In 2022, let’s keep our oaths.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on unsplash.

As Old Man 2021 finishes the race and a baby New Year comes out of the gate, let’s make some New Year’s resolutions that will count for generations. Rather than hollow promises to shed a few pounds, it is time that we make an oath to keep all previous oaths.

Like a resolution, an oath is a solemn declaration to fulfill a pledge. Unlike a resolution, oaths call on God as a witness. Oath makers recognize that even the highest human power—possessing overwhelming resources, sophisticated surveillance, and the most powerful weapons in the world—remains dwarfed by the almighty and all-seeing God who transcends all human judgment and power.

Sadly, oath keepers have been lately tarred and feathered in a guilt-by-association campaign aided by an incurious press. Ray Epps, president of the Arizona chapter of the “Oath Keepers” has been caught on numerous video clips encouraging thousands of people to enter restricted zones on January 6. His boss, Stewart Rhodes, is likewise implicated through intercepted communications.

Ray Epps inciting illegality on January 5, 2021

Despite this apparently illegal activity, neither of these men has been arrested or charged with crimes. Rather, the FBI has scandalously let their behavior skate even while treating association with their suspect organization as suspicious. While the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center has labelled the group “antigovernment,” the FBI is more cautious in its wording.

Most recently, an anonymous “whistleblower” has made unsubstantiated claims that over 200 Wyomingites including several high-profile conservatives were once involved with the organization. Whether the purported involvement was in recent history, or amounted to more than winding up on someone’s email list, it didn’t say. Regardless, such membership would be protected by the first amendment. There is no criminal activity here unless the “whistleblower” turns out to be a government employee.

Rather than smearing oath keepers, we should encourage them. We can begin by considering why people willingly take oaths in the first place. While cynics take oaths to lure people into their confidence, honest oath-makers take oaths because they want the transcendent God to help them keep their oaths. They do so to undertake public duties that require personal integrity.

Such public duties include marriage, parenthood, government (from the president to public school teachers), military and law-enforcement to name a few.  These people wield such power over others that there is a grave danger of abuse. Neither legislation, nor its enforcement can possibly ensure perfect integrity in public officials. Oaths require self-policing and humble submission to a power higher than law enforcement can reach.

Oath keepers recognize that duty will sometimes conflict with their personal desires for wealth, happiness, or even life. With sound mind and free will, they take oaths to bind themselves to self-sacrifice when the mind and will object to the call of duty.

Love leads couples to the altar. But the oaths taken there keep them together in rough times. Adventure and patriotism lead some to volunteer for military service, but the military oath binds them to act honorably when bullets are flying. Ambition may induce politicians to seek higher office, but their oath of office requires them to abandon ambition when it conflicts with the public trust.

We need more oath keepers, not fewer. Children need parents who keep marriage vows even when feelings flag. Townsfolk need peace officers who will protect and defend without abusing the awesome powers entrusted to them. A free republic requires elected officials who will “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” even when nobody is watching (U.S. Constitution Article II, Section 1, Clause 8).

On December 28, the Fourth Day of Christmas, Christians throughout the world solemnly remember the slaughter of the Holy Innocents. According to St. Matthew, King Herod sent out his soldiers with orders to kill all the baby boys in the region of Bethlehem (Mt. 2:16). 

What kind of soldier would obey such an order? Were they, themselves, acting under threat of death? For the parents who helplessly watched sharp steel cut into tender flesh, the motivation of the soldiers offered no consolation. The manifest injustice screamed to heaven and to the One who sees all.

Having seen and considered the great evil that comes from officers bound to kings rather than to God, we have our officers breathe an oath to the heavens. They consciously call themselves to account before the judge of all.

Every mother and father, every teacher and board member, every councilman and congress member, has made a similar oath. Sadly, American jurisprudence has grown weak, fickle, and sometimes outrightly partisan in its failure to enforce these oaths. That should deepen the resolve of every oath maker to be an oath keeper.

Oaths don’t have an expiration date. They don’t have conditions attached. Thank God for every individual who lives up to an oath. And let us resolve to fulfill our own oaths to family, church, and country in 2022 and beyond.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on December 31, 2021; and in the Cowboy State Daily on January 5, 2022.

For this reason I was born: Why Christmas is on December 25

Tomorrow begins a 12-day celebration, throughout the world, of the birth of Jesus Christ. December 25th is the “First Day of Christmas.” After the 12th Day of Christmas, on January 5th, we reach Epiphany (known as Theophany to our Eastern Orthodox neighbors). 

While different Christian traditions have celebrated in different ways and have emphasized different days of this season, all Christians have marked December 25th as the birthday of Jesus going back at least to its first explicit mention in 354 A.D.

No serious scholar—Christian or otherwise—doubts that Jesus was born two millennia ago. But neither the Bible nor any other historical record names the season, month or day of his birth. Lacking such a record, scholars in recent centuries have challenged the December 25 date. 

The most popular challenge arose from the “History of Religions School” which assumes that all religions are man-made. Looking for a man-made “reason for the season,” these scholars theorized that a festival for the pagan sun god, Sol Invictus, was co-opted by the Christian Church in a deliberate attempt to oppress pagan rivals.

They seized on the fact that Sol Invictus was associated with December 25. But they neglected to notice that Sol Invictus was not a Roman holiday until Emperor Aurelian invented it in 274. By then, the date of Christmas had already been calculated by Tertullian in 200 A.D. William J. Tighe wrote a very good synopsis of this history in Touchstone Magazine (December 2003) called, “Calculating Christmas.”

Tertullian’s calculations are not necessarily correct, but he shows two things. First, Christmas was not determined by the Sol Invictus. If anything, the Sol Invictus was determined by Christmas. Second, and more importantly, Christmas relates directly to the cross of Jesus. The date of Christmas is a by-product of Latin Christianity’s attempts to calculate the exact date of Jesus’ crucifixion. 

Today, nearly the entire world uses the calendar of the Roman Empire based on the sun. But the Jews of the Bible marked time by the moon. As anybody knows, who pays attention to the cycle of the moon, these two calendars do not match up. Twelve “moonths” do not add up to 365 ¼ days. So, periodically, an extra month must be added to the lunar calendar in order to keep in sync with the sun.

The Old Testament Jews managed this by an occasional decree of the ruling Council. But when the Romans wiped out the Jewish nation in 70 A.D., nobody was left to make the needed adjustments. Later generations could only guess at what they would have done, but nobody in the Christian world had any contact with its actual doing.

That’s why Christian scholars had to make a series of calculations and guesses that can never be perfected. To make a long story short, Tertullian calculated that Jesus was crucified on March 25 in AD 29. We need not concern ourselves overly much about whether this date is correct. But what Tertullian and his contemporaries concluded next is most interesting.

Tertullian wrote, “Jesus died on the cross on March 25, the same day of the year as that on which He was conceived.” It would seem that he was not the only one who thought this. Even Hippolytus of Rome (+235) accepted this date. It seems that the entire Church, for 154 years before the first mention of Christmas celebrations, considered the day of Jesus’ crucifixion also to be the day of his conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary.

That is the basis for Christmas Day. Human birth regularly occurs nine months after conception. That would mean that Jesus’ birthday is on December 25. Again, nobody in the world has enough historical data to prove either that Jesus was born on December 25, or that He wasn’t. Regardless, the most important fact of Christmas Day is that Christians have tied the birth of Jesus to His crucifixion for more than 1,800 years.

Our Eastern Orthodox neighbors center their celebrations on January 6, the Theophany of Jesus, but they nevertheless acknowledge December 25 as His birthday. Western Christians tend to put the accent on December 25 and treat January 6, the Epiphany, as a lesser holiday. But both together—either knowingly, or unknowingly—anchor the season of Jesus’ birth in the purpose for that holy birth.

On the day that Jesus died, He stood before Pontius Pilate who asked, “Are You a king, then?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. To this end I was born, and for this cause I came into the world” (John 19:37). As we sit down to Christmas dinners and attend Christmas services, this truth is shouted out by the very calendar itself.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on December 24, 2021; and in the Cowboy State Daily on December 23, 2021.

Encourage Wyoming’s “Lesser Magistrates” to stand firm.

Photo by John Bakator on Unsplash

The genius of the United States Constitution is its separation of powers. This concept, in turn, derives from a centuries-old line of reasoning sometimes known as “the doctrine of the lesser magistrates,” later developed as “subsidiarity.” It is needed now, more than ever.

After October’s special session failed to pass legislation to protect Wyoming citizens from federal overreach, a November 10 Press Release from the governor announced a “three-pronged approach” to challenge “unconstitutional federal vaccine mandates.” Wyoming joined three separate lawsuits “against the Biden administration for imposing [] vaccine mandate[s]” on federal employees and contractors, on private businesses with more than 100 employees, and on all healthcare workers.

On December 7, 2021 a federal judge issued a nationwide injunction against the federal employee mandate. Combined with numerous injunctions issued in November the “three-pronged approach” has temporarily halted all three mandates and has a good chance of becoming permanent. 

Most recently, Governor Gordon, and four other governors, sent a letter to the Secretary of Defense asserting their rights as Commander in Chief of the state’s National Guard. He wrote, “Under Title 32 duty status, the Wyoming National Guard is under my command and control." Thus, the vaccine mandates on Wyoming Guard members “are an overreach of the federal government’s authority.”

Beyond the immediate subject of vaccine mandates, these actions uphold the broader principle of the separation of powers. This, in turn, is built on the Bible. It is the practical outworking of the Bible’s teaching most concisely articulated in Romans 13:1, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.”

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

These words teach Christians that governments should be respected as divine authorities. But that is not all. They also teach that all government officials—from school board members to presidents—wield authority from God. They are not mere functionaries of the king but have duties and responsibilities in their own right. 

Further, since all authority is from God, all authority is ultimately answerable to God. Kings that use their authority to do objective evil—like murder, theft and homewrecking—act illegitimately and outside their governing authority. 

When higher authorities usurp the power of other God-appointed authorities (i.e. “lesser magistrates,”) they are taking over what God has given to another. And when they do this in open defiance of justice, the “lesser magistrates” have a duty to protect their constituency from the unjust higher authority. 

Wyoming’s July 29th filing of an amicus brief with 23 other states to oppose the unjust and unconstitutional rulings of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey provides another example of this principle at work. 

Protecting Wyoming citizens from unlawful medical mandates and unjust hindrances in the protection of women and children is a welcome development. Both indicate that the governor’s office understands its duty to oppose federal authority when doing so is necessary for the protection of its citizens.

However, a new development, called Corporatism or Fascism, is harming Wyoming citizens in another way. Fascism, thus defined, is not a cartoonish word-weapon used meaninglessly to smear political opponents. It has a precise meaning. It is the collusion of government and business in the implementation of undemocratic policy. It deliberately breaks down the line between government and private enterprise and weaponizes corporations to enhance the power of the state. 

Here’s how it works. Governments threaten to enact rules that will hurt an industry’s bottom line. Then, they induce it to enact a policy that the government is constitutionally forbidden to enact. Businesses comply to receive favorable government treatment and, thus, become an arm of the state disguised as private enterprise. The circle is closed when the state fails to prosecute any laws that the business breaks in the process.

This alarming trend has seen financial institutions collude against the firearms industry as in “Operation Choke Point.” It has seen government collude with social media giants to encourage censorship. And it was used in the infamous “war on coal.”

Now, Wyoming is beginning to push back against such Fascism. After reports that the Biden administration is “pressuring U.S. banks and financial institutions to limit, encumber, or outright refuse financing for traditional energy production companies,” State Treasurer, Curt Meier, signed a letter from 15 energy-producing states. These states promised to yank $600 billion from financial institutions that kowtow to the administration’s pressure.

This is good news for Wyoming’s energy-producing families. Better still, it is a sign that Wyoming’s “lesser magistrates” are seeing the clear and present dangers of federal overreach combined with corporate collusion. It will take firm resolve and cooperation with other states to build walls of defense. But so doing will yield high dividends of peace and freedom.

Let us encourage all of Wyoming’s elected officials in this work. By grounding the constitutional separation of powers in the biblical foundation of Romans 13, we can provide both clarity and moral backbone to Wyoming’s government. Good government is not only judged by its practical results, but by its moral rectitude.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on December 17, 2021; and in the Cowboy State Daily on December 16, 2021.

Elections are not games; they serve the people, not politicians.

Photo by Felix Mittlemeier on Unsplash

The first rule of government in a representative democracy is that those representing the people be democratically elected. That’s what the words mean. So, it was highly disappointing that the Interim Committee on Corporations, Elections & Political Subdivisions recently killed two election bills proposed by Representative Chip Neiman (R-Hulett).

Current Wyoming laws prevent political parties from holding head-to-head primaries to find out which candidate has majority support of that party. When three candidates split the vote with no one getting a majority, Neiman’s bills would put the top two head-to-head and let the voters determine which one has the support of the majority. 

Why the state of Wyoming has any authority to prevent parties from doing this in the first place, is a question for another day. But, until that day, Wyoming legislators can improve the situation by allowing parties to hold runoff elections and amending the state Constitution to allow adequate time for the process.

“Runoff elections-constitutional amendment” LSO 22-0092.3 was a simple bill to insert the needed time into the Wyoming Constitution. A “yes” vote would have put it before the state’s legislature in January. If both senate and house passed it with a two-thirds majority, it would be put on the ballot for Wyoming citizens to decide in November of 2022.

Rep. Chip Neiman

Seven members of the committee voted against even bringing the constitutional amendment before the full legislature. The committee then went on to kill its companion bill, “Runoff elections” LSO-0093.4, which would have responded to the will of the voters by creating a runoff process in Wyoming law.

So, why did a slim majority of the committee deny Wyoming voters from letting their majority be heard? Interested readers can watch the discussion and learn for themselves. The first thing they will learn is that these proposals are entirely doable. 

A lawyer from the Legislative Services Office, the state election director, and the president of the Clerks’ Association testified that the bills were both legal and workable. While the Clerks had opposed an earlier version of the bill, they worked with Representative Neiman to address its concerns and no longer resist it.

A lobbyist and a legislator or two raised objections that a runoff election for statewide office would cost about a million dollars. But if that is too much money to find out the will of the people, why have elections at all? Imagine the cost savings if we skipped elections altogether! But the very point of an election is to determine which candidate has the consent of the governed. Anything less than that is a sham—no matter what the cost. 

Already, the general election is designed to give citizens a head-to-head vote. That’s because everybody knows it would be unfair to allow a dozen candidates on the ballot and give the office to someone who could only get ten percent of the vote. So, why should any party be kept from doing what we already agree is the best practice for general elections?

Why, indeed? This is where the comments got interesting. Representative Sweeney (R-Casper) was most candid. He opined: “the majority party is pushing this… to stack the deck against folks they don’t like, myself being one.” His argument hinged on the assumption that a runoff election would lower his chances of reelection. 

Rep. Pat Sweeney

Whether Sweeney would lose a runoff or not, I don’t know. But I do know that, if he lost, it would be the voice of the people. And if he won, it would be the voice of the people. A civic-minded public servant would be horrified to win an election that did not accurately reflect the voice of the people.

Elections are for the people and not for the politicians. Elections are not a game of thrones to be won by hook or by crook. They should be designed to clarify and amplify the voice of the people. America needs principled public servants who understand this. They should care about a fair vote, not for a favorable vote. Elections are fair when they determine which representative has the support of a clear majority. 

In a perfect world, where the will of the people was perfectly known, we would not need elections at all. Rather, politicians would gladly resign as soon as they knew they had lost the support of the majority. They would nobly defer to anyone who better represented the constituency. But since we don’t live in such a perfect world, civic-minded legislators should work diligently to make elections as responsive to the will of the people as possible. 

For this reason, let us hope that Representative Neiman brings his bill back before the full legislature. Despite the slim majority of the Corporations Committee, the majority of the people should be heard. True representative democracy requires nothing less.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on December 10, 2021.

Wyoming weighs in on Dobbs v. Jackson

The 2021 Supreme Court

Monday, December 13, will mark the 50th anniversary of oral arguments in the case of Roe v. Wade. Thirteen months later the Supreme Court handed down arguably the most destructive decision in SCOTUS history. It has resulted in the legalized extermination of 63.7 million Americans. In addition to the staggering human costs, Roe v. Wade, together with Planned Parenthood v. Casey, have inflicted additional injuries upon the body politic. 

On Wednesday, December 1, 2021, council for the state of Mississippi stood before the Supreme Court and said, “Roe versus Wade and Planned Parenthood versus Casey haunt our country. They have no basis in the Constitution. They have no home in our history or traditions. They've damaged the democratic process. They've poisoned the law. They've choked off compromise. For 50 years, they've kept this Court at the center of a political battle that it can never resolve. And 50 years on, they stand alone. Nowhere else does this Court recognize a right to end a human life.”

Mississippi AG, Lynn Fitch

These were the opening lines of oral argument in defense of Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act. They echoed Mississippi Attorney General, Lynn Fitch, who wrote, “Roe and Casey are unprincipled decisions that have damaged the democratic process, poisoned our national discourse, plagued the law—and, in doing so, harmed this Court.” 

Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act was carefully crafted by an extensive legislative process to balance multiple interests. It allows abortions after the 15th week of gestation, but only under circumstances designed to protect women, the medical community, and babies according to the constitutional duties of the state. Nevertheless, lower courts have blocked its enforcement based on the arbitrary “viability test” imposed by Roe and Casey.

This case, Dobbs v. Jackson, has garnered national attention because it is the first case in nearly 30 years that directly calls for Roe to be overruled. More than 80 Amicus Briefs were filed in support of the state of Mississippi (30 more than those opposing the state’s rights).

Wyoming, along with 23 other states, filed a brief arguing that both “Roe and Casey should be overruled” because they have severely distorted the most foundational legal doctrines. By them, states are denied their Constitutional right to protect their own citizens by publicly debated and carefully balanced laws.

Another brief, signed by 396 state legislators from 41 different states included signatures from Senators Biteman, Hutchings, and Steinmetz of Wyoming, along with former Representative Winters. It argues that the “viability prerequisite to abortion regulations prevents state legislatures from” keeping their “oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the particular state in which he or she serves.”

Wyoming’s entire Washington delegation (Barrasso, Lummis and Cheney) joined a brief filed by 228 Members of Congress saying: “It is long overdue for this Court to return lawmaking to legislators.” 

All three of these amici highlight a constitutional problem at the heart of Roe and Casey. The Tenth Amendment guarantees: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Yet the Supreme Court has robbed the right of states to regulate the practice of medicine within their borders. This is nowhere granted by the Constitution. 

Roe forced 46 states, including Wyoming, to rewrite laws, not based on science and the rational consensus of its citizens, but in order to satisfy seven unelected men in Black robes. In so doing, it froze in place outdated science and prevented America from keeping up with modern medical advances. 

The 1973 Supreme Court

In 1971 ultrasounds were not yet invented, and “viability” translated to 28 weeks of gestation. Today ultrasounds can see beating hearts at eight weeks gestation, and fingers by the tenth week. As for “viability,” an Alabama boy born at 21 weeks recently celebrated his first birthday.

For nearly a half-century, America’s medical practice has been hobbled by Roe. While the rest of the world was modernizing its laws to protect mothers and children after the 12th week of gestation, Roe and Casey have weighed us down like a millstone. Embarrassingly, America is one of only six nations on the planet allowing unrestricted abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.*

During Wednesday’s oral arguments, Justices Barrett and Kavanaugh, the critical swing votes on the Court, signaled their willingness to overturn Roe and Casey. If that happens, it will not change abortion law overnight. Rather, it will take a huge thumb off the scales of justice.

Five decades after the Supreme Court unconstitutionally demanded that Wyoming change her laws, legislative debates are still short-circuited by the non-scientific and non-democratic question: What will the Supreme Court say? It’s high time that the high court ask, instead: What do the people of Wyoming say? 

* Note: an earlier version of this article errantly included Singapore in this list, bringing the total to seven. While every other country bans abortion after 20 weeks, Singapore's limit is 24 weeks.

Also published in the Cowboy State Daily, December 1, 2021 and the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, December 3, 2021.