Christian attorney, pastor, human rights consultant and missionary Scott Lively discusses the importance of re-establishing "coadjuvancy" between church and state.
In a piece also published in WND, Lively explained how this powerful dynamic that will allow for righteous and godly societies, but has been missing for a long time now, can be reestablished once Christians bring back a powerful but forgotten doctrine called "Christian Sovereignty."
According to Lively, freedom from men's expectations is an empowering "bonus" dimension of Christian liberty. Being willing to utter plain truth peacefully, rationally, and persistently in the midst of worldly ridicule and slander is, second only to prayer, the most powerful weapon to have in the cultural war.
Understanding what it is to be free in Christ opens the door to understanding the forgotten doctrine of Christian sovereignty.
"(The) biblical worldview is a perspective you cannot find in secular, or secularized "Christian" law schools, because it contradicts the Marxist revisionism that began flooding legal education in the late 1800s," said Lively.
Understanding the Lost Doctrine of Christian Sovereignty
Lively cited Abraham Lincoln as an example, saying that since he wanted to be a lawyer, he had to learn the "Bible and Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (which reads more like Christian sermons than much of the humanist drivel heard from many mainstream church pulpits today)."
Historically, per Lively, "all judges were presumed to be duty-bound to seek God's guidance on all matters before the court," and since God's view is "perfect and unchanging, such matters were presumed to be fully settled on all subsequent cases with substantially the same facts."
The method implies that a judge's motivations or reasoning might be flawed, and that God's Word is the only accurate yardstick on which to judge.
"Now we have no standards but the personal ethics, if any, of the black-robed tyrants who rule over us with often-blatant political bias," he commented.
The doctrine of Christian sovereignty maintains that the Christian church is a different domain of human life from the sphere of government, with distinct yet equivalent jurisdiction in human relations.
"The doctrine is implicit in the Bible in such concepts as 'kings and priests,' the 'sanctuary cities' of the Levites and Jesus' exposition of the law regarding taxation (giving unto Caesar what is his, but not what is God's)," explained Lively.
He also said that it is readily apparent in Christian civilization's history, most notably in the emphasis on church independence from government control as the "First Principle of human rights in both the Magna Carta of 1215 and the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights."
That is also evident in the judicial structure, which continues to have two branches: "the Court of Law (of 'Kings,' applying government-created rules) and the Court of Equity (of 'Priests,' enforcing the Christian ethics of justice and fairness as defined in the "'common law').
The "coadjuvancy" of church and state
Since Everson v. Board of Education in 1947, Lively claimed that Jefferson's metaphor "the separation of church and state" had been intentionally misinterpreted in corrupt Supreme Court decisions to forbid church intervention of government.
"In actuality, the original metaphor means the "coadjuvancy" of church and state, i.e. the co-administration of society by the separate but equal sovereigns of church and state - which was why Christian prayer in the public schools was (and remains) fully constitutional until it was illegally banned by the Secular Humanist usurpers in 1963, and why the national motto "In God We Trust" remains on our currency (for now)," he explained.
Challenging the American church to reclaim its sovereignty
The capitulation of secular government dominance in the context of "mandatory" incorporation as "501(c)(3) entities," according to Lively, is the strongest example of the church's loss of sovereignty.
He argued that congregations were never meant to be corporations, and that the stunning fall of Christendom into humanism-defiled religion and "social justice" politics was a clear signal. He said further that the voluntary submission to this mindset is tantamount to "religious serfdom."
Lively challenges "all like-minded remnant Christians" to follow his First Century Bible Church's lead and refuse to surrender their sovereignty over "government registration, church stewardship in all spheres of human life, including business and politics, and the sovereign control Christians have over their own bodies in relation to 'vaccines' and other public health mandates."
