Oversoul World Ministries
CANON LAWS
The word CANON, is derived from the Greek word, meaning "law" and while there are several definitions, the Standard Collegiate dictionary includes the following: (1) a rule of law in general; especially, a law or rule regarding Doctrine of discipline of faith and practice enacted by a Church council; (2) an established rule, principle; (3) a standard for judgment, criterion; (4) the books of the Holy Scriptures recognized as the divinely inspired rule of faith and practice; (5) the sacred books on any sect or religion.
Religion is described as "the beliefs, attitudes, emotion, behavior, etc., constituting man's relationship with the powers and principles of the universe, especially with a deity or deities; also, any particular system of such beliefs, attitudes, etc.
Syn: Religion, faith, cult, denomination, church, and sect denote a particular system of religious beliefs or the persons that adhere to it. Religion is the general name for all such systems, from earliest recorded history to the present day. A faith is a clearly formulated system of religious beliefs and worship., from earliest recorded history to the present day. A faith is a clearly formulated system of religious beliefs and worship.
CANON LAWS are then the body of ecclesiastical law, relating to faith, morals, and discipline that regulate religious functions.
HISTORY OF CANON LAWS: The Alexandrian Canon became the first Old Testament of Christendom. The Canon of the New Testament, now universally received, was recognized by synods in Rome in 381 and at Carthage in 397. In the first ediction of Luther's Bible (1534), and in subsequent Protestant Bibles, books of the original Christian Canon were relegated as Apocrypha (a collection of unauthenticated early Christian writings, proposed as additions to the New Testament, but not admitted) to a separate place between the two Testaments. In answer to Luther's innovation, the Council of Trent in 1546 explicitly declared that all the books of the original Christian Bible were canonical, and the Roman Catholic Church accepts them as such today.
Expressions of Canon Laws can be found in the writings of Moses, Plato, Hammurabi, and others. The mosaic Law is an example of a Canon Law Covenant incorporating laws and administrating benefits to a body of people. It was written in the form of a Suzerainty Treaty between Jehovah God as the Sovereign and the children of Israel as His subjects. God was the "Sovereign Grantor" of a portion of His estate, that is a "promised land" (Ex.6:48). Its code of laws included the "measures" or standards (i.e. "Canons") of their obedience, governing the civil and religious behavior of His people. The covenant, a Code of Canon Laws, became a model for modern covenanted Canon Laws.
In 1620, the Puritans made their historic voyage from Holland to the new lands of the West, which would be called British America. They vowed to create a Canon Law Society where God would be their Sovereign, his civil servants acting as trustees for the benefit of the people. This was to be called a COMMONWEALTH OF GOD. The Puritans brought more than religion with them. they brought the COMMON LAW of England to be the law of self governance; and the CANON LAW of the Church, to protect those INALIENABLE RIGHTS, guaranteed to all free men by King John in 1215 when he signed the MAGNA CARTA. Thanksgiving, in the United States, is then actually a celebration of the signing of the MAYFLOWER COMPACT, a covenant. (That agreement, which was made aboard the flag ship Mayflower, was a solemn pledge to God, that if He allowed those Puritans to reach the new land safely, they would dedicate all of their lives and worldly goods to the living memory of God, the Creator). As evidence of this covenant, each of the thirteen original colonies became commonwealth of God and when they joined in the formation of the United States the Canon Laws were used to establish a Constitution in which God the Sovereign was the Creator --- of a CANON LAW TRUST.
The framers of the Constitution of the United States took fourteen Sovereigns, thirteen Commonwealths of God, standing under a Canon Law Trust, and the Religions which were independent of the Common Laws and formed them into an alliance. The thirteen became the original United States of America and then entered into a Treaty with the fourteenth (the Religions). The Treaty between the new Government and the Religions "IS" the First Amendment to the Constitution which states: "The Government shall make no law respecting an establishment of Religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." As a part of that Treaty agreement the Religions would retain their Sovereignty, but, without portfolio,(i.e. ability to raise
an Army, print currency, establish banks, and adjudicate citizens). The United States Government, by that First Amendment (a Treaty) agreed to defend the Sovereign right of the Religions and their places of worship --- with all the military might of the United States of America ---forever
With all of the above in mind, the Church of the Oversoul has formalized a mutual commitment to stewardship through its Canon Law Trust, a multipurpose instrument, serving as: (1) a faith covenant that establishes a bond of fellowship between individuals sharing a common faith; (2) as a management instrument through which the religious organization acting as the "trustee" may assist the individual to fulfill their stewardship responsibilities; (3) as an instrument of confessional will, declaring formally the will of the individual in regards to matters of salvific faith, confession of private regrets or repentance, and declarations of will in regards to the disposition of assets, management of extraordinary means of,
resuscitation, and transfer of guardianship associated with the decease of the trustor(s). An additional purpose of the trust is to: (4) provide for the institutional support of the Associative Religion through the trust's Charitable Remainder or retainer. This serves as the means by which the constituted religions body, serving as steward trustee, may compensate its individual trustees and their ministers responsibly, provide for administrative expenses associated with its ministries, and accomplish the collective body's stewardship responsibilities through world ministries and humanitarian agenda.
