Fiduciary Duty and Public Office

Unbelief and Corruption Go Together

The symptoms of a society falling into the thrall of Unbelief are legion. When a culture defalcates from its duty to fear and honour the Living God, it ends up with public officials who defalcate public money. In a Christian culture all offices are viewed as a matter of, not just trust, but a sacred trust, where the holder of an office is responsible first and foremost to God, then secondly to those he is called to serve. In a Christian culture, all officials are to regard themselves as servants. Those who do not are not worthy to hold office.

In our modern God-denying culture Unbelief has matured to the point where man is overtly regarded as being in charge of the world. Man is the higher power. In more "primitive" cultures the dominion of man is more cloaked, less overt. In our modern secular world, the ascendency of man is explicit. In our modern world man is now officially free from God.

At first blush this "achievement" offers a heady liberty. Man is free to do or be what he wants. Well, actually, it soon becomes clear that it does not mean that but rather that our rulers are free to do considerably more than ordinary men because they are "at the top of the heap" so to speak. They are the higher power; there is no-one to whom they are accountable. They are lords, not servants.

This mentality shows up in many ways. It can generate an elitist class of people who believe they are born to rule. This particular arrogance has bedevilled the National Party for decades. The belief that National is a political party made up of people who are morally superior and better fitted to govern is recidivist blight of that party. This explains why some of the most destructive expansions of state power in New Zealand have occurred under National's watch in government. How can this be justified? Well, the corruptocrat culture within National justifies it by saying when "we" do it, it's OK because we are superior people to the other mob. "We" being better people than the other mob, sanctifies bad acts. For example, when National was out of government, it said repeatedly that the whole idea of an Emissions Trading Scheme was unremittingly bad for our country. Once in government it was suddenly not so bad after all. Why the change. Because "we" are better people, and when we do it, it's OK. The National party is dominated throughout by people who foolishly do not believe they answer to God for all that they do. This makes them fundamentally unfit to govern.

Another manifestation is the ease with which our politicians, bureaucrats and government functionaries spend the public's money as if it were their own. Are they not entitled? We have seen recently the distasteful spectacle of Len Brown, Mayor of Manukau City and aspirant to become Mayor of mega-Auckland City trying to explain how he used the city's credit card for personal purchases. His rival, John Banks says that long ago he eschewed such credit cards because they are inevitably misused. Banks shows an integrity that reflects a Christian culture; Brown's actions betray the ethics of modern secular humanism where the governed are servants of governors.

Today, the spending of the previous Government's ministers is going to be exposed to the public. We expect the record will show numerous instances of defalcation. The corruptocrat culture of the Labour Party will be clear for all to see. "It is our right. We are entitled", will be the sub-text. Rather than seeing every cent as a sacred trust to God and to the people we expect that it will be clear that they view every cent as their sacred entitlement that the people owe them. Shane Jones is the first to be forced to fess up. We expect that there will be many more.

The present emphasis on sunlight, accountability, and more strict controls is very welcome. We applaud the actions of the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the House in this regard. We fear, however, that it will be little more than a passing fad. A deeply embedded belief that public office is a sacred trust can only be sustained by a wider and even deeper Christian culture.

A culture dominated by Unbelief will ever swerve back to throwing up rulers who will do whatever they believe they can get away with as the prevailing norm. They are entitled, non?