Government as God's Servant

Government as God's Servant

Earlier I said that the theories of government that I came across in University started with the assumption – even if it is unspoken – that there is no God. That assumption is no more rigorous or academic that the contrary assumption, so I chose to start by assuming the Biblical revelation concerning God as a starting point.

A well known text is Romans 13: 1-6, particularly v4 “For the authority is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing, he is God's servant, an agent of justice to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.”

Given the Genesis account of mankind's fall and the entry of sin into the world we should not be surprised that these ideals are rarely lived up to. None the less they are still the correct ideals. Not too long after these words were penned the Roman authorities were cruelly persecuting Christians. In our present day many people feel that Western governments have gone soft on brutal crimes and are not bringing “punishment on the wrongdoer”. Even this angst shows that deep down we believe that they should.

Again, criminal justice is only one aspect of government, I will show that this ideal of government - recognising that it should be a servant of God - applies to other aspects as well.

I also expect that the actual form of government may be an independent factor. Also the extent of government interference or assistance in individuals lives may be an another independent factor.

For instance ancient Israel started as a tribal league bound together by their common belief in God. Internally there must have been some tribal and clan “government”. Externally, leadership and a rallying figure for combined military action was their greatest need. Initially this was provided by a “Judge” raised up by God for that emergency. Civil law suits seem to have been heard figures like Deborah and Samuel. Then Israel asked for a king – a big mistake and an insult since it implied they did not want to rely on God appointing military leaders as required, and that they rejected their unique identity as a theocracy. However God granted their request and henceforth their government was by king, later aided by nobles and bureaucrats.

In the West we have over time developed various forms of constitutional democracy. Winston Churchill said in 1947 “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those that have been tried from time to time”

Also both our modern 'welfare state' and the extent of government regulation and intrusion into so many parts of people's daily lives may be unprecedented in history. Whether these are good or bad is a matter of how truly that form of government is being God's servant in the prevailing conditions.

To understand how we can judge past and present government and see where governments can be improved, I want next too look at some of the Biblical case studies of good and bad government, and how they exemplify or go against the moral character of God.

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.

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

The Problem of Government

The Problem of Government

As I see it, we have had a moment of good government and it is ending.

Government for the people has not been the historical norm! Far from it. Rulers have generally oppressed their people. Recently we visited China, and like good tourists went to see the Terracotta Warriors. We there read the various blurbs about the early emperors. They were a uniformly nasty lot. Their only interest seemed to be themselves, they brutally used their people and had not a thought for the welfare of those they ruled. In other times and places there were some better rulers, but they were the exception. Sadly in Europe we heard about barons and even bishops who built forts along the rivers that were the only practical trade routes and exacted heavy tolls from traders. Surprisingly it was in Turkey that we saw a caravansary built by the Moslem ruler on a trade route where anyone could come for three nights free lodging within its walls under the ruler's protection and with the guarantee of leaving with whatever goods they had arrived with.

Government by the people has most certainly not been the historical norm! But we have grown to like the idea.

In the West both these ideals are developing stress fractures as I pointed out in earlier posts. In Europe unelected EU bureaucrats are increasingly making decisions. In America political elites in both parties call the shots, but live in a rarefied atmosphere far from the cares and woes of a large section of the population. Hence the phenomenon of Donald Trump. In Australia I'm probably too close to the situation to see clearly, but it looks as though politicians are chasing votes rather than making the unpalatable choices that are necessary to get the country out of debt.

But all around the West it is not just the politicians but the people who are acting badly.

There is this phenomenon if identity politics. People who “identify as …” (homosexual, Aboriginal, African American, and the list seems ever expanding) are demanding that no one is allowed to offend them, and tyrannising over the majority. The homosexual lobby “LGBT” or whatever is the latest acronym is one example. Homosexual acts used to be illegal, they were decriminalized – fair enough, but the lobby did not stop there, anti-discrimination legislation came in to make it unlawful to discriminate against such people, or even ask about sexuality for employment. Then it went further, no one was allowed to offend homosexuals, so anyone who even hinted that such acts were anything other than the norm were pilloried as “homophobes”. And so on.

Then there is the lynch mob mentality of social and mainstream media. Fair trial? Not likely! With no opportunity make their defence, with no check on the accuracy of the allegations, indeed with none of the essentials of determining the truth of the matter, issues are decided by stories going viral on the internet, or being “exposed” by TV news shows chasing ratings, and often the “crime” was merely to offend against identity politics or political correctness. This takes us back to the burning of witches and recurrent pogroms of a past we would like to leave in the past.

There is self interest overruling all else. In a sensible family, if they have maxed out their credit cards through spending more than they earn, they don't go on spending as usual – they work out what economies they need to make get out of debt. That is common sense. But many of our countries are deep in debt and getting deeper. That can't go on forever. Yet in Greece for instance the populace threw out a government that wanted “austerity measures” that would not even reduce government spending on welfare and other programs – just reduce how fast it was increasing!

As Margaret Thatcher once said: “The trouble with socialists is that they eventually run out of other people's money to spend.” No country can go on consuming more than it produces.

In all the above I am not saying anything novel. In recent times more and more columnists have been saying these things in greater detail and more eloquently than I have.

My point in joining the chorus is to highlight that in order to save the West, attitudes of both politicians and voters need to change. Next I want to look at what makes for good government to see what these attitudes need to change to.