The Government is Not the Problem

Cowardly Fear is the Problem

In 2016, I was “feeling the Bern” and in our 2016 Presidential Primary election, I voted for Bernie Sanders. I knew that Socialism, and its more extreme cousin Communism were vulnerable to corruption. I was aware of the oppression people experienced living in the Soviet Union. (I had always thought the Nazis advocated socialism, as Nazi translates into English as “National Socialist German Workers Party.” But in Kingdom of Rage, Elizabeth Neumann, a former counterterrorism official with the Department of Homeland Security, explains that this name was a misnomer, a political ploy to appeal to working class Germans in the 1920s. The Nazis were vehemently Anti-communist and Anti-Marxist. They believed in Capitalism, although they thought the current banking system was controlled by Jews and foreigners.)

But I had heard that in the Western manifestation of Socialism in countries like Norway, Denmark and France where all workers receive six weeks of paid vacation a year and the government provides free college tuition, universal healthcare and affordable childcare, people are happier. I was fortunate that I could live with my parents, so I didn’t have the stress of trying to make ends meet every month, but like my coworkers, I was starting to experience symptoms of burnout and depression with only five days of PTO per year. One day when Bernie Sanders came to Milwaukee, a contingent of them went to his rally together after work. I didn’t feel like going to a rally, but I was excited to vote for him. I didn’t think he had a chance—just like I thought Donald Trump didn’t have a chance—but in my mind, and in the minds of a lot of young people I interacted with, maybe a little France or Denmark-style Socialism was what this country needed to straighten out the corporate greed and our terrible health and happiness statistics compared with other Western countries. I didn’t know anything about Bernie Sanders’s religious background at the time—I recently found out he is Jewish—but I suspected that the Christian faith right-wing candidates talked about on the campaign trail wasn’t always genuine, and Bernie Sanders’s righteous anger about corporate greed reminded me of Jesus’s righteous anger when he overturned the money tables in the temple.

But with maturity, I have come to understand that my idolization of Socialism was misguided: indeed the idolization of any political ideology is misguided. Because of our fallen state, every form of earthly government we institute will fall short of God’s righteous standard. In Jesus and the Powers, N.T. Wright and Michael Bird explain that as compelling as Marxist ideology sounds in theory, with its concern for the poor, and its commitment to social justice, virtues that Christians would agree with, Communism falls woefully short because it articulates “a vision of Messianic justice, but without God” (Chapter 6). It tries to bring heavenly justice to earth by violent revolution, and tries to manufacture the conditions where the last will be first and the first will be last, when as Christians, we know that true prosperity and justice will only come when hearts are changed. Communism also falls short in that it lacks the doctrine of total depravity, meaning that it calls Capitalism, the bourgeois and factory owners evil, but fails to recognize that evil runs through every human heart. Proponents of Communism have cited Acts 4:32 to argue that the Bible endorses Communism. This verse reads “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.” But what the church in Acts 4:32 displayed was not actually Communism. Communism is like cake batter with the eggs left out. It cannot hold together long because the sharing of possessions and the common ownership of everything is compelled by force, whereas the church in Acts 4:32—a foretaste of God’s eternal kingdom—had the underappreciated but essential eggs of the Holy Spirit, who transformed their hearts such that this radical lifestyle was voluntary, genuine and lived out with joy.

Proponents of capitalism meanwhile site Matthew 25:14-30, the Parable of the Talents, to argue that Jesus endorses capitalism. But according to Morgan Guyton, this passage is neither an endorsement, nor a condemnation of capitalism itself, but rather an illustration contrasting two different kinds of fear. The first two servants, given the equivalent of $2 million and $800,000 respectively, displayed a healthy kind of fear, a reverent fear of the Lord, which allowed them to be entrepreneurs, fearlessly stewarding the money given to them without the worldly fear that they would lose it all or be punished. By contrast, the third servant exhibited a cowardly, worldly fear of punishment, viewing his master as a hard man who harvests where he did not sow. This kind of fear exhibited by the third servant is what led to the price gouging of pilgrims to Jerusalem when they had to exchange Caesar’s currency for Tyrian currency and buy animal sacrifices from the temple vendors. And this kind of fear is what leads the moneychangers of our day to exploit loopholes in the market to siphon money, living in constant fear of scarcity, no matter how much money they have. Though God’s image in us was damaged by the fall, God’s purpose for humanity, to rule over Creation for his glory, has not been rescinded, and an economic system is an important component for bringing order to human societies. So money itself is not evil, nor is it sinful for a person gifted with entrepreneurial skills or an innovative idea to acquire tremendous wealth in a capitalist society. In fact, in his book The Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard points out that “possession and direction of the forces of wealth are as legitimate an expression of the redemptive rule of God in human life as is Bible teaching or a prayer meeting” and the poor would actually benefit more from the godly controlling the goods of this world than from Christians performing a “pious handwashing”, potentially relinquishing their wealth to people who do not honor God (Page 214). It really is the love of money, the worship of and trust in money over God, that is the root of all kinds of evil (1 Timothy 6:10).

When Paul wrote Romans 13:1-2, which states that Christians must submit themselves to the governing authorities because all government authorities have been established by God, the concept of a liberal democracy where the people elect political representatives, was unheard of. For most of human history, monarchies were the norm, and during his lifetime, kings were especially brutal in their persecution of the early Christian church. But perhaps what Paul was trying to teach was first and foremost, that by His resurrection, Christ had already ultimately won victory over the dark powers of the world, but also that the persecution he was experiencing, and the persecution Scripture foretold would persist until Christ returned, could persist under any and every human political experiment, or God could be glorified under any political system because the problem is not with the type of government itself, or whether the elected leader is a Democrat or a Republican. The problem is that just as cowardly fear leading to the love of and trust in money is possible in any economic system, so cowardly fear leading to the love of and trust in power or status is a temptation under any and every political system. Overthrowing the government would accomplish nothing in terms of improving the circumstances of the oppressed, nor in terms of “taking America back for God.” It is a rebellion against God because it trusts in worldly trappings to address problems that only reverent fear of God can address. You can stage a coup and install a new king. You can replace monarchy with democracy. But if the reverent fear of God is absent, the oppression will simply continue under a new name. Today, because of our dark history of colonization, we associate monarchies with tyranny, but this tyranny is not caused by the concept of a monarchy itself. It is caused by the king’s lack of reverence for God. Everyone in society could prosper under a benevolent king who recognized that his responsibility is to “defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy” and “crush the oppressor” (Psalm 72:4). In theory, everyone should prosper under a government of the people, by the people and for the people, but we know all too well that even with our Constitution with its checks and balances, corruption, lust for power, and the cowardly fear of persecution or cultural irrelevance—stand in the way of government truly working for all people.

Of course, given that evil runs through every human heart, it should come as no surprise that you will find corruption and a lust for power on both sides of the political aisle. But the Christian Nationalism ideology that has pervaded the Republican Party is particularly dangerous in my view because it is an attempt to manufacture a Christian nation without Christ. According to Michael Bird and N.T. Wright, “Christian Nationalism is impoverished as it seeks a kingdom without a cross. It pursues a victory without mercy. It acclaims the love of God’s power rather than the power of God’s love” (Chapter 6). And it confuses and repels the very secular society Christ called us to witness to.

But by imploring Christians to reject Christian Nationalism, I am not at all implying that Christians should “opt for an escapist piety in the present and a distant heaven in the future, leaving the present world untouched lest they get embroiled in its messy ways” (Jesus and the Powers Chapter 3). But neither should they opt for the candidate who panders to Christians with the promise of fighting culture wars on their behalf but whose fruit of the spirit, if he possesses any at all is “not hanging low enough to be picked” (Tim Alberta, The Kingdom, The Power and the Glory Page 24), over the candidate who generally speaking, has demonstrated genuine compassion for the marginalized of our society. We are called to speak truth to power, carrying on the tradition of the prophets of ancient Israel, and the early Christian church. This means focusing less on who is in power or how they acquired their power, and more on whether, now that they have acquired power, they are exercising their authority with Psalm 72:4 at the forefront of their mind, a standard which by the way is part of God’s general revelation, the conscience he created in every human being and that every human even if they profess to have no religion at all, can freely choose to obey or disregard (Romans 2:14-15). As such, it is possible for the marginalized to prosper with a professed humanist or Atheist for president who rules in reverent fear of the Lord—even though they wouldn’t call it that—by governing with a conscience. And time and again, history has proven that tyranny is the result when government is controlled by “Pharisees” whose rule is based on religious hegemony and enforced legalism, with no interest in mercy, who love God’s power more than the power of God’s love.

Regardless of who wins the election in November, I will respect Romans 13:1-2 and John 19:11 where even Jesus acknowledges that the Father has given governing authority to humans. I will not participate in or condone an insurrection. We will have to speak truth to power no matter who wins the election because all earthly government falls short of God’s righteous standard. At the same time, we should not take for granted that we have a privilege unimaginable in Jesus and Paul’s day, the privilege of having a say in who acquires power. What if we as Christians redefined what it means to “take America back for God” and use this historically unprecedented privilege to vote with a reverent fear of the Lord, with Psalm 72:4—not the latest culture war—at the forefront of our minds, rather than succumbing to the cowardly fear of persecution or cultural irrelevance?

That Reminds me of a Song: As I was writing this, The Wanderer, a collaboration of Johnny Cash and U2 came to my mind. It is an abstract song, so abstract that I consulted Wikipedia for its backstory. The song was written by U2, a modern take on the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, where the Preacher wanders through a post-apocalyptic world to find meaning and experience everything a man can before he repents. But Bono, the lead singer for U2 said the song had to be sung by Johnny Cash because he had the voice and the life story that this song required. Even before learning the backstory of this song, it always struck me that Christian Nationalism was referenced in this bleak world the narrator wandered through. The line that always gives me chills is, “I stopped outside a church house, where the citizens like to sit. They say they want the kingdom, but they don’t want God in it.” This reminded me of the churches Tim Alberta profiled where the American flag or partisan politics took precedence over Christ. Later Johnny Cash sings, “I went walking, with a Bible and a gun. The word of God lay heavy on my heart. I was sure I was the one” which I interpret as a reference to the self-righteous attitude of some on the far right who think they are honoring God when in fact they are conflating Christianity with American culture and a toxic masculinity that bares no resemblance to Christ. These lyrics, combined with dystopian and at times haunting background music poignantly portrays a bleak, post-apocalyptic world without a soul, where Christian Nationalism seems to be a feature. Let’s do our part to make sure the bleak world portrayed in this song doesn’t come to be.