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Oaths 9 – Does God Forget?

Oaths 9 – Does God Forget?

As mentioned in a previous post on Oaths (Oaths 2), the first colonists arriving on the shores of the American continent were Christians, some more explicit in their commitment to a biblical system of civil government than others. The forms of government ranged from that of the Puritans, who explicitly sought to set up a biblical commonwealth, to that of the Pilgrims, who also sought to set up a civil government on Christian principles, to the Virginia settlement, which simply sought to continue the political Christianity of Great Britain. The most compromised of versions would put modern, 21st century America to shame with respect to commitment to the true God of the bible.

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Oaths 5 – Torcaso v. Watkins

Oaths 5 – Torcaso v. Watkins

Evidence of the pervasive effect of allowing the federal government to forbid religious test oaths in the States of the Union as completely as is the case for federal government offices was the 1961 U.S. Supreme Court case, Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961), is touted as the opinion that settled whether the Article VI religious test clause ban applies to the States after the Fourteenth Amendment. I’ve copied the Wikipedia article on the matter because it sums up the opinion and the lack of resolution of the issue by that opinion. The opinion actually never addressed Article VI because it applied the First Amendment to decide the case. Continue reading “Oaths 5 – Torcaso v. Watkins”

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Oaths 1 – A Discounted Power

Oaths 1 – A Discounted Power

Jesus said, “Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God’s throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” Matthew 5:33-7.

But this warning on how to speak the truth in your personal life, if taken to the extreme and applied to all contexts, even courtrooms and the covenantal contexts, of course, would deny oaths altogether. Jesus was speaking to the misuse of oaths, like “I swear on a stack of bibles that I’m telling you the truth!” Continue reading “Oaths 1 – A Discounted Power”