A Letter from our Founder

Hi I’m Cary Gordon, Founder and President of Peacemakers Institute.

I’m glad that you’ve come to this website because I know that the information that we’ve made available here is as invaluable as it is often hard to find. You’ll discover PeaceMakers Institute to be a great resource for Biblical information that pertains to the kinds of issues that we Americans face on a daily basis. Issues like war, taxes, abortion, environmentalism, embryonic stem cell research, and even capital punishment. These and many other important and even emotional issues need to be explained from an accurate Biblical perspective. From our friends, “The Worldview Guys”, who provide an exception 13-part video series for individuals, families, and small groups, to our 2-year on-line theological school, PeaceMakers Institute is here to provide you with inspiration through education. We are building a Biblical world view today for the great awakening of tomorrow’s world.

The instruction and development of the human conscience can only be done properly with absolute truths as the building materials. As Christians, we have confidence that the source of all absolute truth is found exclusively in the Bible, and proper interpretation of that Bible allows us to accept God’s truth and apply it to every facet of our daily lives. Living out the Bible ensures that our consciences are accurate and reliable safeguards against evil and its many deceptions.

The conscience is an unavoidable source of human judgment, and it reaches into every fabric of human life, including the courtrooms of the world. From time immemorial, this link between self-government (the sometimes guilty and occasionally innocent conscience of individual persons) and the natural formation of a civil government (what happens when individual persons extend their consciences upon an entire city, state, and nation) has existed. It is the link between conscience and courthouses.

Like a weather vane pointing from the peak of a rooftop in response to the wind that pushed it, my children’s behavior indicates where their lives are headed, and their behavior is in response to the “pushing” of my parental influence. Human behavior points toward something as certainly as it points away from other things. If a weather vane is pointing north, it must also be pointing away from the south. Along similar lines, the vast majority of adults (most especially seasoned school teachers) have at some point mumbled to themselves, “If that child’s parents don’t start doing their job, the kid’s going to end up in prison!” Human behavior points in a particular direction.

Men who are personally enslaved by sin will collectively produce a tyrannical form of civil government. After all, civil government is little more than the extension of the individual conscience upon a community, and in a democracy, it’s a contest between whose consciences will rule the day. For this same reason, men who are personally freed from the shackles of sin will have a proclivity toward producing liberty in their civil government. To say it another way, wicked men make wicked governments, and righteous men make righteous governments. Most people know this instinctively, even if they aren’t able to articulate it out loud.

My little boy, Jonas, will someday become a productive citizen defending the common good. I have as much ability to recognize this path as any other man has to determine where his arrow will fly based upon the direction of his aim. I only need to reflect upon his trajectory at 6 years old to determine this. My son will be a citizen that believes rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God, and rebellion against God is complicity with tyrants. He has been through his personal Garden of Eden and survived to tell the tale. By discovering the path that breaks the enslaving chains of sin and guilt, Jonas is well on his way toward a life of true liberty. Someday, as an adult, his interactions with others in his community will naturally become an extension of his own personal discovery of freedom.

Family government (good parenting) produces self-government (well-disciplined children), who then become good citizens who produce stable civil government. These truths of human nature lead us to a very important question:

At what point does my personal liberty — my self-government — reach its end, and the jurisdiction of civil government begin?

Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines the word inalienable as “cannot be legally or justly alienated or transferred to another.” A government cannot legally or justly transfer its natural rights and corresponding duties to a particular individual. The individual is incapable of the duty connected to such a right. For example, with the exception of the mythical boy from the planet Krypton, one lone man cannot defend a national border by himself. One lone soul cannot ensure domestic tranquility. Similarly, an individual cannot legally or justly transfer to a government his own right and connected duty to experience and express compassion. Can a government cry or laugh? Does a government grieve? Does it feel hope? Can a government dream? No, no, no, and no. A government has no soul. It is not human. It is not biological, and, therefore, it cannot feel anything.

If it is true, as our Declaration of Independence claims, that individual human beings are born with inalienable, God-given rights, would it also be true that civil government also has God-given inalienable rights? Because a government is not biological, some understandably argue that governments do not have rights but merely possess powers instead. While it is certainly true that powers are not necessarily the same as rights, in the context of the meaning of the word “inalienable,” I confess I am prone to disagree on this point.

Without tripping over distracting semantic arguments, surely a human has an inalienable right to exist, and, therefore, retains a natural right to defend itself as well.  One must assume, then (particularly Christians who believe God both created and authorized government to exist), that a government also has, in a similar sense, an inalienable right to exist, and therefore, retains a natural right to defend itself as well. It would seem that individuals and the governments they form both have rights, but where is the line between self and civil government drawn, and by what authority?

Regardless of who you ask and whose answers you choose to believe, world history has taught us a lesson. We should have learned by now that inside these two all-encompassing questions (Where is the line between self and civil government drawn, and by what authority?) rests the sole source of countless bloody revolutions, rebellions, usurpations, and coups d’etat (maybe a peaceful election or two). Honest men know the opposing answers cannot coexist — they cannot all be right at the same time — so the geo-political battles continue, most with, and some without, bullets.

It is my prayer that through PeaceMakers Institute you will discover the only true answers that HAVE ever and CAN bring everlasting liberty, equality, and fraternity to mankind on earth – those answers given long ago by Earth’s Divine Creator and Author of the inspired writers of the Bible. Never stop being a humble student of God’s Word, and together, we will discover answers to every question we face. I welcome you to join us on your journey to know truth and experience the liberty all men seek – the liberty only found in Jesus Christ!

Enjoy the Site,

Rev. Cary K. Gordon
Founder and President of PeaceMakers Institute