Response to the "National Sunday Law" Mass Mailing

On Tuesday, August 13^th, the local area was blanketed with copies of “National Sunday Law,” a short book written by A. Jan Marcussen.  It is unclear who sent this mass mailing to our local area; the only clue is the postage mark, which tells us that these books were sent by a non-profit organization which received their mailing permit in Okeene, Oklahoma.  However, it is apparent that somebody thought it was important enough for all of us to read this book that they bought a large number of copies, enough to send one to every address within the target area.

So what is this book?  To be honest, I’d never heard of it before I found it within my mailbox.  But knowing that others were receiving it, I sat down to read this 70-page book (not counting all of the appendices) so that I could discuss it with anyone who might read it and ask me about it.  If you would like to skip the reading of the book and get right to the discussion, you can continue on to my thoughts below.

First, here is a summary of the book.  This book was written back in 1983 to address a perceived crisis: that several politicians were advocating for new laws that enshrined Sunday as a day of worship within individual states or within the whole nation (essentially, a national “blue law”).  The author acknowledges that this would violate the 1^st Amendment to the United States Constitution (i.e. freedom of religion), but that is not the author’s true concern.  No, the real problem is that these politicians would be enshrining the wrong day as the day of worship.  In the author’s mind, the “Sabbath” must be observed on Saturday and not on Sunday.  The author’s argument is that the Church has followed the lead of Satan and changed the day for worship to Sunday, which was the day the pagan Romans designated as the day to worship the sun god(s); this change violates the 4^th Commandment: remember the Sabbath day (i.e. the 7^th day, Saturday) and keep it holy.  By following the lead of Satan and allowing the day of worship to be corrupted, most of the Church has accepted “the mark of the beast” as described in Revelation and will be condemned by the Lord when the Lord returns to initiate the resurrection and the end of the age.  And if the United States approves these laws establishing Sunday as the day of worship, then the United States will be the second beast in Revelation 13 that takes over for the Roman Catholic Church, the first beast.  Only those who maintain the true Sabbath, Saturday, will receive the seal of the Holy Spirit and be welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven on the day of judgment.

Did you follow all of that?  If you did not, that’s okay, because the author’s argument is flawed on several fronts.  Here is where I see problems with the author’s argument:

1) From what I can tell, there was not a serious effort to establish a national “blue law” or more statewide “blue laws” within individual states during the 1980s or after the 1980s.  In fact, the trend has been to eliminate the blue laws that were already on the books.  That, combined with societal trends, shows that Sunday is LESS established as a day set aside for worship today compared to the early 1980s.

2) The author treats Revelation as prophecy foretelling the future.  However, prophecy in the Bible can also be a way of “forthtelling,” or interpreting the events of the present.  While portions of Revelation are obviously looking ahead to a distant future, there is also a good amount of “forthtelling” in Revelation much in the way that political cartoons communicate certain ways of looking at current events.  Viewing Revelation as a series of “political cartoons” is a better way of understanding much of Revelation compared to viewing Revelation as a play-by-play of future events.

3) Any attempt to identify the United States as the primary intention of a symbol within “The Apocalypse of John,” more commonly known as “Revelation,” is an exercise in reading into the Bible what you want to find within the Bible, a practice known as “eisegesis.”  Eisegesis is widely considered to be a poor way of interpreting the Bible because it prioritizes supporting what you already believe to be true rather than focusing on what the Bible actually says.  Here, the author claims that the second beast of Revelation 13 is the symbol of the United States, even though the author of Revelation clearly had the Roman Empire in mind.  (It’s worth noting that describing the Americas as an unpopulated wilderness also ignores the many Native American tribes and other indigenous peoples that lived throughout North and South America at the time they were “discovered” by Europeans.)

4) The identification of the first beast of Revelation 13 as the Roman Catholic Church is an exercise in anti-Catholic bigotry.  Again, the beasts of Romans 13 have the Roman Empire in mind, not entities that would not exist for multiple centuries after the writing of Revelation.  The two beasts along with the dragon of Revelation 12 form the triumvirate (Satan, the military might of the Roman Empire, and the cultural oppression of the Roman Empire) that opposes the Triune God.

5) The “seal of God” is given to us in baptism.  It is not a designation of Saturday as the only day for worshipping the Lord.

6) The “mark of the beast” was a reference to a literal mark on the hand that many Roman communities required you to bear before you could buy and sell within the marketplace.  Many Christian communities refused to bear this mark because participating in the marketplace meant using currency that declared the Roman Emperor as Lord of all.  They viewed using this currency as an implicit agreement with the declaration, which would put them in violation of the 1^st Commandment: “I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods before me.”

7) The author tries to have it both ways when it comes to a biblical event happening on “the first day of the week.”  In appendix 10, the author discusses Acts 20:7-8, in which Paul meets with certain disciples on the first day of the week.  Their time together includes a moment where they “break bread,” a common reference for participating in what we now know as Holy Communion.  The author points out that a Jewish day goes from sunset to sunset rather than midnight to midnight; therefore, according to the author, this group is still worshipping on Saturday.  However, Paul and the others would dispute this identification; for them, it is already Sunday.

8) Finally, all of this is based off of the author’s insistence that the Sabbath must fall on Saturday, the last day of the week.  The day of rest comes from the Genesis accounts of creation, in which the Lord creates all things over the course of six “days” before resting on the seventh “day.”  While many understand these to be 24-hour days, this is an assumption that a “day” in this “pre-history” portion of the Bible is the same as a “day” as we understand it.  Meanwhile, Jesus also told the Pharisees that “The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath…” which is to say that which day we take to rest and worship is not nearly as important as that we do stop and take a day for rest and worship.  The command and invitation for Sabbath rest is meant to be a joy and blessing for us and not a hardship.  If taking Sabbath on a Saturday (or Sunday) is a hardship, we should be free to designate another day as our day of Sabbath rest rather than restricted to Saturday (or Sunday) or bust.

Based on these objections, I do not recommend that you read this book.  If you choose to read it, I hope that you read it with your eyes open to the fact that the author is trying to manipulate you into an absolute position regarding the day of worship, even to the point of threatening you with damnation if you do not comply with his reasoning.  While his interpretation of Revelation and other passages sounds informed, he is stretching the passages beyond recognition so that they fit within his narrative.  And the great crisis he wished to address has never arrived in the past 36 years and the current trend lines move in the opposite direction of what he feared would happen.  So if you choose to read this book, read it without fear of coming judgment over whether you worship the Lord on Saturday, Sunday, or another day of the week.

Did I miss anything?  Do you have other comments or questions regarding the book you received or a portion of my writings here?  Share your insights and questions in the comments below and we can discuss your concerns!