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Violence and the Modern World

Yesterday, whilst driving back to civilisation, the boot full of back steak and stag loins, with that wonderful anticipation of a venison-filled freezer for winter, we happened to turn on the radio to catch up with the latest goings on.

There was an item on Radio New Zealand criticising the government for having spent (blown) around $15m on its “It's Not Okay” propaganda exercise against family violence, whilst a front-line organisation working with violent people in Rotorua was having to shut down, due to lack of funding.

After having enjoyed four days of the magnificent splendour of God's awe inspiring creation, this was surely a rude return to the inanity of modern Athens. Let's deconstruct this latest manifestation.

Firstly, ever since the Fall, violence has been part of the world of man. Did not Cain murder his own brother out of envy—and that was in the first generation? Murder came from the heart and hand of the first born son of the human race. From that point on, violence has been in the van and the train of successive human generations, histories, and cultures. There are few who would dispute this—and those who would probably need to make an appointment with an optometrist.

But how to deal with violence? At this point, Jerusalem and Athens begin to diverge and take radically different positions.

Athens is deeply ambivalent over human violence. On the one hand, Athens not only recognises that violence is intrinsic to the world, but it actually advocates it as a necessary condition of progress. Its evolutionist ideology leads it to insist that progress has depended upon and been driven by the survival of the fittest—which means that the weak will attenuate, the strong will succeed, and progress will occur more quickly to the extent that the strong destroy or kill off the weak. The gene pool is thereby strengthened.

For the Athenian world of Unbelief, violence is at root neither evil nor wrong. The human race could not have come into existence without it; human beings could not have achieved dominance over other species and life forms without violence. Humanity depends upon violence to survive.

On the other hand, Athenians are deeply troubled over violence. At this point their being in the image of the Living God is more powerful than their spurious evolutionist ideology. Despite their evolutionist rubbish they—at the same time, and with both a straight face and a furrowed brow—insist that violence is evil. “It's Not Okay!”, after all. With its evolutionist hat on, Athenians insist that violence is a helpful and necessary construct. But with its ethical hat on, Athenians insist that “man's inhumanity to man” is sinful. Go figure!

So, from the outset, madding Athens's inconsistencies and slipperiness mean that it will not be able to offer a meaningful and fruitful solution to violence. Nevertheless it will try. Its approaches will inevitably take one of two tacks.

One alternative will be to crush it out of society by the imposition of uber-violence upon the community. This is the totalitarian option. If anyone dares to “step out of line” the state will crush them. The state arrogates supreme power and violently subjugates any dissent. This results in a peace of sorts, such as in the former Yugoslavia—Serbs and Croats, Bosnians and Montenegrans living in a state enforced harmony. The world remains terribly violent, but the state has a monopoly on aggression. Step out of line, become a non-state sanctioned thug, and you end up against the wall or in the gulag.

This alternative is not so fashionable in modern Athenian democracies, so generally in our world, the other alternative to dealing with violence prevails. This calls for people to be redeemed and sanctified away from violent behaviour. The populace looks to the state to be effective in removing violence from society. The populace looks to the government as a kind of saviour. It wants the government to “do something.” It demands government action to remove anger, clamour, bitterness, envy, hatred, loathing, and divisiveness from the human heart.

So begins the endless panoply of programmes, campaigns, talkfests, and propaganda initiatives. Anger management courses sprout up like weeds. “Female virtues” are extolled through a pretty comprehensive feminisation of the education system. The causes of violence are identified as residing in deprivation (economic and social), so welfare programmes are topped up and intensified and promulgated more than ever. On it goes.

The Athenian population feels better about the whole thing. Something is being done. An effort is being made. Progress can be expected. The fallacy of reductio ad educatum reigns supreme.

But it will all end in disillusion and bitterness. The programmes will achieve one thing, and one thing only—a colossal waste of time, energy and resources. An utter waste of money. Governments cannot deal with sinful hearts. Governments always fail to change people from within, and violence is simply an external expression of an inward moral corruption. The civil government cannot bear the weight of responsibility which Athenian citizens insist it carries.

When that reality finally sinks in it is around about that time when the populace starts thinking of the “other alternative”—the strong leader, the Boss, Sharkey. What could not be done through the internal transformation of the heart and mind will now be achieved through external violent compulsion. (Already we see signs of this in New Zealand. Cindy Kiro, Sue Bradford, Helen Clark et al. have called for, and achieved, a significant extension of the power of the state over the lives of families and parents—imposing upon them state sponsored violence—which in turn is justified by a claim that it will stop community violence.)

Jerusalem, on the other hand, knows that violence is intrinsic to this world of sin. At this point, we part company from Athenian ideology. The hope that Jerusalem represents is genuine and comprehensive. Firstly, it does call for a strong role to be played by the government—but a role that it focused, narrow, and within the sphere of civil government's God-given competence.

Jerusalem looks for the criminal code to identify the most extreme forms of violence and ensure that they are made criminal offences to be punished by the sword of the magistrate. This is necessary not to transform wicked hearts, but to restrain and hold back violence in the community. The focus upon restraint rather than prevention and transformation means that the state is acting within its sphere of competence.

Secondly, Jerusalem looks for the civil code to hold parents (whether natural or legal) completely responsible for the actions of their children, until the age of criminal accountability. This includes responsibility for training, welfare, and education. The sooner parents are held accountable at civil law for their children, the sooner social transformation will occur. Jerusalem would throw out, in an instant, the beggared philosophy which asserts the irresponsibility and incompetence of parents only to replace it with an assertion of the competence of the state. “The buck stops with you!” is Jerusalem's message to all parents.

Thirdly, Jerusalem gives an unequivocal message on violence: it is evil. There are only three kinds of violence which are righteous and appointed by the Living God. These are: the violence of the state for the punishment of criminals after due process of law; the exercise of lawful violence for the training and correction (not punishment) of children, and the promulgation of defensive war against aggressor nations. All other expressions of violence are wrong and in almost all cases should be dealt with via comprehensive civil courts, where justice is to be accessible, immediate, measured, and appropriate.

Finally, Jerusalem knows that these measures will only be accepted within the walls of the City of God. Athens will never tolerate them. But because Athens has no solution to the horror of lawless violence, it will weaken and eventually tear itself apart. Because King Jesus sits as regnant over the earth, eventually Jerusalem will triumph over the whole earth, with our Lord having transformed from within the hearts of the smallest to the greatest.

Under its reign, the very meaning of the name “Jerusalem” will have come to pass—it is, indeed, the City of Peace.