This is a debate begun by my son Abram, who has graciously allowed me to publish it here.

Hello Fellow Men,

My name is Abram Leyzorek, middle-son of John Leyzorek, the man I am going to have to disagree with today. Disagreement is how we all move closer to the Truth, so let’s embrace it. For several years, I had been behind my Dad in all his efforts to defend freedom. Then I came to a realization: I was only hacking at the branches of evil. In the words of Thoreau:

“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root”.

If we only remove the branches, they will grow back. If we strike the root, however, evil will die. I believe there are few readers who would hesitate to sever that bitter root, if given the chance. So lay down your loppers, pick up a spade, and let’s do some digging.

Do not think it is a secret hidden from you until now. In fact, you know it already. It is buried deep in the dearest ground, the flesh of your own body. A worm of corruption is eating out our hearts, and the task of this life is for each of us to dig deep down and pluck it out. It will feel like ripping out your own heart, but the joy will surpass the pain.

Many Christians can relate to the experience I am referring to. It is one we find ourselves coming back to for renewal. While we live, the seeds of corruption will always sprout, as the human heart is fertile ground. We must be watchful gardeners to pull out the weeds, and nurture the good seeds. Those who do this have the most beautiful of hearts.

Now let us make this metaphor real. Just as evil feeds off our hearts, threatening to choke out the good, evil in the world feeds off of us. As all of us here know, human government is perhaps the greatest reservoir in this world. The citizens of a government become ensnared in a web of complex laws and regulations that holds them tight while the fat spider sucks out their life. But they get their end of the deal, too: an eight-legged scape-goat upon which to cast all of their self-inflicted worries and woes. Every social ill becomes a result of something the government is or is not doing. “Nothing bad could be our responsibility, right? We’re just trying to get by”, we say to ourselves. “As long as I’m paying taxes, the government should do something about it”.

While this excuse may sound weak and pathetic to some ears, I view it more as tragic; “if we put our faith in the right thing, then everything will be alright” has to be one of our deepest hopes. As I think most of us here know, that Right Thing is our blessed Lord, Jesus Christ. As humans, I believe we were made to long for the perfect object of faith. So when this honest, holy desire is twisted with bloody chains to something like the government of Man, it is tragic indeed.

The depth of the tragedy, however, only magnifies the depth of our joy in the freedom of service to Christ. When we worship Christ, we worship the perfect man in God’s image, our own image if it were not darkened by a shadow of evil. This shadow can be blessedly banished by the sundering rays of God’s eternal glory. Turn your whole being to the glory of God and his Kingdom, and you will fulfill what I believe is the true purpose of Man on Earth.

At this point, I hope most of you are saying: “Hallelujah brother! That’s what we are all about, banishing shadows, restoring freedom, honoring God, come join us!” I would reply, “I love your enthusiasm brothers, but you are exchanging one set of chains for another. Let’s leave off the chains.” How do I know? I’ve been a part of your movement for years, remember? What you are striving to do is re-envision and re-enforce the Constitution to restore justice and the rule of law to our land.

But what if I told you the Law already rules? What if God has already made all the Laws we need? What if we need to humble ourselves and stop trying to usurp God’s authority? The Constitution is just another man made law, flawed to its core. The Founders were not deities as some have pretended. Men can neither add to nor take away from the perfect Law of God. We need to stop seeking to control others and seek true freedom under God in the Kingdom.

I believe it is our great blessing as Christians to not only look forward to continued service to God in Heaven, where I believe we will learn many things, but to be able to call ourselves citizens of the Kingdom of God. You are issued a passport the moment your faith grows to the size of a mustard seed. The Kingdom of God is simply men on Earth working for the glory of God in voluntary society. It is to draw out the poison in every bite of daily bread, a poison from the serpent currently coiled around the whole world. If our enjoyment of the blessings of this Earth and our ability to glorify God depend on the whim of government, it is a lie we are living as Christians. We serve a God mightier than Man: I call each and every one of you out of the lie and into the Truth!

John’s Response

Abram is of course correct that the root of the evil we see in the world, and in ourselves, is in our hearts, planted there by the Devil…..but watered and fertilized by each of us, to some degree.

I agree also with Abram that we cannot extirpate it without God’s help. Also that this should be our first priority as individuals.

But I do not agree that cultivating our personal relationships with God is our whole duty while we are here on Earth, nor that God will be pleased if we refuse any part of that rich and complex duty, “to dress and keep” the physical and human world He put us in, that He laid upon us in the Garden. Our expulsion did not relieve us of it, we merely made it harder on ourselves. God’s plan of spiritual redemption does not relieve us of it, either. “Love they neighbor” is an encompassing command, that may have a non-physical and transcendent meaning after this life, but it was given to living men, and is binding on us all, now.

God made and placed us in this physical world. There is a principle of interpretation used for human law, which is to assume that every word has meaning and must be considered. I do not think anyone will disagree that this is true of the acts of God, also. So I believe we must not de-value our time in this world, even if we believe we have higher ultimate purpose, beyond it. God will surely take us there at the precisely correct moment. Until then, I believe, much of our attention belongs here. Attention paid to the material world and to the other humans (and everything else) He made is not attention stolen from its proper object. God made no improper objects.

If it may be agreed that we have duty to our “neighbor”, our fellow man, and even to dressing-and-keeping other aspects of this material world, then while sharing the Gospel with him may be our highest duty, pulling him out of a burning building should not be neglected. Some may agree that the current state of human civilization could be likened to a burning building.

But in this analogy, where is “out”? Readers may know that when I migrated, decades ago, to this mountain that I call home, it was to get “out”, away from the filth and the lawless and foolish demands, and the improvident dependency, that I had experienced in the more populated area that I left. But one of the many lessons that God hammered into me in the succeeding years was, that there is no “out”. The expressions of human evil in the form of government overreach, as well as retail human turpitude, extend everywhere. On the most basic level, if you do not pay property taxes, or rent from someone who does, you will ultimately be removed by force from your home. If your livelihood comes from the land or requires its use, this will also remove your livelihood. If you have a family, your responsibility to house them will also slide into default. If you think of stewardship of a part of God’s earth is among your duties, you will also lose your ability to perform that, too.

Of course you may find a benefactor who will let you occupy a place that he owns, without having to worry your head about the realities I describe, but you can be sure that he will be worrying his, on your behalf.

You may protest that “ownership” of pieces of God’s earth is an insane (or wicked) concept. I will not argue that point. However it is an obvious fact that enough people believe in it, to destroy your physical security and your family’s, if you do not play the game. This is a state of affairs which God permits. God permits all kinds of evil to be perpetrated by the free will of men. And it abundantly clear in Scripture that He expects us to defend ourselves and those for whom we are responsible (including our “neighbor”) from it, to the best of our ability.

Circling back around, surely a part of this duty of defense, is to work to change the hearts of those who would do evil. But if I have not yet wholly succeeded in that, and someone raises his hand to strike me or you, is it not also my duty to raise my hand, to block the blow, if I can?

To block a blow, to obstruct an injustice, to repair and lubricate the human machinery that wise men have designed to protect the God-given lives and freedom of all (we call that “law”), that is all the temporal, human, Earthly “political” program I advocate, that some call “Tactical Civics”, is.

Nobody here pretends that human law is God, or can or should replace Him in our hearts.. But using it, and other tools, to defend ourselves and our neighbors against the human wickedness that sadly must play out as part of God’s eternal plan, is not a digression or distraction from our focus on and duty toward God: it is part and parcel of serving, in the place where He put us, a God Who made a material world, gave us free will, and placed us in it.

Readers of this article may find another on this site, “Three Legs”, interesting as well.