Mitt Romney may have won the Arizona and Michigan republican primaries, but Rick Santorum is getting the attention. Every four years presidential elections get bizarre. That’s not a political assessment but a statement of moral observation. It seems this year is no different with wild promises and half truth claims of hidden agendas.
I’ll come right out and say it, I have no allegiance to any political party. I’ve voted for democrats and republicans. However, this current republican presidential rhetoric worries me (democratic rhetoric worries me too). Theologically, a Christian’s allegiance is to God first and then to country second. Rick Santorum has become quite the arm chair theologian lately with criticizing the president’s “theology phony”.
Since the days of Ronald Reagan, according to some, government is the source of our country’s problems and government shouldn’t regulate our lives. Or, government is not the answer to our country’s problems although government is apparently the answer when it comes to job growth or economic stimulation in the form of tax cuts. Others have made out the government as necessary evil or even an inherently evil.
So, which is it? Is the government a necessary evil or only good when it cuts taxes? Government is either good or evil, it can’t intrinsically be both.
I have a completely different view of government. First, a logical conclusion: our government is reflective of our culture. The constitution begins, “We the people, in the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice…”, thus we are the government. We make up its operation. We do not live in a country where royalty or a family of royals govern us, we govern ourselves. We elect our leaders. So, if you knock our government you are knocking our laws, our morality, our culture, and yourself. Whether by your action or inaction, you are responsible. So if the government is the sources of our woes, then we have to only blame ourselves because we let it happen. If government is the problem then why have one?
Second, a moral/religious response: government is in place as an institution of God. Saint Paul wrote clearly in Romans 13:
Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
If government and authorities are ordained by God and if we say government is the problem, then we lump God into that claim. Of course God is not the problem. We cannot continue to claim that the concept of government and order is inherently evil. Even God has order and hierarchy in heaven.
People need to be governed. We need leaders. Sure, we’ll continue debate the extent of that governance but let’s not start from the position that government or authority is always wrong, always immoral, and always the problem.
We may not always agree with politicians but we need to respect their office by not creating ad hominem attacks of a dubious nature. If God ordains our government, as our governing documents state, then let’s respect it and those people who serve it.
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“Second, a moral/religious response: government is in place as an institution of God. Saint Paul wrote clearly in Romans 13”
Romans 13 is not a political theological passage that defines some legitimate role of government like it is often made out to be. God ordaining government doesn’t mean He approves of it. It means He allows it to exist. Paul wrote Romans 13 to persecuted Christians in Rome to “not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good”. Paul tells Christians to submit to the higher powers not because they are good or legitimate but because we are to like Christ “love our enemies”, to “do good to those who hate you”, and to “owe no one anything except to love one another”. The idea that how one views government is the same as how one views God is dangerously close to idolatry. Government is not God nor is it a reflection of God. Government exists as a result of mankind’s rejection of God as their ruler. The first government mentioned in the Bible is Nimrod’s Babel. When the Israelites wanted Gideon to be their ruler, Gideon refused and explained “I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord shall rule over you”. Later on the Israelites wanted a king like the other nations and God explained to Samuel “they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them”.
“People need to be governed. We need leaders.”
It might go against what most modern people feel about government but believe it or not government isn’t necessary for an orderly society. Most modern people seem to mistakenly think that government is something that has always been around when on the contrary in the beginning we didn’t have government at all, we had tribes and bands lacking any central human authority and many societies today are still organized this way. All societies haves laws and a moral code but not all societies have human rulers. Morally speaking there shouldn’t be a government. The problem with government is that all of them involve the exercise of authority upon others whereas Christ teaches us not to exercise authority upon others like rulers but rather to serve one another. Look at every evil done on a massive scale throughout history and notice how most of it is done at the hands of government. Fortunately in the end God “shall have put down all rule and all authority and power”.