What Would Be the Best Form of Government?
Before beginning the attempt to answer this question, I wish to make it clear that I consider the question purely academic. First, the country I live in already has a government. As a Christian I believe that God is the one who sets up governments and takes them down. This is true of every government on earth – past, present, and future. See Daniel 2:21 and Romans 13:1. Second, the Bible nowhere counsels us to spend the majority of our time and effort in establishing and perfecting earthly government. Our Christian mission is not to reform the world and make it a better place to live, but to save people from the world. The world (which I distinguish in this presentation from the earth, the physical structure on which the world lives) is one third of the evil triumverate: the Devil, the world, and our sinful nature.
But because God urges us to do good to all, as much as we can, and because there are many in my country who are trying to get rid of our government even as they pay lip service to our Constitution, I am moved to spend some of my time and effort addressing the issue.
That God is the one who establishes and abolishes governments does not mean that he causes or condones the evil that any particular government might commit. Every government has the responsibility to carry out its God-given purpose of punishing evil and promoting good. See Romans 13:3,4 and 1 Peter 2:13-14. Those in government who do not carry out these purposes are accountable to God and he will deal with them accordingly. Note how Nebuchadnezzar was established by God to execute God’s wrath on the disobedient people of Israel (Jeremiah 25:9; 27:6), yet Nebuchadnezzar would still be punished by God for the evil he committed (Jeremiah 25:12-14; 27:7) God sets up and takes down governments for his own purposes and can turn even evil into good for his believing people, but the unrepentant will suffer for their evil no matter how high their position or authority in the world.
God and the Christian Church do not need worldly government to be favorable to Christianity. For its first 300 years the Church was persecuted by governments, first by the Jews, then by the Romans. Yet the church grew until it became the majority religion in the Roman empire. We cannot look into the heart of Constantine, but there is a strong argument that he adopted Christianity primarily because he saw it as means to gain support from across his realm. (There is also a strong argument that says his endorsement of Christianity either started or greatly accelerated the paganization of “Christianity”.) Yes, it would be good if a government truly and fully incorporated Christian morality, good for Christians and non-Christians alike, but it would still be unable to convert hearts to faith.
Note, too, that God through his apostles counsels Christians to be subject to their governments, even if they be wicked governments. The government in charge at the time of Christ and the Apostles was the government of Imperial Rome under a Caesar. It was a pagan government that included among its laws the requirement that people consider Caesar to be among the gods. Consider, also, the example of David in the Old Testament, who refused to harm the Lord’s anointed king, even though King Saul was actively trying to kill David. The only exception to obedience to the government is if the government commands us to go against the laws and will of God. (Acts 5:29) And in such exception, God does not condone rebellion, but submission, even if it means submission to unjust punishment, as exemplified by the Apostles.
So, because my country already has a government, part of my obedience to God is obedience to the government I have. I do have some very strong opinions on what that obedience and submission includes, but I treat of those in other essays. If I can serve to help and improve my government, I am ready and willing; but I do not in any way advocate destroying or replacing it, and I will oppose any who attempt to do so.
But, purely for the sake of discussion, what if I were in a position to establish or help establish a government where there is none already in place? For what kind of government would I argue?
As a Christian, it would be easy to answer the question if God had given us in the Bible his design for government. God did design a government in the Old Testament for the people of Israel under Moses’ leadership, but the New Testament makes it clear that we are no longer subject to Israel’s civil laws, nor to its ceremonial laws. The moral laws, which are repeated in the New Testament, do not outline a form for government but are principles for Godly thoughts and actions by individual people. God does say, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,” (Psalm 33:12) but this is a statement of fact, not a prescription for design, and it refers not primarily to a body of laws, but to the hearts of the people. (Note how the nation of Judah at the time of Isaiah and Jeremiah had Godly laws, but the hearts of the people were far from God.)
So, we cannot speak here of any kind of God-ordained form of government. The form of government will be neither good nor evil. The Bible says nothing to tell us if government should be large or small, weak or powerful, libertarian or totalitarian, monarchy, oligarchy, democracy, republic, socialist, nationalist, tribal, global, or whatever. The question is not which form is right or wrong, but which is the most practical and most tends to provide the greatest possible benefit with the least potential harm.
A few points that should be obvious need to be recognized. One, “government” governs; that is, it exercises authority and makes laws. These are not suggestions or general guidelines that people are free to follow or not by personal choice. Second, governments enforce their laws not by persuasion but by use of power and force. It controls, limits, and demands behavior by the threat of the sword, the threat of death. Third, governments exercise authority over people, not land, plants, or animals. Fourth, governments are made up of people. Fifth, governments must be recognized by a group of people to have the right to exercise this authority, and that group must be significantly large; otherwise they are nothing but a band of brigands. No one person can establish himself as a government; he needs others to support and be loyal to his claim. An evil government cannot exist without the active support of evil people who see a personal advantage in providing that support.
To determine what would be the best form of government we first have to understand the nature of people, both those who are governed and those who do the governing. A practical and beneficial government must fit with the reality of what people are, how they think, and what motivates them.
We need also to recognize the reality that both good and evil exist in this world. This fact is almost universally recognized. (Almost. More on that, below.) While we might disagree on what is right and wrong, only the psychopath has no concept of those categories. Since both good and evil are both here, it follows that good needs to be advanced and evil needs to be suppressed. If a government cannot do both it cannot fulfill its God-given purpose.
But merely recognizing the presence of both good and evil is not enough. We also need some agreement on what lies in each category. The claim of the “progressives”, the “left”, and the “empirical relativist” or “moral relativist” that there is no absolute definition of good or truth not only defeats itself, but if applied to government would result in chaos. God clearly establishes what is good and true; therefore, the relativist argument is, in fact, a part of what is evil.
Finally, we need to realize the limitations of government. No government has the power or the ability to bring people to faith in Christ, or any faith or belief system. Nor can any government reach into a person’s mind and heart and convince them to reject Christ and believe false doctrine. It might claim to have that authority and might try to exercise such authority, but in the end it simply cannot rule the conscience. All it can do is regulate, reward, and punish behavior. No law can make a person either morally upright or morally decadent. Samuel Adams recognized this when he wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
In my lifetime I have often heard the assertion, “You cannot legislate morality.” This was most often said by those who objected to laws that prohibited the kinds of behavior they wanted to indulge in. The bare statement is, of course, true, but you cannot separate legislation from morality; for while you cannot create morality by legislation, every piece of legislation, every law, flows from the morality of the people who enact it.
It should be obvious, then, that government will never successfully serve as the mission arm of the church, of any church or religion. The church and state have different roles. The state deals with behavior, the church shapes attitudes and beliefs. The primary tool of the state is the sword, force. The tool of the church is words; the tool of the Christian church is the Bible. There will never be an impenetrable wall of separation between church and state because, as stated, laws flow from morality, which in turn, more often than not, is the result of one’s religious beliefs. Both church and state are under God and have God-ordained purposes, but their roles are distinct. The church should not try to use the government and its tools to accomplish its mission, and the state should not impose upon the church to accomplish its purpose.
This does not mean that there is no place for words in government. Words are the primary means of communication between people and provide people with a level of precision, efficiency, and clarity in communication that is beyond the reach of all of God’s other earthly creatures. In fact, I argue, words and the free flow of ideas through words used with sound logic and reason are essential to effective government. It is when government tries to restrict words, especially the words of the church, that it gets itself into problems.
This presents a conundrum. Some words are evil. Lies are of the Devil. (John 8:44) If a group, culture, or ideology promotes or condones lying in any way or at any time, we can be sure that it is evil, even Satanic. Words that defame are evil. Words that promote evil activity are themselves evil. False doctrine is evil. How can government suppress evil without suppressing certain uses of words and without crossing over into the realm of the church?
The conundrum reveals two important realities. First, no human government can be perfect. Second, the greater the differences between the people governed – religious beliefs and moral attitudes – the less effective a government will be. A government simply cannot long survive unless the people it governs share certain basic convictions and attitudes about both government and about right and wrong. And no government can exist at all unless there are sufficient supporters bearing the means to threaten the lives and property of any opposition.
If every person on earth were purely moral and good, there would be no need for government at all. People would conduct themselves responsibly and with love and respect for others. On the other hand, if all people on earth were totally immoral and evil, government would have no chance at suppressing evil and promoting good, for everyone in government would be evil.
So, how do good and evil balance out in people? Are the concepts of good and evil merely social constructs that gradually evolved into our human psyche or do they stem from a reality in our origins. How does goodness or evil become a part of a person? Are good and evil matters of nature or nurture?
There are many people today who argue that good and evil are nothing more than evolved social ideas. They argue that people and everything in nature, living and non-living, evolved over millions and billions of years with no influence or beginning by a divine being or intelligence. “No God created the heavens and the earth,” is their dogma, their religion. They argue that nature is neither moral nor immoral. That a lion eats a deer is neither good nor bad; it’s just the way it is. And since they argue that humans evolved from natural beings, the concepts of morality and immorality have to have been a part of that evolution. The problem with that line of thinking is that there is no absolute standard for what is moral and what is immoral. What is “immoral” for one culture through its evolution might be a “virtue” for another through its evolution. But ultimately this line of thinking is forced to conclude that morality and goodness are nothing more than what a group thinks is such, and that in the final analysis nothing is either right or wrong, but simply the way it is. Ultimately, robbery and altruism, generosity and greed, love and hate, saving life and taking life, truth and falsehood, marriage and promiscuity, child protection and pedophilia… are all on the same amoral plane. “Different strokes for different folks.” This is why I contend that atheists have no basis for morality. There are many atheists who do have good morals, but logically they have no basis for morality.
One should examine history and see what the result of denying the Creator has been. The genocide of Stalin, the genocide of Hitler, the genocide of Pol Pot, and the decline of common decency and morality in our own country today.
On the basis of Scripture I contend that the naturalist view is false. God created the heavens and the earth, and because he is the Creator, he is the standard for what is right and wrong. If it agrees with God it is right; if it goes against God it’s wrong. Moreover, God created mankind as a morally responsible creature. And while created beings will never be able fully to understand the mind of God, what God tells us about himself and what he desires and opposes becomes the standard by which we are to evaluate and judge things as holy or evil, good or bad, right or wrong – and when it comes to the nature of man, what is true or false.
Designing a good government, therefore, needs to include what God calls good and evil, what God charges government to promote and punish. An easier guide to what God calls good and evil can hardly be found outside the Ten Commandments. While human government does not have the ability to govern our conscience and our attitude toward the first three (or four for Evangelicals and Jews), it can govern behavior for most of the others. A government that promotes obedience to parents, preservation of life, propriety in marriage, protection of property, and preservation of reputations as well as punishes disobedience, murder, adultery, theft, and false witness has a good start at being a good government.
Where do good and evil come from? How does one or the other dominate first a human character and then by extension a community and culture?
The Bible reveals that at the beginning everything was good. God is good. God defines good. God created everything. Therefore, everything he created was good. But then evil came into the world. The Bible does not give details. It doesn’t tell us how it was possible for something good to turn evil unilaterally. It does not tell us when, except that it happened sometime in roughly the first century of the world’s existence. It does tell us that a number of God’s angels rebelled against God under the leadership of the one we call the Devil or Satan. It hints that pride was somehow involved. It does not tell us why God allowed it to happen. Somehow in a way that we do not yet understand it served his ultimate purpose, he will turn it into good for his believing people, and God remains good and the standard that defines good.
But government on earth does not govern angels. Where do people fit into good and evil? Human governments have no control over the spiritual realm, but the natural. How did evil come to the natural world?
The Bible answers that question, too. Adam and Eve were holy, but were tempted by Satan in the form of a serpent to question what God had told them and to desire what God had told them was bad for them. God did not hide the truth, but told them plainly that if they would go against his one command for them and eat of that one tree they would die. Life is God’s gift. Life comes only from God. When one forsakes God, he forsakes life. Death is God’s just consequence and punishment for sin. Death, eternal death, will be the result for everyone who is sinful unless something happens to bring him back to God.
And so sin and death came into the world by the disobedience of one man, Adam, with his wife, Eve (who was a part of him). (Romans 5:12) But Adam and Eve are not here today. Death took them from the earth. What about their progeny? In what condition are people born into this world?
There are six possibilities – four if we count one of those four as having three variations.
The first possibility is that people are born holy and good. The second is that they are born totally neutral, with neither goodness nor evil inherently a part of their beings. The third is that they are born with both good and evil in their essence – with either a greater amount of good than evil, a greater amount of evil than good, or an equal balance of each to begin life a net neutral. The fourth possibility is that they are born only evil.
Even a casual look at the world reveals that neither of the first two can be true. There clearly are evil people in the world. The world is rife with corruption, greed, inhumanity to man, dishonesty, abuse, violence, hatred, and the like. If people were born either totally holy or totally neutral, how could they become evil? There would have to be evil in the world to work its way in. That evil cannot be in the other early creatures, for among earthly creatures only humanity is morally responsible. That would leave only the influence of the Devil and his angels, and we certainly don’t see them campaigning for evil. In fact, the only two times the Bible shows us the Devil directly tempting anyone is the tempting of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden and the tempting of Jesus in the wilderness. Even the temptation of Job was indirect, through bodily ailments, weather, the sinful actions of men, and the tempting words of his “friends” and wife.
Therefore, people must be born with at least some evil already within. What does the Bible say of our personal origins? Only evil, all the time, from youth on. (Genesis 6:5; 8:21) We are sinful not only from birth, but even before. (Psalm 51:5) This reality is easily seen by parents who know from experience that you don’t have to teach a child to be selfish. It comes naturally. It is obvious from the amount of evil in the world – hatred, violence, greed, selfishness, racism, brutality, disrespect, anger, malice, corruption in business, corruption in politics, no matter what economic or social structure. Neither communism nor capitalism is a panacea for evil. Evil can (and has) run rampant in both.
This reality is important. It means that evil is our natural tendency, not goodness. It also means that while evil influences and nurturing can intensify the evil nature of man, only by the nurture and influence of good can goodness become a part of us. Goodness cannot come from inside our nature; it must come from outside. That goodness comes from God, who shows us his goodness and his good will through his teaching in the Bible. That goodness comes from God who created human beings with a conscience to know that there is right and wrong, good and evil. That the conscience is real has evidence in the significant similarity across cultures in what people consider right and wrong. But that conscience, too, is infected with sin, so that it does not always rule or work correctly; it needs to be guided and shaped by the external word.
That government, then, will be best and most beneficial which takes the reality of man’s sinful nature into account and provides opportunity for the goodness of God’s word to influence for good in the minds and behavior of people. By recognizing man’s sinful tendency, government can use it not only to recognize and restrict evil but also develop laws that sinful people are most likely to accept and even support.
Denying God and the reality of sin was what got Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels off track. They witnessed a great disparity between the capitalist rich and the poor, but refused to recognize the real source of the problem. Instead of concluding the problem was sin, they concluded the problem was capitalism. Having rejected God, they wanted to find a solution that kept the concept of God and his influence for good out of the picture and elevate man to the position of God and looked for collective humanity to solve the problem of economic injustice. But refusing to acknowledge the reality and influence of God rules out the one source there is for good. Therefore, Godless cultures and governments have always failed and will always fail.
Four things motivate people highly.
One is the sinful desire to be in the place of God. The Devil’s temptation to Adam and Eve was, “you shall be like God.” People want to be in control, if not of others, at least of themselves. By nature we don’t like being submissive to someone else, be it another person, a government, a church, or even God. But people are willing to accept some restriction on being in control if they can still retain control over some aspects of their lives and if they realize that if they encroach upon someone else’s control over his life and property, they could lose control over their own.
As much as man by nature wants to be his own God, and grates against recognizing the one true God as God, he runs into a problem when he tries to exert his selfish will over other people. Man is a created being and deep down inside has an inate need to recognize a higher authority than himself, especially when he realizes that others will not recognize him as God when they are trying to assert themselves as God. So, even when people reject the true God, they invariably create something to take his place, be it the sun, moon, or stars; a statue of wood, stone, or metal; a king; a caesar; a panoply of imaginary gods; a Pope; a government; or even Satan himself. To enforce compliance they will resort to the threat that belongs to God alone: injury or death or both, either in the distant or eternal future or immediately.
A second sinful attitude is the opposite of God’s fundamental moral law: love. Love God; love your neighbor. This love is not romance or affection, but an attitude of willing self-sacrifice for the good of others. Being born sinful, our natural tendency is not love, but selfishness, self interest. A practical government, therefore, needs to let people practice self interest, while at the same time making it clear that imposing one’s self interest on others will result in consequences that are not in one’s own self interest.
A third motivator is neither good nor bad, but a basic reality that stems from the will to live. People need to feel secure in their persons and property. They need to be confident that the fields in which they planted and worked will remain for their use and benefit when the time for harvest comes, otherwise, there’s no point in planting and working. They need to be confident that laws will be stable and that they won’t be threatened by capricious rulers who will penalize them today for what was legal yesterday. It’s not that laws cannot change as with the Medes and Persians. Some laws are bad laws. But the change needs to be orderly, predictable, and well publicized.
The fourth mindset of man is the attitude that our own work and effort gain us due rewards. By nature we reject the idea that we are sinners who deserve nothing good from God, and wanting to be our own gods think that we are good and have a right to benefit from our own efforts. While the Bible makes it clear that it doesn’t work this way with salvation from sin, this is what is practical in the world. In fact, the Bible contrasts earning one’s daily bread with stealing (Ephesians 4:28); an able person who refuses to work and earn his keep is really a thief. A government that tries to separate benefits from individual work and effort will have a hard time maintaining its rule. (And a government that fosters a sense of entitlement to unearned goods and services is not only self-defeating, but promoting evil.)
At first, God governed directly. When Adam and Eve sinned, when Cain killed Abel, God himself came to adjudicate. After that fathers governed their families. While the Bible does not clearly describe the transition, it is reflected in the way that nations got their names from their fathers. As long as sons respected their fathers, the father was the head of the family, the clan, the tribe. In time authority transferred to the older fathers in the tribe, the elders, or to groups of leaders chosen by the family, clan, or tribe. When sons did not respect their fathers, as soon as they became stronger or could gather enough of the family to support them, they would take control by force, leading to military leaders and kings. Most governments throughout history have been established through force of arms. Yet, even when a government has been established through force of arms, the “rightness” of passing authority from father to son is commonly accepted, and dynasties will last until someone amasses enough force and support to establish a new dynasty.
In New Testament God does not prescribe what form government should take. He does describe a government to some exent in the Old Testament: the government of Moses. Because the circumstances, time, and purpose were different then than now, we should not take the description of Moses’ government as a prescription for government today. Still, the government God established under Moses has many good points. There was no king, no congress or executive. There wasn’t even a clear police force. What there was was a body of laws. Those laws preserved life (“You shall not murder.”), guarded the sanctity of marriage (“You shall not commit adultery.”), recognized personal property ownership (“You shall not steal.”), and protected personal reputation (“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor”). They were stable and not constantly changing. They were well publicized. The people were individually responsible for obeying those laws, and if a dispute arose, the people were to bring their case to Moses or his assistants for judgment.
The government was really very basic. There was no bureaucracy, no standing army. (Interesting note: the founding fathers of the United States did not provide for a standing army, but looked to the people, the militia, to answer the call to defend the nation.) There were no prisons to support, but designated cities of refuge to which offenders could voluntary go and remain to avoid family vengeance. The court system was vested in the elders of each village and justice was carried out by the whole local populace.
Many people do not understand the government of Moses. They object not only that was there no distinction between church and state, but also that disobedience of laws about God and worship was punished with death. “You can’t legislate morality!” But they don’t realize that that is exactly what God was doing. God was legislating morality. God was telling us what is moral by his standards – and for good reason. God was rescuing them not only from slavery to the Eqyptians, but also from slavery to the Egyptian gods and setting them apart from the pagan nations that would be around them in Canaan so that they could be kept from the evil that pagan worship brought, including sacrificing children to Molech, adultery with temple prostitutes, and the like. They needed to see the results of sin – the same that they had been since Adam and Eve: death. God wanted them to have lives filled with good, and to preserve that good for the people as a whole, the evil of apostacy and its resulting behaviors had to be purged.
God was also teaching an important lesson that became clear in the New Testament. Under Moses, man’s relationship with God emphasized law. The Gospel of Abraham had not been abandoned (even though the people, for the most part, had abandoned the God of Abraham), but the Law clearly dominated. God’s laws were good laws, but while the government was basic, the laws were complicated and often focused on minutae. Who could truly and fully keep all those laws? No one. It pointed out that ultimately our relationship with God cannot depend on our keeping the law. We will never succeed. We must depend on God’s mercy to forgive sin. And much of the ceremonial regulations focused on the forgiveness of sins through sacrifices of blood and death, pointing to the sacrifice of blood and death that would be made by Jesus, the Christ.
One could also argue that God was making another point: you can’t legislate morality. For though the government of Moses was established by God, it still did not accomplish what governments cannot do. It did not keep the people faithful to God. The people repeatedly followed their sinful tendencies to go after and worship false gods, the same gods their ancestors had worshiped in Egypt, the same gods their ancestors had worshiped in Chaldea. To discipline them, God allowed neighboring evil governments to overtake and subject them. When they repented, God chose special leaders to “call out the militia”, every able bodied man, to use the power of the sword against their oppressors to regain their freedom and security.
Eventually, the people tired of being disciplined by God. They did not want to repent, but wanted to have a king like the heathen nations around them. They did not trust God to fight and win the battles against evil invaders, they wanted to put their trust in man. God did not commend them, but he did allow them to establish a human monarchy as their government. Yet God still remained in control and chose who would be king. Israel came to have the most common form of government in human history: monarchy. God used that monarchy to accomplish his purposes. Part of that was to “reward” their rebellion against him with extra burdens in taxation. But he also used the leadership of the kings to bring them temporal security and affluence.
It has been said that the best form of government is a benevolent monarchy. A king who is truly concerned for the welfare of people and who is wise and prudent in his use of force, and who limits his personal demands can govern very efficiently. The problem with a benevolent monarch, as history has shown, is that benevolent monarchs are still mortal, and there is no guarantee that their successors will be either benevolent or wise.
Others have argued that democracy is the best form of government, where all decisions and laws are made by the majority of the people governed. But democracy works well only for a small homogeneous body of people. People who share the same goals and ideals will often amicably use the democratic process to choose how to reach those goals. But as soon as there is a large nation with multiple cultures and ideas, when goals and ideals are at odds, democracies, again as history has shown, eventually reach a point where the majority oppresses the minority. Our nation’s founding fathers examined the histories of democracies and rejected the concept. It frustrates me when people refer to our government as a democracy. It is not, and it is a lie to refer to it as such.
Governments that deprive people of the ability to be secure in their homes and property and who ignore individual effort and responsibility, whether they be democracies, monarchies, oligarchies, communist/socialist, nationalist dictators, or religious zealots, will not last. Eventually, after causing much harm and suffering, they will fall apart, once again as history has repeatedly shown – most recently with the former USSR and currently in Venezuela. One can properly argue that the presevation of life and property are the two most important purposes of government. If a government fails at these, or worse, threatens these, that government will eventually fail.
No form of government will be able to eliminate all evil. If a government favors a capitalist or market economy, there will be people both in government and in business who will promote their own selfish interests above all others. Without appropriate laws, there will be exploitation of the young and the weak in the workplace, there will be robber barons and Ponzi schemes, there will be crony capitalism. There will always be greed and avarice among the rich and people among the rich who will used their riches and advantage to amass personal benefit at the expense of others. There will always be greed and laziness among the poor and people among them who will demand an outcome equal to those who have worked hard and invested wisely, even though they themselves have not. If a government favors a socialist and communist economy, there will be people who promote themselves into positions of power and priviledge, the “more equal” of George Orwell’s book 1984. Because those positions are in government, they will have the power of the sword to enforce what they want on others.
It is wrong to conclude that all the rich are motivated primarily by evil and greed, just as it is evil to conclude that all the poor are greedy and lazy. God’s word does move some rich people to honesty and altruism. God’s word does move some poor to contentment and even generosity. This reality is another that an ideal government would recognize. It is in the government’s own best interest to give free rein to the Word of God.
Because people are by nature sinful and inclined toward evil, there must be something that counteracts evil at the level of the heart and mind. Government can’t do that. Laws don’t change hearts. The threat of violence – the only real tool government has – might motivate people to change their behavior, but will never be able to change their minds. Throughout history, the only thing able to change minds and hearts has been words – words of reason and logic, words of what is practical and efficient, words of what is right and wrong, words empowered by the Spirit to work repentance and faith, or words that paint the consequences of evil as if they were benefits. And while there are words and arguments that promote evil, if all words and arguments are suppressed, then so will those that promote good. I believe that the words and arguments that promote good are ultimately stronger than those that promote evil. No, they will not turn this world into a holy place, but they can make it better. The most practical government, then, if it wishes goodness to have a chance, will permit the free flow of ideas and let both the good and bad compete.
This is where freedom of religion comes in. Because it deals with our relationship with God, it is the most effective means of addressing and shaping Godly morality. Religion ultimately forms the basis of morality. A people’s morality then forms the basis for the laws of the government a people will accept. And this reality means that any global government will necessarily fail. There are too many different religions and too many different concepts as to what is moral and what is immoral, what is right and wrong. For a government to succeed, the people it governs must share a conviction on what is moral. It will be able to govern people of many different religions, only so long as those religions share much in what they define as moral, good, and right. If a government is to continue to succeed, furthermore, it cannot admit new citizens who refuse to adopt the moral principles that accompanied and enabled its formation. A government cannot espouse moral relativism without self-destructing.
If preaching the true Gospel of Christ would be so effective that every person on earth were converted to real Christianity, then possibly a world government would succeed. But while God has promised that the church will never perish, he has also made it clear that only a relative few will repent and come to faith. The world will not become better and better, but worse and worse until the end times when things will be so bad that if it were possible the lies and problems would deceive the very elect (Matthew 24:24). Instead of increasing peace there will be wars and rumors of wars and distress among the nations with perplexity (Luke 21:25). No, until this world ends there will always be multiple religions, multiple ideas of morality. The Evangelicals’ pipe dream of a coming millenium of Christ’s ruling on earth is just that: a pipe dream and merely a different form of the “old Jewish notion”, as Luther put it, of an earthly Messiah.
When large segments of the population disagree on what is right and wrong, taking a position on either side will necessarily oppose and seek to suppress the other and will create the seeds for revolution or civil war. Note what differences of opinion on the morality of slavery did to the United States of America in the mid 1800s. And even though the Union victory changed the behavior of those who once owned slaves, it didn’t change the attitudes of many who considered Blacks as lower class creatures and eventually enacted “Jim Crow” laws in the Democratic controlled south.
I find it ironic that today so many “people of color” (the current phrase of choice) support the Democratic Party, the party that imposed so much racism in the south, and the party that today tries to boil every problem down to racism and race-baiting, in direct opposition to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s dream that, “… that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
What form of government has worked best in the past? The old republican government of Rome worked well. The Republic of Mexico worked well before Santa Anna. And the benefit to its own people and to the world has yet to be matched by countries outside the constitutional republic of the United States of America. Our government was designed not as a democratic republic, but a constitutional republic. It is built on the foundation of a basic set of stable laws that recognizes the equal value of every individual, no matter what race, color, ethnic background, creed, or economic status. It preserves the free flow of ideas with freedom of speech and religion, even the freedom to criticize the government. It preserves individual property rights so well that even the government may not take property without fair compensation. Through the electoral college and the duality of the House and Senate in the legislature, it balances the influence of majority and minority states. I’d say the founding fathers did a pretty good job of designing a government.
It’s not perfect. It took years for slavery to be abolished and for blacks and women to be able to vote. Politicians are still influenced by money and selfish ambition. As the founding fathers noted is the nature of government, it has expanded its power, influence, and bureaucracy so much that it is becoming increasingly difficult to bear. But the advances and benefits realized under our constitutional republic have not been matched by any other form of government on earth.
What bothers and saddens me is how many in our country do not appreciate or even know what we have in our constitutional republic. In the two-party system that developed in spite of the Constitution, the Republicans have seemed more concerned with business interests than with the principles of the Constitution, and even as they argued for more limited government they continued to expand its powers. Worse, the Democrats have abandoned their traditional emphasis and have taken up the lies and power hungry mindset of socialists/communists/Marxists. They are seeking to destroy the principles of the Constitution and are trying to replace them with Utopian dreams that have proven throughout history to be utter failures. They do this through race baiting, inciting class animosity, attempting to destroy traditional and Biblical morals, lying and “fake news”, advocating equal outcome regardless of individual effort and responsibility, promoting moral relativism, disrupting society by encouraging outsiders who don’t know or appreciate our constitutional principles to swarm into our county illegally, inciting emotional and mob psychology, stifling any and all opposition by labeling and treating it as evil and not worthy of consideration, creating false crises like “global warming” to expand and increase the power and burden of government, promoting and demanding judges in the courts who will overrule the clear words of the Constitution and legislate from the bench, forsaking the rule of law and the principle that a man is innocent until proven guilty as they try to reject the legally appointed Supreme Court justice, and by any other means they can think of, even attempting to reject the lawful outcome of a presidential election through innuendo and outright persistence in false accusations. There is corruption on both sides of the aisle, but the leftists who currently control the Democratic party are evil to the core and their lying ways prove it. What is amazing is that there are so many citizens who do not see through their lies and who unreasonably and emotionally support these enemies of the state. Or, perhaps, it’s not so amazing, given how the “progressives” have turned our public schools into assembly lines of illiterate non-thinking brainwashed disciples of Marxist ideology who operate on fear and emotion instead of sound reason.
What kind of government would I design if it were my place to do so? It would be some kind of constitutional republic not very much different from the constitutional republic we had in 1789 (and which, in theory, we still have for the most part, if the people in all branches of government would just be subject to it as their oath of office requires). I would not emphasize individual rights so much as individual responsibility, and certainly would not separate the two. I would keep the Federal government limited to its Constitutional bounds and not let it rule or legislate on matters over which the Constitution does not give it authority (like the legality of abortion or the definition of marriage). Recognizing the inability of government to change hearts and minds, I would permit the free flow of ideas, even the preaching of what I believe to be false doctrine, confident that the power of the Spirit in the truth of the Bible is persuasive enough to convince all who are to be brought to faith, but I would prohibit and prosecute both words and actions that espouse or participate in trying to convert people by force against either persons or property. The same goes for political speech. Let the ideas compete openly and be evaluated with reason, logic, and even emotion, so long as no violence against people or property is advocated or committed.
When I was young there was a popular saying: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” I do not claim that words cannot hurt, but I think our current politically correct society has taken things too far. Lies can destroy a person’s reputation and business and should be punished, but words that hurt people’s feelings are going to be a fact of life in a world full of sinners. It’s time to grow up and recognize reality. Not everyone is nice. Not everyone is going to like you. People are going to say hurtful things. Are we going to let their evil words form our self perception? Be confident of your own standing and ignore the garbage. Shake the dust off your feet and move on. God will deal with it if the offender doesn’t repent, and if he does repent that’s even better.
What about speech and activity in support of what the Bible calls sin? Again remembering that government does not have the ability to convert hearts, I would permit it so long as it does not advocate or succeed in encroaching on the lives of others; but wicked laws that require others to participate in what they believe to be sinful activity through the sale of goods and services, and policies that use tax dollars to promote those sinful activities in public schools or to pay for the consequences that sinful behavior brings would not be permitted.
It’s interesting how the advocates of “alternative lifestyles” apply a double standard. If the matter were the sale of a gun, the “progressives” would try to hold the seller of a gun responsible for the actions of the buyer even if the seller had no hint of an idea that the buyer would commit a crime with that gun. And if the buyer had announced to the seller before he purchased the gun that he was planning to use it to commit a crime, the seller would most certainly be liable as a participant in the crime. But when a homosexual couple announces to a baker that they plan to use the cake to celebrate a homosexual “wedding”, they want to require him to sell the cake as if he were not a participant. And the stupid court agrees. I admit, such a court I hold in utter contempt.
There are some things I would word differently than our existing Constitution to guard against the abuses imposed upon it by the courts and to clarify the meaning and intent. For example, a “second amendment” might read, “Because an organized militia; that is, all able bodied citizens functioning under the authority of a local government, is necessary to be able to resist any potential tyranny from either this federal government or from a foreign power, the right of the citizens to keep and bear weapons equal to or more effective than any arms as might be used against them shall not be infringed except as provided in this Constitution; and every State of this Union, either directly and/or through its local governments, shall organize and train its militia in the safe, efficient, and cooperative use of military weapons and tactics; and this government shall supply to each State in proportion to its population, supplementary to arms owned and kept by the citizenry, arms of caliber and power equal to those used by this government, especially but not limited to arms whose operation demands the combined actions of more than one person. Each State shall keep its weapons in armories readily available to the local militia or in the possession of citizens selected by local governments and entrusted by said governments with the safe care and maintenance of State owned arms. This right shall be revoked from any person who has been convicted of using arms of any kind in the commission of a crime, and shall not extend to persons who have been diagnosed by recognized medical practitioners with a mental illness that would make them a threat to others were they to keep and bear arms. The term arms includes any tool or device that has been used in the past, is used at present, or might be used in the future by people or military personnel that has been designed for or is capable of being used for inflicting potentially lethal injury. In addition to use in connection with organized militia, citizens have the right to use arms for hunting, for sport, for friendly competition, for personal practice, and for the personal defense of their own persons, that of their families, their property, and the lives of others in the community; but any use of arms beyond these that deliberately takes or threatens to take the life of another person shall be a federal crime punishable by death. No State may use its militia to threaten the sovereignty or boundaries of another State, and any State so threatened may call upon the federal military in its defense. In time of war against a foreign power every State shall offer the assistance of its militia to serve under the authority of the federal government, but at all other times each State shall maintain its own independent sovereignty and chain of command.” (Yes, this is too wordy, so it’s a good thing I’m not writing the Constitution, but I think you can get my drift. I am convinced that this represents the meaning held and intended at the time the Second Amendment was written, except that murder was a matter of State jurisdiction.)
I’m glad I don’t have to design a new government. It’s hard enough to defend and argue in favor of the government I already have, given the multitude of its enemies currently in office, among the citizens, and around the world. But I am not worried. If our government falls, I will be saddened, for though imperfect it is the best government history has produced. But God will remain in control and will use whatever replaces it for his purposes. While a different government could make things hard for me, it cannot change my convictions. And if it should execute me for refusing to comply with evil, I will have won the battle, for I will raise my head in the presence of God. God will deal with the evil in due and proper time.