Wednesday, February 12, 2020

What kind of govenment is biblical?

Does Christianity support monarchism? There are those 
especially in Eastern Orthodoxy and in Roman Catholicism 
who are monarchists. Jay Dyer makes a case for this. 
But as one protestant on a radio show said decades ago, 
contrary to those who argue for democracy as the only 
way, that the Bible doesn't mandate any one form of 
government.

Orthodox sometimes might answer that we should go 
by tradition which was developed mostly in monarchial 
contexts, including the Byzantine empire, and that the 
Bible is to be read allegorically aka spiritually. But the 
ORthodox tradition on the latter is that spiritual applications 
of Scripture do not replace or negate the historical literal 
statements of Scripture.

And in the days of the Mosaic Covenant, initially they had 
no king, YHWH was king and the top ruler of the people 
was in effect His prime minister. Initially this was Moses, 
the prophet and lawgiver who led them, replaced by 
Joshua who Moses appointed to take over after him, at 
God's command. Thereafter they were ruled by "judges" 
sopetim to judge, govern, rule, punish, to decide controversy 
raised up by God and were not hereditary rulers. When the 
people eventually demanded to have a king, God said this 
was a kind of rebellion against Him, but gave them a king, 
first Saul then David and his lineage. Before this in 
Deuteronomy anticipating such a move, God gave rules 
for the king they would have when they had one.
So you see monarchs on earth were not God's initial 
provision, but rulers who operated under God. They were 
somewhat like dictators, but they were not hereditary. 
God was the King. And when Jesus Christ comes back, 
He will be King forever on earth. "of His Kingdom there 
shall be no end" says the Creed.

it is a mistake however to view this sort of kingless state 
as without government, tribal councils and leaders are a 
form of government, the judges were a form of government 
resembling a king in power over all the people and tribes, 
but not hereditary, and eventually there were kings.
Judges starts and ends with the statement that there was 
no king in Israel and every man did as was right in his own 
eyes, and the result was repeated disaster of one sort or 
another. Under the kings, however, if the king was corrupt 
or apostate there was still trouble. no form of government 
is a guarantee of godliness and right operation socially or 
economically or politically. Some idiot right winger once 
cited this as supporting his semi anarchistic extremely 
limited ideal of government, but in context it doesn't do so 
but negates the value of this.

As shown in the Bible, having monarchy does not solve 
problems if the monarch is not righteous. and being 
hereditary you can't get rid of a bad family. The present 
claimants to old thrones are all or mostly eurotrash some 
outright perverts and some into occultism. These have 
all been alleged of the British royal family and definitely 
indicated here and there among other defunct ruling 
families whether royal or duchy. Even the last Tsar of 
Russia was dabbling in dubious stuff, an occultist he was 
persuaded by the Church to dump, followed by Rasputin 
who was just as bad but more presentable initially. and 
was interested in Tibetan buddhism probably because of 
its fasting and apparent wonder working at times. Russians 
in general, according to one priest of the time, had 
succumbed to a kind of dreamy state and dual faith was 
something present enough to have to be fought. Even the 
placing of icons on the altar to bless them and take them 
home became prohibited so occultists weren't using this 
either to abuse them or perhaps keep a lid on what could 
go wrong when messing with magic. Some of this influence 
was local holdover pagan practices, some came into Russia 
with the French influence and Tsar PEter the Great's efforts 
at modernization.
Until Christ comes back, something largely ignored by 
Orthodox but stated in the Creed, the best government would 
be something that limits government power while allowing its 
intervention to stop various evils God has denounced, 
including economic ones, has transparency (which makes a 
free press not infected with government agents essential), and 
very few unaccountable unelected people of power 
(deep state) such as the vipers that have made up the 
American state department for generations. And whose top
rulers are replaceable by peaceable means and not hereditary.

a king's role includes correction of evils that develop, and 
therefore it is a proper role of government. The Law of Moses 
included non negotiable commands to engage in charity, incl. 
effectively the confiscation for the levites and the poor in 
general of the third year's tithe, and prohibition on harvesting 
the edges of your land, or going over your land in harvest to 
get what you missed, these were for the poor to take. 
(gleaning, a modern equivalent is dumpster diving).

So in general, the best analysis of any government type or 
action is not does it fit libertarian, communist, fascist, oligarchic 
or whatever ideal or ideology you are judging by, but in each 
matter does it fit with the Bible or not?

Some things conservatives are upset about are indeed ungodly. 
Other things are not, and in fact more constitutionally consistant 
than not.

No comments:

Post a Comment