What, if anything, should the state do about heresy?

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BayouHuguenot said:
So if he spurns God's moral law as a magistrate, that's not a sin? You do understand that the Reformed confess that God's moral law is universally binding?
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Yes, to him/her would be sin to go against the law of God, but would be different than a non believer leader doing that also...
 
Dachaser said:
I am just saying that God is not killing off right now all who disobey Him...
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David,
No one (and I mean no one) has suggested this. You have introduced the scent of a red herring, to get the attention off of the logical conclusion of your theology...
 
Is drinking human blood wrong? Or rather, is the magistrate sinning in preventing the Satanist to religiously drink human blood?
 
TylerRay said:
The government as a whole--do they have a duty before God to protect and defend Satanism, or not?
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Tyler,

The short answer is an emphatic "No!". Of course, there is a longer explanation.

As I read my own confession (1689 LBC 24.1) in light of Romans 13:1-7, the role of the civil magistrate is clear, although it is not clear that Paul was writing specifically about God-fearing magistrates. We are obligated to obey all leaders and authorities over us unless doing so causes us to break God's law. As to whether the government has a duty to protect and defend Satanism, I already gave you the answer every Christian should respond with. However, in the United States, we have a constitutional government that protects pluralism when it comes to religion. The free exercise clause (1st Amendment) was never envisioned by the founding fathers to include heinous religious practices but nor did it exclude them. Perhaps the founders thought common sense and decency would prevail over two centuries later. Abortion and same-sex marriage should dispense with the notion that the Constitution is primarily concerned with protecting a Christian ethos.

I believe the civil magistrate should govern righteously and punish evil. Romans 13:3 makes that clear, but is anyone willing to hold their breath waiting for that type of magistrate this side of eternity? I wrote in a previous post that we should live "as if". My postmillennialist brethren actually believe that day will come. I am not so optimistic, although I would rejoice to be proven wrong!
 
Herald said:
Tyler,

The short answer is an emphatic "No!". Of course, there is a longer explanation.

As I read my own confession (1689 LBC 24.1) in light of Romans 13:1-7, the role of the civil magistrate is clear, although it is not clear that Paul was writing specifically about God-fearing magistrates. We are obligated to obey all leaders and authorities over us unless doing so causes us to break God's law. As to whether the government has a duty to protect and defend Satanism, I already gave you the answer every Christian should respond with. However, in the United States, we have a constitutional government that protects pluralism when it comes to religion. The free exercise clause (1st Amendment) was never envisioned by the founding fathers to include heinous religious practices but nor did it exclude them. Perhaps the founders thought common sense and decency would prevail over two centuries later. Abortion and same-sex marriage should dispense with the notion that the Constitution is primarily concerned with protecting a Christian ethos.

I believe the civil magistrate should govern righteously and punish evil. Romans 13:3 makes that clear, but is anyone willing to hold their breath waiting for that type of magistrate this side of eternity? I wrote in a previous post that we should live "as if". My postmillennialist brethren actually believe that day will come. I am not so optimistic, although I would rejoice to be proven wrong!
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Bill,
That's a fair answer. I'm interested to see David's response, though--he hasn't been clear at all about what the government should do. You've given a clear answer that distinguishes your conviction about the duty of the magistrate from your expectation.
 
Herald said:
Tyler,

The short answer is an emphatic "No!". Of course, there is a longer explanation.

As I read my own confession (1689 LBC 24.1) in light of Romans 13:1-7, the role of the civil magistrate is clear, although it is not clear that Paul was writing specifically about God-fearing magistrates. We are obligated to obey all leaders and authorities over us unless doing so causes us to break God's law. As to whether the government has a duty to protect and defend Satanism, I already gave you the answer every Christian should respond with. However, in the United States, we have a constitutional government that protects pluralism when it comes to religion. The free exercise clause (1st Amendment) was never envisioned by the founding fathers to include heinous religious practices but nor did it exclude them. Perhaps the founders thought common sense and decency would prevail over two centuries later. Abortion and same-sex marriage should dispense with the notion that the Constitution is primarily concerned with protecting a Christian ethos.

I believe the civil magistrate should govern righteously and punish evil. Romans 13:3 makes that clear, but is anyone willing to hold their breath waiting for that type of magistrate this side of eternity? I wrote in a previous post that we should live "as if". My postmillennialist brethren actually believe that day will come. I am not so optimistic, although I would rejoice to be proven wrong!
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I am not taking in this question that we are discussing the role of a Christian government in making sure just the law of God is obeyed, but that we are describing things that have to be permitted, even though we wish they were not, in a Republic as we were founded on being.
 
TylerRay said:
@Dachaser, I see that you have made several comments since I posted this one in response to your question in post #178.
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My response is that a non christian government, based upon our kind of republic, has to grant even them religious freedom to worship satan, as long as not harming anyone or anything else.
 
TylerRay said:
Bill,
That's a fair answer. I'm interested to see David's response, though--he hasn't been clear at all about what the government should do. You've given a clear answer that distinguishes your conviction about the duty of the magistrate from your expectation.
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The government, in this nation, should make sure that even satanists have their religious rights enforced, but also make very sure that they are not abusing their right, by engaging in say hurting/abusing children, human sacrifices for example.
 
Westminster teaches that the magistrate is an ordinance of God, and in that sense it is broadly theonomic in its outlook. Westminster confines the magistrate’s sphere to nature in distinction from the sphere of grace in which the Church functions, but theonomy denies the nature-grace distinction and derives the authority of the magistrate from Christ as Mediator. Whereas Westminster teaches the connection of Church and State by means of Christian constitutionalism and guards against persecuting measures, theonomy separates the two and makes the State an agency for propagating the Christian religion independently from the Church. Westminster teaches that the rule of the magistrate is the moral law of God which gives normative direction for law-making, but theonomy advocates the magistrate is bound to the whole law of God as it prescribes specific actions in particular situations. Finally, Westminster maintains that a Christian magistrate over a covenanted nation may suppress blasphemies and heresies with the liberty to alter the kind and degree of punishment, but theonomy makes the Old Testament punishments binding and unalterable on all nations. Westminster and theonomy clearly set forth two divergent schemes as to the nature and function of the civil magistrate.

Conclusion
There can be no doubt that the Christian Church needs to give more serious attention to the law of God and its application to modern society. Those churches that subscribe to the Westminster formulary have less excuse than others for not being more active in this regard, when it is considered that their subordinate standards amply testify of the social responsibility of Christians. It may well be that the theonomic movement has helped to create a greater awareness of the need to develop a biblical social ethic, but theonomy itself falls too far short of the wisdom and balance of the Westminster formulary to be a useful ethical system.

The theonomic view of law does not have its roots in Puritanism but in the separatist ideals of Brownism. It rejects the natural law tradition which was fundamental to the Puritan system of ethics and fails to distinguish between moral and situational commandments. The theonomic view of the civil magistrate has more in common with Erastianism than with the Presbyterianism of the Assembly of divines. Although it follows the modern separation of Church and State, theonomy ascribes to civil power a commission under Christ to nurture and advance His kingdom by means of the sword. There is no recognition of the distinct spheres of nature and grace nor any acknowledgment of the Christian constitutionalism which is evident in the writings of the Westminster divines.

The only appearance of similarity between the two systems is in the formal appeal to the Old Testament punishments, but there is no substantial agreement. When the divines of the Assembly appealed to these punishments it was for the purpose of preventing the slide of a Christian commonwealth into atheism and schism. Their only concern was to show that a Christian civil magistrate has the power to suppress blasphemy and heresy by means of the sword, and they left room for the free use of reason and prudence to determine how this might be best accomplished. Theonomy, however, presents the civil punishments as a cure to the immorality of modern non-Christian States, and insists the magistrate is bound to enforce these punishments because they are revealed by God. Do the Westminster Confession and Catechisms teach “the abiding validity of the law in exhaustive detail?” If the system of doctrine as a whole is observed, and the original intention of the divines is respected, the answer must be a definite ‘no.’” pp 88, 322.​

Quotation from “The Westminster Assembly & the Judicial Law: A Chronological Compilation and Analysis". The Confessional Presbyterian, vol. 5 (2009). Part One: Chronology, by Chris Coldwell (1–55); Part Two: Analysis” (56–88) by Matthew Winzer.

Src:
https://www.puritanboard.com/thread...chronological-compilation-and-analysis.78672/
 
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