By James Wilson
When I was newly married my wife thought she might be pregnant shortly after our honeymoon. Let me re-phrase – my wife fervently hoped she might be pregnant. Because we were newlyweds and needing to save on anything we could she went to the closest Planned Parenthood facility to have a free pregnancy test. They were so eager to set her free from what they thought the bondage of a baby they practically had her in the procedures room with feet in the stirrups before she could blurt out that she wanted to have a baby. Even at that staff tried to convince her there was no need to keep this baby and the procedure would be as forgettable as it was painless. (The procedure is neither, BTW.) She finally escaped their ministrations and informed me that next time we would pay for a doctor visit smiling.
The agencies of false compassion hold the upper hand through a combination of a corrupt court system and legislative tunnel vision, both knowing only how to wield power in the assurance they are untouchable. Against this arrogance cum ignorance there is – in our constitutional republic – the democratizing power of the people to petition.
In California – and most other states – the people themselves have the constitutional authority to make laws their assembled delegates will not, and repeal laws enacted against the public will. New laws require the initiative process; laws deserving cancellation are dealt with through referendum. Both kinds get on the ballot through the First-Amendment-guaranteed right to petition the government. There are several petitions gathering the requisite signatures in California right now.
One that strikes great fear into a juggernaut like Planned Parenthood is parental notification when a minor seeks abortion. California taxpayers fund some twenty thousand abortions for teens and younger each year. State law excludes parents from knowing – much less having input – into the decision. Children under eighteen cannot receive aspirin at school without parental permission, but the school will provide transportation to the abortion clinic and maintain silence about the whole affair under current law. An internet trip to Californians for Parental Rights (www.caparentalrights.org) enables the signing of a petition to place parental notification on the November 2016 ballot, but it must be done by March 1. The measure will include confidential court intervention where parents are likely to abuse a child if a pregnancy is discovered. But the good news is that when parental involvement is required by law it will be much more difficult for an agency like Planned Parenthood to stampede consent for a dangerous procedure from an already panicky child. This is how people take government back into their hands, holding leaders accountable.
The very agencies who claim to know what is best for all are frequently the most inclined to operate in secrecy. When the sponsors of California’s assisted suicide law failed to bring it to a vote in the usual legislative process they resorted to backdoor means. The bill was initially withdrawn due to the suspicions clouding the death of Brittany Maynard, poster child for assisted suicide in California. Backers next attached it to an appropriations bill that required no public hearings. It was adopted after dark and the governor signed it despite numerous experts testifying it was unnecessary and subject to lethal fraud. Californians who wanted to restore a culture of life – not to mention sanity – to our state created a petition to repeal this measure by referendum. We could have let the light shine on government had we gotten enough signatures’ we did not.
At this time in history government constitutes the most lawless portion of our society. When the legislature required schools to permit boys to use girls’ bathroom and shower facilities there was an immediate petition drive to place this measure on the 2016 ballot for referendum. The secretary of state attempted to illegally exclude the signatures from two counties; stymied in court she still managed to declare enough signatures invalid to keep the law off the ballot. When the Privacy for All Coalition demanded to see and verify the offending signatures themselves – as they are clearly entitled to do under California law – she refused access on “privacy” grounds. (Petitioners signatures are their consent to be identified.) Trial court agreed with the bureaucratic defiance of law and the matter is still on appeal. In the meantime a new petition drive got underway and Californians wanting their daughters to be able to shower without being oogled by teenaged boys could have googled Privacy for All or the Pacific Justice Institute and signed the new petition to get this issue before the voters. Not enough did and that deadline passed as well; the issue of the first (successful) petition remains in court.
The right to petition is an obvious lifeblood issue for a republic like ours. Why is it a lifeblood issue for the Church?
In Ancient Israel the prophets were the watchdogs – and the conscience – of government. Elijah and John the Baptist confronted evil kings like Ahab and Herod with the newsflash they were not law unto themselves. Nathan challenged even a good king like David on taking law into his own hands when he wanted the wife of another man. In doing reality checks on unchecked monarchs the prophets were performing their highest function – reporting and exhorting the culture’s relationship to the God who created it. Culture and rulers – from Ahab to David – were healthier for this.
The New Testament Church has the same prophetic calling as the earlier people of God, but in the contemporary case it is the whole Church exercising this function. The letters to the Romans and 1 Corinthians make it clear – Chapters 12, 12 and 14 respectively – that the prophetic function lodges in the community itself, each member playing an essential component role. Translate from first century movement to a force shaping American culture from colonial days to the present and it is no surprise many of these petition drives originate in church bodies. The culture is left healthier for these lively confrontations – from the church-driven Civil Rights Movement of the fifties and sixties to the church-driven end of the Vietnam War.
The purpose of the Body of Christ is to lead people into a lifechanging encounter with the Living God in the Person of His Son. But Jesus healed the sick and confronted the comfortable right here on earth; it was His earthly ministry that got Him killed and His heavenly destiny that defeated death in the same event. The Church is called to address the condition of this world as well as each of its people.
What if churches are not stepping up to the plate, as most American churches are not? The bottom line is if churches are not rising to their prophetic destiny they are like salt that has lost its saltiness; they are useless. The good news is people who have learned to petition their government and so exercise the authority inherent in their citizenship can just as well petition their spiritual leaders in the authority they receive in their baptism. They can keep petitioning until the leaders listen.
By so doing they leave their Church and their culture in a healthier condition.
James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships, The Holy Spirit and the End Times, and Kingdom in Pursuit – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at praynorthstate@charter.net
