Conspiracy: A Biblical View, by Gary North - EntreWave

THE CONSPIRACY'S THEOLOGYthis one: centralization. In all things, the State is to be the pre-eminentpower, the initiating agency as well as the final court of appeal.There is no doubt that the two most representative revolutions inWestern history were the American Revolution (and Constitutionalsettlement of 1789) and the French Revolution of 1789-94 (and theNapoleonic settlement of 1799-1815). Here we find the great politicalalternatives: the American decentralization of political power vs. theFrench centralization of political power; checks and balances vs.bureaucratic sovereignty; the jury system vs. administrative law;common law ("innocent until proven guilty") vs. Napoleonic law("guilty until proven innocent"); common law precedents vs.Napoleonic codified law. In short, bottom-up society vs. top-downsociety. The Russian Revolution was simply a better-executed, morethoroughly centralized extension of the French Revolution.The Church-State AllianceThere must be a sustaining philosophy — indeed, a sustaining religion— to undergird every society. Marx was incorrect: it is not theeconomic mode of production that undergirds the prevailing religiousand philosophical ideals. Rather, the ideals determine which sort ofeconomy and political order can emerge. We must not become "closetMarxists." We must not become economic determinists, Freudiandeterminists, or environmental determinists. Ethics is primary, noteconomics or political power.There is always a necessary alliance between Church and State. Thisalliance need not be tyrannical. The two institutions need to be keptseparate. But the alliance always exists. Without a broadly basedsense of moral legitimacy concerning the civil government (or anyinstitution which possesses power), rulers cannot rule their subjectsindefinitely. To remove the king's throne, you must first remove thepriests, or else convert their leaders to new beliefs. Anything less isn'ta revolution; it is only a coup d'etat.This shift in the thinking of influential priests literally took place inthe decades before the French Revolution. That was one of the mostbrilliant and successful aspects of the program adopted by theconspirators who directed the French Revolution. A similar programwas begun a century ago in the United States: the capture ofhttp://freebooks.commentary.net/freebooks/docs/html/gnco/html/3.htm (5 of 11) [5/26/2000 1:48:07 PM]