Every Home a Castle
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

They say it goes back to the English Common Law. I believe it goes back much further-all the way back to the garden. It is a legal principle that ought to be so obvious that it need not be stated. Were it not for an intrusive, invasive, insatiable, insidious institution known as the state, it would not need to be stated. The English expressed it poetically: every man's home is his castle. Our forefathers, leaning less on the familial side and more on the legal side of covenants, said it this way: "No man shall be deprived of his person or his privacy without due process of law." Do you recognize that phrase? It is the fourth amendment to the Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights.

Before we explore this precious but now tarnished gem, let us consider together the nature of our rights. This right, like so many others, has been swallowed whole by Leviathan, not because we have forgotten what this right means but because we have forgotten what rights are. We have forgotten something as simple as the source of our rights. They come from God. They are ours by birth. They are not the state's to give, much less to take away. They are inalienable; they are natural to us. Now, some Christians have a problem with this. Doesn't it sound kind of selfish? Aren't we slaves to Christ? Aren't we supposed to turn the other cheek? All of this forgets that we are slaves to Christ, the giver of the good gift of liberty. Our fathers went to their deaths because they refused to affirm the Lordship of Caesar. The command to turn the other cheek says nothing about turning the cheeks of our wives or our children. Our rights were earned by our King, and we do Him no favor when we despise them, when we throw them away.

We have lost our rights because we worship the god of the state. In Chicago residents of federal housing projects are required to waive their fourth amendment rights in order to secure a home to live in. They have turned to the state as their provider first for their housing. Then they turn to the same nanny state to do something about the drug problem, whatever it takes to make it stop. And what it took was their God-given rights. We lose our God-given rights when we give God back, and worship the creature rather than the Creator.

Few if any of you live in the projects in Chicago. But we have given over what is ours in lesser ways. We invite the state into our homes when we fill out our tax forms, letting assorted bureaucrats peek through our checkbooks. (I'm not saying you shouldn't do this. The state is, after all, like the proverbial stick-up man demanding, "More of your money or your privacy." There is no option where you get to keep both. I am saying, however, that we ought to be put out by this.) We allow them into our homes when we fill out their ridiculous census reports, letting them sniff around our powder rooms. We do this when we allow them to come and search our land for wetlands, and then command us on how we may or may not use our land.

It is not, however, only Uncle Sam who makes himself at home in our homes. We keep an open door for state and local governments as well. In Virginia they still come peeking into our carports to tax us for the cars we've already been taxed on. They too get to pour over the spending habits of the Sproul clan, to determine how much if any of the money to ripped out of my paycheck they will kindly give back.

Then there is the local school district. They come to my house to determine not what I'm spending my money on, but how much my-excuse me, their-house is worth. Then they come around for their protection money, otherwise known as property taxes. Here is where we discover that perhaps the fourth amendment is intact. It may be that it just doesn't apply, because my home is not only not a castle, but it is not mine. I am merely renting it from the state. The same is true for you. If you doubt that the state owns your home, try this little experiment. Don't pay your rent for a month or two, and see how long it takes for you to be out on your ear, dogged at every step by a bad reference from your landlord. That they control it, and that they will evict you and sell it if you don't pay them, is proof that at least they believe that it belongs to them.

What can we do? To borrow the analogy from last issue, crowd the plate. In this issue I suppose we should raise the drawbridge and grow some gators in the moat. Don't let them forget that at least you remember the fourth amendment. If they don't come to your home equipped with a warrant, show them the door, even if you have nothing to hide-especially if you have nothing to hide. Let them know, at every chance you get, who is the King of your castle. And beseech Him for relief. He is our great King Richard; they are a motley crew of Prince Johns and Sheriffs of Nottingham. Our King will return, and make all things right. He is not only the source of our rights but the source of their power. So as we petition Him for relief, we need to remember that He is already in control. And let us remember that He is preparing for us a castle no usurper can take away.

As we make our petitions known, let us also know our other rights. We need to exercise our first amendment rights to let people know about their fourth amendment rights. And the day is coming when we will have to exercise our second amendment rights to enforce our fourth amendment rights. Maybe then the Common Law will be common, and the true law.