The Seven Mountain Mandate

Control is the aim of all religionists who desire civil power. They want the power of government for one single reason: they are not content to allow their religious ideas to stand or fall in competition with other religions and philosophies in the marketplace of ideas, judged by each person for themselves as true or false. Instead, they intend to dominate human thought and behavior by having government compel their religious views on society using the force of law. Since they have lost the argument in the public square, they will win it by force. Some of these religionists may have vague intentions of altruism, hoping to reform a corrupt society through religious compulsion. But, regardless of motive, as soon as the objective is obtained it is inevitable that the union of church and state will result in persecution. This is because the power of government is to make laws for society. When religionists have this power they will make laws for their religious purposes, and laws to punish breaches of their religious laws. The result is religious persecution, and the corruption of church and state. There are many examples to demonstrate that the above proposition is true. In theocratic Muslim countries where the church controls the state, censorship of media of all sorts is enforced, from books to movies, and the internet. There are religious restrictions on every aspect of society, and these restrictions are for the good of society in the minds of those who pass them and enforce them. Compliance is mandatory, and a person is considered an enemy of the common good if he dissents. In Islam, as in all religions, the ultimate dissent is considered to be conversion away from one’s former religion. But when the mosque controls the state, one converts from the religion which controls the government. In much of Islam, conversion is to be punished by death. Islamic teaching stipulates that a delay of three days for “reconsideration”, is appropriate prior to carrying out the death penalty. i The Roman Papacy also wants control of government, even global government, i and it long ago proved that it persecutes dissenters. For centuries it banned books and persecuted their authors, ii justifying it actions with the claim that reading John Locke, Galileo, and John Milton, was “heresy” and “contrary to morality”, and suppression of writings is necessary for the common good. Many martyrs were tortured and killed for possession or creation of prescribed religious materials. This censorship and persecution is supposedly justified by the papal teaching extra ecclesiam nulla salus - "outside of the Church, there is no salvation”, and, “it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.” iii Thomas Aquinas, often lauded by Catholic scholars, agreed that "to be subject to the Roman Pontiff is absolutely necessary for salvation." iv Thus, the Papacy justifies censorship by the following perverse argument: since only Catholic doctrine can save society, dissenting or heretical views must not be tolerated if society is to be saved. This position is not only ancient, but also modern. In advocating for a new reinterpretation of the Constitution through a lens of Catholic social doctrine deceptively called “common good constitutionalism”, v Harvard legal scholar and Catholic Integralist, Adrien Vermuele, stated: The libertarian assumptions central to free-speech law and free-speech ideology – that government is forbidden to judge the quality and moral worth of public speech … [should] fall under the ax. Libertarian conceptions of property rights and economic rights will also have to go, insofar as they bar the state from enforcing duties of community and solidarity in the use and distribution of resources. vi Carefully consider Vermuele’s assertions in this vein and it will slowly dawn on you that he is quietly but vehemently opposed to American independence, the Bill of Rights, and probably apple pie. Vermeule believes the United States government should be subordinate to the Roman Catholic Papacy. When he advocates for government censorship of public speech that is low in “quality and moral worth”, what he means is that the Catholic Church should direct the government to suppress public speech it opposes. Vermeule’s contentions prove the proposition that a union of church and state results in wickedness and oppression, as President John Adams wrote. vii But there may be another word to describe his intentional attack on US independence. What do you call a proposition that your country’s government and Constitution be subordinated to the Pope of Rome, who is not only a religious leader but a foreign monarch, and that your fellow citizens be stripped of their freedom of speech and property rights? While these menacing thoughts are published under the sometimes-subversive cloak of academia, Vermuele betrays enough of an inner latent Torquemada that there should be serious alarm bells for liberty lovers. Take David French, for example. French, a lawyer, former editor of the National Review, and Protestant twice has debated Sohrab Amari, a well-known Catholic Integralist and editor of the New York Post, on the subjects of American liberty and Originalism versus a Catholic social doctrine reinterpretation of the Constitution. viii French is a staunch supporter of individual rights, and the defense of civil liberties as enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Amari believes the government should be subordinated to the Catholic Church, and that the Constitution needs to be “reinterpreted” so that it conforms with Catholic doctrine. French handily won both debates. But if the Catholic church controlled the government, the French/Amahri debates probably do not end with a handshake. They end with French’s writings proscribed, his house expropriated and converted into a camp for Catholic migrants, ix and French himself chained to a rack and tortured for heresy. That is the difference when the church controls the state. Many Protestants today want civil power, and claim to be setting up a kingdom for Jesus Christ. They claim there will be more liberty in this kingdom, not less. But Protestants who believe in a union of church and state are not much different than Papists. They have behaved like Papists when they have had civil power and there is every reason to believe they will again if they obtain it again. There are many examples of the foregoing, but one or two will suffice. In Scotland, “The National Covenant or Confession of Faith” was first created in 1580 and certified by an act of Parliament in 1640. The law was approved by Charles II in 1651 as a condition precedent of his restoration to power. As noted by author and liberty advocate A. T. Jones, the Covenant “declares, in approval of various acts of the Scottish Parliament, as follows: … do condemn all erroneous books and write concerning erroneous doctrine against the religion presently professed, or containing superstitious rites and ceremonies papistical, … and ordains the home-bringers of them to be punished … and ordains the users of them to be punished for the second fault as idolaters. i In order to protect the Covenant religion, the Covenant declares that “all within the realm are bound to profess it”, and states all must: … recant all doctrine and errors repugnant to any of the said articles, and all magistrates, sheriffs, etc., are ordained to search, apprehend, and punish all contraveners; … that none shall be reputed loyal and faithful subjects to our sovereign Lord or his authority, but be punishable as rebellers and gainstanders of the same, who shall not give their confession and make their profession of the said true religion. ii Magistrates were required by the Covenant to: Maintain the true religion of Jesus Christ… and be careful to root out of their empire all heretics and enemies of the true worship of God who shall be convicted by the true Kirk of God [Church of God] of the aforesaid crimes. iii Scottish Reformer Jon Knox himself stated that “none provoking the people to idolatry ought to be exempted from the punishment of death”, and “it is not only lawful to punish to the death such as labor to subvert the true religion, but the magistrates and people are bound to do so unless they will provoke the wrath of God against themselves.” iv As noted, this is far from the only example of Protestant misdeeds when they obtain civil power. John Calvin had Michael Servetus arrested and murdered over a religious disagreement. Zwingli endorsed violence to encourage conversion, and Melanchthon drowned an Anabaptist for the “heresy” of being rebaptized. Thus we see a union of church and state in Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism all yields the same evil result. The supposedly “true” religion (as declared by thin-skinned religionists who cannot stand to have their ideas debated and adopted or discarded as the individual decides) is established by civil law, dissenting views are censored, and the expositors punished, persecuted and murdered. That is the lesson of history in all ages, and it is the prophecy of Revelation 13 that so will it be at the end of time. Revelation 13:11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. 12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. 13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, 14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. 15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. 16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: 17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. 18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. The next installment in this series will examine the links between Catholic social doctrine, the labor movement, and the push for church and state union. 

In times of persecution and danger, anonymity has long been the necessary cloak for the truth. Speaking of the oppression under which the truth labored as the Revolutionary War approached, the eventual second president of the United States, John Adams, anonymously stated the following in the Boston Gazette in 1765: Every body knows how dangerous it was to speak or write in favour of any thing in those days but the triumphant system of religion and politicks. And our fathers were particularly the objects of the persecutions and proscriptions of the times. It is not unlikely therefore, that, although they were inflexibly steady in refusing their positive assent to any thing against their principles, they might have contracted habits of reserve, and a cautious diffidence of asserting their opinions publickly. These habits they probably brought with them to America, and have transmitted down to us. i Adams was saying that the pilgrims who fled Europe passed down a knowledge of the dangers which public opinions could bring from kings and priests. The Papacy was hostile to not only religious freedom, but to freedom of thought, speech and the press. English monarchs, both Catholic and Anglican, had harshly punished dissenting views. The “fathers” Adams references are those who suffered for their faith and opinions in the public square, even to the point of martyrdom. They had consequently learned to be careful when expressing their views publicly, especially on the “triumphant system of religion and politicks”. Today, many so-called Christians loudly (and often arrogantly) demand that church and state once more come together in America and enforce their version of Christianity on the population by force of law. ii But of course such a system will result in the same oppression and punishment of dissent as it has in the past. Politicians and advocates of church/state union in America might be surprised to hear the second president of the United States speak with such ardor against their cause. But John Adams denounced the union of church and state as “tyrannical” and “wicked”. Hear this father of American independence in his own words: Since the promulgation of Christianity, the two greatest systems of tyranny that have sprung from this original, are the canon and the feudal law … By the former of these, the most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonishing constitution of policy that ever was conceived by the mind of man was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandizement of their own order. All the epithets I have here given to the Romish policy are just, and will be allowed to be so when it is considered, that they even persuaded mankind to believe,faithfully and undoubtingly, that God Almighty had entrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure; with a power of dispensation over all the rules and obligations of morality; with authority to license all sorts of sins and crimes; with a power of deposing princes and absolving subjects from allegiance; with a power of procuring or withholding the rain of heaven and the beams of the sun; with the management of earthquakes, pestilence, and famine; nay, with the mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out of bread and wine the flesh and blood of God himself. All these opinions they were enabled to spread and rivet among the people by reducing their minds to a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity, and by infusing into them a religious horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was human nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable servitude to him, and his subordinate tyrants, who, it was foretold, would exalt himself above all that was called God, and that was worshiped. In the latter we find another system, similar in many respects to the former; which, although it was originally formed, perhaps, for the necessary defense of a barbarous people against the inroads and invasions of her neighboring nations, yet for the same purposes of tyranny, cruelty, and lust, which had dictated the canon law, it was soon adopted by almost all the princes of Europe, and wrought into the constitutions of their government. It was originally a code of laws for a vast army in a perpetual encampment. The general was invested with the sovereign propriety of all the lands within the territory. Of him, as his servants and vassals, the first rank of his great officers held the lands; and in the same manner the other subordinate officers held of them; and all ranks and degrees held their lands by a variety of duties and services, all tending to bind the chains the faster on every order of mankind. In this manner the common people were held together in herds and clans in a state of servile dependence on their lords, bound, even by the tenure of their lands, to follow them, whenever they commanded, to their wars, and in a state of total ignorance of every thing divine and human, excepting the use of arms and the culture of their lands. But another event still more calamitous to human liberty, was a wicked confederacy between the two systems of tyranny above described. i You likely were unaware that Founding Father John Adams spoke so strongly against a union of church and state. And you will not likely hear his views repeated by most modern conservative thinkers or politicians. You will not hear them from the Opus Dei-linked Heritage Foundation, which authored Project 2025, or from Harvard scholar and Catholic Integralist Adrian Vermeule, who openly advocates that the Catholic Church should control the U.S. government. i You will not hear of John Adams treatise on canon and feudal law from adherents of the New Apostolic Reformation, who believe they have a mandate from Christ to control every major aspect of society. ii All these would prefer John Adams be buried in the dustbin of history because he speaks contrary to church/state ambitions. In denouncing canon law, John Adams condemned the Roman Papacy as an engine of superstition and oppression, designed to imprison the minds of the populace in “a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity”. In denouncing feudal law, he condemned that system of nobles and lords who owned the land, while all the common people were required to serve them, supposedly in exchange for protection. Medieval feudal law finds its echo in the policies of the World Economic Forum. The oft-repeated claim that “you will own nothing and be happy” is in fact nothing less than a call to return to serfdom. The devil, prince of this world, tempted our Savior in the wilderness with the allure of earthly power – the same earthly power that many Christians covet today. Satan took Christ up into an exceedingly high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them and said unto Him, “all these things will I give thee if Thou wilt fall down and worship me.” Jesus replied, “get thee hence, Satan” – see Matthew 4:8-10. It is the antichrist of the Scriptures, that man of sin, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalt himself above all that is called God, who desires temporal power. As soon as he had it he turned persecutor. As soon as modern Christians have civil power, they also will turn persecutor. This has been proven time and again in history, as will be discussed in the next article. In denouncing both canon and feudal law combined, John Adams condemned the unconstitutional aims of a growing and ambitious group of modern Christians who intend to make their “Christianity” the law of the land for the common good of society. The heart of humanity has not changed. Such a system was a curse in the time of the Inquisition, and it would be a curse in our day should it be recreated.