Chin Music
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

Christians in the game of baseball enjoy not only the game but the time away from the game. They not only play baseball but talk baseball. From time to time they engage in debate on the ethics of the game. (And a few have even been known to debate the morality of free agency.) Perhaps the greatest debate is over the use of chin music-the brush-back pitch. Here the pitcher throws high and tight, often dropping the batter to the dust, sometimes plinking them on a shoulder, and sometimes beaning them on the bean. No one argues that it's legitimate to do the latter, but all concede that control is never absolute, and the more inside one pitches, the higher the odds of such an end. The defense of the brush back is simple and grounded in the law of God. The eighth commandment, some pitchers reason, forbids stealing, and the inside of the plate belongs to the pitcher a batter crowding the plate is a thief, and he needs to be punished, or at least reminded whose property he is leaning over. The inside pitch, from this point of view, is merely an enforcement tool of existing law.

There is however, no deed granting the inside of the plate to the pitcher. The batter isn't squatting on another's land; both the pitcher and the batter claim the same piece of property. Chin music is the result of a dispute over ownership. Many of the high profile confrontations between the feds and assorted sovereign citizens in the last ten years or so are grounded in the same kind of disagreement. The Branch Davidians, Randy Weaver, the Republic of Texas and the Freemen of Montana have been guilty of exactly what? As far as I can recall, among the whole of them the only crime was that Weaver sawed off a shotgun a quarter-inch shorter than the law allows, and then only because an undercover agent asked him to do it. What actually earned the ire of Uncle Sam was that each of these groups or people crowded the inside of the plate. They got into their scrapes because they refused to bow and scrape. And Uncle Sam doesn't take the time to debate the merits of chin music; he sings first and asks questions later.

Those events concern me not because I live in a compound ranting about the seven seals, not because I belong to a white supremacist group, not because I have placed liens on the property of corrupt judges, not because I have seceded from the union, but because I too want to crowd the plate. I believe the plate belongs to me. Which puts me in danger, even if I'm not a member of the black helicopter crowd.

In eastern Virginia there is a family much like mine. The Thoburns have been vocal in their convictions about the authority of Christ over all things. They have been politically active. They have run for office, published great books, built God-honoring schools. And now, one of them is in jail. His crime? He didn't plant the trees the government told him to plant. Of course, that number kept changing. Mr. Thoburn owns a driving range. His father owns property beside the range. And so the state demanded so many trees, so many feet tall, so many feet apart. Mr. Thoburn backed off the plate. He knew what was up. The state was about to condemn the land to expand a road. The market value of a failed driving range is much less than that of a thriving business. And, incidentally, the muncipality owns a couple of its own driving ranges. Still, he did what they asked. Then they asked for more. Mr. Thoburn inched closer to the plate and refused. And so he sits in jail, charged with contempt of court. (For more info, please check out www.freethoburn.com.)

Note that the government didn't even bother to find some rare bug on the property to justify their intrusion. They found no evidence of wrongdoing. All it took was one man to claim his God-given fourth amendment right to control his own property, and he was carted off to jail. Note also that you have heard nothing about this. CNN doesn't come around when a judge removes a pastor from his pulpit (Martin Murphy), when a swat team of T-men storms a home and drags a family off to jail for buying, warehousing and selling silver (Franklin Sanders), when another judge incarcerates a man for not planting trees (Mr. Thoburn). All these bean balls were hurled while the commercials ran on the television. And so it will continue to be.

What do we do? We crowd the plate. If we give up the inside, they'll contend that the middle of the plate is theirs. Eventually, we'll be standing in the on-deck circle while the feds strike us out one after another. I know the feds have a fastball that can make our head spin. I know what it feels like to take one between the shoulder blades. But the real issue is not whether or not we get beaned, but whether we maintain control of the inside of the plate. We need to remember that we're holding a bat. We are being brushed back because we are feared. The government doesn't come after its slaves, but it must come after free men and women, because we are a threat. When we cease to live as free men, we cease to be a threat. And then there will be no free men.

The bat, the deed to the whole of the plate, even the state's fear, all find their source in Christ our King. We are feared because they fear Him. We are assaulted because they fear Him. And we are able to stand tall, because we fear Him. He has given us, as our forefathers reminded us, our rights. They come from Him alone and He alone can take them away. Stand tall in the batter's box, and know that that glaring monster on the mound is a mound of quivering fear.