, however, people must wrestle through its implications. In fact, this is one of the main reasons for writing this article. Apparently, what led to the brawl was an ongoing confrontation that lasted for 6 years. Pastor Tony Spell was arrested 33 times during the Covid debacle. He refused to close his church and continued to hold worship services. The police set up surveillance at the neighbor’s house to spy on the church. From there, the relationship between the church and the neighbor became more and more adversarial.
The church members stated that they were harassed, yelled at with profane vulgarities, mixed with hateful racial slurs. They also mentioned threats of rape and murder by these neighbors from Hades. This went on for 6 years. The members testified they contacted the authorities several times, but their concerns were not followed up properly by law enforcement. Law enforcement denies these allegations of neglect of duty. Whatever the case, prayerfully, the truth will come out at the court trial.
Regardless, Pastor Tony Spell stated on that fateful day that this neighbor threatened to rape and kill his wife and children. It was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. He went across the street to confront the man. As he approached, the man took the first swing, and this pastor opened a full can of whopping.
As I’ve been thinking through the implications of all this in Europe and America, the thoughts that came to me are these incidences our generation’s shots that are being heard around the world. Historically, the shot heard around the world came from a church parking lot in Lexington and Concord. It was Christian, armed men defending their homeland who stated, “Do not fire, unless fired upon, but if they want war, it starts here.” To this day, we don’t know who fired that fateful shot, the Americans or the British. What we do know is that shot became the catalyst that led to America becoming a free and independent nation amongst the nations of the earth.
Thomas Jefferson once quipped, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” Most, including myself, may find this a bit extreme and recoil at its implications, but does it remove this reality in history?
One thing is for sure; this world is on a head long collision with the reality of government lawlessness and the rise of vigilantism. As Christians, the biblical answer is not simply calling for stronger governmental measures or greater training in personal retaliation, but a return to God's righteous, just, and loving rule.
There is always a divine tension between authority and liberty. If our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is not the rightful Sovereign and King, then men pursue two failed options. The state is therefore king, which has led historically to unprecedented murderous regimes that crushed the people they claimed to serve, or the individual is sovereign which inevitably leads to chaos, confusion, and anarchy.
Only “One nation under God” can secure the delicate tension between authority and liberty. Only “One nation under God” can provide a proper social order on one hand with maximum individual freedom on the other hand. There is no other worldview or faith that can accomplish this in our poor-fallen world.
If We the People desire to end governmental tyranny and injustice, along with the rise of vigilantism and anarchy, God’s Word states, “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent” (Revelation 2:5).
As we approach our 250-year anniversary as a nation, it would be prudent to consider our ways. It is high time we remember, repent, and renew our commitment to being not in word only but in deed and in truth One Nation Under God in Jesus’ name!
IN KING JESUS’ SERVICE,
Pastor Rusty Thomas
