Today is
the Fifth of November, which means that it is Guy Fawkes Day, the day to
remember the nefarious Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in which seditious recusants
conspired to blow up King James I (VI of Scotland) as he opened the next
session of Parliament with a speech from the throne in the House of Lords. The plot was foiled when Guy Fawkes was
discovered guarding the gunpowder, King James went on to reign for another
twenty years in which with his authorization an English translation of the
Bible that has never been surpassed was produced, and ever since effigies of
Fawkes have been made and burned on the bonfires celebrating the defeat of the
plot.
It is also
the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
Which means that our small-r republican neighbours to the south will be
deciding today whether they want a big-R Republican or a big-D Democrat for
their next president. George Wallace
used to say that there is not a dime’s worth of difference between the
two. If that is still true today, there
doesn’t seem to be many Americans who think so because their country is more
polarized today than at any point since the election of their first big-R
Republican president sparked the powder keg that blew up into the internecine
war that remains to this day the bloodiest in their history.
I don’t really
have a dog in this fight. For one thing,
I am a Canadian not an American. For
another, I don’t believe in elected heads of state. I am of the firm conviction that earthly
governments should represent the government of the universe in Heaven which is
headed by the King of Kings. All republics,
democracies, and presidents are therefore illegitimate in my opinion.
If someone
were to ask me which of the two candidates I like better as an individual
person and which of the two has, in my opinion, the better ideas and policies,
my answer to both questions would be Donald the Orange. There is not really any contest there. The Democratic candidate, currently J.
Brandon Magoo’s vice-president, belongs to the category of politician that I
despise the most. Lest you think that to
be a comment on her sex or skin colour, I will add that our own much loathed
prime minister, Captain Airhead, who is white, at least on the rare occasion when
he is not wearing blackface, and male, or so I am told, belongs to the same
category. That is the category of
empty-headed, arrogant, jackasses who like to boast about how much more compassionate
and caring they and their sycophants are than everybody else while doing their
worst to screw the largest number of people over, who are endlessly apologizing
for the sins of those who have gone before them while never acknowledging any
wrongdoing on their own part, and who attach themselves to every radical fad
manufactured by academia or the mass media, no matter how inane. Liberals.
Progressives. Leftists. I can’t stomach any of them, and to be clear
that this is not a partisan matter, even though the party Captain Airhead leads
is entitled “Liberal,” I am referring to small-l liberals who can be found in
every party. While Donald the Orange is
a liberal too, his liberalism is the liberalism of fifty years ago, and
liberalism has been getting consistently and progressively worse each
generation ever since the start of the Modern Age.
I am not
going to venture a predication as to the outcome. Under ordinary circumstances I would say we
will know the results tomorrow. The
precedent of the last American presidential election, however, advises against
saying any such thing.
God Save the
King.
What a breath of fresh air to read this post today, sort of a detached but civilized 'hmmph'!
ReplyDeleteThere isn't much fresh air to be found within the USA these days!
May God's Will be done on earth as it is in heaven!
I currently live in Korea and just heard the news that Trump was elected. I am so happy about that.
ReplyDeleteHello, Gerry. I hope you don’t mind me giving you the gears here a bit. If the following is wordy, it’s cuz it’s the basis for an article of my own.
ReplyDelete< Today is the Fifth of November, which means that it is Guy Fawkes Day, the day to remember the nefarious Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in which seditious recusants conspired to blow up King James I >
Seditious, by the legal definition, yes. Nefarious—no. It was the years-long /persecution of Catholics/ that instigated the Gunpowder Plot. And there's no reason to assume that Britain's high-church Anglicans have ever been predominantly genuine followers of Christ—even including King James.
So, I'm sympathetic toward Fawkes and his co-conspirators.
< King James went on to reign for another twenty years in which with his authorization an English translation of the Bible that has never been surpassed was produced >
That's /at least/ debatable. For sheer accuracy, the KJV has certainly been surpassed by (some) modern translations.
< ever since effigies of Fawkes have been made and burned on the bonfires celebrating the defeat of the plot. >
To me Fawkes is inspirational.
< I don’t really have a dog in this fight. >
/Of course/ you do. Come on, Gerry, you're smarter than that. It's always been the case that what happens in the U.S. has ripple effects. But in this particular election, if Harris had "won," the ripple effect could well have been a neo-Marxist takeover around the globe.
Thus far, America has been the only superpower defending traditional Western freedoms. If they go down—we're /all/ going down.
< I don’t believe in elected heads of state. I am of the firm conviction that earthly governments should represent the government of the universe in Heaven which is headed by the King of Kings. All republics, democracies, and presidents are therefore illegitimate in my opinion. >
Scripture nowhere establishes any particular form of government. /All/ human beings are intended by their Creator to represent (or "image") Him. The Bible nowhere teaches that government /in particular/, in some "heightened" way, should reflect God.
The only stated divine purpose of government is /law-and-order/ (Romans 13:1-7). Indeed, Paul writes that "because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing" (v. 6)—i.e., law and order (vv. 3-4).
That being the case, there's no Biblically established reason that "republics, democracies, and presidents" can't fulfill the above mandate.
A very strong case can in fact be made for /republicanism/ as the best-possible form of government in a fallen world—based in part on the Biblical revelation that the nuclear family (dad, mom, and kids) is the fundamental societal unit.
• Biblically, the head of the family is the man;
• If multiple families form a community, it's natural for the family heads to form a "town council" (or whatever they label it);
• If multiple towns form a territory or nation, then it would be natural for that state's "ruling body" to draw representatives from the multiple "town councils."
Historically this is in fact how what we call "government" came about. It was /familial and representational/ from the get-go. But over time, that organic and reasonable approach was twisted and corrupted by /powermongers/ who carved out a new and singular role for themselves: kingship.
(Part 2) There's /no/ Biblical basis for arguing that monarchy is the "best" or most "divine" form of government. Monarchies arose because some men craved power over other men. Presumably there was some "naturalness" to it, in that it would be natural among a collective of elders for the /eldest/ elder to receive a measure of deference from the others. Nonetheless, it is clearly Biblical that a grown man is accountable for himself, and, if a husband and/or father, then accountable for his household as well.
ReplyDeleteIt follows, therefore, that a man has /no/ obligation to cede control of his own life to another man, nor abdicate his God-given authority in the home.
The irony here, in the context of me responding to an article of yours, is that in your latest piece you wrote that somebody “said that I was advocating dictatorship, as if this was the only alternative to democracy.” Well, come on, Gerry: monarchism is dictatorship.
Now, a group of representatives might decide to appoint one of their number as "president" or "king"—but they wouldn't need to. They'd only need to appoint (or elect) certain individuals (not necessarily elders themselves) to oversee certain projects, most notably policing and national defense. But an overarching leader—a king or president or prime minister—wouldn't actually be necessary.
That said, I wouldn't really have an issue with monarchism if /all the monarch did was command the troops in defense of the realm/ (and only when they're defending the realm, not when they go home to their families and ordinary jobs). After all, "King" (warlord) Arthur is one of my historical heroes!
(Part 3) The above eldership-derived structure (minus "project bosses") is /representational/—and thus mirrors the republican form of government. And, as always, that republicanism exists to /serve/ the public, at very /specific and limited/ points of need—/not/ "be in charge of" our lives.
ReplyDeleteYou may have noticed that the above model is very much male-dominated. That's why I said it's based "in part" on Biblical revelation about the nuclear family. But of course Scripture doesn't prescribe the formation of a multi-elder "government" just because multiple families share the same territory.
That's a natural extension—but not a divine command. Ergo, we can't rightly argue that a government "must" be comprised only of men. On the third hand, government's divine mandate of law-and-order is, in my view, best carried out specifically by men—which is also a natural extension of the man as defender of his family. Still, it's hardly inadmissable of a body of elders to elect a woman as, say, town rep to the government.
It occurs to me that God created another entity that bears a remarkable similarity to the above model when it comes to governance: the Church. Though countless churches have deviated from the Biblical norm, Scripture teaches that the local church is to be led by a /plurality of elders/. The Bible knows nothing of a “head pastor.” Yet the elders are /not/ to “lord it over” the flock (Matt. 20:25-28), but are to accept feedback from them (e.g., Acts 11:28-29; Col. 3:16).
Hebrews 13:17, at first glance, may seem to vest a rather strong degree of authority in elders over the rank-and-file. The typical English translation renders the first word in the sentence as “Obey.” However, the Greek term /peithō/, written in the middle voice, can also mean to “agree with,” “have confidence in,” or “be persuaded by.” This implies a teachability, active listening, and discernment—not automatic acceptance of anything an elder happens to say, nor reflexive obedience to their “orders.”
Indeed, worthy elders won’t be issuing “orders” in the first place. They teach, they counsel, they exhort—even rebuke at times—but Scripture doesn’t tell them to boss people around. They shouldn’t presume to be managing anyone else’s life. In other words, a church elder board is very akin to /minarchism/, the political philosophy otherwise known as the “/night-watchman state/ of classical liberal theory, limited to the functions of protecting all its citizens against violence, theft, and fraud, and to the enforcement of contracts, and so on[.]” (Robert Nozick, /Anarchy, State, and Utopia/, p. 26 [emph. mine])
(**A crucial difference, of course, is that church elders aren’t only to protect the congregation from outside antibiblical influences—e.g., various false doctrines—but also train their congregations to wage their own spiritual warfare.)