Has the State Overstepped in El Dorado?

 ”For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.” — Romans 13:3, 4

 AS THE EMOTIONAL women from the polygamist sect in El Dorado, Texas continue to hit the airwaves, many may be tempted to ask, “Has the state gone too far in imposing its will in this case? Couldn’t the polygamists and their children have been allowed to continue their way of life without this intrusion?”

We cannot forget that we have here quite possibly the largest polygamist sect in the United States. How this case is decided may largely affect the way the rest of our nation deals with this ungodly form of perversion. Are we moving towards allowing the Lawrence v. Texas case to inflict upon us its ill-conceived conclusions in the matter of polygamy? Will Americans begin to second-guess the presently held view that the First Amendment and its provision for the freedom of religion does not provide for multiple marriage partners? Even Utah has outlawed polygamy. Is that an overreach on the part of the state? 

We cannot speak to those who are easily swayed by mere emotion. For them, any rational argument can be immediately refuted by the tears of a weeping mother. But irrespective of the emotional components, the fact stands unaltered that God is against the practice of polygamy. It is a perversion of the the order established in Eden, that one man and one woman would be united in marriage. Like divorce, we know that polygamy arose soon after the fall as a common manifestation of the lustings and hardness of men’s hearts. But “in the beginning, it was not so,” and the evil of polygamy has been further revealed to us who are now in the new covenant, enjoying as we do our Lord’s further clarification of the larger subject in Matt. 19. Also, it is absolutely unthinkable that an elder or deacon of the church would have multiple wives, as Paul indicates bluntly and without comment in 1 Timothy 3, as well as Titus 1 and 2.

The first polygamist recorded in the Bible was not Jacob or David, or any other godly man in the Old Testament. It was a murderer and a thug named Lamech who took for himself two wives, as recorded in Genesis 4:19. While some in the old covenant of whom God approved did indeed live in cultures that practiced bigamy and even polygamy, it was always due to ignorance that eventually brought them great grief and continual conflict. We never saw the patriarchs attempting to go against the cultural tide to maintain the practice. Furthermore David and Solomon, who were the most prolific polygamists, are hardly monuments demonstrating the virtue of the practice since their warring progeny (in the case of David) and the massive expenses of the harem (in the case of Solomon) threatened to undo their kingdoms on at least two occassions and then finally delivered a severe blow to it in 2 Chronicles 10 from which the house of David never fully recovered.

As if that is not enough proof, Moses expressly forbids the practice of polygamy in Lev. 18:18, as well as in the case of kings in Deu. 17:17: “Neither shall he [that is, a king] multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself.” We think that sufficiently answers the matter.

But what bearing does this have upon the state, particularly the government of Texas in this specific case? Rather than rely on any libertarian impulses or upon the modern notion of minority rights that has so often done our generation harm, it seems most instructive to us to go to the text we cited here in the beginning to discover what God’s most basic will for the state is. Romans 13:4 illustrates that the ruler is “God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath upon them that do evil.”

The Bible asserts the ruler’s most fundamental role to be operative here: “the avenger to execute wrath upon them that do evil.” If the state cannot act here, then pray tell, what exactly should it ever do? Polygamy is evil. It is offensive to Almighty God. And who can tell if God may not be bearing down His judgment on this wicked sect now because of the hardness of their hearts and their long resistance to the light of His Word? In fact, we are quite sure that this is exactly what is happening. 

Those that decry the measures taken with the children decry the dealings of God in providence and impugn His wisdom in declaring in such unmistakable terms that polygamy is in fact a form of perversion. And where such extreme perversion exists, children should be rescued from the chaos that must ensue. It is most certainly not just another religious viewpoint that merits shelter from the First Amendment. It is a vile manifestation of ungodliness that calls the state to action. Opposing the actions of the state of Texas means going to war with Romans 13 and the very purpose of what human governments are called upon by God to do in this world. We think it an utterly foolish and dangerous one to take.