Why King James is wrong on the divine rights of kings and why Dominionism is evil

I find it rather suspiciously coincidental and self-serving that what is considered to be the one true divine form of government happens to be the very same favorite type of government as the person who's name appears on the Bible. There is no doubt where King James stood with regards to the nature of kings in the World. In his book "The True Law of Free Monarchies" he argues for the "divine rights of kings".

Divine right of kings

"The divine right of kings, divine right, or God's mandate is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving the right to rule directly from the will of God. The king is thus not subject to the will of his people, the aristocracy, or any other estate of the realm. It implies that only God can judge an unjust king and that any attempt to depose, dethrone or restrict his powers runs contrary to the will of God and may constitute a sacrilegious act. It is
often expressed in the phrase "by the Grace of God", attached to the titles of a reigning monarch."

The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The 17th Century: Topic 3: King James

"The True Law of Free Monarchies sets forth James's philosophy of royal absolutism and its divine sanction, setting the terms for new disputes about sovereignty, divine right, and the role of parliaments and subjects."

"THE NATURAL NECESSITY OF ABSOLUTE OBEDIENCE"

Full text: www.raleighcharterhs.org... I Speech on Divine Right.pdf

Here is my problem with this way of thinking.

My children do not exist for the sole purpose of making me "the father" in charge. My children do not exist for the sole purpose of giving me power. I do not see myself as lord. I do not want my children to think that they are my subjects. I do not expect my friends and family to bend a knee to me in a sign of "absolute obedience".

Although at times with my children it is necessary to discipline them on what is proper behavior I have no desire to have them be my subjects to my authority. Sometimes with my friends I have to set boundaries which I hope they respect. But I do not believe my friends and family exist in my life to serve me at my pleasure.

I see myself as my children's steward and NOT as a king desiring to be worshiped with absolute obedience. I am NOT looking for my friends and children to "serve" me. What I am looking for is for my friends and children to freely give their love to me in fellowship and NOT out of fear or coercion.

I think the Golden Rule is not just some meaningless platitude but a way of being. The way I see it the way to get respect is to give respect. It seems to me before you can become a leader you first have to learn what it means to be a follower. Being a leader, or someone who is deserving of being respected as someone in authority, you have to be able to be grounded in being able to give absolute respect to others.

Consider the most expensive masterpiece of art, say some famous painting, that exists in the World. When you carry a famous painting across the room you do it with an absolute reverence for the painting's well-being. I think this is the way we need to treat the people we encounter in our lives. We need to treat people as if the person we meet is a priceless piece of art. We should treat the people in our lives with an absolute reverence the same way we would carry a priceless painting across the room. This idea of reverence is like the Golden Rule on steroids.

As I said I see myself as my children's steward and not as their king. I want my children not to worship me out of fear and coercion. I want my children to grow up stronger, more powerful, and with a stronger self-esteem than myself. I see self-esteem as meaning not worshiping someone else in authority for all life's answers but as having confidence in trusting one's own inner authority coming from within. I don't want my children to look to me for every answer in their lives by coming to me for a blessing. I want my children to have the ability to be able to define for themselves what a correct moral compass should be.

So as I see it, I exist so my children can live happier, stronger, and more successful lives than my own. My goal is NOT to experience my children as my subjects and myself as their lord. I don't have any need for my children to acknowledge or exalt me as someone in a position of authority over their lives. My goal is to give my children as much abundance and happiness as I can enable them to have. Based on this way of thinking, and based on my relationship to my friends and family, it seems to me an omnipotent God of unconditional love would be slightly more egalitarian than a God of judgment who is seeking to be worshiped.



I do not accept Loki's assertion that our natural state is to bend a knee in subservience to a god out of fear. We were not "made to be ruled." The Universe came into being as an expression of God's abundance. The Universe did not come into existence because of God's desire to be worshiped or because God is lacking something. An omnipotent God lacks nothing and needs absolutely nothing from us.

Here's my problem with authoritarianism. Here's my problem with monarchy. Here's my problem with being ruled. Do the people exist to serve the government or does the government exist to serve the people? If government's purpose is the accumulation of power, in other words, government exists to serve itself, then whoever is in power will never be satisfied. Whoever is in power will never feel safe because they will never have the love of the people. Whoever is in power will never experience true happiness and joy because they will always want "more" power than they already have. There's a very common idea in Eastern religion in order to get what you want, that is happiness and joy, you have to be fully grounded in wanting what you already have. But people drunk with the desire to accumulate more power will never be satisfied, and therefore, will never be happy in their own lives.

People possessed by the accumulation of power are full of fear an anxiety over losing what power they have already accumulated. We seem to have gotten past the point where speaking out against the king will get you executed with the creation of the First Amendment. Now we have to evolve spiritually and get past the point where we no longer feel the necessity for loyalty pledges and proof of loyalty. The problem with people possessed by the accumulation of power is they are incapable of truly being able to trust anyone because they are full of fear and anxiety their power is only moments from being taken away. So people with trust issues often ask for loyalty pledges.

I do not think an omnipotent God of unconditional love is looking for loyalty pledges. The true nature of God is to love every aspect of His creation equally without any conditions. The true nature of God, or to be aligned with God, is to share our abundance so everyone gets to experience the glory of God as God intended. If the people are treated well then the people in power will feel safer and experience happiness and joy in their lives by sharing in the happiness and appreciations of their people.

The Bible is full of writings supporting authoritarianism. How can the Bible be so wrong on the topic of slavery? My suspicion is the King James "Authorized Version" of the Bible is based on revisionist history of an oral tradition. The text the Bible was translated from what was modified in order to support monarchy as the preferred form ofgovernment. The translations were also colored by interpretations supporting authoritarianism as desired by the king. An omnipotent God of unconditional love needs absolutely nothing from us. It seems to me the Bible would be translated differently if the people doing the translating believed in a more egalitarian form of government.

People see the world through a lens of perception based on the words and ideas they hold dear. For example, authoritarianism has no room for sharing the Abundance or having compassion for other people's desires to experience God's Greatness by its design. I find this passage in the Bible to be absolutely stunning as a testament of something truly wrong in the content of the Bible:

"Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel." (1 Peter 2:18)

The silent implication with this verse is "slavery is okay and divinely ethical." I simply cannot accept this idea as being morally "good". I can't be the only person who thinks this way since we have the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. There must be something to what I am saying. I imagine there are some Constitutionalists who think the 13th Amendment is unconstitutional.

Regardless of the 13th Amendment, what seems more true in your heart. A God who wants us to be His subjects. Or, a God who loves us unconditionally just the way we are, wants nothing from us, and is more interested in simply sharing His abundance?

Even further it seems to me an omnipotent God of unconditional love would be more interested in sharing His overflowing abundance with us than any other consideration. Gods sharing His abundance is an expression of God's infinite greatness.

Where as Satan, who was created having limitations, is the one who would be seeking to have one central authority over all of God's creation. In other words, the authoritarianism in the Bible, the idea of the divine right of a king, is evil and is a Satan like philosophy. And evil is always where you least expect it.

It seems to me essentially King James ideas and way of thinking about monarchy being divine is pure evil in my opinion. And therefore, so is Dominionism. The Dominionist just believe a group of people and not a single monarch are chosen by God to rule with power and privilege. God doesn't choose kings. The idea people are chosen by God and have divine rights is the way Satan would think. God, on the other hand, shares His Greatness as proof of His divine Glory.

So to summarize, in King James world political power of the king is intertwined with religion so as to legitimize the king's authority as being the direct spokesman for God. It seems to me the Bible was written to support King James point of view on authoritarianism and the divine rights of the king. I then argued why I think monarchy is bad and is probably not God's chosen form of divine government. And my last bit of the post is why having people chosen by God in authority is evil. And the idea of centralizing power to single point is what someone created with limitations, like Satan, would desire.

In my post I was going with an Apothetical type definition of God where there is absolutely nothing God wants or is lacking in God's infinite greatness. The Universe exists as a result of God's abundance and NOT to address some lack of something or the desire for something to make God complete. The idea God requires monarchy seems to me to imply God is lacking something or wanting something in order to be complete.

In my opinion, to be God-like means to share some form of abundance with others.

Boys will be boys.

Dbl.

I don’t understand your argument about slavery
It’s not a reflection on slavery being acceptable

Paul stated if a slave could be freed then they should work at being freed of slavery

Jesus did not want to start a slave revolt, they end badly.
Jesus didn’t come to change governments or political agendas, Jesus came to free people from sin.
King James used systematic theology to justify his personal belief, it’s very common thing to do

Also remember Peter was addressing Christians, our promise is not of this earth. Christians are taught to serve as a sign of love to God

Slavery is not acceptable in most circumstances as it is not “loving” as Jesus commanded His followers

Your premise seems flawed

originally posted by: Specimen
Dbl.

I have no idea what this means.

a reply to: Raggedyman

I hope we can agree slavery is immoral. In my post, I am assuming slavery is immoral.

Generally, mixing religion with politics, in my opinion, is a really bad thing.

a reply to: Specimen

For some strange reason that speech with the king having a diatribe reminds me of this scene:

_

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: Raggedyman

I hope we can agree slavery is immoral. In my post, I am assuming slavery is immoral.

Generally, mixing religion with politics, in my opinion, is a really bad thing.

Yes slavery is wrong but if Christ said that then there would have probably been a slave revolt throughout the Roman Empire and thousands, hundreds of thousands of slaves would have ended up like Spartacus and his slave revolt, that’s not good.
Do you understand that?

Jesus never mixed politics and religion, never spoke of the political authorities, Jesus dealt with the religious authorities of His time
Do you get it

And finally, the bible is addressing believer not none believers

a reply to: Raggedyman

I have no idea what you are talking about. You seem to have much better insights into what is good for the slaves than I do.

I guess I don't get what you get. I never said Jesus was mixing politics with religion. I did say the Bible is written in such a way to promote authoritarianism and monarchy as a divine form of government. I do not remember any passage where Jesus was asking to be king and wanting everyone to bend a knee as proof of loyalty. Maybe you can quote that particular verse. Thanks in advance.

And I did not know the Bible was only speaking to believers. If obedience to your way of thinking is a prerequisite to us having a conversation then I guess we are done.

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: Raggedyman

I hope we can agree slavery is immoral. In my post, I am assuming slavery is immoral.

Generally, mixing religion with politics, in my opinion, is a really bad thing.

People put themselves into slavery all the time. We are slaves to the banks because of our wants, not because of our needs most time. We are slaves to society, being forced to stay in step with consensus of the time. Humans are not as intelligent as they think they are. Wars are fought to keep people's desires met, to supply their wants, not their needs.

Jesus tried to promote focusing on your needs, not your wants. Rewarding oneself with a little want occasionally is not bad, but constantly getting what you want raises the polevaulting pole higher and higher. The best life is the simplest life. People get all kinds of gadgets that make their life easier, than they have to go out and join an exercise club to keep from getting sickly.

Nowadays everything is on demand, you do not have to go out and get the paper to find out what is happening or turn the news on at six AM to find out what is going on. The movies and shows on the bloob tube can be gotten on demand to fit your schedule, people do not even know how to schedule their days anymore. They power consume a whole season of a TV show in one night when on demand and have to wait till a new season comes out for a long time. Patients is being destroyed, people want their way right now and cannot understand that others also have their needs and schedules. Some people cannot even go out grocery shopping anymore, ordering everything on line. No exercise even walking down the aisle or picking up a can off the bottom shelf.

Our society cannot sustain this much longer, there are too many entitled people in this world, even a lower middle class person often has it better than a king has it. Junk food or prepared food floods the stores and people go out and buy stuff from delis instead of cooking themselves. People do not even want to have to wash their lettuce or cabbage and look for bugs, so the food companies design chemicals that disolve bugs and then they neutralize the chemistry with another chemical and both have side effects. People also prefer to have pesticides sprayed on their food than see a worm.

We need to get our society back on track, or it will crumble. AI is not the answer, the answer is making our people more intelligent and less book smart. People think that just because they have memorized a lot of worthless crap that they will probably never actually need to use, that they are better than others. I praise the farmers that grow our food more than the people who design computer technology or do research on building better weapons to kill people. Every time they find a way to increase power, people learn to waste power at increasing levels. How many things do people have plugged in at their homes consuming seven watts, 24/7. Then they complain about someone having regular light bulbs instead of energy efficient ones, just turn off the lights when not using them. Also, the other lights heat your house, the energy is not wasted, LED bulbs do not heat, so your furnace works more. People cannot see what is right in front of their eyes.

The teachings of Jesus in the bible are good for society, Some of the writings by a few of the disciples are a little overboard, but the basis is right. Religion just like governments did get overpowering over the centuries, it is starting to get better as of late though with the exception of a few religious groups in Christianity. I would prefer to be a Christian than a Muslim, but someday people may not have a choice. I would rather live here in America where we have freedoms, most other countries do not have the freedoms we have. That includes Europe.

a reply to: rickymouse

Nice post! Very well thought out. There's a lot to digest there. And I probably do not agree with every nuance of what you are saying. But I do appreciate your critical thinking skills. I think the only way to truly learn something is to write about it.

a reply to: dfnj2015

G'day dfnj....you said it quite succinctly here:

"I do not think an omnipotent God of unconditional love is looking for loyalty pledges. The true nature of God is to love every aspect of His creation equally without any conditions. The true nature of God, or to be aligned with God, is to share our abundance so everyone gets to experience the glory of God as God intended."-dfnj2015

I think you hit it spot on.

One thing I asked back in grade school of my nun-teachers...was "How does an earthly king (King David)..let alone a council (Nicea)...take what is considered the "literal Word-of-God"...and decide what fits and what doesnt?"

Sister Mary (who was pretty hip in her thinking) thought a moment and said something to the effect of "it's like potato chips.You can decide to leave off adding salt...'still considered a chip...just without the salt".

Best..................

a reply to: Specimen

I actually watched this movie. It was good movie.

originally posted by: dfnj2015
The text the Bible was translated from what was modified in order to support monarchy as the preferred form ofgovernment. The translations were also colored by interpretations supporting authoritarianism as desired by the king.

This argument about the text keeps cropping up, but has anyone ever specified WHERE such changes are to be found?
Those texts were in the Bible, original and translations, for many centuries before James was born. So many versions of the Bible exist, from before his time and afterwards, and I think comparison of the versions would show that the relevant texts were not materially altered by the version with his name on it.
You can criticise his theology if you like, but he has never been proved guilty of the text-changing charge.

Incidentally, the "divine right of kings" theory pre-dated James. It was devised in the previous generation as a counter-attack against the mediaeval theory that all authority comes through the Pope. Bodin, I think, but I would have to look it up.

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: Raggedyman

I have no idea what you are talking about. You seem to have much better insights into what is good for the slaves than I do.

I guess I don't get what you get. I never said Jesus was mixing politics with religion. I did say the Bible is written in such a way to promote authoritarianism and monarchy as a divine form of government. I do not remember any passage where Jesus was asking to be king and wanting everyone to bend a knee as proof of loyalty. Maybe you can quote that particular verse. Thanks in advance.

And I did not know the Bible was only speaking to believers. If obedience to your way of thinking is a prerequisite to us having a conversation then I guess we are done.

It’s pretty clear you don’t know theology

Yes the bible is written to those who choose to accept it, obviously, can it be written to those who don’t believe it?
The New Testament doesn’t promote authoritarianism, the old testament was written to Jews not Christians and they demanded a king
It’s perplexing your argument, your comprehension of the bible, you don’t justify King James argument in any detail.

Judaism does not reflect on James’ England in any way

The bible doesn’t endorse slavery, it teaches slave owners (Christian) to treat slaves with compassion. Christ never called for an end to slavery, probably would have started a salve war and many deaths. Is that logical?

Jesus didn’t come to change governments, Jesus came to end religion and change individuals hearts

a reply to: dfnj2015

Thing is religion was and still is in some parts of the world considered the rule of law. There never was any separation of church or state due to the fact that there never was a state to begin with. Religion would be adopted by the status quo, and the majority of people that would culturally identify would enforce it through ignorance, arrogance and superstition.

Also slavery back then was more of a class and civil issue then it was race, where as criminals could be put into hard labour or face death, while some would become slaves due to debts or being indebted to someone.

However, there are examples of religions placing there race or grouping above others, like the Jews over gentiles, or Muslims over non Muslims. In the Indian Caste system, karma was the excuse, if you were born a slave then you did something to piss of the gods in a previous life, while vice versa for royalty.

a reply to: Raggedyman

And why not, would of given the Roman nobles a big scare that they would have to everything themselves, even make love to their wife. Might have actually made them a little nicer to them if anything?

Also that didn't stop Niro and his persecution an formal executions of his early followers, the Judeo-Christians which were against Rome. Which is kind of funky now that I think of Revelations.

a reply to: Specimen

Repeating myself because?
Jesus came to change individual hearts
Didn’t come to change those who don’t want to be changed, it is an offer not a demand
I don’t know why that’s hard to understand


Judeo christianity or simply Christianitynwas never against Rome, the Jews were against the Roman occupation of Israel.
You seem confused, there were many Roman Christians who were never Jews

I really don’t think you understand christianity