The forest is greater than the sum of its trees.
In the Bible, wisdom is far more than accumulated knowledge. It is also more than just accepting revelation from God. It includes both of those. In Scripture, wisdom is making sense of human knowledge in light of revelation. It generally requires living long enough to have seen a lot of things, but can arise in gifted young souls born with powerful perception. A wise man can tell you what would happen if you did this, and what you should do to obtain that goal. Specifically, he can tell you how people will react to various royal decrees, and the best way to trick the enemy into foolishly falling into your trap. In a certain sense, wisdom is understanding human nature.
The Social Sciences (history, economics, political science, geography, archeology, psychology and sociology) are in a broad sense the study of human nature, each from a different angle. If you apply your mind to those academic pursuits, little in human behavior will surprise you. It could also make you arrogant. If you filter it all through God?s Word, you can be truly wise, indeed. It allows you to distill things down to their essence, and be humble about it. God remains the center of interest.
If you choose to regard what follows as the ravings of a madman, it's no worse than I deserve. I'd like to think I can at least provoke some thought. I'll trust the Father uses that opportunity to lead you closer to His glory.
Government can be defined as a monopoly on force. We say a government is strong when there is little resistance to that use of force. It is weak to the degree other elements within the borders can exert force outside government will.
We can also say that government is always people. Yet, despite all the lofty rhetoric, human government has seldom ever been the accumulated will of the governed. The moment someone is chosen to exert force on behalf of all others, there is inevitably an element of isolation and insulation from those others. No one is capable of wielding force entirely by altruism, for no one can ever erase their own motives. Indeed, it is well said the desire to rule is the primary moral disqualification. No good person ever wishes to rule others. The few who managed to make a name for themselves either preferred not to rule, because they really did care about people, or their legacy is mostly a facade. Note: do not confuse greatness with goodness.
Consider: most people wish to be left alone. That is, they wish to be left to go about their daily life unhindered. That we are fallen guarantees some will always wish things in their lives at the expense of others. There is never enough of all things for any one person. Ask Bill Gates if he is satisfied with his fortune, and is willing to quit making money. Fallen man cannot be satisfied. Give him all he demands and he'll keep pushing the envelope. Tell him to stop at some point, and he will feel he is being hindered. That his freedom to swing his arms may result in bashing someone else's nose leads us to make social rules. At the very least, we tend to limit whom he can bash with impunity. If enough of us choose to avoid being bashed, we'll use our combined force -- or threat of it -- to constrain his arm swinging.
Thus, we create government. By it's nature, it limits human choice. Give the greatest thought possible to fairness, justice, righteousness, etc., you still cannot create a government that pleases all the governed. Someone will always be unhappy. That's human nature. In any given group of humans under a single government, there will at times be those willing to fight, kill, and die to change their government to something they find more favorable. Among fallen men, it is inevitable that any government will have to favor one over another. Someone will always lose. While God has clearly described what justice means, it is humanly impossible to implement justice such that no one ever gets a raw deal.
In our hindsight, we can cherry pick events in the history of human government and say this or that was just, but the other was not. But were we there? Can we say for certain our sense of right and wrong is precisely aligned with God's such that we can judge all humanity past, present and future? The sin of that is patently obvious. We condemn something called "genocide" even while it was clear Jehovah judged the Canaanites worthy of that. There are some events fairly easy to call sin, because Scripture is plain on some issues. Exterminating the Jewish population of Europe probably didn't meet with God's approval. However, most events included far too many factors unrecorded, so we are safe only in saying something appeared to be a sin. Events in Bible history are not all presented with a clear judgment from God. How much more the rest of human history! The word "history" is defined as the record of past events, but we note sarcastically the winning side usually destroyed the loser's records.
Those working in government will always want to simplify their job. That is, they want governing as a task to fall lightly on themselves, never mind how heavy it may be on the governed. The hand of government is constrained by the threat of a successful revolt. Thus, all government activity is a compromise between the efficiency of governing and the pacification of the governed. Even the strongest government will fall when the hand of power is too heavy for too long -- if the citizens die, there's no one left to rule.
Of course, as any civilization declines, the animosity between government and the governed may become so great neither side is willing to back down for any reason. We consider it altogether normal when children think of the whole world in terms of their own feelings. They can certainly be loving and giving, but they tend not to be. Childhood as a whole is given over to exploring oneself until the existence and importance of others cannot be denied. We define "growing up" and "acting responsibly" in terms of recognizing our accountability to the others who share our space. We learn to deny the self, to absorb a bit of loss in the near term, if only to prevent an even greater loss later. When people exhibit no give, and only take, we call them savage, uncivilized, immature, etc. Civilization declines when government exhibits no give and take, even while the citizens develop the same lack of civility.
The trend in governing is to demand uniformity in applying the rules. Exceptions make extra work. There may be ways to make that work worthwhile, but we usually call that bribery, preferential treatment, or simply greed. In general we can discount the really good and righteous, because they are somewhat more rare than the truly evil. The plodding main of people in government simply want to conduct their daily affairs unhindered by exceptions to uniformity. This uniformity is typically centered on the lowest common denominator. All are treated as the worst.
Uniformity is thus by its nature anti-human and demeaning. No two need precisely the same thing, nor offer it. The greater the forced uniformity before government, the more oppressive it feels to the governed. The greater the flexibility in application of rules, the more oppressive it feels to those in government. It is faulty human perception that if a particular response arises often enough, we feel it happens all the time. For mere annoyances from a single person, the threshold is around 40% -- "She always says that." For serious threats and from several people, it need only arise 5% of the time. If one encounter in 20 brings significant resistance, police policy will almost surely tighten regarding how to deal with every encounter.
Thus, complaints police unnecessarily humiliate every human with whom they interact will bring the response, "It's a dangerous world out there." Unspoken in public is the assertion by every officer, "I'm going home after my shift." Meanwhile, a certain class of liberty-sensitive individuals will plan to resist and harass every policeman, because "They don't care about anybody's rights." Both claim the other side started it first. Both ask the same question: "And just who is in charge here?" Indeed, but rarely have the governed been allowed to ask in quite that manner. Since the police are agents of the government, their brutality is called "being careful" and that of the citizens -- for whom this is supposed be their protection -- is reprehensible conduct. The playing field is inherently uneven.
What to do when government is the fellow swinging wildly and bashing everyone on the nose? It's one thing when we can duke it out with the fellow on more or less equal terms. What of the defenseless? Will we stand by and watch tiny children getting bashed? Old ladies? The disabled? Wasn't that the point of government in the first place, that the bashing at least follow some reasonable limits? No two of us are likely to see the same act as bashing. Still, there comes a point when government loses credibility, fails the minimum mission of preventing chaos and an untamed "might makes right."
It's one thing to accept oppression for yourself, by choosing to face willingly the consequences of defying a government edict to sin. On one level, that's what Jesus did. That's altogether different from standing by and watching your family be raped, murdered and your home pillaged. You may well be called by God to face that silently. Do not then assume all men are so called. John the Baptist did not tell Roman conscripts righteousness required they dessert their uniform, and stop harassing Jews. Such is conspicuous by its absence. He told them to enforce the Roman law justly on the Jews, and to accept their period of conscription with equanimity. Life is tough in a fallen world; we all suffer in some way.
There's a certain amount of oppression that is just natural with government. Utopia by definition does not exist. If my neighbor has a loud party every two years, I can afford to lose one night's sleep out of some 730 for the sake of peace. If someone bumps me rudely on the sidewalk, I can afford to ignore it. If the same guy bumps everyone, I need to consider stopping him before someone gets hurt. It's a debt I owe the world around me, the burden of civility and accountability. All the more so when Our Lord has gifted me with the physical bulk, skill, experience and peace of mind to do so justly. Not in retaliation, which the basher might get from most others similarly equipped, but with a strong attempt to do so starting with peace and respect, and escalating things to the level necessary for the safety of others.
They could all say I should mind my own business, to let him bump them. I'd probably know that beforehand. I've not seen it that often. The line between genuine physical violence and something equally damaging in other ways is not always that clear. There are times when it's best to let people choose their own poison. If they prefer the peace of cowering and absorbing oppression, that's their right, in general. Some cannot even communicate such a choice. Others are intimidated into lying and saying they want what they obviously don't like. Usually those willing to resist tyranny are the minority, exceptional for rejecting intimidation. That's why folks born in the US don't say, "God save the Queen!" An actual minority was convinced God would be honored if they decided for everyone else the British Empire should lose this land as a colony. The price was a lot of blood spilled, lots of commerce lost, and no protection from other threats. Were they right?
No government was born in righteousness except the Kingdom of God. When fallen man governs, it is impossible that evil should find no home in it. Some people in government are Christians, but there is no such thing as Christian government. The moment any group of any size is organized, someone will be stymied in their calling and service to God. While the result may well be as good as it gets, it cannot be long called an unadulterated blessing. King David, a man after God's own heart, seduced Bathsheba. Uriah was wronged all the way around. Still, we might justly say there was no king better than David. Where any two or three are gathered in His name, He is there -- and someone will still get hurt sooner or later.
Mindless support of any government is a sin. Declaring your nation has done no wrong is false on the face of it, even blasphemous. God works through human governments, but cannot be said to be in any government.
Ed Hurst
27 August 2005
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