Understanding The Times

Timing is Everything--They Say

Here is an excellent summary of a key aspect of English constitutional development.  

We like to think that liberty is fought for.  Judging by occasional comments in the media and by politicians, a widespread belief is that liberty was won during the [English] Civil War.  The reality is different: the war almost destroyed liberty.  Only when the country rejected fighting, and zealots had to abandon their visions of a compulsory New Jerusalem, was liberty possible.

To the Whigs we owe the principle--Magna Carta restated in modern form--that rulers must obey the law and that legitimate authority requires the consent of the people.  From the Tories came the principle--fundamental to any political order--that people have no right to rebel against a government because they disagree with it.  

Combining these seemingly conflicting principles produced characteristics of English political culture:
suspicion of Utopias and zealots; trust in common sense and experience; respect for tradition; preference for gradual change; and the view that "compromise" is victory, not betrayal.

Beware The Dangers of Hobby-Horsing

Full Disclosure Needed

Now that the dust has settled in the matter of Alabama's election of a US Senator a number of broader issues have bubbled up in the Christian community.  Hopefully, these matters will be confronted faithfully by the saints.  

Firstly, some background.  Roy Moore was put forward as the Republican candidate in a special election for the US Senate.  He was accused by a number of women of immoral, if not illegal sexual activity forty years ago.  Although he had held high public office in Alabama over a number of years, nothing like this had surfaced before.  It turns out he was narrowly defeated.  If he had won Christians would have been involved in sending him to represent them in the US Senate.

Thus a debate began amongst Christians, particularly leaders and mover-and-shakers.  On the one side were those who insisted that whatever breaches of morality occurred forty years ago on the part of candidate Roy Moore it was time to apply some kind of statute of limitations.  Others added that an allegation does not a conviction make nor proven guilt establish.

The Gospel Coalition (TGC) is a group of evangelical Christian leaders who support each other both formally and informally and who work together on issues of mutual and shared interest in the United States.  A lot of their work has to do with promoting Jesus Christ and the Christian faith in the public square.  A number of the known leaders have spoken out strongly and publicly against Roy Moore and excoriated Christian for supporting him.

Let us grant them their case. Roy Moore, alleged sexual pervert, unfit to serve let alone honoured.  Let all Christians remove their hankies from their pockets and hold them firmly over their noses.  Not so fast.  Maybe, but maybe not.  Why?

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

The Least Important Election in Our Lifetime

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

INTRODUCTION

Important elections are those in which you are deciding whether to go north by northeast or south by southwest. Important elections are the ones in which you decide whether to go thissaway or thattaway. Important elections are held on Mount Carmel, with the candidates being Jehovah and Baal.

Important elections are not elections in which millions of people are deciding how to pick up the only available turd, and their dispute is over which end is the cleaner end. Ours is the kind of election that only occurs when all the crucial decisions have been made decades before.vote-for-pedro

Important elections, in other words, are elections in which decisions are actually made. This election is nothing more than a slow motion manifestation of the decisions we have already made, decisions we began making many decades ago. Trying to come up with a “responsible choice” at this stage in our cultural devolution is trying to choreograph a judgment, trying to turn a full-blown riot into West Side Story.

So in one sense, this is the least important election in our lifetime. When it comes to elections, we have already made our decisions. In another sense, this is a crucial time in the life of our nation.

MAWS WHAT HE SAWS

As the Scots Bible puts it i the Buik, God is not mocked.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

21 Principles for the Christian Citizen

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

Because the teaching of the apostle Paul on civil authority is widely misunderstood and misrepresented, we need to review some basic principles. As we do, we need to remember something that Abraham Kuyper once said: “In any successful attack on freedom the state can only be an accomplice. The chief culprit is the citizen who forgets his duty, wastes away his strength in the sleep of sin and sensual pleasure, and so loses the power of his own initiative.”


Political Principles

So here are 21 principles concerning civil government that the Christian must understand.

“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God” (Rom. 13:1).

1. Civil government and rule is a blessing from God, and not a necessary evil. “The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain” (2 Sam. 23:3-4).  We are not anarchists.

2. God establishes a righteous throne with majesty.

Lawful Christian Resistance, Part V

The Consent of the Governed A Biblical Pattern

All students of political philosophy know there is a connection between limited government and the doctrines of checks and balances.  No king, or president, or governor has absolute power; the power of all is limited.  The power of all ruling institutions is checked and balanced by other institutions and authorities.  Herein lies the essence of liberty, on the one hand, and the deconstruction of absolutism, on the other.

These fundamental precepts upon which life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness depend, arise out of ancient traditions.  In particular, we are confident that they arise out of Christian and proto-Christian civilisation.  The more a nation or civilisation turns away from acknowledging Christ as the King of kings, the more rapidly it will destroy liberty and descend into anarchy or an absolutist tyranny.

The essentials of the doctrine of limited, multiple authorities are found in the constitution of ancient Israel itself.  David was God's anointed king-to-be. God had chosen him, anointed him, and called him to be His king over all Israel.  David, therefore, had a divine right to rule.  But, actually, he did not, as the inspired record makes clear.  He had a divine calling, but not a divine right.

Lawful Christian Resistance, Part II

He Also Resists Who Patiently Submits For Christ's Sake

One of the more challenging issues ever faced by Christians is to be patient and submissive when suffering at the hands of ungodly tyrants.  In the West we have been "spoilt" for many years because, under the influence of Christian doctrines pertaining to civil government, biblical freedoms have been recognised in law, and various freedom rights have been enshrined in constitutions.

This means that the ultimate earthly ruler of citizens in the West is the law of the land.  It also means that if a government were to move to reduce or strip away our freedom rights, the law itself recognises rights and duties of redress against ungodly and tyrannical laws and rulers.  We have rights of freedom of speech; we are lawfully entitled to campaign for public support to overturn unjust or immoral laws through tossing out incumbent rulers and replacing them with rulers more faithful to God.  We can ourselves stand for public, elected office.

But these freedoms we enjoy, based upon, and derived from, fidelity to the Living God and His covenant, are rare when set against the longer history of the human race.

Lawful Christian Resistance, Part I

Suffering Patiently Before God

As the power and unlimited reach of the secular State grows, it is necessary that Christians revisit and recapture doctrines of Christian resistance.  We say "revisit" because many of these issues have been thoroughly canvassed in the West when it was more Christian.

Luther once jokingly said--with respect to the Pope--that the only part of human anatomy not controlled by the Pontiff was the rear-end.  Nowadays, the same jibe could be made--far more accurately it turns out--over the vast administrative State which is constantly laying down more and more laws, rules, regulations and prohibitions about how we are to live our lives.

Moreover, as the  State has become more secular, and less fearful of the Living God, it has become emboldened to enact laws in direct opposition to the Law of God.  It has given more and more permission, freedom, and liberty to evil men to do whatever their hearts lust after.  But, worse, it has not merely permitted evil licentiousness to flourish: the modern secular State has increasingly moved against Christians by insisting they comply with,  and support, celebrate, and promote evil along with the doers of evil.  The modern State increasingly prohibits and punishes ordinary citizens who resist the evils which the State now promotes.

Once ministers of the Gospel could proclaim to their congregations or audiences that homosexuality is a great evil.  Now they risk punishment by State authorities for such biblical candour.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

500 in the Boot

Douglas Wilson

Blog and Mablog

August 29, 2014

A story is told of a fellow who was mugged in an alley by a band of thugs, and he put up a ferocious fight. After about fifteen minutes, they got him down on the ground, and found just two dollars in his wallet. “Two dollars?” one of them said. “You put up that fight for two dollars?”

“Well, no, actually. I thought you were after the $500 in my boot.”

One of the most precious possessions a government has is its moral legitimacy. When they have it, taxes are paid, for the most part, voluntarily. Any society requires force for the outliers, but is not held together at the center by force. When the ruling elites start to opt out of this societal bond — “laws are for the little people” — there is usually a time lag, but the “little people” do catch on. When they catch on, the whole thing spirals down into chaos.

One of the central techniques that is used by despots for divesting themselves of moral legitimacy is the technique of governing through arbitrary administrative law. A free people live under laws passed by legislatures in which they have freely chosen representatives. The prerogative of passing such laws may not be transferred. So if you chafe under rules and regs that spew forth from all the alphabet agencies, then you are not free. It doesn’t matter that you are currently not being harassed. No despot can torment all his slaves simultaneously.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

When St. Paul Was Fourth and Long

Douglas Wilson

Blog and Mablog

August 28, 2014

Before getting into the appropriate Christian response to the tyrannies of the arbitrary administrative state, we have to set aside a particular objection that can be marshalled from the Bible. Not only can it be marshaled, let us acknowledge that it frequently is.

When I say that Christians should stand for liberty, and I do, and I say that they should work and pray for it, and that preachers should preach with this in mind, the objection comes back that this is not what Jesus did, and this is not what the apostles did.

What I want to do here is highlight what this objection is actually doing, which is ignoring the cumulative flow of history. It is treating the strategies employed by God, Jesus, and the apostles as a fixed constant, when it is their faith and demeanor that is actually the fixed constant. If we lock down on the strategies, we will refuse to alter anything based on where we are in history. But this is like insisting on punting because St. Paul was fourth and long. Yes, I might reply, but we are third and inches.

I don’t really care that the early church punted a lot.

Welcome to our Socialist Paradise

The Long Game

New Zealand is a socialist country--at least ideologically.  By which we mean that the grand majority think in socialist categories.  The vast majority of the population endorse the state being the sole educator of children, as well as a state controlled, run and rationed healthcare system,  and one of the most "generous" state welfare systems in the world.  Not surprisingly, almost all social problems and challenges are expected to be solved by the state.  Equally not surprisingly, just on sixty percent of government expenditure goes to health, education, and welfare [1].  The overwhelming majority of the population, if asked, "What must we do to improve social welfare, health, and education in New Zealand?" would argue that the government needs to spend more money in these areas. 

Now, if one asked the "man-in-street" whether New Zealand was a socialist country, he most likely would be offended at the question.  Of course not, he would reply.  That's because the country believes fervently in socialism without doctrines (as historian Michael Bassett put it).  The practices of applied socialism are so entrenched no-one needs defend or advocate for them any longer. The frog in the pot has well and truly boiled, whilst experiencing no discomfort.

Given that New Zealand is a socialist paradise without doctrines and that all political parties without exception live with this reality (even the most conservative and libertarian minor parties seek to make changes only at the margin), how does an professedly socialistic party fare, politically?

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

In a Perfect World . . .

Posted on Friday, November 1, 2013  

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog

“Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens” (Ex. 18:21).

In a perfect world — because it is an imperfect world — political rulers should have three fundamental characteristics. They should fear God, be men of truth, and hate coveteousness. We live in a time when the fear of God must not exist or, if it does, it must not be acknowledged, when candidates manufacture lies deliberately, and loving covetousness usually functions as the foundation of their proposed economic plan.

But those are the requirements that Scripture sets forth, and so that is what we should be laboring for. That happy result may not happen in the next election, but that is where we are seeking to get.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Political, Not Partisan

Posted on Saturday, November 2, 2013  

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog 

Scripture tells us that in our assemblies, when we come together, we should pray for “kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty” (1 Tim. 2:2). This is something we regularly do in our worship service. But when it comes down to it, we also need to vote in the same direction as our prayers, and this next Tuesday is a time when it does come down to it.

As you know, it is not my place, from this pulpit, to urge you to vote for candidate x or candidate y. Vote for Murphy, or vote for Schultz, have no place here. The pulpit must never become a place for factional politics, or partisanship. At the same time, the presence of the Church in the world is inescapably political, and this means that if we do not draw the charge of partisanship, we are not doing our job. If we are not drawing the charge of license, we are not really preaching grace. If we are not drawing the charge of fatalism, we are not really preaching God’s rule over all things. So then, in the same way, if the political presence of the Church in the world makes no political difference to those given over to partisanship, then we are not fulfilling our calling rightly.