(12) Your View of Authority Matters to God - Kevin Taggard

CDC/NCHS reported 2,132,853 marriages and 782,038 divorces/annulments in reporting areas for 2018; Census/Pew estimates of current cohabitors were far below 46 million.

The numerical claim conflates events, persons, and relationship statuses. The CDC reported about 2.13 million marriages in the United States in 2018, meaning marriage events, not 'individuals'; if counting individuals, the number would be roughly double. The CDC reported about 782,038 divorces and annulments from 45 reporting states and D.C., not 1,050,599. The claim of 46 million Americans currently cohabiting as unmarried couples is far above Census/Pew estimates for current cohabitors around that period; it may confuse ever-cohabited adults with current cohabitation.

The statistics are used to argue catastrophic failure of the family arrangement, but the cited numbers are not reliable as presented. U.S. demographic data show lower marriage rates than in the past, increased cohabitation, and changing household forms; they do not support the exact claim. Divorce rates in the United States have generally declined from their late twentieth-century peak, complicating a simple narrative of accelerating collapse.

Longitudinal polling shows institution-specific and decades-long trends rather than a simple universal five-year collapse in respect for authority.

The statement is rhetorically plausible for audiences concerned about social unrest, crime, and political polarization, but it is not demonstrated. News coverage is not a reliable proxy for societal respect for authority because media salience can rise independently of incidence. Measures of trust, protest activity, crime, and attitudes toward police/government vary by country, age, party, race, and institution. A five-year causal claim especially needs comparative data before and after the pandemic.

There is evidence of low institutional confidence in some societies, but not a clear scholarly consensus that 'humanity' underwent a marked general decline in respect for authority specifically over five years. In the United States, for example, confidence in institutions has been declining or fluctuating across a much longer period, while violent crime and police officer deaths vary annually and do not by themselves prove a broad cultural transformation.

COVID-19 safety outcomes require epidemiological data; no congregation-level mortality, infection, or comparison data are provided.

The claim may reflect genuine local experience, and remote meetings likely reduced exposure compared with in-person gatherings. But the causal wording is not demonstrated. Pandemic outcomes depended on age, comorbidities, vaccination, local transmission, occupation, household exposure, medical care, and public-health measures. Without denominational health data and a comparison group, one cannot conclude that safety was primarily because of elder direction, much less that the direction came from Jehovah.

As a theological statement, attributing direction to Jehovah through elders is confessional. As an empirical health claim, it lacks evidence in the talk. Public-health evidence supports avoiding high-risk gatherings during waves of infection, but that supports the practical effect of remote meetings, not the full causal or theological claim.

Scholarly consensus dates Jerusalem's fall to 587/586 BCE, not 607 BCE.

The claim is not verifiable as a historical event because Christ's heavenly enthronement is a theological assertion. As a biblical claim, however, it has weak support: the New Testament does not name 1914, and early Christian texts often speak of Christ's exaltation as already following resurrection, e.g., Acts ch. 2 v. 33-36 and Philippians ch. 2 v. 9-11. Jehovah's Witness chronology relies on linking Daniel's 'seven times' to 2,520 years beginning in 607 BCE, a date rejected by mainstream Neo-Babylonian chronology.

Jesus' eschatological discourse in Matthew ch. 24, Mark ch. 13, and Luke ch. 21 gives signs and warnings but does not identify 1914. Daniel ch. 4 concerns Nebuchadnezzar's humiliation in its narrative context; applying it to a long Gentile chronology is theological typology. Secular evidence dates Jerusalem's fall to 587/586 BCE, undermining the chronological basis commonly used to reach 1914.

Family-demography research identifies multiple economic, legal, cultural, and personal factors behind divorce and cohabitation trends.

The claim overstates both the diagnosis and the cause. It treats divorce, cohabitation, and altered household forms as evidence of 'catastrophic failure' and attributes them to failure to follow divinely assigned gender/family roles. Social science does not support such a monocausal explanation. Religiosity, marital norms, and family practices can affect outcomes, but economic pressure, age at marriage, education, domestic violence, gender equality, contraception, labor markets, and legal access to divorce also shape family patterns.

The Bible contains household codes and wisdom traditions supporting ordered family roles, but it does not provide a modern statistical causal model of family breakdown. Ephesians ch. 5 v. 21-33 and ch. 6 v. 1-4 address Christian household conduct within an ancient patriarchal setting. Applying those roles as the decisive explanation for modern demographic trends is doctrinal and moral reasoning rather than demonstrated sociology.

The historical setting is essentially correct: Nero reigned from 54-68 CE, and Romans is commonly dated around 56-58 CE. Romans ch. 13 v. 1-7 urges submission to governing authorities, payment of taxes, and recognition of rulers as servants/ministers in an ordered civic sense. The theological claim that all governments are 'allowed' by God to maintain order is a plausible reading of Romans, though Christian interpreters have long debated limits to obedience.

Romans ch. 13 v. 1-2 says every person should be subject to governing authorities and that authority exists under God's ordering. Romans ch. 13 v. 3-7 then describes rulers as a terror to bad conduct and links taxes to their public role. But the New Testament also contains counterbalancing texts, such as Acts ch. 5 v. 29 and Revelation ch. 13, where imperial power can be resisted or depicted as beastly. Thus the passage supports civic submission but not unlimited obedience.

The general civic point is sound: taxation funds infrastructure and public safety in many modern states. Romans ch. 13 v. 6-7 explicitly mentions taxes in connection with governing authorities. However, the specific examples are simplified. In the United States, local property taxes and municipal budgets often fund police and fire services; fuel taxes and multiple government levels fund roads; 911 may be supported by fees and taxes; USPS generally operates through postage and service revenues rather than regular tax funding.

Romans ch. 13 v. 6-7 says believers pay taxes because authorities are God's servants attending to public duties, and it exhorts payment of taxes, revenue, respect, and honor. The theological framing that Jehovah 'allows' the arrangement is a denominational reading of Paul's statement. The empirical civic benefits are broadly real, though the financing mechanisms are more complex than the talk suggests.

As a claim about what the cited text says, this is well supported. Deuteronomy presents YHWH as supreme over divine beings and rulers, impartial, incorruptible, and protective of socially vulnerable groups. Whether one accepts this as a metaphysical fact about God depends on theological commitments, but the textual claim is accurate.

Deuteronomy ch. 10 v. 17-19 describes YHWH as 'God of gods and Lord of lords,' mighty and awesome, not partial and not accepting bribes, doing justice for the orphan and widow, loving the resident alien, and commanding Israel to love the resident alien. The passage is part of Moses' covenant exhortation to Israel to fear, serve, and obey YHWH.

The textual claim is accurate. Acts ch. 5 depicts the apostles brought before the Sanhedrin after continuing to teach publicly; they answer that obedience to God overrides obedience to human rulers when the two directly conflict. The broader principle is a standard Christian interpretation. Historically, Acts is a theological narrative written after the events it describes, so details are mediated through the author's literary and apologetic aims.

Acts ch. 5 v. 28 says the authorities had strictly ordered the apostles not to teach in Jesus' name and accused them of filling Jerusalem with their teaching. Acts ch. 5 v. 29 replies, 'We must obey God rather than men.' The passage does not abolish civic submission generally; it qualifies it where authorities forbid what God requires.

The factual core is mostly accurate: many jurisdictions restricted in-person worship gatherings during parts of the pandemic, and Jehovah's Witnesses held meetings by videoconference. The talk rightly notes that restrictions were generally not bans on being Jehovah's Witnesses or on the message. The theological framing is less precise: by meeting electronically, Witnesses generally obeyed both their understanding of Hebrews ch. 10 v. 24-25 and governmental public-health rules; this was not a clear Acts ch. 5-style case of human authorities forbidding all worship or preaching.

Hebrews ch. 10 v. 24-25 urges believers not to forsake gathering together and to encourage one another. Whether electronic meetings satisfy that command is an interpretive question, but many religious groups treated online worship as a legitimate emergency accommodation. Pandemic orders varied widely by jurisdiction and time; some were later challenged or narrowed in court, especially when religious gatherings were treated less favorably than comparable secular activities.

The cited text supports a Christian mission obligation in broad terms. Matthew ch. 28 v. 19-20 says to make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching them to observe Jesus' commands. The talk's application to letter-writing, return visits, and Zoom Bible studies is consistent with Jehovah's Witness practice but is not prescribed by the passage itself. 'Preach' is more directly the wording of passages such as Matthew ch. 24 v. 14, Mark ch. 13 v. 10, and Acts' missionary narratives.

Matthew ch. 28 v. 18-20 presents the risen Jesus claiming all authority and commissioning disciples to make disciples, baptize, and teach. It does not specify door-to-door ministry, letters, telephones, or videoconferencing. Those are modern methods chosen to fulfill a broader missionary mandate.

The quoted passage supports respect and responsiveness toward recognized Christian leaders. It does not identify the modern office structure, appointment process, or governing arrangements of Jehovah's Witness congregations. Early Christian communities had overseers, elders, deacons, apostles, prophets, teachers, and patrons in varied configurations. Therefore, the general claim of congregational leadership has biblical grounding; the claim that a particular modern elder-body system is directly instituted by Jehovah is confessional.

Hebrews ch. 13 v. 17 tells believers to obey or be persuaded by those leading them and to submit, because these leaders keep watch over their souls and will give account. In context, Hebrews ch. 13 also asks believers to remember former leaders in ch. 13 v. 7. The text emphasizes pastoral accountability and community order, not unqualified obedience to any modern leadership structure.

Daniel ch. 2 v. 44 says the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed and will crush and end all these kingdoms. Revelation depicts Satan's final defeat, especially ch. 20 v. 10. The talk's statement is therefore textually rooted in biblical apocalyptic expectation. However, its timing, institutional identification, and literal future sequence are matters of doctrine, not conclusions established by historical method.

In Daniel ch. 2, the stone and statue vision concerns successive kingdoms, commonly read by critical scholars in relation to ancient Near Eastern and Hellenistic imperial history, especially culminating in the crisis under Antiochus IV in Daniel's final form. Jehovah's Witnesses and many other apocalyptic interpreters read it as a future divine world government. Revelation ch. 20 portrays Satan's defeat after symbolic apocalyptic events. These are theological claims about the future.

The text itself contains a vice catalogue and says such traits characterize 'last days.' The move from the ancient text to the assertion that it uniquely or especially describes the present age is theological interpretation. Similar moral decline rhetoric appears in many ancient Jewish, Christian, and Greco-Roman sources, so resemblance between a vice list and contemporary observations is not strong evidence of a specific eschatological timetable.

2 Timothy ch. 3 v. 1-5 says difficult times will come in the 'last days' and lists people as self-loving, money-loving, boastful, disobedient, ungrateful, and so forth. In context, the author warns Timothy about corrupt teachers and people within the religious/social environment of the community, not merely a statistical description of twenty-first-century society. Whether the passage predicts the present era is a doctrinal judgment.

Revelation ch. 12 v. 12 says the devil has great anger because he knows he has a short time, so the theme exists in the biblical text. But applying it to the present moment and saying Satan is now 'at his angriest' is interpretive and cannot be independently tested. The claim also compresses apocalyptic chronology; in Revelation ch. 20 v. 1-3 Satan is bound for a thousand years before the final judgment scene of ch. 20 v. 10.

The biblical basis most likely is Revelation ch. 12 v. 12, where the devil's wrath follows heavenly conflict, and Revelation ch. 20 v. 10, where the devil is finally thrown into the lake of fire. The text does not provide a modern date or a measurable level of demonic anger. 'Very soon' is a confessional eschatological expectation, not a datum established by the text.

There is real textual support in Ephesians for a hierarchical household model: Ephesians ch. 5 v. 22-24 speaks of wives being subject and ch. 5 v. 23 calls the husband head of the wife. The talk correctly balances this somewhat by emphasizing ch. 5 v. 25 and ch. 5 v. 28-29, where husbands must love wives as Christ loved the congregation. However, claiming that Jehovah instituted this as the universal family arrangement is theological interpretation, not a conclusion shared by all Christian traditions or by historical-critical scholarship.

In context, Ephesians ch. 5 v. 21 introduces mutual subordination among believers, followed by instructions to wives and husbands. The passage reflects and revises ancient patriarchal household norms by imposing Christlike self-giving love on husbands. It does not use the speaker's wording 'main authority,' but that idea is inferable from ch. 5 v. 23-24 under a traditional reading.

Ephesians ch. 5 v. 24 does say that as the church is subject to Christ, wives should be subject to husbands 'in everything,' and ch. 5 v. 33 says the wife should respect her husband. The talk's doctrinal application is consistent with complementarian readings. However, historical-critical interpretation situates the passage within ancient household management conventions, and many Christian interpreters stress ch. 5 v. 21's mutual submission and the ethical limits implied by the broader canon, especially where harm or abuse is involved.

The cited text says wives should be subject to husbands as the congregation is to Christ, while husbands must love wives sacrificially. It does not say wives must obey harmful or sinful commands, nor does it explicitly use Jesus' relation to the Father as the model for wives; that analogy is drawn from other passages such as John ch. 4 v. 34, John ch. 5 v. 19, and Philippians ch. 2 v. 5-11.

Proverbs ch. 1 v. 8 gives significant dignity to maternal instruction alongside paternal discipline. The verse supports the claim that children should heed mothers, and it can reasonably be used in a religious setting to affirm maternal authority. But the verse is wisdom exhortation, not a legal constitution of family hierarchy. It does not specify how maternal authority relates to paternal or spousal authority in the way the talk's doctrinal framework suggests.

In context, Proverbs ch. 1 v. 8-9 introduces parental teaching as wisdom that adorns the child. Similar pairings occur in Proverbs ch. 6 v. 20 and elsewhere. The text says to hear/heed the father and not abandon the mother's torah/instruction; it supports respect for mothers but does not fully define a governance structure of the household.