Introduction
The year 2024 saw
a record number of elections throughout the world as over 60 countries voted in
governments.[1] Two related topics discussed during the year
were populism in response to existing governments and the problem of social
cohesion. This essay explores these
topics in regard to the place of Christians in society.
Populism
One of the
interesting topics in focus was, and continues to be, the opposition of people
and movements over against established governments and controlling elites. Populism arises for various reasons. One reason is a government that disregards the people it governs. This also happens with regard to other
institutions: the administration grows apart from and does not feel responsible
to the people for whom it exists. People
become wary of institutions and might even doubt their legitimacy. This can lead to a popular revolution. Officials given power wish to preserve it and
are tempted to exercise it for selfish or partisan reasons.
Persons in
government might also provoke a populist reaction when they use the legitimate machinery
of governance—executive, legislative, and judicial—in new ways to bring about radical change in management, policies,
or existing laws. Various institutions
may cooperate together to bring about radical change in a civilization, as has
recently occurred in the West. Cultural
Marxism has gained power enough to march through the institutions of society:
government, the press, the Church (mainline denominations), schools, social
media, social mores and the military.
This radical change—the main campaign platform when Barak Obama ran for
office—provokes a populist response, as we have seen with Donald Trump.
Key issues of
change have been: the weaponisation of the justice system by politically
motivated officials), open borders and the mass influx of populations unwilling
to assimilate, disregard of or opposition to orthodoxy within mainline
denominations, redefinition of crime, same-sex ‘marriage’, men identifying as
women in women’s sports, classifying certain citizens as undesirable or even as
terrorists (such as Catholic parents in the USA during the Joe Biden
administration) for political purposes, shifting approaches to allies and
enemies, sanctuary cities, sexualisation of children, normalisation of sexual
indecency, negative birth rates, radical shifts in religion in society, etc. In Great Britain and Europe, ‘hate speech’
laws have been used to undermine free speech.
Populism may oppose
or support the law of the land. It may take
its shape as an attempt of the masses to rule apart from constitutional means
or an attempt of the masses to hold a class of bureaucrats to the laws of the
land when they take power into their own hands.
Indeed, populism is perceived by some in the USA at this time as a
resistance to government’s overreach and abuse of authority. The people resist the regulatory state and
the power of unelected government officials who control government no matter
how people vote. On the other hand,
populism may be more like mass unrest, riotous mobs flouting the laws of the
land and attacking government officials, as in revolutionary France in the
1790s. They respond to injustice or
perceived injustice or are agitated over some other concern.
The American Revolution
also began with popular unrest and opposition to the injustices of British rule
at the time. It was guided by American
elites who shared the people’s cause over against Britain’s imperial elites.[2] As Ted McAllister says regarding this time,
Britain’s new class of elites arose from the Glorious Revolution in 1688. They created powerful institutions (the Bank
of England and the East India Company), fostered class distinctions (boarding
schools, cultural distance with new accents!), centralized power, a new legal
code based on Roman Law (over against British common law), and created various
hierarchies of power. McAllister says,
Colonial elites
recognized the threat to their liberties and to their institutions, culture and
folkways. More than a “tax revolt,” the American revolution was about the
preservation of plural ways of living, plural cultures, and plural liberties
against a powerful, centralized, distant and homogenizing governing elite.[3]
Another reason
for the rise of populism is institutional
corruption. This is one of the main
reasons that the USA’s present populism has gained power. The over-bloated government has become
corrupt, but various other institutions, including so-called ‘charities’, have
managed to accumulate for themselves a tremendous amount of money. Revelations of corruption continue to be
reported—at least by some media not themselves part of the corruption. Corruption occurs when judges twist the laws
for gain, officials refuse to enforce the laws or rule by policy decrees apart
from the law of the land for their own gain, and when legislators introduce
laws that privilege one group instead of another. These are all ways to manipulate the system
of governance for personal or political advantage. People believe that the officials holding
office are corrupt despite a good governmental system. In the USA, many believe that all the
institutions of government are to some degree or another very corrupt, not just
incompetent, and this has given rise to popular resistance. Many others believe that the very same
persons are too compliant to the institutions and laws and that they need to
use power in opposition to laws to bring change. Both groups, unsatisfied with government, are
examples of populism. One group opposes
government that wants to bring major change and the other group wants
government to bring about more change.
Populism is a
‘political program or movement that champions, or claims to champion, the
common person, usually by favourable contrast with a real or perceived elite or
establishment’.[4] One might think of certain prominent
politicians in recent times to understand populism, such as the successful
efforts of Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson in producing Brexit, the UK’s exit
from the European Union. In the United States, Donald Trump’s reshaping of the
Republican Party around populist rather than elitist business interests and his
attack on the deep state serve as another example of populism. South Africa’s Julius Malema, a communist
leader, commanding a minor faction’s allegiance with his Economic Freedom
Fighters, serves as another example. He
opposes white farmers and seeks to take their farms, as was done in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia)
decades ago. Malema’s party members march
into Parliament with red workers’ uniforms meant to signal that they oppose the
elite and establishment. Claiming to be
a movement of the people, they do not represent a large segment of the
population but exercise considerable pressure on the ANC government. Some see populism on the right or left of
politics as a threat to order and to progressive politics under the control of
social elites. Either way, the question
of power in the hands of some rather than others is at issue.
Victor Davis Hanson helpfully distinguishes
two types of populism in history: 'urban populism' and 'rural populism'.
Both forms have coalesced around calls for freedom and equality. In modern times, the French Revolution
exemplifies urban populism. It placed an
emphasis on equality. The American Revolution exemplifies rural
populism and emphasised freedom. This subtle difference (both advocated
equality and freedom) is the difference between a State that enforces equality
and a State that protects freedom, including and especially the freedom of
people from government’s control. The value of equality focusses power in the
government, whereas freedom delivers the people from governmental
authority. Such distinctions are not
always clear or consistent, however. The
current mantra of the Democrat Party in the USA is around ‘freedom’, and yet
the Democrat Party is now a socialist party seeking the expansion of government
control over peoples’ lives.
In Antiquity, Hanson points out, the elites despised the crowds (Greek, ochloi; Latin, turbae) and their leaders (Greek, demagogoi; Latin, tribuni). Hanson says that the ‘urban protest movements
focused on the redistribution of property, higher liturgies or taxes on the
wealthy, the cancellation of debts, support for greater public employment and
entitlements, and sometimes imperialism abroad.’[5] Contemporary urban populism (Occupy Wall
Street, Antifa, Black Lives Matter, Bernie Sanders’ socialist movement) aims at ‘higher taxes
on the rich, more entitlements for the poor, identity politics reparations, and
relief from debts such as the cancellation of student loans.’[6]
In the 2nd
c. BC Italy, the Roman victory over Carthage resulted in wealthy landlords
taking possession of large plantations (latifundiae). They employed slave labour and thereby disenfranchised
the rural poor.[7] This led to rural unrest that was supported
by two populist tribunes, the Gracchi brothers.
Whereas the landless, urban poor demanded ‘bread and circus’ (food
handouts and entertainment) to keep them happy, the rural poor insisted on
basic rights to make a living. People
like the Gracchi were advocates of rural populism though themselves part of an
elite family. Champions of a rural
populism are always unpopular with the urban elite. Earlier, in Greece, the ‘middle people’ (mesoi) called for ‘preserving ownership
of a family plot, seeing property as the nexus of all civic, political, and
military life, and passing on farms through codified inheritance laws and
property rights.’[8] Interestingly, the original government set up
in the USA restricted voting to persons (men) with property.
Hanson concludes
his article by saying that
We are still in the midst of a populist pushback against the two
political parties. The nature and themes are ancient—on the one hand, an urban
and radical effort to redistribute wealth and use government to enforce
equality, and, on the other, a counter-revolutionary pushback of the middle
classes determined to restore liberty, limited government, sovereign borders,
and traditional values.[9]
Perhaps it would
be better to say that the two political parties are becoming populist parties
over against the elites that have ruled them.
The Democrats have increasingly become beholden to socialists, even
Communists, opposed to the old elite of the party. The Republicans used to represent the
business class but has, under the leadership of Donald Trump, become a more
working-class party (which is what the Democrats once were). Communism claims to be a populist uprising of
the masses, but it is always led by an elite politburo that is not supported by
the masses. By putting riotous crowds
onto the streets, they give the appearance of a populist movement and, promoted
by left-leaning media, the myth is promoted.
The left wing parties are actually opposed to democracy and do whatever
they must to secure offices and exercise power.
They claim to be for ‘freedom’ but in fact oppose freedom in order to
control the populace in the name of ‘justice’ and ‘equity’—the undermining of
some groups in order to promote others, all the while presenting this as some
sort of virtue. Communism and Islam
reject borders, and both exist to advance their ideologies rather than promote
the concerns and values of the masses.
Some elite
group, the ‘vanguard of the people’, gains political power. The educated, urban elite despise the rural
population. Disdain for rural populism
(and those grouped with them) was expressed by Hillary Clinton
when she said that half of Donald Trump’s supporters belonged in a ‘basket of
deplorables’[10],
whom she identified as racists, sexists, and ‘homophobic’, xenophobic, and
‘Islamaphobic’ people. (Anyone attaching
the word ‘phobia’ to another word other than clinical psychologists is playing
a word game meant to reject someone’s views purely by an appeal to emotion and caricature.) Several years earlier, she had accused Barak
Obama of elitism when he said that Midwestern voters losing their jobs in
industrial towns
cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like
them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain
their frustrations.[11]
Quite clearly,
both Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama are elitists, and both were interested in
gaining political power by appealing to the masses. They appealed to their own populist
supporters, an urban populism, over against a rural populism typified by Donald
Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) supporters. The MAGA movement is a populist movement—a
rural populism—which is why Republican urban elites also despise it. However, it is a movement seeking to
reestablish constitutional rule rather than populist rule apart from existing
law. ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ is
fueled by urban elites who despise the less educated and more rural population
in order to affirm that they are better than others. Trump supporters do not support a tyrant
opposed to the constitution but a champion of the constitution. The MAGA movement is falsely represented as
opposed to the law and constitution whereas they actually support
constitutional democracy through representative government. They believe that their opponents are elites
attempting to reinvent the country by undermining the constitution and law.
Ironically, the
elite politician seeking control and a powerful, central government typically
claims to be an ally with the people.
The Soviet Union’s politburo was the vanguard of the people, claiming to
support the rural poor while leaving them in destitute poverty and
starvation. While the Weimar Republic in
post-World War I Germany was democratic, the country was politically divided
and economically unstable. This led the
conservative elites, fearful of the rise of Communism, to conclude that a more
authoritarian hand was needed at the top.
They found this in the Nazi Party (a nationalist, socialist party) led
by a dictator, Adolf Hitler. In the USA
today, the elite are the left-leaning, wealthy technocrats, movie stars, and
politicians who use the social unrest of America’s youth and urban populace to
gain power.
The elite always
distinguish themselves from the masses by definition of being an elite. Calling for equality or equity (a privileging
of some groups over others to produce equal outcomes, not opportunities), they
suppress freedom and keep their privileged status apart from the masses. They form an elite class of wealthy plutocrats,
influential academics, and powerful politicians. When such an elite class forms an alliance
with the urban populace, it maintains power by granting them ‘bread and
circus’, as in Rome, that is, sustenance and entertainment, including drugs,
apart from meaningful and adequate employment.
This leaves the other sector of the population disenfranchised, with
self-sufficiency threatened, their freedoms removed, their middle class wealth
taxed, and their values undermined.
In the USA, the
Democrats regularly oppose constitutional government (e.g., law and order, an
honest judicial system, the protection of borders, the worth of citizenship). They promote sanctuary cities, oppose the
police, relax laws on crime, and abuse the judicial system with political trials
for their opponents. They stoke unrest
among the urban poor by manipulating their votes through identity politics and
socialistic promises (e.g., Black Lives Matter, abortion presented as, of all
things, a ‘women’s health issue’ and right, Pride marches, anti-Israel and
anti-Semitic protests). They pretend to
be anti-aristocratic (‘we need a tax on the wealthy’) while burdening the
middle class with taxes and inflation due to wild spending for big government programmes. They cause inflation because they wildly
print money in order to turn the country into a socialist state. They are an urban populism guided by an elite
that equals a large, socialist government handing out favours to identity
groups. They are mobilized by causes of
a coalition of smaller, populist groups who claim victimhood and yet make
others their victims. When Democrats
warn people that Republicans want to take away democracy, they mean by that
their own interests and power are under threat if a democratic election goes
against them. When they warn against
populism, they mischaracterise their opponents, who want constitutional rule
instead of a flouting of laws and forced change of social values.
Christianity
and Populism
There is no
‘Christian’ form of government. This is
one of the great distinction between the people of God of the Old Testament and
the Church. In the Old Testament, the
Jews were first nomads—a clan living under the rule of a patriarch. They were then governed loosely by judges,
and finally by kings. Borders, ethnic
identity, national religion, and laws were all part of being God’s people. The Church, however, exists despite or apart
from borders, ethnic identity, national interests, and the particular laws of a
nation.
This could lead
to an anti-government stance for the Church, but the New Testament authors took
a different approach. Even though Jesus
was crucified by government authorities, the Church upheld government
authority. At one level of such a
discussion, Christians were urged to support government because it established
law and order. Government was God’s way
of keeping an evil world with sinful people in check. If Christians were to take their often
righteous protest of injustice into their own hands, they would be stepping
into a role reserved for God, who intends for government to establish
justice. (Governments often fail to do
so.) This is Paul’s point in Romans
12.17-13.5:
Repay no one
evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18
If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved,
never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written,
“Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your
enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for
by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by
evil, but overcome evil with good.
Rom. 13:1
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there
is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by
God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has
appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a
terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in
authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for she
is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not
bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries
out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not
only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.
This was no blanket support of
government. Paul’s point was that we
should not take justice into our own hands.
This meant, firstly, that we are a people who respond to injustice by:
·
Not repaying evil for evil;
rather, overcoming evil with good
·
Living lives that people regard
as honourable
·
Living peaceable lives
·
Not avenging ourselves
·
Being subject to government insofar
as it is God’s servant for our good by justly punishing wrongdoers
·
Being subject to governmental
authority for the sake of our own consciences
In the days of
Roman imperial rule, when Paul wrote this, there was no democracy. (Athens had a democracy in the 5th c.
BC. It was different from American
democracy, which is a representative form of government.) Paul’s comments about government come between
the Roman government’s crucifixion of Jesus and his own beheading, and before
the terror of Nero’s and Domitian’s rule that put Christians to death. Again, Paul was not setting up a particular
government as a divinely appointed authority but was saying that the place of
government is to exercise righteous rule.
By the time he wrote Romans, he had had enough encounters with Roman law
to see that it could protect him from mobs out to harm him in Philippi,
Corinth, and Ephesus. A Christian
political perspective needs to consider the possibility that government will
not rule righteously, and in such a case it is not performing the function God
intends for it. Paul’s words in Romans 12.17-13.5
are about what God intends for government and is not an affirmation of
government’s rule no matter what they do.
Christians were
urged to pray for their governments. If
justice prevails, then Christians should be able to live their lives without
persecution. Moreover, if governments
provide a proper peace, Christians should be able to evangelise without
opposition. Paul says this in 1 Timothy:
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers,
intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all
who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly
and dignified in every way. 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of
God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the
knowledge of the truth (2.1-4).
A government
that uses its power to undermine Christian evangelism—and the related allowance
of citizens to become followers of Jesus Christ—is not a government Christians
approve.
Paul has no
expectation that there might be such a thing as a ‘Christian government’. Theocracy belonged to Israel in the Old
Testament, not to the Church in the New Testament. Nor did Christians for the next few centuries
imagine a Christian government. Only in
the 4th century did this begin to come about under Emperor
Constantine. However, government was
hardly the equal to God’s reign, as Ambrose and Augustine would insist in the 4th/5th
c. The notion of an established Church,
whether under a Christian government or directing such a government, was not
even entertained.
In fact, from
the perspective of the New Testament, a Christian nation was an oxymoron. Anabaptists in the 16th century
rightly saw that Christians would always be a minority, even if a nation’s
population broadly speaking saw themselves as ‘Christian’ in some sense—as
throughout Europe at the time. Yet a
nation’s goals, such as those of ancient Israel, were antithetical to the
Church’s goals. The Church had to exist
apart from the nation, and the hope was that it would be free to exist and to
evangelise, not that it might be a political power. Christians might be proud of their various
cultures and nations—they may be patriotic—but always only in a tentative
way. The nation exists under God’s authority, but the
government is not thereby granted divine authority, only divine purpose. Where it fails to fulfil that purpose, as so
often even in the Old Testament, the people of God play a prophetic role of
challenging unrighteous rule.
Indeed, the
proper role of the Church vis-à-vis government is not some form of Christian
nationhood as Israel’s theocracy but as the prophets of the Old Testament in
relation to the nation. The prophets
called out the misrule of the nation and urged governors and kings to be just
and remember the poor. There was always
room to improve, and therefore the prophets were not there to affirm and
support so much as to disturb and challenge those in power. The kingdom of God is always a challenge to
the State (and to the established Church, for that matter).
As a minority
people identifying firstly with the Church and living for God, the people of
God will often find themselves in disagreement with the majority population as
well. They will not often support
government and its exercise of power precisely because governments usually fail
to exercise God’s righteousness and justice.
Nor will they often support populist causes or the means used to reach such
causes. The Church plays a much more
prophetic role in society, setting before people a greater vision of
righteousness and justice in the Kingdom of God. The Church undermines its role vis-à-vis the
government and society when it lowers itself to adopt the half measures of
justice advocated by social justice activists outside the Church. Progressive Evangelicals in our day fail in
two respects: they identify with the urban elite (and thereby stoke their
vanity) and they adopt a public rather than Kingdom of God theology and
ethic. They become advocates of a
populist notion of justice that is not equal to the teaching of Jesus. Populism is always different from and often
opposed to a Christocentric ethic.
Even so, the
Church’s concern for law and order should lead Christians to find common cause
with populist support of government on issues like citizenship and borders, law
and order, a just judicial system, and so forth. The Church as a minority—and the Church in
its experience of 2,000 years of history—knows full well that a socialist form
of government that believes in big government enforcing human laws will be a
disaster for Christians. Any increase of
power in a secular state is obviously going to persecute Christians at some
stage. Not only so, but it will also
enact unjust laws and squelch any protest (as we see in so many areas in the
UK, European countries, and the USA right now).
Nor will the
Church easily support a rural form of populism that is self-seeking, that lacks
a higher vision of righteousness beyond national interests. Christians are more importantly members of a
‘third race’ made of people from all nations.
They have no interest in multiculturalism for their singular identity is
devotion to the Triune God. Their
universalism is based in the work of Jesus Christ, not in human diversity.
(Revelation 7.9-14 teaches universalism, not multi-culturalism.) They will oppose diversity as a social value
not because they want to protect some national identity or culture but because they
relinquish diversity as a value altogether through their baptism into Christ
(Galatians 3.27-28).
Social
Cohesion and the Importance of Values
In Politics, Aristotle asks what
constitutes a state. Could people come
together for economic reasons, whether for what they contribute to it
financially or for commercial purposes?
Could they come together for military reasons, to protect one another
from others? Could they come together
for the singular purpose of agreeing to do no wrong to each other, what we
might call law and order or constitutional government? Aristotle argues that none of these reasons
is sufficient for constituting a state (Politics
3.1280a-b).
What distinguishes types of government, he avers, are whether the government
is self-serving or serves the community (Politics
3.1279b). In monarchy and tyranny, the ruler rules by virtue of his
personal authority. In aristocracy and
oligarchy, those who rule do so because of their wealth. In constitutional government and democracy,
the people rule because they are free citizens, and the majority of them are
not wealthy (3.1280a). Each of these
three options of government includes a positive and a negative alternative,
respectively. As the negative
alternative to constitutional government, democracy for Aristotle was a
self-serving form of government by the majority—indeed, a populism.
Thus, the
essential basis for the formation of a good state, he argues, is the concern of
citizens for civic virtue and their opposition to vice. The state must, therefore, have a moral
foundation. He says, ‘it is also clear
that any state that is truly so called and is not a state merely in name must
pay attention to virtue; for otherwise the community becomes merely an
alliance’ (3.1280b).[12] Reducing the state to a legal entity
guaranteeing people’s just claims against one another will not touch the deeper
cohesiveness of a society formed with virtuous intents. The goal of the state is for all to live the
good life, and for this society must go beyond contractual relations; it must
exist in friendships between family and clans, cemented through marriage
between them. Familial bonds and
friendships will lead to noble actions (3.1281a).
Implications for Post-Christian, Western Countries
In light of this
argument, I would highlight several considerations regarding the contemporary
reshaping of society in post-Christian, Western countries. Modern nations in the West were formed around
certain economic, military, and legal concerns.
Despite being from several, distinct tribes (mostly European), they were
also in agreement with Christian values.
Friendships could develop among people in agreement about what the good
life was. As Aristotle noted, common
values and purposes were a far stronger bond than legal contracts or political
goals.
This was true
even when the seeds of a contrary view were sown at the end of the 1700s with
democracy. In the United States of
America, democracy was conceived in terms of individual freedom. As long as the country’s individuals agreed
about Christian values, individual freedom did not threaten social
cohesion. The waves of mostly European
immigration did not disrupt this cohesion, since immigrants came from
‘Christian’ countries. Immigrants came
to participate in a new culture, but one that held Christian, or
Judeo-Christian, values and did so, they hoped, better than the countries from
which they came. America was a ‘melting
pot’ in which various immigrants formed a cohesive state based upon many shared
values.
In revolutionary
France, democracy was conceived more in terms of equality and therefore not
individualism but social unity. More
significantly, France rejected Christian values at the time of its revolution,
and its social experiment with secular socialism began. This Enlightenment state did not receive
immigrants but expanded aggressively in Europe under the tyrant and dictator,
Napoleon Bonaparte. The state was
conceived as a power that enforced its will on other states. As with the Weimar government 100 years
later, the social and political disunity injuring the nation was corrected by
means of a dictatorship. The difference lay in the Nazi party establishing a
socialist dictatorship and, of course, which values were approved by the party
in power. Yet the strong hand of government directing the affairs of citizens
and society in the French Revolution and under Napoleon are the roots of
European socialism: a strong, central government with a secular, social vision. The social vision was the cohesion of the
empire through government, not the American melting pot of peoples with
Christian values. The ideals of the
State, not the values of the people, were the basis for social cohesion in the disastrous
French and German experiments.
Today, Europe
and North America have a new experiment in statehood underway. Despite interesting opposition from
conservative groups, both sides of the Atlantic have leaned increasingly toward
an urban populace governed by socialist ideals.
Christian values are increasingly considered vices. Marriage, heterosexuality, family, the value
of the life of the unborn, Christian faith and the Church, etc. are either
considered irrelevant for the good life or are considered negatively,
especially when such values stand in opposition to post-Christian values. Moreover, instead of a social melting pot,
elites and urban populist groups insist that diversity and multiculturalism
make us better and stronger. This view
is held without deep consideration, since certain traditional groups are
excluded, even criminalised. Thus, Islam
is welcomed despite its treatment of women, its expansionist, religio-political
dominance of others, its violence and aggression, etc., while Christians are
dragged into court and lose their jobs because of their values.
Aristotle’s
views on what constitutes a state are a warning to these trends in the
West. (However, we must note that
Aristotle gave no support to the view of a government under God’s
authority—there was no authority to limit the power of government.) The post-Christian, postmodern, relativist iteration
of social Marxism growing in Western countries has sought to develop society
around the new, woke values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. These are, however, the basis for a
fragmentation of society, not its cohesion.
Diversity as a value rejects integration and assimilation. Equity highlights social differences so that
certain groups might be forced to cede social position while other groups are
promoted apart from merit. Inclusion is
more an ‘alliance’ among separate groups than a ‘friendship’ and formation of
families together pursuing a vision of the good life. Thus, Aristotle would have rejected this
outright.
If Aristotle is
correct, the social experiment of the West, including its open borders,
globalism, and multiculturalism, is an experiment that will fail and fail
miserably. He called for a constitution
that called for social conformity instead of private citizenship in order to
establish unity around shared values and virtues. This included the necessity of public
education, and just here we see the difference between his view and
Christianity. He argued that
... inasmuch as the end for the whole state is one, it is manifest
that education also must necessarily be one and the same for all and that the
superintendence of this must be public, and not on private lines, in the way in
which at present each man superintends the education of his own children,
teaching them privately, and whatever special branch of knowledge he thinks
fit. But matters of public interest ought to be under public supervision; at
the same time we ought not to think that any of the citizens belongs to
himself, but that all belong to the state, for each is a part of the state, and
it is natural for the superintendence of the several parts to have regard to
the superintendence of the whole. And one might praise the Spartans in respect
of this, for they pay the greatest attention to the training of their children,
and conduct it on a public system (Politics 8.1337a).
Socialist
governments (whether left wing or right wing) also reject private citizenship,
insist of social conformity in accordance with state values, require a strong,
big, central government, and see the need to control education such that
children are formed according to the state’s values. We have even seen attempts by some educators
to claim authority above the parents, such as in hiding and assisting gender-confused
children in their constructed identities.
The difference between Aristotle and socialist governments today is that
he advocated a unicultural socialist state, such as Sparta, whereas the West’s
socialist’s governments advocate a multicultural socialist state while
enforcing a unicultural morality opposed to traditional ethics. Both views end up with an oppressive
government system that is inimical to Christianity and the Church since
Christians are a minority group that holds to its own values and virtues and
wants freedom to witness and to live distinctly.
A case in point
in the UK today is the government’s attack on Christian teaching that persons
with sexual orientations opposed to Scripture can, with God’s help, change (‘convert’). Instead, state-sponsored sex education
requires consistency in the schools around the diversity value that supports
gender theory. Aristotle would have
agreed with the state’s teaching of values to children in a public school
system, but he would have rejected the new notion of multiple genders. Today’s socialist experiment affirms a
multi-cultural society, Aristotle called for the acceptance of immigrants only
if they assimilated into the city-state’s culture and affirmed their common
values. The issues of immigration are
several, including the economic consequences of fewer jobs for the poorer class
and the fomentation of discord rather than unity.
Aristotle had no
Christian perspective, of course, but his analysis of the state and its
cohesion applies to the current social changes.
The experiment is set to end in miserable failure just as the French
version of revolution did. The United
Kingdom has already so rejected its social values as a ‘Christian nation’ that
even its Conservative Party opposes Christian values (most notably in its teaching
of gender theory in schools, promotion of homosexuality and transgenderism,
support for abortion, and failure to address multiculturalism and
immigration—all through a more powerful state government). It has, therefore, failed to articulate clear
differences in values from the Labour Party.
As the Conservative Party, now out of power, gave up Christian and/or
traditional British values, all it had to offer in the elections was its
miserable, past performance. It was
easily voted out of office. Conservatives
have long lost their moral vision of British values for social cohesion and
support from the people.
The 2024
election in the United States offered a clear choice between older values and the
new, woke values even as the country itself has edged bit by bit away from any
Christian values—even quasi-Christian, Deist values. (A number of America’s Founding Fathers were
Deists, not Christians.) The
Republicans, however, do hold to certain conservative, at times Christian
values in a way that neither the Democrats nor the UK’s Conservative and Labour
Parties do. Whatever one makes of these
values, the larger point presented here is the idea of Aristotle that social
cohesion is best formed by a society holding common values and vision of the
good life. The socialist state, the
state held together as a coalition of populist identity groups with their own
interests, the state operating by means of politics even over against laws and
the constitution, this state is the main challenge to what Western civilization
built up over centuries in the way of social cohesion defined in terms of
values. By holding to such values,
Western civilization could stand against its own internal forces that have challenged these values, such as slavery,
imperialism, communism, and national socialism, or values in personal ethics. Traditional values are so eroded now that the
present and future challenges to Western civilization may well introduce an
entirely different era, one held together more by political force or by
economic advantage (e.g., politicians friendly to China for economic gain) than
by values—certainly not by traditional values.
The great
threats that atheistic communism and nationalist socialism presented in the 20th
century were defeated by what Western civilization was. Now, Western civilization is regarded as a
thing to be deconstructed by elites and urban populists, its values dissected
and discarded as deplorable. What
mechanism for social cohesion is left other than a powerful, deep state
government, the urban populism under elite rule? The two great challenges that North America
and Europe face are the formation of social cohesion apart from a common vision
of the good life and an intentional rejection of specifically Christian values.
Moreover, the
new values of diversity, equity, and inclusion are middle values, not end-goal
values. They do not answer the question,
‘diversity, equity, and inclusion in what regard?’ or the question, ‘to what
purpose?’ Consequently, they fail to
define the civil values of a state’s identity.
They do not produce intellectual or moral virtues. They fail to establish friendship on the
grounds of mutual agreement about character and purpose, and they fail to
provide a vision for the good life itself.
Thus, they are values that fail to perpetrate society, as valuing
marriage and children do.
The end-goal
values that have evolved in Western society are things like turning abortion,
the killing of the unborn, into a cherished value (‘women’s health’ or ‘women’s
rights’), turning freedom into sexual promiscuity, turning marriage into high
divorce rates and same sex unions, and cohabitation, and turning equality into
gender ideology (which undermines the replenishment of society) and immigration
without integration. Society staggers
under such anti-social values, as is evidenced by the negative birth rates and
suicide rates. Unable to defend its
moral vision or define its own values, it can offer no reason for its own
version of ‘civilisation’ among other societies in the world. It loathes its history, seeing its former
values as oppressive and arrogant amidst other social constructions, which must
all be affirmed as equally valid.
Europe’s
socialism, developed out of France’s chief value of equality, has produced a
less individualistic society than America’s society valuing freedom of
individuals. In a post-Christian context,
the former produces a state that opposes Christian liberty: the conscience
exercising prayer near an abortion clinic or stating on social media that
marriage is only between a male and female or that children are best raised in
such a marriage, the evangelism of a street preacher, and so forth. America’s value of freedom, however, finds it
difficult to restrict freedom that is anti-social and anti-Christian. The role of the Christian in such societies
is not to endorse government but to speak prophetically to it.
Conclusion
Where does this
leave Christians? Christians exist as an
alternative, prophetic society to the state and to society in general. They affirm the goodness of governance
without endorsing some particular government (Romans 13.1-7). They are, by God’s grace, in but not of the
world (John 17.15).
They model the
Kingdom of God to societies and nations.
They also pursue different goals from the state. While affirming a common interest in justice,
their goal is to proclaim the Gospel to all nations. They can, for example, affirm borders to
protect society from various injustices, but the Church is itself
universal. They can appreciate a nation’s
wielding of the sword toward just ends, yet Christians are physicians of souls,
treating enemies with the medicine of Christ.
Christians also
believe in the power of prayer. We
should pray for three things: (1) leaders in government who govern so that
Christians might ‘lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every
way’ (1 Timothy 2.1-2; 6.13-14). We
should pray for (2) a freedom to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ that
all might be offered salvation and a knowledge of the truth (2.3-7). And we should pray for (3) the coming of the
Kingdom of God and the return of our Lord (Matthew 6.10//Luke 11.2; 1
Corinthians 16.22; 1 Timothy 6.14-16).
Western states are increasingly opposed to allowing the first of
these. Non-Western states outside Africa
are opposed to the first and second.
None are even thinking about the third, but Christians anticipate the
return of Jesus Christ to establish on earth the Kingdom of God that is in
heaven.
[1] ‘Midway Through the Ultimate Election Year: How the World Has Voted So
Far,’ Time; https://time.com/6991526/world-elections-results-2024/ (accessed 11 August, 2024).
[2] Cf. Ted McAllister, ‘Thus Always to Bad Elites,’ The American Mind (16 March, 2021); https://americanmind.org/salvo/thus-always-to-bad-elites/
(accessed 12 August, 2024).
[3] Ibid.
[4] André Munro, ‘Populism,’ Britannica
(29 May, 2024); https://www.britannica.com/topic/populism
(accessed 3 June, 2024).
[5] Victor Davis Hanson, ‘Dualing Populism,’ (Hoover Institution;
Stanford University, 2024); pp. 1-2.
[6] Ibid., p. 2.
[7] Slave labour was more reliable because the poor could be pulled off
the land to serve in the army.
[8] Ibid., p. 3.
[9] Ibid., p. 7.
[10] Ben Jakobs, ‘Hillary Clinton regrets “basket of deplorables” remark
as Trump attacks,’ The Guardian (11
September, 2016); https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/10/hillary-clinton-basket-of-deplorables-donald-trump
(accessed 3 June, 2024).
[11] Ed Pilkington, ‘Obama angers Midwest voters with guns and religion
remark,’ The Guardian (14 April,
2008); https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/apr/14/barackobama.uselections2008
(accessed 3 June, 2024).
[12] Aristotle, Aristotle in 23
Volumes, Vol. 21, trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1944).
Comments