Rebuttal to the response to the rebuttal...

My next salvo in the debate. Ben's comments are in italics.

Aaron Fugate is also correct when he says "I would contend that there are no better types of government, just better people who make up the government." However, what does he mean by "government" in this quote? Man-made government? or Self-government (the government that he claims is God-ordained)? Either would make his statement correct, but the first would threaten his premise and the second would strengthen his principles, so I will assume the latter.

Um... no. No man-made government is inherently better than another. Self-government is preferable to all man-made governments, of course, but in nations that aren't made up entirely of perfect people (like ours), it's not practical. I don't advocate that everyone in the nation practice self-government, only Christians. Everyone should be ruled by the state, local, and national governments, which God has called Christians to obey as well.

We are in the dispensation of grace, God expects a whole lot more of his children (and of the world) than avoiding a forbidden fruit. God gives more than 300 commands in the New Testament. Most are commands that Adam and Eve never read or taught. God has not changed His character but he has changed the way that He deals with man. In the stewardship of HUMAN GOVERNMENT, God gave Noah the rule of capital punishment. Noah NEVER asked for that rule and God never asked Noah what government he wanted. The expectations of capital punishment in the third dispensation are still intact. I have already made that very clear in my first post.

See, that just doesn't wash with me. God's expectations aren't any different now - he still expects us to obey him out of out of our own free will. The number of commands makes no difference; Don't you remember that Jesus Himself said that there were only two commandments worth following?

37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

You see, you can follow all the three hundred New Testament commandments you want, but if you don't love God and your neighbor, then all your righteousnesses are as filthy rags! And how do we show our love? Why, by obeying God out of a willing heart, of course! And that's exactly what God has expected of man from the beginning.

The best definition of human freewill is this: humans will always do the worst sin possible, unless there is an outside force. When it comes to the angry boyfriend who just lost his girlfriend to another man, the man who lost his woman will kill the woman unless there is an outside force stopping him, like his conscience, or the law, or his parents' love, etc. Human freewill always tends to more sin unless the man/woman involved is stopped by someone or something.

Short answer: no. Long answer. No way, Jose! There is ALWAYS an outside force for a person who is not reprobate - it is the conscience! You may accuse me of Arminianism, but you seem to be dangerously close to the first petal of the Calvinist TULIP. Human freewill can choose to obey God (NOT OUT OF THE RIGHT MOTIVES, MIND YOU), but obeying God with an unrepentant heart isn't enough. 

Aaron claims that being governed by fear is a bad idea, but he provides no reason for this. Aaron fails to define fear and he also fails to differentiate between good fear and bad fear. When a believer fears God by showing respect and reverence to his Creator and Lord, that believer is being obedient to God. Five times in I Peter alone (1:17; 2:17, 18; 3:2, 15), the believer is expected to have "fear" towards God, his/her employer, and the believing wife's unsaved husband, and two other undefined fears. I could give many more examples, but space does not allow such. Although "perfect love casts out fear" (I John 4:18), that fear is not reverence and respect of God. That fear is the fear of the loss of salvation and/or sanctification (see I John 5:13). A healthy fear of God and God-ordained human authorities is part of obeying God.

Yes, reverencing God is great, but you can'd do that until you love Him. To fear God is to obey Him, and as I've already established, obedience without love is pointless. But governments operate on bases of both fears. Yes, it's good to respect the government and its officers, but to be afraid of the government is not ideal. Citizens are afraid of oppressive governments, and this is an unhealthy relationship. Ben, in order to obtain respect from your monarchy's citizens, I fear you would be forced to oppress them to the point where they would be afraid of the government and perhaps ready to overthrow it.

On the one hand, Aaron is correct about the need for better people in government and within the the fabric of each nation. That will certainly be achieved by following Aaron's prescription of evangelism and discipleship. On the other hand, what about the bad people? What about the criminals? What about those who sin against God's law and consequently against their neighbors? If my neighbor breaks in to my house, am I expected to just give him the gospel and never call the police? What if a Christian husband loses his wife to another man (or to another woman)? Should he just pray for her and ask her to go to counseling with the local pastor? What about the Christian who has a property dispute with a man holding him at gunpoint? Should he just quote some verses at him or should he yell for help? 

These examples may seem extreme, but they are all possible and I am sure each has happened several times. These are examples of men and women who are practicing good self-government being violated by other men and women practicing terrible self-government. There has to be a human authority in each of these cases to punish those who attempted and/or carried out evil because they lack self-government (Rom. 13:1-7). This human authority should be a God-fearing monarch, governor, or employer, according to I Peter 2:11-17. Aaron's ideal government does not even seem to include this as a possibility. It sounds a lot like libertarianism, or worse yet, mild anarchy. 

Where in the blue troposphere would you ever get the idea that I am for anarchy, or, worse yet, libertarianism? YES, THERE HAS TO BE A GOVERNMENT. Christian government assumes that the sinners under its rule will sin, and makes every effort to prevent this inevitable transgression from hindering the going forth of the Gospel. Not everyone is self-governing (in fact, most people aren't) and even then, God tells us to obey the government.

Aaron advocates "evangelism and discipleship" as the church's best response to the terrible governments of this age. I wholeheartedly agree. His other response, gives me heartburn, though. He asks the Stateside believers to work on electing Christians into the government to make it change to a God-honoring government. That ship has sailed and has sunk like the Titanic to which he refers! The vast majority of politicians are corrupt socialists (redundant) who claim to be conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, etc. These men really just believe that govenrment is the answer to all problems and that morality should never mix with government. For the rest of politicians in parliamentary and republican governments, they are immediately vulnerable to lobbyists from the first they are elected. Representative government has failed Americans, Canadians, Brits, etc.

I disagree. The U.S. is still here, and God's not done with it yet. Republicanism has worked through A LOT of trials for the last two hundred and twenty-five years, and I don't think it needs to be done away with for America to survive. I mean, if  America can survive the attacks of men like Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, James Polk, James Buchanan, and Franklin Roosevelt, I think there's something special to it.

 Let me provide three REAL examples of government that was NOT representative. 

A.  Gerald Ford 1974-77. Ford was the only man to be president who was not elected as president nor as vice president. The majority of Americans did not want him at the helm and voted him out in the 1976 election. Then those Americans learned the error of their ways and elected Ronald Reagan in 1980!

B. England in the mid 1600s: The Brits did not like Charles I and eventually had him be-headed in 1649. When Oliver Cromwell, the best modern idea of a God-fearing monarch, took over, the people did not like him either and forced him out of the Lord Protectorate in 1660. They brought back the monarchy and kept it until that was unpopular to their children who forced James II out and moved England into a totally different type of government. Did any of the 17th century British leaders represent the values and views of the English populace? Most likely NOT!

C. In the late 9th century B.C., Nadab, the king of Israel (northern kingdom) was assasinated by Baasha (I Kings 15:25-30). Baasha proceeded to kill all the descendants of Jeroboam (Nadab's father). Why? Because they did notrepresent the views of Baasha. Did the people like Baasha as king? We do not know. What we do know is that Baasha was not the king chosen by the people.

Those are all governments in transition, and they represented peoples in transition. Besides, Gerald Ford was the ONLY one in the entire regime not elected, and even he had been appointed by elected officials. 

And seriously, Oliver Cromwell? He's the best you've got?! 

So... your ideal ruler was regicidal, a dictator, a hero of Leon Trotsky (described by Wikipedia as "a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army."), and also genocidal? Yeah. Real God-fearing there. In fact, after Cromwell died, the people who had been subject to his tyranny DUG HIM UP SO THEY COULD HANG HIM. They got that sick of him in five years. If Cromwell is your example, then your government has already been tried, and it failed. In five years.

The final issue with the rebuttal of Aaron Fugate is the most important. Throughout his arguments and responses to my study, Aaron fails to bring any cogent Scripture passages to defend his views. He never uses any verses to disprove my conclusions. Instead, he allludes to passages and make conclusions from those allusions. The problem is that WE need to know his exegetical process for using these vague passages to build or defend his view.

My debate is not only spiritual but also philosophical, and I guess I assumed (perhaps in error) that our audience knew the Scriptures. 

But the bottom line is, Ben, the game is already over. America's government has beaten yours, 225-5.