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God vs Empire Revisited

Written by forrest : November 21, 2007

November 11, 2007

3768 El Cajon Blvd
San Diego, CA 92105 Re Jury Summons #008298989 for December 10, 2007

After considerable reflection, I find that my religion does not allow me to serve as a juror under your system of government.

For one thing, my scruples about rendering forced honors to secular authorites (see Curo vs San Diego Municipal Court, 1997) are a source of inconvenience to both of us.

But the source of those scruples is my allegiance to the government of the Messiah Jesus, known as Christ. Where the human law judges, condemns, and seeks to protect itself through vengeance…The way of God, as I understand it through Jesus, says otherwise: I am to judge not, to condemn not, to fear not those who can harm the body but only the One with ultimate authority over body and soul. I am even told: “Do not set myself against a man who would harm me,” as the New English Bible properly interprets Matthew 5:28.

Futhermore, I can not bind myself to follow the instructions of a human judge, who may well tell me to follow some human law regardless of its inequity, or to pretend not to recognize some fact I have just seen or heard. I may serve only my one master, who is not that principality called Law, or even the Justice it was once intended to serve.

As the only Christian relationship I could see toward your court would be as a potential victim, it seems best that I do not appear, but simply ask to be excused.

Forrest Curo

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Comments

11 Responses to “God vs Empire Revisited”

  1. Jason Evans on November 21st, 2007 4:46 pm

    Forrest, thank you for your post. I’d love to connect with you sometime. I live in San Diego as well. Email me at jasonevans [at] gmail [dot] com.

  2. Mike S on November 22nd, 2007 6:54 am

    “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”
    What you resist, persists. Resisting what you believe to be real only reinforces its “reality.” We are victims of the world simply because we believe we are in it.
    I would disagree with this “proper” interpretation as ” Do not set myself against a man that would harm me” could also mean that as long as you believe what God Created could be harmed in anyway, you will resist and thus reinforce the harm.
    We make judgments on a daily basis and every judgment has within it the power to exclude. The non-judgmental concept of Jesus includes all and excludes not one tiny speck of reality. Rage against the “system” only reinforces the system and keeps you a prisoner to it.

    Just my humble opinion that I add to the mix.

    Mike S

  3. Mark Van Steenwyk on November 22nd, 2007 10:41 am

    What do you suggest, Mike?

    By the way…you can resist jury duty without raging. Mennonites have been doing it for a long time without so much as a frown. ;)

  4. Mike S on November 23rd, 2007 4:47 pm

    My contention with the post is not the decision, per say, but the basis for the decision. It appears the decision was made through “my religion” as opposed to “my relationship” with God.

    I would “suggest” that once the tools of religion (Bible, Koran, Torah, etc, etc) are fully incorporated, we may then discard the tools and decide for ourselves. Religions can lead you to your ’self-inquiry’, but eventually the inquiry must proceed within (isn’t that where the “kingdom” waits ). From this ‘place’ make your decisions on what the world is for you and how you will BE for the world.

    If I make a decision based on “my religion” where is the freedom in that? However, if I make my decision from “within,” I am not only free from “your system of government,” but also from the constraints of “my religion.” Hence, I can be in “your” world, but not of it.

    Clearly, adherence to the dictates of religion are no different then adherence to “systems of government” in fact, many governments are dictated by religion. Once I am governed by “my religion,” I am impeded from Being governed by God.

    In addition, you may minimize the separation by replacing “rage” with “resist”, but in the end we are still separate from one another and therefore, from God.

    There is much in Christianity for one to incorporate in living. But if choices are made without the deepest, most penetrating self-inquiry, then our inauthenticity will haunt our every decision.

    To simply proclaim that “my religion” informs me of my choices is essentially to deny the self-inquiry that will result in knowing God and will inadvertently deny God.

  5. Mark Van Steenwyk on November 23rd, 2007 5:13 pm

    You say “clearly, adherence to the dictates of religion are no different than adherence to ’systems of government’…”

    Why is this so clear? That is a big leap to make. I could just as easily say: “clearly, adherence to the dictates of self-inquiry is no different than adherence to religion.” Is there something that much more primal…more pure…in self-inquirey than in communal inquirey? Or the gathered communal inquirey of 2000 years?

  6. Mike S on November 23rd, 2007 11:34 pm

    Mark,

    Yes, you could just as easily say that “clearly adherence to the dictates of self-inquiry is no different than adherence to religion.” Yet, religion is, as you state, the composite of 2000 years of “communal inquiry.”

    This leaves us with a lot to sift through in getting at the truth and, since we live in a world of relativity, the question remains, which religion gives us the absolute truth? Isn’t that the ultimate purpose of religion, or 2000 yrs of “communal inquiry,” to provide the absolute truth?

    Inevitably, you will choose. And in that choice, we do inquire within, yet we minimize our capacity to make choices from that ‘place’ and thus cease to remain ‘there.’ This can result in a ‘fixation’ on the choices made by others. Such fixation can distract from the purpose and that purpose is to know the Love of God. What religion did Jesus belong to?

    Like the “Energizer Bunny,” self inquiry keeps going and going and…

    Thus, there are no dictates, no boundaries, no parameters. The truth of God is for you to experience. Religion can point a direction, but the experience will be within.

    I like your term “communal inquiry.” Could it be that 2000 years of communal inquiry will finally culminate in the ultimate truth that God is within and cannot be found outside your mind. I merely speculate.

    I suppose my point is that religion can give directions, but the destination will be within. When religion becomes “my religion” there is a chance we may mistake the map for the territory.

  7. forrest on November 24th, 2007 5:38 am

    I’ve been too busy “stuffing the turkey” to participate in any of this, not that I think I could have been of much help with it.

    I didn’t know the Mennonites were uneasy about jury service; I’m in good company then and that’s good to know.

    No, Mark S, I don’t think the purpose of religion is “to give us the absolute truth.” Religion is something God helps us construct in the process of coming to “know” truth better. Does this mean we never get The Whole Truth digested?–I don’t know, but will probably be happy to let people know if it ever happens to me!

    That word “know.” In English it’s the same word, whether we “know” something or “know” a person. But in many other languages it isn’t.

    That Absolute Truth we come to know overlaps with our self, to a great extent. And many of us tend to experience it as if it “were” “another” person, one who knows us well and loves us anyway… so in either case, I wouldn’t expect to finish coming to “know” absolute truth., any more than I expect to finish knowing my wife or myself. I can’t say “It’s not possible”; I simply haven’t yet done so.

    The subject of anger, which you raised earlier, could use some inquiry, but so far as I know has nothing to do with the matter at issue here: whether I have any business participating in a public effort to safeguard the community via deciding some of its members are “guilty” and then harming them. It is certainly God who has helped me see that I shouldn’t participate, but he communicated it via my efforts to understand what Jesus meant in that passage, and whether I in fact see the truth of it.

    Whether I should have told the court that God, rather than “my religion”, renders me unsuitable for a jury… A court can recognize that I “have” a religion, that is, it can have evidence that I believe certain things it is not supposed to interfere with. A court cannot recognize God or whatever part God may have had in forming my religion, and I wouldn’t expect it to. God is simply not in its jurisdiction. What Jesus said, I can point to, so that human beings can understand, whether or not they’ve yet come to agree.

  8. Mike S on November 24th, 2007 9:03 am

    Forrest,

    I agree 100% that the purpose of religion is not that of absolute truth and I did not wish to imply that you believed it gave that, yet there is no doubt that the religious industrial complex thrives on providing theories of the absolute to the eager. Note that I am not bashing religion per say as long as we see it as the map and not the territory. In deed, science is the new priesthood of the absolute, for the last two centuries, and has clearly trumped religion in its attempts to define what cannot be defined.

    And also, I should have kept the cliche “rage against the system” out of my comment since resistance doesn’t need to be in the form of anger or rage. Resistance simply demands exclusion. If I resist participation, I therefore exclude that which is resisted, the court, those who compose the court, those who make the laws, those who judge, etc., etc. My belief is that exclusion in any form is exclusion from the ‘Oneness’ of God. In excluding any part of the whole, the whole is excluded.

    Actually, I initiated this comment to highlight the double-edged sword that resistance represents. I can refuse to participate in the “harming” of another by refusing to participate “in a public effort to safeguard the community via deciding some of its members are guilty.” But if I pay taxes that support that system, am I not then a participant? In fact, if I pay taxes which support war, am I not participating in the harming of another. In the final summation, I am as guilty as those I judge and now we can all be included.

    In addition, I would disagree with your comment that with regard to the courts, “God is simply not in its jurisdiction.” Au contraire mon frere, if you look closely at the codified laws the court is vested to enforce, an interpretation of God is in every word.

    Guys, thanks for engaging me and helping me to get a little clearer in my self-inquiry. However, we could go on ad infinitum since all our points are moot and I would hate to monopolize this comment string. Besides, as I read other posts on this great website I found that there is much else to comment on. Count me in as a frequent flyer.

    I leave the last word to you as I must begin the traditional post-Thanksgiving turkey sandwich feast.

    With Respect,

    Mike S

  9. forrest on November 24th, 2007 3:05 pm

    I’m not denying anyone’s right to “resist evil”; sometimes I feel called to do so (peace signs on a busy corner Tuesday mornings) and sometimes I don’t.

    Jesus has said that I shouldn’t try to defend myself by harming others, and all the evidence points to him being right about that. People continue to do so, but that’s a mistake I strive to avoid.

    The ‘System’ hasn’t yet incorporated that understanding; there are efforts to practice ‘restorative justice’ in a few minor cases, but that’s not the nature of the overall system, and it isn’t what I’m being called on to do here. The court can go on doing as humans have alwasy done (although I wish they wouldn’t) and I’m not Assigned to stopping it, any more than I can prevent Caesar from taking back the money he manufactures (to facilitate taxation, if you look into the ancient history of money far enough, although it’s since become largely an instrument for maintaining private tyranny!)

    I am put into this world with choices, and if I don’t wallow in the nearest mudpuddle, it is not intended to be unnecessarily pejorative to mudpuddles, nor to exclude the mudpuddle from my universe, but merely to avoid unnecessary mud. Wallow, if it pleases you!

  10. Mark Van Steenwyk on November 24th, 2007 8:16 pm

    :)

  11. Adam on December 21st, 2007 5:09 pm

    Matthew 5:28 says ” but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

    I think you meant verse 39, yes?

    Sorry to nitpick.

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