THE FOUNDERS' WORLDVIEW
AUTHORITY AND POWER
APPLYING THE DIFFERENCE
The Creator has authority over His created works. This first principle of Creation authority has much significance since it forms the foundation upon which our nation, the United States of America, rests. The Founders instituted our civil government to secure the individual unalienable rights granted by the Creator to each person He creates. Accordingly, no other nation has ever been so blessed.
Consequently, with these facts in mind, a common source exists for every problem faced by us as individuals, as members of a family or a church and as citizens of this nation. Every problem has an underlying cause which produces certain effects in every life touched by each particular problem. Upon honest study, we can trace the cause of every problem existing on the face of this earth to an act of power exercised without authority.
The Founding Fathers believed that each individual is created by a Creator. As Creator, He has authority over our bodies. In other words, our bodies are not our own. Therefore, we have only stewardship rights over our own bodies and will be held accountable to the real owner, our Maker, who rules over all His works. The Holy Spirit was poured out on all flesh on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:17) staking God's claim on the life of that flesh He created.
For those who believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, their physical body is called the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Creator grants no authority to a person for treating his or her body in a manner that violates His will. Therefore, the taking of drugs or engaging in sexual activity outside a legitimate marriage relationship are acts of power exercised without authority.
Within a family, the Creator gives no authority to commit child abuse, incest or adultery which are examples of power exercised without authority. Spanking a child with a rod is not child abuse as the civil government would have us believe. God requires parents to spank their child under specific conditions. The declaration by social services that spanking is child abuse does not conform to the will of our Creator. Such imposition of the civil government's will on a family is an act of power exercised without authority.
In a church, the violation of a rule aligned with God's law is an act of power exercised without authority. God grants authority for doing the right thing. No one is given authority to do the wrong thing. The absolutes of right and wrong flow from God's created order. Such absolutes have various names including God's law, the laws of nature and nature's God, the Higher Law and the Law above the law.
God has given authority or jurisdiction over various responsibilities to the primary governing agencies including the family, the church and the state. For example, He gave jurisdiction to parents over the education of children (Deut. 6:6-7; Eph. 6:4). Neither the state nor the church has authority to educate children unless the parents delegate that authority to them.
While the parents were accountable to the Creator for the education of their children, our nation experienced profound growth and ranked first among the other nations in the world with respect to liberty. The United States was unmatched economically, socially and militarily. However, since the State declared itself the exclusive sovereign, the civil government has exercised exclusive control over education without authority.
For the past thirty years, the man-centered, Humanistic/Atheistic mind-set has dominated public education. During this period, the United States has slipped from its position of excellence among the nations of the earth to a level of mediocrity never before experienced throughout our land.
The first principles of the American Constitutional Republic center around authority while raw power controls the operation of an Atheistic Socialist Republic. Authority centered in Almighty God was at the heart of the Founders' work and must be restored to the people. We must teach the difference between authority and power so that the fundamental principles of the American Constitutional Republic can once again prevail in our society.
© Neil F. Markva
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