Diverting Political Debates

Tragedies We Inflict Upon Ourselves

Political ideology is a diverting area of study--particularly when politics are operating in a secularist cocoon.  Of course, politics and government in the West are overwhelmingly secular in our generation.  (The United States is the final bastion of anti-secularism but its decline and fall are now well down the track.)

Political ideologies of both Left and Right all agree on one critical maxim: there ain't no God.  Whether in Cameron's Whitehall, Hollande's Elysee Palace, or Obama's White House the conviction is shared.  It is certain because shared.  Everyone agrees.  When it comes to politics and government, we are all atheists now.
  OK, some people--even those in government--may believe in something--and that's acceptable.  People can lean on whatever crutches they fashion.  If it helps, dude, go to it.  But all we secularists know that these things are figments of human imagination.  The most polite thing one can say about the gods is that no-one really knows.  They may be true, they may exist; but no-one knows, including those who say they are believers.

Where does that leave political ideology?  Man is his own saviour.  If there ain't no God or gods, then Man is the only one left at the plate swinging the bat or pitching the ball off the mound.  Political arguments between Left and Right are reduced down to intramural debates over team configurations, rules, umpires, and tactics.  But both Left and Right agree that the game is baseball.  Both alike are secularists.

To extend the analogy, the Left believes that the players should all be subservient to the collective, the team.  No decision should be taken, tactic played, or position assigned unless and until the Team has sanctioned it, arranged it, and tested it.  The Right believes that individual players are more important than the team: if the individual players are left to play as they see fit, within broad parameters of generalised game rules, the released creative energy, competition for team spots, and increased personal motivation will lift the entire team to victory.  In the end the debate is facile--a mere tactical discussion.  Much ado about very little.

But let's beg some slack here.  Let's just contemplate for a moment that the secularist premises are wrong--from the get-go.  After all, secularism is a recent invention in the history of ideas, a novel proposition unknown or unrecognised by human beings in previous millennia.  Let's just grant, for the moment, that the Living God is not a figment of the imagination, that He is above all politics and human government.  Let's just grant, for the moment, that He is a jealous God, Who hates all sin and evil and will by no means leave it unpunished.  What then?

Well, then.  Ideological secularism of both Left and Right variants would be a crock of excrement.  Not only would it, and the societies it spawns, be doomed to failure, they would be doomed to judgment which, of course, is far far worse. 

Now, it is sadly true that many Christians--that is, people who believe in the existence of the Living God--have become conformed in so many ways to the spirit of our secularist world.  And that world, our world, overwhelmingly believes in Man.  Therefore all talk of divine vengeance, judgment, or wrath is intolerable and deeply offensive--even blasphemous, dare we say.  The only kind of Christianity secularism tolerates is a relentlessly positive version which constantly affirms Man.  "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.  Are you hurting?  God will help you. Are you lonely?  God will be your friend.  Are you sad?  God will cheer you up."  And so forth.  Such a religion, though (to the secularist) untrue, is tolerable because it performs a useful function for the weakminded. 

But such weakness and unfaithfulness amongst Christians, such conformity to the spirit of the Age, would in no way alter the truth about God--that He is holy, just, righteous, and vengeful, not willing to leave the guilty unpunished.  The Living God would be Who He is, not Whom weak Christians or secularists would like Him to be.

In the end, if the Living God were to be true, secularism and its client societies, whether of the Left or Right variants, would be doomed.  In the end they would destroy themselves, integrating into the void of their rebellion against God.

Historically--throughout those former millennia we spoke of--God deniers bolstered their unbelief by an argument from historical experience.  "See, the divine judgment you (Jewish and Christian) believers speak of has not happened.  Therefore it cannot be true."  The argument falls--both historically and theologically.  Historically, because the flood of divine wrath always did eventually fall.  Theologically, because God's wrath is held back by His patience and lovingkindness.  When God pronounced to Noah and his family that the entire human race, apart from Noah and his kin, would perish because every thought and intent of ante-diluvian society was unrelentingly evil, He nevertheless would wait another 120 years--in case the secularists of the day would come to their senses and repent. 

When secularists parley the loving patience of the Living God into an argument for His non-existence our collective doom becomes sure and certain.  The future of secularism--from the standpoint of the Christian--does not look too bright.  Man as demi-god is a tragic joke.  It is also evil.