The middle of the eighteenth century was a time of great change for western man’s view of himself and his government. In previous millennium the power of the Church had given way to the power of kings. These post renaissance monarchs by and large were advocates of a novel form of Theocracy where the Theo was defined by the king. ‘Good King James" even went so far as to commission a translation of the "Holy Books" into the language of the realm. He then had the audacity to ‘authorize’ it as the Official Word of God. These petty monarchs were all too ready to claim Divine Right to Rule which, they believed, would secure their office despite the obvious collapse of the Roman Church who had shored up its existence with the same vain claims. Enough with the stage settings lets look at this new God of Paine.

To suggest that Paine stood alone as the man behind the curtain would be ludicrous but he was an apt spokesman for a new secular power base. He was a spin doctor supreme who fashioned a twisted thread that changed the power base of three worlds. Let his own words condemn him, for he states unequivocally:

" I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of.

My own mind is my own church."

Here we can see the brash megalomania that is at the basis of his reasonings. He came to this ill-conceived opinion due to many factors that are key to our understanding his iconoclastic spirit. He did not appear out of a vacuum, there was an organized movement for which he was the voice.

In those days(1720 through 1790) the intellectual, professional classes were locked into eternal powerlessness. Political and military power was the domain of Royalty. The Church was nothing more than an adjunct of the ruler’s public relation effort. There began a well funded effort to unseat this power structure. The so called enlightened ones of this age who sought power saw the status quo as their enemy. The sooner they could put an end to this system of government the quicker they might seize control. The new world order had thus been conceived.

These intellectuals were not daft, they studied human nature and history so as to find the methods that would prove most effective to bring down the governments of kings and their lackey priests.

The god of Paine was their first choice because it incorporated the wonderful secret of Roman success, "Divide and Conquer". Imagine if you can a form of pure secularism where each man is beholden to only himself. To this, mix in a legal system with independent clout and, well let his thoughts indict him:

What began as a defense of the French Revolution evolved into an analysis of the basic reasons for discontent in European society and a remedy for the evils of arbitrary government, poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and war. Paine spoke out effectively in favour of republicanism as against monarchy and went on to outline a plan for popular education, relief of the poor, pensions for aged people, and public works for the unemployed, all to be financed by the levying of a progressive income tax. *

This was the stroke of genius! From this Europe, England and America changed forever. So you may ask:

" How are we worse off now than they were in the days of kings and priests? For that matter isn’t this a natural social evolution?"

If you see the rule of men as the ultimate goal so be it. Shouldn’t we ask if the better of two evils is still an evil, albeit possibly less.

So here is our tenuous stand as the ones seeing the need to be subject to the order of a higher power, we must discover the reliability of that power. Man has proven inept as an executor of governments. Whether claiming divine right, or right of reason, or right of overwhelming military force, mortal man has proven over 5000 yrs of written historical evidence he is not up to the task.

There seems to be an exception to this, recorded in ancient text. Even in that shining example, designed by the Eternal Himself, the avarice of man soon brought this system to a crashing end. The citizens of this land trusted or rather doubted their power to defend their sacred sovereignty and then instead they made unwise compromises with those standing against them. They had been told their nation would stand secure as long as they obeyed the laws laid down and agreed to by their fathers. They openly violated these laws by making alliances with their sworn enemies. Now we in these days are faced with much the same choice, we can obey His laws or ours.

For the few, the humble, the courageous, they choose this day to serve YHWH and His perfect order. Knowing all else is folly. Serving man and the ‘gray matter’ god of Paine is untenable. This path is a dead end road simply because it is based on a faulty premise and wishful thinking.