Location

Constitutionalism

Level of Education

Graduate

Secondary Session

Biblical Perspectives on Government

Keywords

Covenantal practice; constitutionalism; Biblical Israel; Covenantal psychology;

Presenter Names and Speeches.

Joseph Livni -

Covenant Persuasion led to Constitutionalism – Neither Was Invented

Abstract

Constitutionalism is a conviction shared by people that a government must act in compliance with a dominant charter. So is covenantal persuasion. The covenant reflects statutes and traditions etched in a living covenantal practice. The practice cannot exist without the persuasion and the persuasion cannot exist without the practice. Elazar was one of the most prolific scholars of the covenantal model. There is one point were the paper diverges from Elazar. The paper discusses a mathematical model and other studies of the covenant practice demonstrating that such a practice involves a multitude of simultaneous vital conditions. That led to the understanding that the covenantal practice cannot be invented. Therefore all covenant practices and covenantal faiths evolved from a living parent covenantal practice. Constitutionalism followed the same path. American Constitutionalism evolved from the covenant practice of Puritan New England. The Constitution of “We the People” can limit the government because the faith of people that its words have the power to do so. The first covenant society was pre-monarchic Israel. Semi-nomads in the desert brought into the Holy Land their conviction that words and not kings shall govern. Miraculously, their practice included all the essential ingredients of a viable covenantal practice. Waldensians, Gascony’s vesiau, Romanian obște and obviously Pilgrims and Puritans inherited their viable practices from one another. All of them have a common ancestor: Early Christianity.

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Covenant Persuasion Lead to Constitutionalism – Neither Was Invented

Constitutionalism

Constitutionalism is a conviction shared by people that a government must act in compliance with a dominant charter. So is covenantal persuasion. The covenant reflects statutes and traditions etched in a living covenantal practice. The practice cannot exist without the persuasion and the persuasion cannot exist without the practice. Elazar was one of the most prolific scholars of the covenantal model. There is one point were the paper diverges from Elazar. The paper discusses a mathematical model and other studies of the covenant practice demonstrating that such a practice involves a multitude of simultaneous vital conditions. That led to the understanding that the covenantal practice cannot be invented. Therefore all covenant practices and covenantal faiths evolved from a living parent covenantal practice. Constitutionalism followed the same path. American Constitutionalism evolved from the covenant practice of Puritan New England. The Constitution of “We the People” can limit the government because the faith of people that its words have the power to do so. The first covenant society was pre-monarchic Israel. Semi-nomads in the desert brought into the Holy Land their conviction that words and not kings shall govern. Miraculously, their practice included all the essential ingredients of a viable covenantal practice. Waldensians, Gascony’s vesiau, Romanian obște and obviously Pilgrims and Puritans inherited their viable practices from one another. All of them have a common ancestor: Early Christianity.