The Extent of Our Rebellion

A Nation of Thieves and Slaves

Lindsay Mitchell has a post on welfare expenses in New Zealand.  She has kindly published the breakdown of Core Crown Expenditure, which we republish here.

If we look at the current (2010) year, we see that total core government expenditure for the year is $64.013bn, up from $49.320bn four years ago (2006) which represents a 30 percent increase.  A 30 percent increase in just four years.  Look no further to explain why the New Zealand economy is so parlous.

But it gets worse.  If we focus on the top three spending items (health, education, and welfare) we find that together these total for this year $46.037bn which represents 72 percent of government spending.  Why is this a problem?  Well, if you are a socialist or a liberal or a secular humanist--or virtually anyone not a Christian (and unfortunately far too many Christians just go with the flow on this one)--there is no problem at all.  That little table of core government expenditure represents the world as the vast majority of people in this country believe it ought to be.  The government or the state is the ultimate power and reality in our world.  As such, the government has the higher and prime responsibility to ensure that all our people are healthy, educated, clothed and fed. 

Now as we said, with sadness, there are not a few Christians who actually nod their assent to this.  They do so without understanding the despotic horror that is progressively unfolding before them.  A government that is granted by the people the prime responsibility for the health, education, and welfare of its citizens is a government that will progressively squash its citizens in the vice of despotism.

Let us state the Christian position clearly: the government has no mandate from the Living God to feed, clothe, or educate one person, let alone a nation.  For the Christian who reads his Bible, the state is not the ultimate power--it is but a mere servant of God, responsible to Him and accountable to Him for all that it does.  When it arrogates to itself powers not granted by God, or when its citizens vote those powers to government, the entire nation is guilty of rebellion against the Most High.

But it gets worse.  When a government sets out to clothe, feed, educate and heal it needs moola--lot's and lot's of it.  It gets that money from taxing its citizens.  Since the government has no right to be doing such things, its tax extraction for those activities represents not just a terrible oppression upon citizens getting pretty close to slavery, but theft on a grand scale.

A large part of our working life and time is labouring to meet the unjust extractions of the government of our property and income.  Since the state claims a prior right to this property--before we get to live upon what is left over--this begins to approximate to a state of relative slavery.  Moreover, the more the government spends on these things, the more is extracted from us.  If we take the number of people between the age of 15 and 65 in New Zealand (that is, the adult working-age population, which is currently around 2.912m) the $46bn illicit spend by the government represents $15,808 per year which has to be extracted on average from every working-age adult, or roughly $30,000 per household per year.  The size and amount of forced government extraction for illegitimate government activities represents citizens being effectively reduced to a state of slavery.

In addition, since God has not granted such competencies, duties and responsibilities to the State, to extract money from citizens to fund them is theft--legalized theft to be sure--but theft nonetheless.  How can a nation be blessed by God when its whole structure and foundation is built upon theft and slavery?

But it gets worse.  The whole society is complicit and supportive of these systemic injustices.  That does not make them right.  It only serves to make us all guilty and subject to the wrath of God.  As our mothers told us correctly the fact that everyone does something does not make it right--only conventional.  And when a whole society's conventions are evil and unjust--look out.

Here is a thought experiment which represents a simple test as to whether you have succumbed to the evil conventions of our day.  A fabulously wealthy man--a multi-billionaire--took to court a poor man who could neither feed nor clothe his family. The poor man had expropriated $100 out of the billionaire's wallet at an opportune moment.  The judge convicted the poor man for theft and required that he restitute the billionaire.

Are you be offended, even outraged at such a circumstance?  Would you consider such a ruling implicitly unjust?  If you would, you have subscribed to the evil conventions of our day that postulate the poor man has a property right to the billionaire's wealth, a legitimate property claim, which the government and the courts must enforce.  But the Living God has revealed His holy standards.  He forbids all theft ("thou shalt not steal"); further, He forbids even the inward act or attitude of heart that desires the property of others ("thou shalt not covet").  Finally, He declares that in the courts of justice, the judge must never have any regard whatsoever to the socio-economic status or circumstances of those before the bench.  He must neither favour the rich, nor the poor.  He cannot be partial to one over the other. To do so is injustice.

You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbour. Leviticus 19:15

Seventy-two percent of our government's activity, extraction, judgements, and works is premised upon the rejection of the Law of God, and an assertion that it is just and right to be partial to some at the expense of others.  Therefore, our society believes that for our government to extract property from some and redistribute it to others is holy, just and good.  Our government, thus, is throughout an institution of injustice and rebellion against God. It is an institution of theft.  As the old saw has it, "Don't steal:  the government does not like competition." 

So, unless we repent our nation will be consigned to the wrath and judgement of God.  We have been at this now for nearly one hundred years.  Our Lord is longsuffering and patient.  But in the end, if we do not humble ourselves, He will deal out His justice to us.  The form this may take is not clear.  It may be war or disease.  It may be physical calamities such as earthquakes or volcanoes.  It may be rising tides of violent crime.  It may be extreme poverty and degradation as a result of economic collapse.  Or it may be all of the above.

In that day, people will cry out to their god, the government, to save them.  But government itself will be under God's wrath: after all, it is the idol of choice of our generation.  There will be no help there.