Licensing Lusts

The Unbelieving Commonwealth

Christians believe in universal government.  The Christian commonwealth or Christendom is a society in which government is ubiquitous.  But--and this is the telling point--Christians also believe in very limited civil government.  The magistrate, the State, and the judicial powers play a vital role in a Christian commonwealth but it is very limited and focused upon the punishment of evil doers and the administration of just judgment in civil disputes.

But government functions ubiquitously throughout society in a Christian commonwealth.
  Self-government is one important institution of government. Family governance--where husbands, wives, fathers, mothers and children carry out their designated responsibilities under God, answering to Him--is another.  Church governance is yet another realm of government.  Then there are voluntary groups (charities, community organisations, welfare groups, schools  and educational institutions) all of which have their own charters, constitutions, rules, and institutions of governance.  The organisations of business and commerce provide yet another sphere of government.

Christian society, then, is characterised by universal governance--yet all forms of government being limited, focused, and all answerable to God--including the state.  Such a commonwealth can exist only when the hearts of a significant majority of citizens are devoted above all to God.  The Christian commonwealth is a society substantially made up of a coalition of the willing--people who have repented of their sins and love and serve Jesus Christ as the Lord of all.  The limited nature of all government within the Christian commonwealth is a function of Christ being recognised as the only absolute Lord. He will not give His glory to another.  Therefore, all other institutions of government in Christian society are limited to the duties and responsibilities and authority and powers which He has granted and commanded.

The Unbelieving society is completely different.  It wages war between two poles.  The first pole arises out of a quest for authority and power to rule and command.  Inevitably this goes to the institution with the power to shed blood--the state.  The state is the Unbeliever's god.  All other aspects of society must be subject to, and aligned with, the demands of the State as the ultimate power.  This means that the post-Christian West is implicitly a totalitarian society in waiting.

Some will object, pointing out that Western societies are democracies.  Power arises out of the will of the people and by the consent of the governed.  True.  But when the people are ungodly, what do they seek?  They increasingly demand the right and power to live out their lusts.  And this is the second pole. Freedom morphs into licence and licentiousness triumphs over the State.  In an Unbelieving democratic society the State inevitably becomes an institution recognising and enforcing the lusts of its citizens.

Homosexuality becomes far more than an evil practised in private.  Homosexuals demand the state (the libertine's god) protect and enforce their lusts upon everyone.  The lusts have become joined with the powers of the state.  Licentiousness becomes the overriding social characteristic--but, increasingly a licentiousness enforced by law.  Homosexuality is one example amongst many.  The license to murder innocent children.  The demand that the state provide meat, eggs and beer.  The insistence that marriage contracts become utterly subject to the respective wilfulness of the parties.  All of these reflect state enforced licentiousness.

When Unbelief reaches such levels of depravity, historically (as revealed both in sacred history, the commentaries of the Prophets, and in secular history) the next stage is conquest by a ruthless invader.  It is intrinsic to licentiousness that it cannot maintain an adequate national defence.  Duty, honour, oaths, vows, loyalty, self-sacrifice--all intrinsic to a Christian commonwealth--would have long gone.  A nation dominated by lust cannot mount a defence against a fruit fly, let alone an invading army.  Israel and Judah were too busy sacrificing their children to Molech to worry about Egypt, and Assyria, and Babylon.  But they were made to worry eventually.  Too late.

We are not there yet.  We are well on the way.  But time yet remains.  The Gospel is still preached, often in completely unexpected places.  People are still repenting of their sins and turning to the Lord Jesus.   May He have mercy upon us, so that we turn once again to Him, that our land may be healed.  If not, the long dark of Moria will be our fate.