[This part 7 in a series on God and justice. See part one, two, three, four, five, six, eight, nine, ten]

Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

If one were to observe the activities of the institutional “churches” around the world, be they Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox, they might conclude that the things that please God are participating in various rituals within a so-called “church” building. One might be led to believe that singing, dancing, sermons, “masses,” burning incense, wearing robes, lighting candles, kissing icons, venerating relics, blessing objects, holding prayer ropes or rosaries, sitting in pews, making confessionals, rock bands, or any other number of church acts, are what constitutes “worshiping” God and makes up the whole of how we are to define religion.

These institutions, often receiving their stamp of approval from Caesar’s tax-exempt office, are able to make men believe that the things God desires of us are the acts found in the typical “Sunday service” today — that we are to serve God by “going to church.” In doing so, they have helped to present a false idea of God to both their congregants and those interested in worship, which has the effect (intentional or not) of driving people away from true religion, which is more about justice, love, and service to one’s fellow congregants and neighbors than these vain rituals and gatherings we see today. These institutions make people believe that the role of Christ’s church is attending services in a building, and that dressing up in a costume or dress clothes, lighting some candles, or singing some songs, are the essence of worshiping the Lord. However, genuine religion, defined as how we serve one another, is much broader and deeper than the superficial practices promoted in these “churches” today.

These “religious” practices and traditions serve to reduce the things God really cares about to almost nothing. They work to make the word of God to no effect by keeping the focus on rituals and traditions rather than actual service to neighbors and the “weightier matters” Jesus points to (Mark 7:13). An impartial observer, or even someone genuinely inquiring about God, might conclude that the primary thing God cares about is some generic “worship” fulfilled by weekly attendance in a building, warming a pew, or observing a “mass.” They may decide to keep walking, assuming that God’s sole message is simply “go to church and partake in their rituals if you care about Me.” Many men are kept from knowing the Lord and the things He truly cares about—a just and free society where men are liberated from the bondage of Egypt—by being turned off from the acts of the institutional churches.

Something sinister

While the average attendee may be a well-intentioned seeker of the Lord who is being misled by the people who put on these shows, the false pastors and priests leading them are more likely engaged in a sinister effort to undermine the true role of “the church” as a servant to the people which functions as a government that provides for all the needs (welfare, food, clothing, shelter, protection) of their people and works to replace all the things presently controlled by States by doing these things themselves, knowing that the kingdoms of this world carry out these things by robbing our neighbors and threatening them with violence. They steer men away from their true role of Christians, which is seeking the Kingdom of God as an alternative to the violent kingdoms of this world, and make men believe that “the church” is nothing more than the acts that one can observe in the buildings today which call themselves by that name. Rather than meeting with one another to serve each other as a networked congregation that functions as a government and seeks the Kingdom of God, these gatherings have become mostly money-making enterprises that elevate celebrity pastors and other clergy members with seminary credentials over genuine service to the Lord and community. They don’t actually feed the sheep and shepherd their flocks, but leave them at the mercy of false benefactors of worldly kingdoms, who hand out free bread in order to make slaves. While the true role of the church is to literally feed the sheep so they they don’t have to go and apply for the bondage-inducing benefits of Egypt, the false “churches” of today feed the sheep on feel-good sermons spun by professional, seminary-trained sophists and then spit them back out into the world Sunday afternoon to collect the benefits of Pharaoh (eg., food stamps, social security checks, Medicare, etc). They don’t actually understand their God-given role to serve one another. They make men believe that “religion” is confined to the rituals that take place in their churches, and that such things as protection and social order are the role of human civil government.

It isn’t good enough however to say that these false institutions called “churches” aren’t doing things right. These institutions do not merely conduct a “worship service” that we may view as misguided, innocent, or benign. If worship is to be understood as service to one another, they are not truly carrying out worship at all. Rather, they work to lead the sheep astray from the true things of God. They serve the purpose of getting men to forsake the Kingdom of God—working to advance a literal, juridical kingdom where God’s faithful servants serve each other in liberty—by making everyone believe that fulfilling their duty to God and their responsibilities to their neighbors and brothers can be accomplished through weekly “liturgical” acts, when in fact these acts aren’t real liturgy at all, which again should be understood as actually serving one another. As one article explains,

“[The] liturgy of Christ was not about singing and vestments and the smoke and mirrors of modern Christendom. It was about the public servants of the kingdom of God operating a daily ministration of pure religion under the perfect law of liberty that provided a source of daily bread at the tables of Christ. The alternative ‘public servant’ provided the dainties of a leitourgior liturgy through a form of public welfare at the tables of rulers that historically was a snare.”

The insidious effect (or even purpose) of these institutions is to redefine religion as the performance of ceremonial acts within their buildings, while absolving congregants and neighbors of the true worship of serving and loving one another. Immediately after their so-called “worship service” is over, they turn their people back over to the world to be cared for by the kingdoms of men, who provide various goods and services to the people as a means of enslaving them into their tax-based political systems. They see no role in feeding, clothing, housing, and protecting their congregations or getting them to think in terms of acting as a body of Christians who have come together to serve one another and bear each other’s burdens. They see no role for themselves as a “government” of kingdom seekers who operate as a whole different kingdom than the systems of this world, which they believe have the responsibility to provide for their people in matters of food, shelter, protection, healthcare, or retirement.

These “churches” help to promote the idea that our sole duty to those who join together with us and our neighbors in the wider community is saving their souls and recruiting them to attend the “worship services,” rather than actively providing welfare and care through voluntary community networks. They see no role in conducting the daily ministration of welfare to our people and lead men to believe that our only religious obligation to others is to offer spiritual nourishment through an uplifting church session and motivational speech by the pastor, while leaving them eat the deceitful free bread of Rome afterwards, which ensnares our people into bondage. They help skew the whole idea of what it means to be a church. As Michael Plaisted writes,

“[The church] does not refer to a musty building with sing-song and sophist rituals, or even to a fellowship of believers, but to the network of ministers who sustain their congregations of families in a daily ministration of their charity. If Christians sought the Kingdom of God as they should, and kept Heaven’s political model for society, then their adhocratic accountability would entirely remodel what we call ‘Christianity.’”

Whereas God made us to be free under Him, those who profess His name but do not do as He has commanded in serving one another effectively lead their people into bondage by allowing them to feast on the bread of Egypt that is provided by the civil fathers of the political systems of the world. By allowing men to seek the benefits handed out by rulers for the purpose of making them into property of the State under this idea that religion has nothing to do with how we provide for one another, the false pastors and priests of this world allow their people to live in captivity to men when they should be doing everything to lead them to liberty.

These churchians are not acting as Christians at all, but merely men who pretend to be Christians because they attended or operate so-called “churches.” It is our job to rebuke them just as much as we should rebuke the political institutions of society and call people to turn away from them, as they are not truly seeking the things that God commands us to seek. As Michael Plaisted writes,

“It is the obligation of every professing abolitionist to confront and agitate professing christians on the grounds of their being derelict in their responsibilities towards the weightier matters of God’s Law, their sloth in failing to seek God’s Kingdom, and how their distracting rituals in their government-owned buildings are not safe spaces to shield them from the harsh truth that they take God’s name in vain.”

God and justice 

These ritualistic acts of many church-goers today, or rather the falsely ritualistic acts that turn service into things like singing songs or lighting candles, do not reflect the priorities that God himself emphasizes in scripture. Throughout the Bible, God consistently highlights justice and love of neighbor and the needy as the things that are most important to Him. In fact, God explicitly contrasts these virtues with the empty rituals of these religious institutions, showing that He clearly favors a pursuit of a just and peaceful society over mere “church attendance” or the bodily motions or costume-play that may go on inside them. He wants us to move away from the injustices and political violence of the kingdoms of this world and build His Kingdom in its place, which is carried out by serving our Christian brothers and sisters in networks of charity and mutual aid rather than meeting on Sunday morning to listen to sermons while turning our people over to the false welfare of worldly governments afterward.

We can easily see how far churchians today have come from the idea of advancing God’s Kingdom and replacing it with vain rituals. Once raise this idea that the true role of the church is joining with others for their mutual aid and freedom from Egyptian welfare systems around some leaders of the modern institutional church and it will quickly be dismissed as futile and not part of our Christian duties here on earth, which is to them isn’t much more than waiting on our soul’s trip to heaven after we pass from here and attending “church” in the meantime. It might even be shot down as a “prosperity gospel” or works-based religion. These responses are typical for those who are finding themselves convicted upon the rebuke of their dead rituals. Fighting against the idea that the church is to act as the Kingdom of Christ is really just an admission that many churches have neglected their duty to advance God’s kingdom, care for each other, and provide an alternative to the enslaving Egyptian political systems that many of them still praise as God’s divine plan for social order. This tacit admission of guilt is why they shoot down any suggestion that Christians should actively work to create a more righteous and prosperous society — because they are guilty of not lifting a finger toward that end.

In contrast to the potentially combative reactions one might find in a pastor of these institutional churches to the suggestion that the church is to act as a government and seek God’s kingdom, we find a different response in the word of God. God almost always emphasizes that He cares more about justice and actually serving and freeing one another than the rituals that take place in the institutional churches. His primary concern almost always seems to be that men should seek justice, serve others, care for the poor and needy, renew their hearts and minds, and turn away from the corruption and injustices of the political systems of this world. It is these things that are ranked as more important to Him than so-called “religious” rituals or outward appearances that are passed off as being “Christian” (no wonder, even, that Jesus tells us to make our prayer a private affair).

God is not impressed by “Catholics” playing dress-up or carrying around censers and smoking the room out, Orthodox Christians carrying candle-lit icons around to kiss and venerate, or Protestants filling up the pews on Sunday morning to sing along with the piano. This is not what He actually wants His people to be doing. God is more concerned with the evil acts of political violence that go on in these statist societies of ours and wants us to repair the breach and seek His kingdom.

“Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah! ‘What good to Me is your multitude of sacrifices?,’ says the LORD. ‘I am full from the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed cattle; I take no delight in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before Me, who has required this of you —this trampling of My courts? Bring your worthless offerings no more; your incense is detestable to Me. New Moons, Sabbaths, and convocations — I cannot endure iniquity in a solemn assembly. I hate your New Moons and your appointed feasts. They have become a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you multiply your prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood. Wash and cleanse yourselves. Remove your evil deeds from My sight. Stop doing evil! Learn to do right; seek justice and correct the oppressor. Defend the fatherless and plead the case of the widow'” (Isaiah 1:10-17). 

Again, if you merely looked at church-goers and didn’t read the word of God, you might think that the type of worship God wants from us is dressing up on Sunday, singing along with the piano, and sitting around quietly as the pastor delivers a monologue — or if you’re “Orthodox,” sitting around quietly with no instruments and following some eating schedule on the church calendar. Yet, God never really seems to care about these things whatsoever. In fact, we’re being generous to avoid using even harsher words against these acts as compared to the just and moral society God wants us to seek. 

“I hate, I despise your feasts! I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer Me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; for your peace offerings of fattened cattle I will have no regard. Take away from Me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:21-24). 

What God really seeks in His people are men who are willing to follow His ways and do as He has told us, such as to avoid the false legal systems of this world which bring men into bondage, and obey His commandments instead.

“And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God by walking in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD that I am giving you this day for your own good?” (Deuteronomy 10:12-13).

Political injustices as judgment

When we look to God’s word, we see that justice is no small part of returning to a righteous and Godly society. It is these things that satisfy the Lord: doing right and serving others, which means to turn away from the systems of the world and the violent, political method of carrying out these duties. The statist society that men sought in their sinful quest for human rulers has meant grave injustices that God wants to see corrected. These injustices have come for the very sin of believing we needed men to rule over us. The perversion of justice under state rule serves the purpose of causing men to realize their mistake of calling for other men to rule over them and prompting them to cry out to God in repentance for this great sin.

Those who still think that state systems of justice just need to be “reformed” are still not understanding that statism must mean injustice, because it is contrary to God’s will. The kingdoms of men can never work because they’re born and bred in rebellion to God. “Departments of Justice,” which are nothing but a blatant attempt by the State to substitute itself as a people’s god, must be abolished if there is ever to be a restoration of justice in society, because these are sinful methods of administering true justice. Though it may seem ironic to the statist who thinks that a society without a State is a lawless and disorderly one that has fallen into “anarchy,” there is actually no law or justice when there is a State, because such methods of administering justice are contrary to God’s kingdom and for that reason alone must always result in a weeping and gnashing of teeth — which evidently must be more painful than it is at present, seeing that most men only go so far as to call for Egyptian systems to be “reformed” rather than done away with. 

God uses the inherent injustice and lawlessness of statism to lead men back to the righteous path of His Kingdom — a theocratic order that is stateless and operates with His law written on the hearts of His faithful followers who seek it. We have to get justice right again and correct its path from the perversion of law and justice that has occurred under the State (despite its claims of being the very center of “law and order” in society, which they use as a cover for their legalized plunder schemes). These are things Christians should be doing: advancing another kingdom that restores society from the evils that have occurred under human government, as punishment for the sin of erecting and supporting them.

God and justice 

Seeking true justice, which has been corrupted under the statist path that men strayed upon, is always a core part of God’s message to us, even though you rarely hear about this in the watered-down Sunday sermons or the institutional “churches” of this world, many of which fly Caesar’s flags in their government-approved buildings. 

“Learn to do right; seek justice and correct the oppressor. Defend the fatherless and plead the case of the widow” (Isaiah 1:17). 

Though the modern “churches” would have you believe that Sunday singalongs are actual “worship services,” what we are truly to be doing is congregating with our neighbors in voluntary, mutual aid networks where we look after one another to the extent that we have formed an alternative kingdom that serves as a competing or rival “system” to the kingdoms of the world, with the aim of making them obsolete and freeing our brothers and sisters from the bondage of Egyptian state systems that have hitherto monopolized these goods and services that our people have gladly handed over to them in their sloth and laziness. We were called to actually serve one another and live freely, not to live in bondage to the systems of men.

“For you, brothers, were called to freedom; but do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. Rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is fulfilled in a single decree: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself'” (Galatians 5:13-14).

We are called to a much higher standard than to “go to church” and sit around and do nothing for our brothers and expect that we should remain free and that the kingdoms of men won’t advance in our sloth. We are called to a much higher standard to just “go to church” and believe that by doing so we have fulfilled the commandments to love our neighbors and do justice. God is not impressed by vain rituals and sophist sermons from the Sunday “pastors” of the Caesar-approved institutional churches, or the heavenly-minded spiritualism of religionists like Catholics and Eastern Orthodox who count robe-wearing, incense-burning, and other ceremonies, as being good enough service to God. Rather, God wants us to seek His literal Kingdom and restore a just and charitable society to the land, which has been subverted by the injustices of statism and the substitution of legal, state-run welfare for free will charity and service to neighbors, all which was made possible by the institutional “religions” abdicating their duties to serve one another and replacing these kingdom-duties with vain motions. God always shows that He cares more about liberty, justice, and service to one another than icons, candles, robes, fast schedules, or prayer ropes.

“Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to break the chains of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and tear off every yoke? Isn’t it to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the poor and homeless into your home, to clothe the naked when you see him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” (Isaiah 58:6-7). 

This seeking of justice—where men are secure in their person and property unlike they are under the system of statism—is fundamental to the Kingdom of God, contrary to those who have made the word of God to no effect by making men think that religion is merely about “going to church” or simply professing oneself to be a Christian, when it is all about actually serving one another and caring for our brothers and sisters (James 1:27). It is not without reason that Jesus had distilled the laws of God down to love God and love your neighbor; this is what it’s all about. 

“He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8). 

Despite the focus of many Christians on “going to church” as the means of satisfying the Lord’s desires for us, what God always suggests He wants is for people to actually seek His Kingdom and bring about a just and free society under His kingship. God is always saying how He values these latter actions over the former inactions. “To do righteousness and justice is more desirable to the LORD than sacrifice” (Proverbs 21:3). The people who seek the Lord are those working to advance His kingdom, not those who are simply sitting around church-buildings as professed followers of the Lord. “Little children, let us love not in word and speech, but in action and truth” (1 John 3:18).  

The false pastors of the institutional church

The real things we should be teaching those who seek to know the Lord is just how much He hates the political plunder systems of the world, which is either knowledge that the false pastors and priests are willingly hiding from the people or foolishly unaware of themselves (the former seems more likely given the prevalence of this concept throughout scripture, but then again the reprobate mind that God may give people over to who refuse to know him can also explain why some are never able to see it). Rather than give some sermon on tithing to the false church, or some other feel-good speech to send the congregants home feeling like they have successfully practiced their religion for the week, God wants His people to know that the kingdoms of men have represented a corruption of justice, law, and liberty from the natural order He intended us to have, and that what He wants more than anything is a restoration of this free society that would result from His people earnestly seeking His kingdom.

God would rather see that the demonic plunder system of human civil government is exposed to the people who are attempting to open their ears to God’s word, and that they be taught this political corruption of social order is healed by Christians who have formed charitable networks that act as a kingdom. But how many pastors will preach this rather than a self-help motivation speech that has nothing to do with the bondage we are in for having forsaken Christ’s kingdom? How many of them will say as the prophets did: that we’re ruled by wicked plunderers who do not actually serve the people?

“Your rulers are rebels, friends of thieves. They all love bribes and chasing after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, and the plea of the widow never comes before them” (Isaiah 1:23). 

How many pastors are telling people that we’re ruled by men today because we turned away from God as our King and substituted false rituals and ceremonies for actual service to our neighbors? How many pastors will veer from their generic message of “being saved” and “going to heaven when we die” when it seems obvious from scripture that we are to seek God’s kingdom and walk away from the physical bondage that our people are under today as a result of abandoning the Lord’s kingship? How many pastors will tell you that what they call “the gospel” is really the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, where Jesus came to set men free from the dominion of man over man?

Whether it’s nefarious or naive that the leaders of these churches should neglect to criticize the political institutions of the world (which are often positively praised by these men), fail to propose the alternative kingdom society that the Lord has pointed us to seeking, and make everyone believe their only role is “religious” or “spiritual” matters of “saving souls” or singing along with the piano, they are surely failing to teach people what God is actually about, who says, “I, the LORD, love justice; I hate robbery and iniquity” (Isaiah 61:8). While God would rather have those who seek His wisdom know that people like police officers are plunderers who serve a kingdom that is an enemy of Christ’s, most of these institutions will lead men to the opposite conclusions: that the State is God’s gift to humanity and that its police are heroes and its soldiers have given us our freedom. 

It is by His love of justice and righteousness that God wants to be known and how we should think of Him (Jer 9:24), not by His appreciation for some contemporary “worship” song and a group of people who faithfully sung it before disbanding once again and turning their neighbors back over to the hands of Caesar. God wants to see people who are seeking to live under His kingship and regard Him as their only God, not people who meet on Sunday morning and then go back to working for the kingdoms of this world or living in bondage to them. 

It is time we start caring a lot more about justice and liberty than “going to church.” It is a time we actually start being concerned with the things God is concerned about, which hopefully we have demonstrated here is much more than someone’s lack of “religious” acts that supposedly satisfy God. It is time we see the church—the body of Christ—as an actual government of kingdom-seekers who are working to bring about the Government of God, where men are freely serving one another in networks of voluntary charity as opposed to eating the coveted bread of civil fathers who have fed it to men in order to bring them into bondage. It’s time we care a lot more about justice and service than singalongs and sermons.