Government as Servant of the People

Government as servant of the people

There are many reasons for a government to say they serve the people, or even to do so out of self interest, but an altruistic motive is harder to find.

Trying to convince people you are serving their best interests is part of the political game book. Think of the election pledges of South American semi-democracies. Each new president pledges to rid the country of corruption, better the situation of the working poor and so forth. Once in power they often become even more corrupt, rapacious and indifferent to the needs of the populace than their predecessor. Even dictators try it. Think of North Korea. With all the brutality of a police state at his disposal Kim supplements this by relentless propaganda brainwashing the population into thinking that he is looking after them and their poverty is all the fault of their arch enemy the USA.

But there are also reasons rulers to some extent may actually serve, to some extent, interests of their people. 19^th century sociologist Max Weber examined styles of rule. One, which he called “charismatic” was typified by the pirate king: he held great power - but only so long as he kept delivering the goods – if he failed then he was supplanted. Obviously it was in the interests of a charismatic leader, even one who was otherwise not inclined to do so, to keep supplying his or her followers with sufficient of what they wanted.

Another type of rule Weber identified was typified by fealty between the ruler and the ruled. Here too, the close human relationship – whether by kinship or devoted service – had a two way effect. The ruler had incentive to look after his or her people.

However historically rulers of large or small domains have been a varied lot. Some benevolent towards their subjects. Some ruthless tyrants. One of the forces which drove the development of our modern constitutional democracy – from the nobles forcing Prince John in England to sign the Magna Carta to the Pilgrims fleeing to the Americas – was to reign in bad rulers. Hence Lincoln's government “for the people” is an important statement. It is also an objective that has been seriously undermined in recent times in most Western countries. The cynical joke “whoever you vote for a politician always gets elected” is not without foundation.

In Germany, Chancellor Merkel has swamped the country with immigrants for ideological motives, to the detriment of the nation. In Australia we have recently had a scandal involving a few politicians pushing a pro China line after receiving pay-offs that were traced through local businessmen back to Chinese government entities. I expect that in every country there are problems with corruption on large or small scales.

All of these – ideology, self interest, pay-backs for political support, influence of powerful lobby groups and bribery – mean that governments are not putting the welfare of their people first.

However I was surprised when I tried to find Biblical reaching promoting “government as servant of the people”. It was not there as an end in itself. Make no mistake, the Bible had many damning things to say about rulers who looked after themselves not the people! It was just that it was the end result of other things. God-fearing rulers loved justice because God loves justice – so they made sure the law-courts ran properly and treated everyone impartially. God-fearing rulers saw that God had put them in charge of his people, so they owed it to God to govern for the people not themselves. And so the list goes on.

A minister once quoted to me “I am every man's servant: yet I have but one Master”. I think this will turn out to be the case with truly good government as well. It is the result of duty to God.

So I want to pause the examination of “servant of the people” in order to deal with the Biblical view of who governments are ultimately responsible to, what their responsibilities are and the precepts which, if followed by rulers – be they kings or elected bodies – inevitably produce a government which truly serves the people.

Starting Hypothesis on Good Government

Starting Hypothesis on Good Government.

Science starts with a hypothesis and looks for evidence that will prove, disprove or improve it.

So in coming to the Bible for a theory of good government, I want to put forward a starting hypothesis. I am also making an assumption: namely that the actual essence or qualities of good government can be set out independently of the type of government – king, president or parliament. Democratically elected or hereditary. Although of course some types of government may be much more likely to be good than others.

My starting hypothesis is this:

1. The government is there to serve the people, not the other way round. Just a general Biblical knowledge throws up texts like Ezekiel 32:4 “woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves, should not shepherds take care of the flock?” Indeed the common Biblical metaphor of “shepherds” to denote the national leaders – or government even by itself raises a notion of duty of care. Coming forward to the New Testament we have the familiar words of Jesus referring to himself as the Good Shepherd and saying in John 10 :11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep”. And as an example of God's character and actions as the supreme ruler of all, Jesus' words in Mark 10:45 “for even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”. So Jesus has set a very high standard for human rulers to aim for.

2. Any ruler or government is governing people who belong to God not to them, and have a fiduciary duty to God for how they govern. I am thinking of the many texts like 2 Samuel 7:8 “I … appointed you ruler over my people Israel” and Romans 13:1 “There is no authority except that which God has established”

Historically these have seldom been followed. Even in “Christian” England the doctrine was of the divine right of kings, rather then the divine duty of kings.

3. Enacting just laws, law enforcement and maintaining justice in the criminal and civil courts is a vital role of government. Again we will be looking for more detail, but verses like Isaiah 61:8 “I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing.” and even the Queen of Sheeba's observation to Solomon in 1 Kings 10:9 “(The Lord) has made you king to maintain justice and righteousness”.

4. Sound foreign policy and defence against external threat. I am including this in the hypothesis based on God's actions in raising up national military leaders as needed during the period of the “Judges”, the inspired actions of kings like David and Saul, and the advice given by prophets on these subjects although this was often rejected by the king of the time to their ruin. Think of Jeremiah's advice to Zedekiah not to rebel against his Babylonian overlord, and after he did so, to surrender and thus save both his life and the city. (Zedekiah rejected this advice and lost his life and the city was sacked). How this applies in modern times may be a more difficult question.

5. Maintain true religion. It will be interesting to consider how this is even possible in modern “secular” states, and a multi-religion society. Certainly past history in Western nations where either Protestants or Roman Catholics or Baptists, Quakers and other “dissenters” were persecuted is not something we should want to see again. However I want to leave it in our hypothesis for the present for two reasons: a) maybe governments always maintain a religion. At present many government agencies are subtly or not so subtly persecuting people with traditional Christian beliefs, because the popular religion of the ruling elites is an anti-Christian progressive socialism. b) In Old Testament times the moral or religious stance of the king – or sometimes a high priest or a prophet did effect the entire nation.

Naturally, we may find other necessary attributes of good government as we delve further.

Towards a Theory of Government

Towards a Theory of Government

First an apology to regular readers. I was a silly boy and kept on working out of doors after I got the 'flue (it is winter here) and as my wife predicted I caught pneumonia! That is why there have been no posts for the last few weeks.)

“It's already been done!” you may say. Well, yes and no. It is a quarter of a century since I studied this topic during a sabbatical year back at university so I can't recall all the names, but I recall the drift of it well enough. From Rousseau with his social contract, Locke and Hobbes, through Marx and Lenin to all the modern social theorists there has been no lack of ink spilt. But, and this is the big catch, so far as I know they all start from either a blank page and try to build a theory from scratch or like Marx are defiantly atheistic and try to build a human based theory.

So a vital route to developing a theory of what constitutes “good government” has been neglected. That is: if we assume God exists and the Bible is the best source of information about is character and purposes and of human frailties.

Now I know many will protest vigorously: “You can't do that!!! You MUST start from the assumption that there is no God, otherwise you are biased.” Well excuse me, but why is that any more biased that taking their assumption!

As I said way back in discussing the foundation for ethical theory Where Do Morals Come From ? Pt. 2  there is a real problem for atheistic moralists: what makes them right? If you are basing your morals on the moral character of God (I dealt with the question “which God” back then) you at least have some solid ground from which to argue your case, otherwise you are just building castles in the air. Worse still it becomes a case that the person or group with the most power – whether by propaganda or brute force or both – gets to decide “this is good, that is bad, behaviour”. Might becomes Right.

So I think our best route to finding out what a government should aspire to be like is to take the road less (if ever) travelled and look for clues in the Bible.

I think we will likely find three types of information:

1. How God as “King” acts.

2. Direct statements of praise or condemnation of actions of human rulers

3. Stories that show governors in a good or bad light.

From these I hope we can construct an image of what a good government looks like