We are a reformed church called to continue to be reforming – in word and deed. Darwin taught us that it is not the biggest or strongest which survive, but those who adapt the best.
Yet, in the news recently, parts of our government want to return to yesteryear, specifically, 1864. One hundred years before I was born, the Territorial laws reflected the times back then – wild and unsettled.
What are the Territorial Arizona laws and realities that we might choose to follow? Why stop with just one? Include them all!
First off, the boundaries of the state were larger. It included the southern part of Nevada – We’re talking Vegas, baby! The state capital has changed multiple times. Our territorial capital started at Fort Whipple in Prescott, then moved to Tucson, then back to Prescott, before finally settling in Phoenix in 1889.
Only “white male citizens” of the United States or Mexico who’d lived in the territory for six months were allowed to vote.
The key question – Are the mores of a 19th-century society in which parents were allowed to accidentally beat their children to death and 9-year-old girls were considered capable of giving consent to sexual encounters with adult men, really the best laws in which to return?
If we’re going to return to the guidelines of yesteryear, let me suggest the Ten Commandments, or “Do unto others,” or “Love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, and mind,” or Matthew 25 as ways to accomplish it. Those are time-tested good examples of how to live faithfully day-to-day.
Shalom, Paul