Your Humble Servant
Your Humble Servant
While it is true that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, there's a difference between ambling down the road in ignorance, and being forced to march down it. It's worse to be wicked than to be ignorant. Perhaps one of the things that separates my railing against the state, and the mere grumbling of others is that I believe that the state is wicked, and not merely dumb. I don't believe they operate with the best of intentions, but fail to understand the basic tenets of the Constitution, or of common sense. They know what they're doing. And they do what they do out of the same sin by which the first creature fell, pride. The state did not become a leviathan by accident. They did it because they want to be God. Like Adam and Eve they were given a task. Adam and Eve were called to be God's vice-regents, to rule for Him. They chose instead to seek to rule instead of Him. They stepped outside their bounds, because they wanted a bigger job.
The state has been given the sword, and charged by God with the task of punishing evildoers. What evildoers? Certainly not all of them. When my son Campbell fails to clean his room as I commanded him, it is not a legitimate function of the state to discipline him. That's daddy's job. When I start teaching heresy from the pulpit, we ought not to call the sheriff, but the session. The state oversteps its bounds when it determines that it must punish all wrongdoers.
But it gets much worse. The state today not only punishes wrong doers outside its jurisdiction, but it engages in all manner of activities that have little or nothing to do with punishment. Even if the state won't throw me in the slammer for not eating my veggies, it does buy airtime on the radio and television telling me over and over how many servings the scientists they've hired think I should have. Even if the state doesn't fine me for failing to appreciate the beauty of creation, it does maintain countless parks and recreation centers. Even if they don't put me in the stocks for failing to prepare for my old age, they do take my money from me every month, use it to take care of other older folks, and promise they'll tax my children to take care of me when I'm old. [By the way, contra the wise Doug Wilson, don't take social security until you get what you put in. What you put in is gone; you'd just be stealing from your children.] There is no sword (save that these are all paid for by taxes taken by force) here, but there is an attempt to control all that I do.
The state believes it has the power and the wisdom to build a perfect world. That's why they have the government school system. The function of the government schools from the beginning was not to educate the people, but to control the people, to indoctrinate them in the religion of the state. If the state loves the spotted owls, we must teach the kids to love the spotted owls. If the state wants us to embrace sodomy, then they must train the kids in diversity. If the state believes that Jesus Christ is a matter of indifference to the pursuit of truth, well then we just won't mention Him. The final arbiter of all questions of truth will be the state.
A humble state knows not only its calling, but also the One who called it. A humble state is one with the wisdom to leave on the shackles of the limitations of its calling that God has placed on it and to kiss the Son, lest He become angry (Psalm 2). It stays within its appointed boundaries, and operates as a minister of God, fulfilling its particular calling. A humble state knows that it can't keep people from smoking, or drinking, or eating too much. It can't make sure we all get enough exercise. It can't find a cure for AIDS. It can't feel our pain, make us wise, make us godly. It can't make sure no one thinks in terms of racial stereotypes. It can't make sure daddies love their children. It can't provide babysitting for single moms, and even if it could, it can't pay for it without taking money out of the pockets of single moms. It can't help young families buy their first home. It can't manipulate interest rates or the money supply to guarantee perpetual growth.
As the election season reaches its peak, see if there are any humble men running for the office of leader of the free (sic) world. We ought to have an overpowering distrust toward anyone who wants the power to remake the world according to his own wisdom. We ought to know that we cannot support any man who doesn't say first, "I will only punish wrong-doers," and second, "If the Constitution doesn't list it as our job, we're just not going to do it." We need a man with the humility to recognize that when Lord Acton said "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely", that he was talking to him. We need a man who will kiss the Son, and do it boldly.
Perhaps more important is that we also have the humility to know our own place. We need to recognize that the state does not exist to make our life more comfortable. We share in the wickedness when we ask the state to step beyond its calling, when we ask it to feed us in our old age, to feed the widows in our midst, to help us go to college, to teach our children, to make sure our mutual fund does not tumble too far. We too want to be like God, believing that the cattle on a thousand hills belong to us, instead of being under the stewardship of our neighbors.
But we are not a humble people. Until we repent, we will be just another faction clamoring for dollars, to enact our own vision of political utopia. Until we are humbled, we will only continue to be humiliated.