Luke's First Attempt at Political Ramblings

When writing this post, I had created an outline of what I wanted to say, but as I wrote, I kept getting distracted and going down rabbit trails until I finally ended up with the disjointed ramblings below which are nothing like the outline I started out with. The subject is even different. I am not sure that all of it is understandable or even if I portrayed my opinions correctly. If there is something here that doesn't make sense or that just seems plain wrong, feel free to comment about it and I will tell you if what you think I am thinking is actually what I am thinking.

As we march steadily towards this coming election, it seems to be increasingly clear that our nation is sinking into socialism. What makes it worse is that nobody seems to care, in fact, the Republican Party which is supposed to be the conservative party now seems to be in a race to pick up the most liberal voters, not by showing the voters the wonders of conservatism (which the Republicans seem to have forgotten), but rather by becoming more liberal. Many seem to regard this as an advancement in our society. Of course the question then arises, “Advancing towards what?” to which the liberal's inevitable answer is, “Towards a more just society.” This then, of course, gives rise to another question: “How does liberalism increase the amount of social justice?” Generally the answer given by liberals is, “more government programs and restrictions” or to be succinct, “socialism.” The reason for why is usually something along the lines of government being the only institution powerful enough to do what is needed. I have heard this argument used for government subsidization of wind farms. The argument was that such a thing would be completely unfeasible for private enterprise and so the government must help so that the world might be saved from the corruption of coal. There seem to be several holes in this argument though.
First of all, government should not even have such power in the first place. It is a sad sorry fact of our lives that government has ceased to be the small, tidy constitutional republic that it once was and has now become a huge democratic bureaucracy. Secondly, and this is probably the reason for government growth, is the sad sorry fact that people have placed their faith in government to save them, not from the wrath of God, but from guilt and want. Quite often, it seems that the new western religion is modern humanistic pseudoscience with its ironically technicistic and yet postmodern gospel. To add to this, there seems to be no separation between this “church” and the state. Government supposedly operates by these “scientific” social principles and is therefor the almighty savior from whatever bothers you. Similar parallels can be seen in the deification of the Caesars and the old divine right of kings ideas. While it is true that our government officials are given to us by God and that we should obey their mandates in all that is right, government is not there to be either our savior or the intercessor between God and man, particularly a false god. Our faith must not be in the government or chariots and horses, but in God. (I believe the blame for this can at leased partly be placed on the American church, but that is a discussion for another time.) So how then is social justice to be metered out if not by the government. Well, first of all, I do not agree with the whole idea of social justice as many in our society view it today. Christian social justice advocates hold to the idea that since man (or human kind as they would say) is created in the image of God, he deserves to be treated as well as possible. I disagree with this statement. The sad sorry fact of the matter is that that image has been fractured and we are all of our own deserving of the worst that could happen. It is only due to the grace of God that we are not all sitting in hell right now and that some of us never will. “So Luke,” you say, “are we to just go around treating people as poorly as we can?” The obvious answer is, “No.” Why? Out of respect for the image of God is why. “But Luke, I thought you said that they don't deserve it?” The fact is that while human beings do not deserve good, we are to do good to them out of respect for God's image. It is not the receiving of the good but the doing of the good that is commanded; not the being respected, but the respecting. It is an individual responsibility and by giving it to the government, the responsibility of the people is being taken away. And as a result, so is the respect for God's image. I have many other objections to the liberal concept of social justice such as the way that government endowment of positive freedoms diminishes the negative freedoms and enslaves and the extensive biblical argument for conservative government, but that will have to wait for another time when I have more space to talk about it and about how Acts 2 is misrepresented by my communist friends. A third reason why socialism is creeping into our society is that people are becoming lazy. In the modern world, people do not want the responsibilities of doing right and it is easier if government takes care of everything. The people just want to sit back and collect their handouts. This combined with the issue of electability in candidates creates an increasingly lazy populace and an ever more controlling government.
It seems a sad fact that the American people do not want the responsibilities associated with freedom and liberty. The affects of this go way beyond government slipping into socialism. This spirit of selfishness seems to have come from a lack of education and even more so from the decline of Christian institutions in America. While our nation may have been built on Christian principles, it seems that the majority of Americans are not Christian anymore. Even in many Churches, the Gospel is not preached anymore. It has been replaced by “self help” sermons and God has been portrayed as a helpless, all loving spirit who, “loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” instead of the omnipotent being Who created all for His own glory. This seems to be the main cause for our decline. It is something that the mere teaching of good morals and ethics will not cure. After all, if I exist for me, then why should I worry about how I treat others just so long as there are no consequence. The only way to keep our nation from slipping eventually into a lasting decline is to change the hearts and minds of the people with the light of the Gospel, something which only God can do, and which is actualized by the preaching of the Scriptures and prayer. Any other action will only delay the inevitable.