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 opposing of people and movements to established governments and controlling
elites. Populism arises for various reasons. One is a people's
revolt against 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.
Revolutionary groups may choose to work apart from the machinery of government,
deeming it to be ineffective and even illegitimate. They take to the
streets in protest, civil disobedience, riots, and violence. The West has
seen an increase in rioting in recent years, sometimes fueled by a dissatisfied
citizenry and sometimes by dissatisfied migrants who have not assimilated into
the host culture. In both cases, we have seen riotous groups acting to
destroy Western culture.
So, populism may take its shape as an attempt of the masses to
rule apart from constitutional means or as an attempt of the masses to hold a
class of bureaucrats to the laws of the land which have not been properly
enforced 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 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
'Make America Great Again' populism has gained power. The over-bloated
government has become unwieldly and corrupt, but various other institutions,
including so-called ‘charities’, have managed to accumulate for themselves a
tremendous amount of money through dubitable and nefarious means.
Revelations of corruption continue to be reported—at least by the few media
outlets not themselves part of the corruption.
Corruption occurs when judges twist the laws for gain, officials
refuse to enforce the laws, or when they 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. Corruption extends to plans to
overthrow the constitution, reshape branches of government to favour a
particular party, and overthrow a culture by infiltrating the population with
illegal migrants who do not assimilate under the misguided notion that a
country is improved through multiculturalism.
These are some of the ways to manipulate the system of governance
for personal or political advantage. People may 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 the government by
revolution, the other group wants to use the government as it is to bring
reform.
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 (now
old-style Republicans) and his attack on the deep state serve as another
example of populism. South Africa’s Julius Malema, a racist, 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.
'Kill the Boer [white farmer]' rings out at mass meetings, including at the
those of the less (verbally) radical Africa National Congress (ANC).
Malema’s party members march into Parliament with red workers’ uniforms meant
to signal that they oppose the elite and establishment and do so as communists.
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, looking back to Greek and Roman times: 'urban populism' and
'rural populism'. Both forms in modern times have coalesced around calls
for freedom and equality. The French Revolution exemplifies urban
populism. It placed an emphasis on equality, which easily
translates into socialism. The American Revolution
exemplifies rural populism and emphasised freedom, which built on and
continued a vision for liberal democracy, championing the rights of the
individual.
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 overreaching, 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
'democracy', and yet the Democrat Party is now a socialist party seeking the
expansion of government control over the means of production and 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 (such as
Occupy Wall Street, Antifa, Black Lives Matter, Bernie Sanders’ socialist
movement, and the Communist Party USA) 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, even if, as perhaps often is the
case, they themselves are from an elite class (an established family and/or a
wealthy family). One often finds extremely wealthy leaders of socialist
movements claiming to represent the poor. 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.
Socialism aims to curtail or even eliminate private property and replace it
with collectivism. (This was true of the socialism of both the Nazi Party
and of communism, often considered opposites but both forms of socialism.)
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 one might better 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 have, 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 for long by the masses. By
funding and encouraging riotous crowds onto the streets, socialists 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
while claiming to be composed by the people. Those in control do whatever
they must to secure offices and exercise power, even if it means an alliance
with, of all things contrary to communism, Islamists. 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. This form of
populism is anything but altruistic while claiming to be compassionate.
Both forms of populism are self-seeking, though how this plays out is very
different as one is universalist and revolutionary, while the other is
nationalist and conservative.
In communism, some elite group, the ‘vanguard of the people’,
gains political power. The educated, urban elite despise the rural
population, which they believe must be educated and guided. 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,
‘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 party
elites, and both were interested in gaining political power by appealing to the
masses through reckless rhetoric and promises of 'change'. 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 and rid bloated
government from cronyism and corruption 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 point out 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 promoting
democracy. 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, professors, and politicians who
stoke social unrest among 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 equal
opportunities, calling this inequity 'social justice'), 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, instead of fostering meaningful
and adequate employment by encouraging entrepreneurship and economic growth
apart from the government. 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 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 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 (like
transgender ideology).
Christianity and Populism
There is no ‘Christian’ form of government. This is one of
the great distinctions 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, forms of
government, and the particular laws of a nation.
This could lead to an anti-government stance for the Church at
times, as when Peter says, 'We must obey God rather than men' (Acts
5.29). The New Testament authors were normally able to encourage
obedience to authorities, since laws often reflected what was right and
good. 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 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 for being
Christians, not for anything they did wrong. 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
even if it was not perfect. 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 of which Christians approve.
Paul has no expectation that there might be such a thing as a
‘Christian government’. Christian influence on government may be more or
less, but Christians--true followers of Christ--are never in the
majority. 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 notion arise under Emperor Constantine. However, government was
hardly the equal to God’s reign, as Ambrose and Augustine would insist in the 4th/5th
centuries. The notion of an established State Church 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 and restrictive 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-Ã -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 always support
government and its exercise of power precisely because governments regularly
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-Ã -vis the government and society when it lowers
itself to adopt the half measures of a semblance 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 own 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. Jesus Himself was crucified by a
populist uprising, stoked by the Jewish elite, calling for His crucifixion.
Even so, the Church’s concern for law and order should lead
Christians to find common cause with populist support of government on 'law and
order' issues like citizenship and borders, 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. This has nothing to do with a country's duty
to maintain borders and orderly immigration. It does not mean promotion
of multiculturalism as a social good. The Church's singular concern is
its devotion to the Triune God who calls all people to come under His
rule. Their universalism is based in the work of Jesus Christ, not in
human diversity. (Revelation 7.9-14 teaches the universal invitation to
salvation in Christ, not multi-culturalism.) They will oppose diversity
as a social value not because they want to protect some national identity or
culture as Christian (though they might for other reasons) but because they
relinquish diversity as a value in the Church 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 the city state financially or gain through commerce? 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 instead argues, is
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. It meant majority, even
mob rule. (This is why the American Founding Fathers wanted a democratic
republic with representation rule and checks and balances, as in the case of a
Senate for representational government and a House for democratic government
balancing one another; and they insisted on a Constitution that held democracy
in check as well.)
Thus, the essential basis for the formation of a good state,
Aristotle 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’ (Politics 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 marriages between them. Familial bonds and friendships
will, furthermore, lead to noble actions (Politics 3.1281a).
One might note that socialism typically opposes the family and parental
authority, favouring the state or, as is often the case first, teachers and
professors providing their own form of formation of the youth.
Aristotle is, in my view, likely the source for the surprising
claim in America's Declaration of Independence about the 'pursuit of
happiness'. It reads, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all
men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.' John Locke, whose philosophical ideas were foundational
for the Americans, had written that natural rights included life, liberty, and possessions:
‘The state of nature,' he wrote, 'has a law of nature to govern it, which
obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will
but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm
another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions’ (Second Treatise on
Government chapter II, section 6). He even said that 'government has
no other end than the preservation of property' (Second Treatise on
Government chapter 7, section 94, cf. sect. 124, etc.). That
claim may have come from Marcus Tullius Cicero, who said that government’s
purpose is to secure property rights (De Officiis 2.73). Why,
then, did the Declaration substitute 'pursuit of happiness'? In the
seventh book of Politics, Aristotle says that the best form of
constitution will be that which offers the most desirable form of life.
This, he says, has less to do with external goods and more to do with virtue
and wisdom (7.1323a-b). In his Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle sets
out the goal of life as happiness (eudaimonia), meaning well-being, and
virtues as the means by which one attains this. Happiness is meant in an
ethical sense, as here in Politics when speaking of the end for
government. Happiness is neither hedonism nor entertainment, or some such
value, but the virtuous life. Thomas Jefferson, the main author of
the Declaration, acknowledged that the sources of the Declaration included
Aristotle: 'All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the
day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the
elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, etc.' (Letter
to Henry Lee, May 8, 1825). If Aristotle is the source of Jefferson’s
emendation of Locke from 'property' to 'pursuit of happiness', he is following
Aristotle’s diminution of externals—property—and claiming that the end or
purpose of virtue is happiness. The constitution of a government must aim
to establish the natural rights of life, liberty, and virtues that aim at a
life of happiness (eudaimonia). Indeed, a government that
undermines virtue and allows, entices, or even requires people to pursue vices
does not aim at human well-being. The list of England's injustices
against her American colonies in the Declaration of Independence is a list of
actions hindering their moral well-being.
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 (broadly) 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, which in turn were formed mainly in Great Britain, Ireland, and Europe.
As already noted, in revolutionary France, however, 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 atheistic socialism
began. This Enlightenment state did not receive immigrants but expanded
aggressively in Europe under the 'enlightened' 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 nationalist
socialism. 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 increasingly witnessed the rise of 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 regarded 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. It is also held in contradiction to reality. Nor is
multiculturalism checked, as it was in the Roman Empire, with a strong regard
for citizenship. Thus, Islam is welcomed despite its treatment of women,
its expansionist, religio-political dominance of others, its violence and
aggression, its opposition to existing culture (a failure to integrate), and
too often a disregard for orderly and legal immigration, while Christians are
dragged into court and lose their jobs because of their Biblical and
traditional values.
Aristotle’s views on what constitutes a state are a warning to
these trends in the West. 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 their
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. His concern for social cohesion may
extend beyond what we would grant inasmuch as it curtails freedom and empowers
the state. 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).
Sparta's socialist values are anything but those of a liberal
democracy! 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. (Germany, for example, does not allow home schooling.) We
have even seen attempts by some educators (in California, e.g.) 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 governmental 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
as well as to proclaim the Gospel openly to others.
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 newly constructed, anti-natural notion of multiple genders.
Today’s socialist experiment affirms a multi-cultural society and multiple
genders. Aristotle called for the acceptance of immigrants only if they
assimilated into the city-state’s culture and affirmed their common
values. He even argued that the number of persons in a city-state should
be monitored so that it would neither exceed nor diminish beyond the
ideal. 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 opted for a strong government to enforce
these values.
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 at the end of the 18th century. 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). It has, therefore, failed to articulate clear
differences in governance from the Labour Party, which is why an alternative
populism has gained in recent years in the Reform Party. As the
Conservative Party, now out of power, gave up Christian and/or traditional
British values, all it had to offer in recent 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
and at times Christian values, in very clear distinction from the Democrats and
both the UK’s Conservative and Labour Parties.
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 a morally informed vision of the good life. The
socialist state, the state held together as a coalition of populist identity
groups with their own interests, operating by means of political power and
fiat, rejecting God's Law and natural law and the country's constitution, is
the main challenge to what Western civilization has built up over centuries.
There is no surprise in the increase in mobs rioting on the streets the more
the populism of identity politics and socialism are promoted.
Western civilization has been a slow process of evolution, but it
can be quickly destroyed. Indeed, one wonders if it has already passed
the point of no return in Western Europe. The questions must be asked of
any society not only what it represents at this moment but in which direction
it is headed and what internal forces it has to propel it one way or the
other. Western civilization developed internal forces that led
to the rejection of slavery and imperialism even though its history runs
through these institutions. It barely had the strength to overcome
communism and fascism this past century but is being tested once again by a
generation that has been deconstructing its history and institutions and no
longer professes Christian faith. 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 than by values—certainly not by traditional values--as
Aristotle proposed.
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 for what good?’
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. They despise
merit. They are values that fail to perpetrate society, as valuing
marriage and children do.
The new society in the post-Christian West does, however, have
end-goal values as well. These include 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, 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. 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. Even the word
'civilisation' has given way to 'culture'. 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 and law and order to protect society from
various injustices, but the Church is itself universal and wary of civil laws
that are not based on natural or Divine law. They can appreciate a
nation’s magistrates ruling toward just ends, yet Christians are physicians of souls,
treating enemies with the medicine of Christ. They do not cancel people
but call for repentance. They separate themselves by their devotion to
Christ and righteous lives, but they acknowledge their own sinfulness and hold
out the offer of salvation in Christ to all who repent and put their faith in
Him.
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 to establish justice on the earth (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, for which they
daily pray.
This is an edited version of my article published on 24 April, 2026 by the same title on this blog.
[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. McAllister’s point in
this article is that the current American elite is like that of Britain at the
time of the American Revolution. He says, ‘Like the British elite of the
late 18th century, America’s early 21st-century elite is imperial and has no
respect for liberty, inherited folkways, or cultural forms. Similarly, they
seek to centralize, control, and eventually obliterate (which is the real
meaning of transformation) all cultures and peoples who do not fit their vision
of the good. The problem with America today is the British problem that drove
the American Colonies out of the Empire.’ He argues that we always have a
need for an elite class, but the problem we now face is a mendacious,
self-serving elite that pretends it is on the side of what we might call the
urban populace merely to preserve their own power.
[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).
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