Who Will Rid Us of this Curse?

Walter Lippmann, Prophet of the Age

In 1932, Lippman wrote:

"[While] the partisans who are now fighting for the mastery of the modern world wear shirts of different colours, their weapons are drawn from the same armory, their doctrines are variations of the same theme, and they go forth to battle singing the same tune with slightly different words . . . .

"Throughout the world, in the name of progress, men who call themselves communists, socialists, fascists, nationalists, progressives, and even liberals, are unanimous in holding that government with its instruments of coercion must by commanding the people how they shall live, direct the course of civilization and fix the shape of things to come . . . . [T]he premises of authoritarian collectivism have become the working beliefs, the self-evident assumptions, the unquestioned axioms, not only of all the revolutionary regimes, but of nearly every effort which lays claim to being enlightened, humane, and progressive.

"So universal is the domination of this dogma over the minds of contemporary men that no one is taken seriously as a statesman or theorist who does not come forward with proposals to magnify the power of public officials and to extend and multiply their intervention in human affairs. Unless he is authoritarian and collectivist, he is a mossback, a reactionary, at best an amiable eccentric swimming hopelessly against the tide. It is a strong tide. Though despotism is no novelty in human affairs, it is probably true that at no time in twenty-five hundred years has any western government claimed for itself a jurisdiction over men's lives comparable with that which is officially attempted in totalitarian states . . . .

"But it is even more significant that in other lands where men shrink from the ruthless policy of these regimes, it is commonly assumed that the movement of events must be in the same direction. Nearly everywhere the mark of a progressive is that he relies at last upon the increased power of officials to improve the condition of men. "

Cited by Paul A Rahe, Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift (Yale University Press: New Haven, 2009) p.254.

We firmly believe that only the Spirit of God, applying the grace and gifts of the Lord Jesus Christ, Messiah of God to the hearts of men can rid us of this curse. For it is both an idolatry and an enslavement of heart. Men who are not made free by the truth and grace of God would in the end prefer to be enslaved to officials who promise to protect them and provide for them.