The Return of Government as God - II

So, what does the Bible say about government? Specifically, is its role limited to Protection, or is it also responsible for Provision?

There's a lot about government in the Old Testament, since it is largely a record of the only legitimate theocracy ever established. However, what may be most striking about that government is that within a few hundred years of its establishment, there was a coup d'etat where the people rejected God as King and demanded a human king. What they got, of course, was Saul....impressive exterior, weak interior. And, it's downhill from there, despite the reigns of David and Solomon.

However, as Christians, we find the New Testament describes government as having one primary responsibility ... maintaining justice.

• Jesus talks about "rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" with regard to taxes
• Peter instructs Christians to be subject to the government, and states that God has given it the responsibility to punish those who do wrong, and reward those who do right.
• Paul says the same thing in the longest passage on the topic (Romans 13:1-7), which includes the statement that the government does not "bear the sword in vain". This seems to provide a basis for the death penalty and for the use of force in defending against evil.

So, if the Biblical role of government is to Protect, is there a place for a Government that also Provides?

The traditional answer in America has been "no." The traditional Biblical understanding was that the injunctions regarding care for the poor, sick, etc were directed to believers by their Lord.

Because the government doesn't acknowledge Jesus as Lord (and, frankly, cannot do so since the Government is not an individual), it can't obey this command. And, as previously noted, is not given the responsibility to Provide.

Traditionally, individuals (and volunteer groups of individuals, including churches) took on the responsibility of Providing for those in need. This has been criticized on several grounds, including:

• Uneven provision - some geographic areas were much poorer than others, and some people were not provided for because of their race, sex, etc (e.g., the lack of care for the Grecian widows is a NT example)
• Perceived lack of compassion - some people were not cared for because they were considered to have "made their own bed"; in other words there was a concern that protecting people from the consequences of bad decisions kept them from learning to resist evil
• Differences in wealth - the Bible is not unique its criticism of those who are wealthy and refuse to help others. Much of the social criticism of the past 150+ years in the West is focused on disparities in wealth. Although some of this reflects a "politics of envy", it is perhaps more understandable when you consider the exponential growth in worldwide GDP in recent history (here's another diagram), especially in the West. (and, here's another interesting chart...relative percentage of GDP).

These and other critiques undermined the traditional rationale of limiting Government's role in Providing.

However, I wonder if the primary reason for enthroning Government as Chief Provider was the emergence of a belief "God is dead." Beginning in the Enlightenment and established by the late 19th century, this belief eventually removed God as the chief source of a social morality that emphasized individual voluntary care of the needy.

"Survival of the fittest" became the new morality and with it came libertarian notions of capitalism (e.g., Ayn Rand) and a eugenics movement that remains strong, although its emphasis and language has changed (e.g., from forced sterilization of "undesirable" women to large abortion clinics in poor urban neighborhoods).

In the late 19th and early 20th century, Liberal Protestantism joined with secular humanists to move care for the needy from a voluntary private activity to an involuntary public activity. Throughout the 20th century, Government grew rapidly as the Provider-in-Chief, and local voluntary organizations shrank as a share of help provided.

Whether it is possible to have a secular society where Provision is local and voluntary is a question I'll leave unaddressed ... frankly, I'm skeptical of libertarian notions in this area. I think that if a society dethrones God, you'll get a god (in the form of government) that is hostile to both the local and the voluntary.

Regardless, there are cracks appearing in this century-long trend to enthrone Government as a Provider god.

The fundamental crack is monetary. As Margaret Thatcher said, " ... and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite characteristic of them."

Iceland, Ireland, Greece, the UK, Spain, Portugal, etc are in dire financial straits. Decades of excessive taxes and regulations have severely eroded their ability to create wealth, while Japan, the Asian tigers, and, more recently, China and India have become fierce global competitors. At the same time, these European countries have made promises of Provision they can't keep. These include public pensions, retirement (ala Social Security), health care, and education.

The U.S. is not quite as bankrupt, and is protected to some degree by the fact that the dollar is the world's reserve currency. However, the trends in spending and regulation, along with similar Provider promises that cannot be kept, mean that significant spending cuts (in projected spending required to keep promises made) are inevitable. I recently heard that ~170 million people in the U.S. are directly or indirectly dependent on government (welfare, Social Security, contractors, employees, etc).

As is clear with the riots in Europe, it's ugly when those dependent on a Provider government realize that their god can't keep his promises...I'm reminded of the self-mutilation by the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel.

A second issue is related to centralization of Provision work. A key rationale for centralization is the efficiencies associated with economies of scale. For some activities, this makes sense. You and your neighbor are not going to set up a car or chip manufacturing operation in your garage. These activities require multi-billion dollar factories to be competitive.

However, when it comes of Providing for the needy, centralization has significant costs. These are primarily associated with

• determining what the needs are - each person is different, and each need is different. A centralized bureaucracy is going to put people in boxes that may or may not fit a specific situation.
• determining how best to address those needs - here is where the "moral hazard" of centralization becomes a real problem. The easiest way to address needs is to simply throw money at it. It's impossible to provide the kind of care that teaches someone "how to fish" unless there is a relationship. And, relationships require someone local and involved. Even local governments generally fail to achieve the relational involvement that a voluntary group can provide. And, frankly, from a Christian perspective, most of the moral problems that cause poverty can't be resolved unless the whole person (physical, spiritual, emotional, moral) is addressed. This is not something government can do.
• detecting fraud - because non-governmental organizations are volunteer and are usually local with small budgets, they are much more efficient in their use of time and money. Committing fraud on the scale of Medicare (e.g. a recent L.A. area case involve $160 million) is almost impossible when Provision is highly decentralized.

Finally, there's the whole "culture of death" issue. A key reason there's not enough money is that the West is dying. Fertility rates have dropped rapidly in the wake of widely available birth control technology and the legalization of abortion. This trend is especially clear in Europe, where those who create most of the wealth are reproducing at a rate well below replacement, while poor Muslim immigrants are reproducing at a rate far above replacement. The implications of this go far beyond mere economics, but the economic effects are not trivial.

Christians currently face a "white field" when it comes to the gospel. The failure of modern and postmodern efforts to adequately address what it means to be human (spiritually, physically, socially, morally, etc) is becoming impossible to ignore, even for the most intellectually and emotionally schizophrenic.

The crises that result from the failures of a Government Provider god that is over 100 years old will only make the field whiter.

The Return of Government as God - I

As you may recall, I started this blog in part to discuss the primary entities God created to carry out His will: individuals, families, the church, and government.

I'm long overdue in discussing government...in part because it's such a large topic.

Note that the Bible does not present a rich and deep doctrine of government. God's revealed words are distinct from most (often all) religious texts in several ways...e.g., focus on actual historical events, a faith grounded in one specific historical event (Jesus' resurrection), and relatively little said about the structure of various social institutions, including the church and government.

I'll start with the arc of Western history over the past 2000 years.

Bottom line up front: religious persecution by the government is the norm. The religious tolerance we've experienced in the past few hundred years is an anomaly, and is rapidly fading.

Most governments in most places and times are intimately entwined with religion. This seems to reflect some basic facts

• we are spiritual beings
• we (per Romans 1-2) cannot deny a transcendent creator/authority
• those who exercise power use every tool available to do so; often with the best of intentions

So, what does this look like in the West over the past 2000+ years? Here's a very short summary: (BTW, as I use the term "established church" below, I mean that at least 2 factors were present: (a) all citizens must pay taxes to support it, (b) all citizens must be members of it and (c) disagreement with its doctrines is punishable civilly (fines, prison, etc).)

• Government persecuted Christians - in the first few hundred years, Christianity refused to accept the spiritual pluralism of Rome, and defended their belief in the one true God as objectively true for all times and places. More specifically, Christians refused to acknowledge Caesar as Lord.
• Christianity as an established religion - this began w/ Constantine and continued well into the Enlightenment
• Separation of Church and State (sepC&S) - at least two factors contributed to this. One was the rise of a belief system grounded in this world (secularism) and human knowledge (humanism). This did not occur overnight, but with Darwin, the "death of God" (Nietzsche) was complete. The second, and dominant factor in the US, was the experience of those who came to this country in the 17th and 18th centuries. They were usually fleeing persecution by an established church. Although the initial colonies/states had their own established churches, they were concerned about the Federal Govt. establishing a specific church (hence the 1st Amendment). Eventually, of course, the colonies/states disestablished their churches (hence the word for the movement which opposed this: antidisestablishmentarianism), but kept various requirements for religious belief to hold office.
• Separation of religious belief and state (sepRB&S) - this is very different from separation of church and state. In sepC&S, the state is prohibited from establishing a state religion. In sepRB&S, the state (i.e., any individual acting as an agent of the state) is prohibited from taking actions which are primarily based in a religious belief. The path to this is a different topic, but the rational that has evolved (almost totally via the courts) basically asserts that (a) the 1st & 14th Amendments prohibit any religious action at any state-funded function, and (b) the "free exercise" clause of the 1st Amendment applies only to private activity (see, for example, 1947 Everson v. Board of Education (1947), Engel v. Vitale (1962)). Note that this is very different from establishing a state church.
• Prohibition of religious rationale for law - In recent court cases related to efforts to maintain traditional understandings of sexuality (e.g., California's marriage amendment, etc), judicial actions overturning these efforts have increasingly asserted that religious beliefs are not an acceptable rationale for a law. This raise interesting questions since the implication is that pragmatism is the only valid rationale. Since pragmatism has no ability to define an ultimate purpose/goal/value/good (except, maybe, survival of the fittest), it's unclear whether there's any rationale for law if pragmatism is the foundation.
• Establishment of a new state religion - This is well underway in the West. The new religion is not traditional since it denies any knowledge of the metaphysical. And, it doesn't have a hierarchy and a membership roll. However, it does have the basic features of an established church: (a) all citizens must pay taxes to support it, (b) all citizens must be members of it, and (c) disagreement with its doctrines is punishable civilly (fines, prison, etc). Increasingly, Christian beliefs that conflict with the dominant secular/humanist beliefs are grounds for persecution. Although jail time is relatively rare, it is not unknown (primarily in association with beliefs regarding homosexual behavior and parental responsibilities (homeschooling)) And, within education, certain Christian beliefs are almost guaranteed to provoke persecution. For example, if you teach biology at a secular university, any indication that you question evolution (even on scientific grounds) makes it unlikely you'll ever be granted tenure. In other words, community membership requires adherence to a secular dogma...no questioning allowed.

Nice Post-Election Summary

Richard Land is one of the most thoughtful and informed cultural critics I've run across in the past few years (see, for example, his latest book, "The Divided States of America").

His recent visit on Family Talk is probably the best short summary of the current American political scene I've heard. Here are the links; fortunately, there's not much chatter at the beginning or end of them (~25 minutes each):

Session 1
Session 2

How Did I Miss David Wells?

NOTE: The talk linked below is "must listen" ... and "No Place For Truth" is "must read" for any serious student of culture.

I have been reading about philosophy, theology, and apologetics since I ran across Francis Schaeffer's film series "How Shall We Then Live?" in college.

Most critiques fall either into the rationalist or empiricist camps, with the pre-supposionalists making up an influential minority (see Boa & Bowman's "Faith Has Its Reasons" for a good overview of apologetic camps).

However, David Wells' critique recently came to my attention. His approach is primarily sociological, an approach I've never been much impressed by. However, Wells' trilogy of "No Place For Truth", "God In The Wasteland", and "Losing Our Virtue" is perhaps the best single critique of Western Christianity (and, increasingly global Christianity) I've ever read.

This is stunningly good stuff, and required reading if you like C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, Nancy Pearcy, various intelligent design authors, etc.

Here's a small sample from this MP3 recording (skip the first 5:30 unless you want to hear a longgggg introduction) (more Wells recordings here and here; some of the links on these pages are out-of-date (e.g., the Covenant Seminary "Disappearance of Theology" series summarizing "No Place For Truth"); see the Gospel Coalition's page if a link fails:

"It is a global culture, it is a generic culture. Because it belongs to everybody, it belongs to no one in particular; it is therefore paper thin and it invades our souls with its triviality.

What happens, though the exact mechanisms are a little bit complicated, when we live in this sort of environment, is that slowly but surely we get detached from a moral world.

Instead we enter a therapeutic world, a psychologized view of life. We want the benefits of Christian faith without faith itself. Then begins a whole series of substitutions:

• Righteousness is replaced by a search for happiness,
• Holiness by wholeness,
• Truth by feeling,
• Ethics by simply feeling good about ourselves

The church contracts, it is now about me and my needs and comforts. The past recedes, good and evil lose their moral status, good becomes simply having a nice day and evil is having a bad hair day.

God in this context becomes weightless, no longer relevant to the internal life of the church. So, triviality, and secondly, uncertainty (the disappearance of conviction from the life of the church) become pervasive. "