A Good Government Provides Police

Police

It goes without saying that in any human group, if there are to be effective rules or taboos these must be enforced by some means. It is also obvious that as the size and extent of the group increases, the means of maintaining and enforcing will become more complex and likely institutionalised.

Take the simple case of a family. Most parents set rules for the children. These may be quite arbitrary like “brush your teeth before bed”, “wash behind your ears” “eat your vegetables” or any of a host of domestic policies. As every parent knows, if these are not enforced – they are not obeyed! Even if the enforcement is a simple “you don't get dessert until you've finished your vegetables”.

Issues can also be much more serious. In Genesis we read that after the entry of sin into the world it soon produced the worst crime: murder, when Cain killed his brother Abel.

In modern times cities have grown exponentially, bringing new demands in crime prevention. So the first professional full time police force in the world, as distinct from military units protecting the state, was the London Metropolitan Police in 1822. Interestingly, this force was distinctively non-military in character, and police wore numbers to identify them so that they were individually accountable for their actions. This really was starting the tradition of policing to “serve and protect” even if that slogan had not been invented.

In modern large scale populations, life as we know it would not be possible without an effective police force. For those who may think this is exaggerating, let me give you an example.

In October 1923, police in Melbourne Australia went on strike for six days. I think the number of police on strike was about 600. During that time social order quickly broke down. There was widespread looting and mobs took to the streets overturning trams and causing general mayhem. Order was only restored when some 2,000 citizens quickly sworn in as special constables and armed with cartwheel spokes cleared the streets by force.

Human beings are sinners. For some: internalised morals aided by fear of social disgrace will keep them mostly on the straight and narrow. Though even for upright citizens the knowledge that there are radar speed cameras about has a noticeable calming effect on their driving! However the spectrum grades from there right down to violent sociopaths indifferent to law, morals or human suffering.

A mantra drummed out from about the 70's has been “violence achieves nothing”. It is of course nonsense! Violence stopped Hitler and Hirohito. If men and women of that generation had not taken up arms the world would have all become slaves of one or the other. However like much nonsense it gains credibility by repetition. We need to remember that modern mass society is impossible if we do not have police able and prepared to “out violence” the gangsters and the sociopaths in order to serve and protect the population.

Do we need systems to weed out corrupt police? Yes of course, all humans are sinners so there will be bad police. Do we need limits on police activities. Of course, there will always be a balance required between what would promote suppression of crime and what is necessary for individual freedom. On the other hand it is easy for armchair critics – the “Black lives matter” movement is a current example – to forget the “fog of war” problem. It may later transpire that it was only a toy gun that was pulled and aimed at police. For the officer looking down its barrel there had to be an instant life-or-death choice.

For anyone wishing thought provoking discussion of problems surrounding modern policing I thoroughly recommend watching a few seasons of the TV series “Blue Bloods” which features a (fictional) three generational family of New York police.

Good Government: Armed Forces

Good Government: Defence

Illustration 1: Hezekiah's Tunnel in Jerusalem

Even the worst “governments” understand the importance of this. A drug baron or crime boss who cannot defend their turf against competing gangs does not stay in business! A ruler whose country is overrun is no longer the ruler and generally no longer alive.

However there are also good reasons why good governments should see defence of their people against external attack as a primary role.

It is just a fact of history that peoples who were not able to defend themselves have been overrun by more aggressive peoples. Occasionally they were allowed to become vassal states of an expanding empire. More usually they were plundered and or carried off as slaves. Other times they were simply exterminated or driven out of their homeland.

In the Biblical narrative there are examples of both success and failure of rulers defending their people.

The well worn Bible stories of the Judges, Samuel, Saul and David indicate the essential need for rulers who could lead an army in a mileau where surrounding peoples and nations were persistently attacking the ancient Israelites. The account of Hezekiah shows a king applauded in scripture making careful preparation for defence including digging a tunnel to bring water into Jerusalem and holding out at God's command against a terrifying encircling army. On the other hand Jeremiah depicts the sad fate of the nation under king Zedekiah, who having been sworn in as a vassal king rebelled against his overlord, and rejected both God's command and the opportunity to surrender.

So defence is primarily about protecting the population. Always this means being prepared for war. Generally it means displaying an attitude that if push comes to shove you can and will fight. Sometimes it means surrender in the face of overwhelming odds.

These days some hate the once familiar Bible stories. Many years ago after giving a children's talk in church about David and Goliath. Afterwards I was roundly abused by one woman who certainly saw herself as a “born again” Christian”, her message was “I don't bring my children to church to hear stories glorifying war!” I think it both a great mistake to try to cut inconvenient buts out of the Bible, and a mistake to underestimate God.

God is the ultimate reality. We frequently delude ourselves: He sees perfectly. We pretend: God is Who he is.

So in the affairs of this world. If scientists are right, then God brought about what we see now both with a breathtaking superabundance – millions of galaxies and also he rought life on earth to what we see about us with “the terrible arithmetic of necessity”. Hunting and killing is an inescapable part of the animal world. (in heaven this is overcome: “the wolf will lie down with the lamb” etc.)but on earth "Nature is red in tooth and claw".

This “terrible arithmetic of necessity” applies in human affairs too. Specifically because human beings are sinful. Wars will happen because this side of heaven there will always be people who will start them. So it is a defective view of God to discount to Biblical instances where God supported warfare and gave military prowess and tactical support and advice to soldiers. It is similarly a mistake to reject the place in modern society of military virtues and effective armed forces.

But at the same time, it is also a grave misunderstanding of God's character to ignore texts such as “blessed are the peacemakers” and God's denunciation of all manner of war crimes and of starting wars to increase one's boundaries!

On the topic of people starting wars, history is full of megalomaniacs who tried to conquer the world. School history lessons seem to give these more attention than peaceful rulers, and give scant attention to the enormity of the human suffering they caused.

Think Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte and all the others from our history lessons. What effect did they have on the sum total of human happiness?

Coming to more recent times there is a prickly question: What about Western colonisation of the New World?

Many present day American Indians and Australian Aborigines look on these events as “invasion”. Europeans at the time simply saw it as migration to an under-utilised (or even “empty”) land.

Modern progressives have promoted the former view to the hurt of both races. For the indigenous peoples it has engendered a feeling of grievance and victim-hood that has crippled them. For the population-at-large it has engendered at feeling of national guilt bordering on a self loathing of our own culture which has enabled progressives to successfully attack the cultural pillars of our society.

For all pre-scientific cultures, there was a mythology which constructed a world view and explanation of “life the universe and everything” Most cultural practices and rituals of daily life were tied to this mythology.

As soon as primitive culture came into contact with modern scientific culture there was a confrontation of world views. This was not an attack or part of an invasion strategy it was just the inevitable result of being exposed to scientific ideas which “burst the bubble” of  mythological explanations.

It is just “sociology 1.01” again that this exposure to modern scientific explanations wreaked havoc with their cultural identity. Everywhere this happened the results were similar: culture shock, despondency, social breakdown and alcoholism. It is all terribly sad: but no one’s fault.

The real fault now lies with the people trying to keep aboriginal peoples as “pet primitives” rather than integrating them into modern society. Their old culture cannot co-exist with modern, the old cosmology cannot cannot compete with modern science: so all that happens is that these poor wretches are kept in a state of perpetual culture shock. Kept in an inescapable world of despair, dysfunction, unemployment, family abuse and alcoholism.

England provides a success story, from what really was an invasion!

In 1066 William the Conqueror invaded England. It was a rich prize and wealth and lands robbed from the inhabitants were distributed among his Norman supporters. However after hundreds of years of intermarriage all are simply “English people” with no one claiming “I am a Saxon descendant and I want reparation from the descendants of the Normans”.

Which is the Real God

Which is the Real God

Xenophanes, a 4^th century BC Greek philosopher wrote: “The Ethiops say that their gods are flat-nosed and black, while the Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair. yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw, and could sculpt like men, then the horses would draw their gods like horses, and cattle like cattle; and each they would shape bodies of gods in the likeness, each kind, of their own.”

This was an astute observation. We all have a tendency to suppose God must be like us.

Sometimes this is fairly harmless: those of us who went to Sunday School half a century ago in an Anglo-Saxon community may remember pictures of Jesus as blue-eyed and golden haired! Likely in an African-American Sunday School he was pictured as African-American. Neither is likely to portray what a typical first century Jew looked like. Fortunately it really does not matter: the vital point is that God took human nature and was born into our world. Certainly this required being born at a particular time in history, in a particular place, inheriting the particular human genetics of his mother, and being either male or female. Also it is likely God chose each of these to suit his purposes. But those features – for instance what Jesus actually looked like - which are omitted from the Biblical record we should presume are not important.

Most times supposing God to be like us is disastrous. When we suppose that God is us writ large – that his moral character is like ours, his political views mimic our views, his concerns are a reflection of our concerns – we have simply created a god in our own image. What we then worship as God is, to the extent our image deviates from the God who actually exists, an idol.

We have verses like Isaiah 55.8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways declares the Lord” as examples of the error of supposing God is just like us.

Psaml 50.16ff is even more explicit:

 But to the wicked person, God says:

“What right have you to recite my laws
    or take my covenant on your lips?
17 You hate my instruction
    and cast my words behind you.
18 When you see a thief, you join with him;
    you throw in your lot with adulterers.
19 You use your mouth for evil
    and harness your tongue to deceit.
20 You sit and testify against your brother
    and slander your own mother’s son.
21 When you did these things and I kept silent,

    you thought I was exactly like you.
But I now arraign you
    and set my accusations before you.

This gives a chilling reminder that this bubble of self deception will be burst when we stand before the real God for judgement and offer us no protection.

The human tendency to fashion a comfortable (for us at any rate) god in our own image goes a long way to explaining the atrocities committed down the ages in the name of God by people who professed to be pious. In the field of government the proper reaction to this is not to say “there is no God” but rather “humans can abuse and debase anything – even the knowledge in our hearts and in scripture about God”. The remedy then is not to sweep scriptural argument from the floor of debate but to recognise human fallibility try to protect against its insidious effects.

Even if we are not “the wicked” of Psalm 50 we still see the world through coloured mental spectacles. For Democrats God is either non-existent or is a Democrat. Similarly for Republicans God surely exemplifies all that they hold dear. Thus when we reason from our existing mental and moral base we are almost bound to go wrong – all the time feeling we are being pious and secure in the belief that scripture – as read by our spectacles that block out everything that conflicts with our presuppositions – fully agrees with us.

Jeremiah encountered this problem with the theologians of his day Jeremiah 8.8 “‘How can you say, “We are wise, for we have the law of the Lord,” when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely?” His problem extended to the entire “organised religion” - of his day when he prophesied the coming judgement on Jerusalem (Jer. 26.8) “ 8 But as soon as Jeremiah finished telling all the people everything the Lord had commanded him to say, the priests, the prophets and all the people seized him and said, “You must die! 9 Why do you prophesy in the Lord’s name that this house will be like Shiloh and this city will be desolate and deserted?”

In my lifetime I have seen a radical and thorough-going shift in protestant churches in Australia and I gather similar changes have happened in Canada and the US in Episcopal and similar denominations.

In my youth mainline protestant churches were conservative, and up to the Vietnam War patriotic and militarily hawkish. Post Vietnam they gradually became anti-war, even to the “over-realised eschatology” of believing there could be a world without wars this side of heaven. At this point I am not interested in where a biblical position lies in this matter: I am just highlighting how the mainline churches changed their spots.

In morals, churches of my youth were conservative. From the 60's “sexual revolution” on they became more and more aligned with the popular ethos. In 1988 I put a motion to the Anglican synod in my diocese condemning abortion on demand. There were such howls of indignation when I began to speak that debate had to be suspended. Two thousand years of Church belief had suddenly become as much a heresy as Jeremiah prophesying judgement on Jerusalem. Churches were notoriously silent as abortion became “normal” rather than “killing your baby”. Adultery and fornication ran rampant – bringing in their train unhappy lives and marriage breakdown with all the attendant misery harm and frequently sexual and physical abuse of children from a non-biological father. Again churches which now have so much to say about secular politics were silent watchmen.

I expect that anyone foolish enough to speak in any church synod criticising the current darlings of secular progressive socialism: anthropogenic climate change and Muslim “refugee” immigration would fare as Jeremiah did. However here I am not here arguing either policy to be good or bad: I am pointing out that churches have in a short space of time changed their core beliefs. In particular they have changed their proclamation: once it was salvation of humankind through Jesus alone; now these “new gospels” are deemed more important.

Paul wrote in Romans 12.2 “ Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

As I see it so many churches and church people have done exactly the opposite: they have conformed completely to the pattern of this world. They have then gone a step further and abandoned their first duty to proclaim the truth that is in Jesus. This is nothing new, again going back to Jeremiah: “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. (Jer 2.13)

Thus in examining the nature of good government one has both to be scrupulously careful to see past one's own bias and also to realise one's best appeal will be to current non-believers, and that faithful remnant of believers who have not followed the majority into worshipping the spirit of the age.

Principles of Justice

Principles of Justice

One important role of any leader is keeping the civil peace.

For parents adjudicating in squabbles between their children is a necessary but often exasperating duty. Encouragement and punishment to instil family and societal values in our children is likewise necessary despite it being denigrated in recent times.

At the clan and tribe level the chief, shaman or elders fulfil this role and it is a necessary one in maintaining a functional social unit.

As the reach of government increases, so maintaining the rules of the society and settling disputes among members becomes more formalised. Laws need to made and promulgated so that people and judges know them. Law courts are needed for civil and criminal cases. Law enforcement becomes a whole branch of government.

In looking at the ancient world and the law codes we know about, the Biblical laws really stand apart.

The “Ten Words” giving a really concise easily memorised summary so that the ordinary person can actually know what the law is. The following text giving worked examples to show how the Commandments were to be interpreted. As Moses said “What other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as the body of laws I am setting before you today?” (Deut,4.8) or as David wrote : “The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, Making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes”

This is the big difference between the Biblical laws and the earlier law codes such as the Babylonian king Hammurabi's (c.1,745 BC) and even earlier ancient near eastern ones. They took their principles of justice (and punishments that seem draconian to us) and used them to enact laws which suited the conditions of their time and place. The Biblical with the Ten Commandments being principles aimed at the individual as much as the lawmaker – one cannot legislate against coveting; and the case examples that follow plus historical cases over the next few hundred years give principles which can be used to derive just laws for any age or stage of civilisation.

This is so important that I want to illustrate the point.

In all the sciences – from physics to medicine and beyond – one can teach the student the fundamental principles, or one can teach them just “protocols” for particular instances. Protocols are much quicker, but inflexible: basic principles are slower – the application has to be formulated – but they empower the practitioner to deal with new and unusual cases.

When I started work as an engineer, one of the notable recent failures of that design office was related to me. They were asked to design a compressed air system for starting jet engines at an airport. They were used to designing compressed air systems for normal industrial use and had the charts – protocols if you like – for such design. But normal compressed air systems only varied the air pressure about 15% from the maximum, while the new system pumped to a much higher pressure and then emptied almost entirely. When the system was built and tested it didn't work. They called in a university professor, who went back to the basic gas laws and showed them why their protocols didn't work in this case, and how to re-design the system.

So, understanding fundamental principles, like the gas laws or Newtons laws or the laws of thermodynamics allows you to deal with all circumstances whereas only learning an application of these principles to one or two situations limits you to cases that resemble those situations.

So for out modern mega-states we have a reach of government a complexity of society and ever evolving technology that the ancients could never have imagined. So if we limited ourselves to rules they had in for the cases they faced, we would be in real trouble. But if we take the time and effort to work back to the principles involved we have something really useful.

Armed with fundamental principles of justice and morals we are in a position debate how these translate into the situations we face, however novel they may be, and for those with the requisite skills to formulate this into legislation or teaching or to modify the propaganda that washes over us from TV, film books and newspapers.

Government as God's Servant

Government as God's Servant

Earlier I said that the theories of government that I came across in University started with the assumption – even if it is unspoken – that there is no God. That assumption is no more rigorous or academic that the contrary assumption, so I chose to start by assuming the Biblical revelation concerning God as a starting point.

A well known text is Romans 13: 1-6, particularly v4 “For the authority is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing, he is God's servant, an agent of justice to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.”

Given the Genesis account of mankind's fall and the entry of sin into the world we should not be surprised that these ideals are rarely lived up to. None the less they are still the correct ideals. Not too long after these words were penned the Roman authorities were cruelly persecuting Christians. In our present day many people feel that Western governments have gone soft on brutal crimes and are not bringing “punishment on the wrongdoer”. Even this angst shows that deep down we believe that they should.

Again, criminal justice is only one aspect of government, I will show that this ideal of government - recognising that it should be a servant of God - applies to other aspects as well.

I also expect that the actual form of government may be an independent factor. Also the extent of government interference or assistance in individuals lives may be an another independent factor.

For instance ancient Israel started as a tribal league bound together by their common belief in God. Internally there must have been some tribal and clan “government”. Externally, leadership and a rallying figure for combined military action was their greatest need. Initially this was provided by a “Judge” raised up by God for that emergency. Civil law suits seem to have been heard figures like Deborah and Samuel. Then Israel asked for a king – a big mistake and an insult since it implied they did not want to rely on God appointing military leaders as required, and that they rejected their unique identity as a theocracy. However God granted their request and henceforth their government was by king, later aided by nobles and bureaucrats.

In the West we have over time developed various forms of constitutional democracy. Winston Churchill said in 1947 “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those that have been tried from time to time”

Also both our modern 'welfare state' and the extent of government regulation and intrusion into so many parts of people's daily lives may be unprecedented in history. Whether these are good or bad is a matter of how truly that form of government is being God's servant in the prevailing conditions.

To understand how we can judge past and present government and see where governments can be improved, I want next too look at some of the Biblical case studies of good and bad government, and how they exemplify or go against the moral character of God.