And with six weeks to go, one of our local Democrats has declared that dissent from Obama and his policies is not merely racist and unpatriotic, but also rebellion against God and grounds for punishment as a heretic!

The verses that the blogger at Half Empty decided to declare as binding upon American citizens are found at 1 Peter 2:13-14 -- "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. He used a slightly different translation which uses emperor rather than king, but the point I am about to make remains the same.

So what did this would-be theocrat demand of us?

President Barack Obama has today signed some executive orders altering our gun policies or emphasizing existing authorities. He has also requested that congress pass bills to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

The knee-jerk reaction has been to call for impeachment from a tyrannical leader. But remember the words of St. Peter. This quotation from 1st Peter is a clear call from the distant past to get our house in order, get behind the president, and punish those gun-toting nutjobs who would do harm.

Thus sayeth the Lord.

Now let's offer some objections here.

1. Barack Hussein Obama is neither king nor emperor, nor is he invested with the authority of said offices. It is therefore questionable whether or not this scripture would apply to Obama, or be binding upon us in the manner this verse might be if we were ruled by a monarch.
2. The ultimate political authority in our nation is WE THE PEOPLE, and the authority to which we submit is that of the US Constitution. Given that the Constitution preserves for us and allows us to exercise certain rights and liberties. It would appear to me that the disobedient individual in this instance would be Obama, who is on track to exceed his authority and/or promote policies that trespass upon those liberties.
3. We do, on the other hand, have governors -- and our governor here in Texas has come out forthrightly against Obama and in favor of the Constitution. Why is it that the blogger at Half Empty violates the scriptural injunction to submit to the governor over us here in Texas?
4. I've followed the blog in question for some years now -- and it is striking to me that the blogger was certainly not submissive to President George W. Bush in the way he now insists that Americans must be to Barack Obama. Is this hypocrisy, or is it something else?

Now I can point to a number of things here -- after all, the early church was noted for its disobedience to the emperor and his appointed officials, which earned many a Christian a trip to the arena to become lion chow for refusing to submit to the demand that they make sacrifice to the emperor as a god. Many of us today look upon the devotion to Obama and refuse to participate in it for the same reason -- we will not renounce the direction of scripture at the command of a false god.

Of course, consider where the blogger's injunction of submission to the demands of a particular ruler eventually must lead -- the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, and the Killing Fields. Submission to rulers and participation in their schemes cannot be a justification for embracing that which is evil. Those who suggest that it does are simply the mouthpieces of the Evil One, twisting scripture for ends that are not of God. I therefore direct to him the words of Jesus from Matthew 16:23 -- "Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's."

By the way, I wonder if, when the blogger quoted from the second chapter of the First Letter of Peter, he also felt it would be appropriate to make use of verse 18 just a couple of lines down -- one that was quite popular among Democrats of an earlier era -- "Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh."

Or perhaps that is the blogger's ultimate goal for all of us.