BONUS
BLOG … Who Rules?
Which
is the winning hand ?
Well,
that depends! In the “Wild West” or even now in some of the less
desirable places on earth to live, “a Smith & Wesson beats four
aces”. In the times and places most of us would prefer to inhabit,
four aces wins because those are the rules of the game!
Now
please don't go all mushy on me and say something silly like “Oh
yes! Violence never achieves anything. It is not true; it is not
Biblical!
The
“Peacemaker” that transformed the lawless wild west into a place
where decent folk could live in safety was of course the newly
invented rapid fire “Colt Peacemaker” in the hands
of brave lawmen. Even now no country has peace unless criminals at
home know the Police can out-violence them and potential enemies
abroad decide that invading them would be a painful mistake.
Not
surprisingly the Bible, being true, says the same. “rulers
do not bear the sword for nothing, they are God's servants, agents of
wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” (Romans 13:4)
and of course finally heaven is ushered in by God's violence
prevailing over the forces of evil (Christ has
of course on the cross won the moral victory! When God acts in
judgement and also when
he welcomes pardoned sinners into heaven both acts will be totally
righteous!) “There before me was a
white horse, whose rider was called Faithful
and True. With justice he judges and wages war. … the armies of
heaven are following him … He treads the wine-press of the wrath of
God Almighty … I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and
their armies gathered together to wage war on the rider on the horse
and his army. But the Beast was captured, and with it the false
prophet … the two of them were thrown alive into the lake of
burning fire … the rest were killed ...” (Revelation 19)
Having
very briefly, but I hope sufficiently busted that modern myth, let me
go on to the main myth of interest here – which strangely comes out
of the same ideological base. This is that Power (the Smith and
Wesson) is the same as Authority (four aces win).
Now
I am in a slight quandary as to how to put my argument succinctly. A
lot has gone into making me think this way. When I was at Lang Lang
and found that I could bring people of all sorts to Christ but I
could not bring them into church, I studied up on sociology –
because it seemed that the problem was “social” rather than
“spiritual”. One of the acknowledged “fathers of modern
sociology” I studied was Max Weber. His great contribution was in
the field of what at the good end we could call “human leadership
patterns” and at the bad end “human domination and subjugation”.
Just
before I went to Vermont I was given and studied a fascinating book
“The loss of the Good Authority” I could not begin to distil
these down to a short blog post. But let me try to float a couple of
ideas:
My
wife's grandfather believed every word he read in the newspaper.
“They wouldn't let them print it if it wasn't true!” he would
say. I hope not many would be so gullible today! One-time authority
figures have fallen off their pedestals all around us. And in most
cases our growing distrust of people and institutions we once trusted
implicitly is, sad to say, well grounded. That is one side of the
story.
The
other side is this: Repugnance of bad authorities has led us to
reject the very idea of authority or authorities. This has made us
throw out the baby with the bath water: we have dismissed the notion
of there being a “good authority” at the same time! Big mistake!
A mistake that has left a vacuum which has been filled-in by the
ideology that “Power” is as good as (or better than) “Authority”
One
big thing that makes authority safer than power is that it is
controlled. Sure the authority of the rules sometimes lets you claim
“I won!” but at other times it makes you admit: “You won.”
The Smith & Wesson always lets you say “I win!”
Look
at a Biblical example:
Take
the story of the Centurion who particularly impressed Jesus with his
faith (Matthew 8). When Jesus quizzed him did he say something like
“I'm a Centurion, I got power! So I understand you having power!”
NO! Nothing of the sort! He said: “I am a
man under
authority with soldiers under me. I say to this one 'go' and he
goes...”
“A
man under authority” This Centurion knew the difference
between power and authority: Power you can use how you like (like a
Smith & Wesson); authority comes from above, so you are first of
all under the authority of whoever or whatever can give
authority, so you can only exert the authority delegated to you as
this higher authority dictates. Within those
bounds
certainly you have power to command, but only within those bounds!
The
Centurion was under the discipline of the Roman Imperial Army. When
he said to a soldier 'go' the soldier went!
Now
the Roman army punished going to sleep in duty by death. So let us
ask the question: Could a Roman Centurion order his guards: “Its a
quiet night men, you just get a bit of shut-eye!” Could he if he
discovered a guard asleep on watch say: “I'm the senior officer
here, I'll let you off this time with 50 push-ups!” NEVER! And
NEVER! As illustrated by the story of the Centurion who found his own
son asleep on duty. The centurion drew his sword and beheaded his son
on the spot. True authority is not the same as power!
On
a different genre of authority, take the scientist. People were
prepared to accept that the grey haired scientist knew things which
he or she could never explain to the person in the street. So they
were accepted as an authority, and their pronouncements
accepted as authoritative on that subject. But his was
predicated on the knowledge that all scientists submitted to the
rules and ideals of scientific integrity and procedure. At that
time, a scientist who faked his results or who hid the one result
that showed his famous theory was wrong was forever banished as a
pariah. Sadly scientists who sold their names to propaganda that
products like asbestos were safe without due regard for the evidence
led to doubts that they were truly under the authority
of science. This led to doubts that they could be trusted as
authorities.
The
modern ideology espoused by more and more people is: “We want
what we want, and if the “rules” are standing in our way, then
lets get rid of the rules!” It sounds attractive. Just as
it sounded attractive to the scientists at Chernobyl who wanted to
run an experiment. The safety devices would get in the way of running
their little experiment, so what did they do? They simply
disconnected those troublesome safety devices. We know how that
ended!
So,
by all means be angry at “authorities” when they act badly –
they are indeed causing harm far beyond the instance in question. But
never, never throw out the baby with the bath water! There is a good
authority which is in turn under the authority of some higher
authority be it an acknowledged form of good practice, a set of
rules, or a constitution. We need that kind of authority
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