Government: On the Road to Regress
There is an idea floating around out there about the role of government. To paraphrase, it holds that civilization and human progress can only happen through government. Somehow, our society, culture and mankind will grow better through progressive government. This is a fallacy.
I won’t go waxing scholarly here, nor will I quote the great social philosophers. I am going by my gut, based on a libertarian understanding of the Holy Bible. Yikes, you say, libertarian?!?! To that I reply with a resounding yes.
You see, as I have understood the holy scriptures, the big governments in the Bible were also founded upon the idea that government is the promoter of social progress. And we all see what happened to the Romans and the Greeks. The government espoused in the Bible has been ushered in by Jesus, and it is to be found in our hearts.
Romans 13 discusses government, if only briefly. The Message states clearly that we are to be good citizens and live responsibly. It also states that the God uses the government to maintain peace and order. We pay taxes to fund this. So there is a clear place for government, in God’s grander scheme for this earth. But I think the scriptures are clear right after the discussion on government and our relationship to it: Love other people as well as you do yourself. This is the formula for societal change, and even redemption.
God has lavished His love on us, even as we have not deserved it. And if we accept it, we are motivated by love, at least hopefully. When we give of our lives to our friends, spouses, children, strangers in need, etc. we seed change throughout our spheres of influence. This is the stuff that fuels strong communities where the needs of the less fortunate go met, without government provision or intervention. The idea that government can have a long-lasting impacting role in this is far-fetched, silly and logically impossible.
Bureaucracy feeds upon itself, and perpetuates itself. If it happens to be for a small iota of good, that is great. But government is the Borg, assimilating everything in its path to grow its collective consciousness. It’s a supertanker that needs miles to make a turn. It’s entrenched in old ideas, lack of innovation, a bloated workforce and lots of initiatives that are at best unimportant and at worst, immoral. And it tends to perpetuate this lack of risk and innovation to the masses.
We become mere cogs in the economic machine. More $10/hour jobs need to be created to keep people in subservience to a draconian and bordering on tyrannical tax apparatus. And those few that are wealthy and risk their capital are demonized as taking advantage of the poor and the middle class. It’s all so wrong. I want our politicians fighting on behalf of our entire citizenry for the best of the nation, not business interest groups, or the poor, or the senior citizens, or the farmers, or the middle class. But it ain’t to be.
So what of the Kingdom of Love, bathed in expressions of love? We give. We raise. We empower. We risk, start and encourage the same. We create and compel others to do the same. We sacrifice, give, give up the affluence we all have for the good of others. And we couch it all in the redemptive love of Jesus. This will never lead us entirely to a utopia of perfection in society, but we can make a huge mark on it that actually betters it (historical examples abound).
The government on the other hand, happily takes in our hard-earned working capital and likely distributes it to places that may make our stomaches turn. Meanwhile, the poor get poorer, the lonely get lonelier, the rich get richer, the abused get more abused, and our civilization drones on into brokenness. No president or politician can ever really change that. But you and I, we have all the power in the world at our disposal through God’s redemptive change in our hearts. The real question is: Are we willing to tap into it, or are we willing to let an uncaring government try to failingly do this work for us? More importantly, how will this question affect our view of all our overly-ambitious presidential candidates?
