On government and the direction of society

I found an interesting blog post about a pastor’s experience with Jim Wallis. For those who are not familiar with Jim Wallis, he is author of the book God’s Politics and a contributor to the Sojourner’s website, a website that, like Wallis, focuses on “social justice” issues from a Christian perspective. Greg Boyd, the pastor who met with Wallis, had this to say

My conviction is that our target should rather be to motivate Christians to engage social justice issues in unique Kingdom ways, without relying on the help of government or politics. Jesus was all about transforming society, but never by political means. As much as people tried, Jesus never let himself get drawn into the political issues of his day. I believe we should do the same. While I’m of course not opposed to Christians voting and participating in politics however they feel led, the particular way a person does this isn’t part of their uniquely Kingdom identity. Of course Christians should vote their “faith and values” – and Jim encourages people to “vote all their values “ (in contrast to the Religious Right which he believes overly focuses on the pro-life and marriage amendment issues–at the expense of social justice issues). But what is uniquely Kingdom about this? Doesn’t everyone try to vote all his or her values? Does anyone intentionally try to vote against any of his or her values? (By the way, I strongly suspect these sorts of slogans arise because one group of people can’t believe that another group could share their faith and values and yet vote different then they do. So it looks to them like the other group isn’t really voting their “faith and values.”)

In any event, our uniqueness as followers of Jesus isn’t in how we vote; it’s in how we live, how we love, how we’re willing to sacrifice our time and resources for others. Following Jesus doesn’t give us any privileged wisdom on how to fix and run society by political means, but it should give us a greater willingness to transform society by Jesus-looking means – that is, through the power of self-sacrificial love.

In other words, a Christian society should start with ourselves. If we want a society that is moral and regards the sanctity of marriage, we should first look at our own lives, see if we have any sexual impurity in our lives, and we should look at how we regard our own marriage. If we want a society that regards the poor and needy, we should look at our own efforts to look at the poor and needy. As someone who is limited government, this post resonated with me. However, one does not need to be limited government to appreciate the idea that we should not rely on government to produce the type of society that we want. That does not mean we cannot vote our values, or that we must support limited government, it just means government should not be our first resort in producing the type of society we believe the Bible supports.

This post especially resonated with me today. As anyone who reads this blog knows, the Democrats believe in many things I disagree with. Any any time an election does not go our way, we feel, or at least I do, some degree of frustration because we have less control. Society appears to go a way different than our ideal one, and we wish we could do something to change it. However, as Boyd’s post points out, somewhat indirectly, is that the way an election turns out does not dictate God’s kingdom. Just because a party is in power that holds values contrary to our beliefs does not mean we cannot still act out those beliefs within ourselves and within society. Government is only one facet of society. And I say this to people of any party. It may not apply to the Democrats now, but it did 2 years ago and may 2 years from now. Just because the government at the time does not promote certain values, does not mean those values cannot become important in society by other means. All of us must make sure our vision of society is in line with God’s, and we must ask ourselves what we are doing as individuals to ensure that happens. To what level government should be involved is another question. But we do know for sure that as individuals, we need to live out God’s vision for our lives and society.

The point is not to discuss how horrible I think society with the Democrats gaining some power. The point is, that for myself, I see a party I disagree with gaining power, and when that happens, I fear society go in a direction with which I disagree. However, I am working on realizing that God has ultimate control over our lives and society, not election results.

Good News for Lovers of Limited Government

I am not the least bit happy about the events today, but Cato Scholars assert that divided government is better for the economy and for the size of government (which I would say are inversely proportional). Scholar Niskanen asserts:

Let’s look at some statistics. From the dawn of the Cold War until today, we’ve had only two periods of what could be called fiscal restraint: The last six years of the Eisenhower administration, and the last six years of the Clinton administration, both intervals in which the opposition controlled Congress. Under Clinton, the average annual increase in spending was at about 1 percent, while, under Ike, it was negative. By contrast, our unified governments have gone on fiscal benders. Harry Truman, with the help of a Democratic Congress, sent the money flying, with spending increases of as high as 10 percent a year. Lyndon Johnson was almost as profligate. And today, unfortunately, George W. Bush, with a GOP majority, is the heir to their legacies. To put this in plain numbers, government spending has increased an average of only 1.73 percent annually during periods of divided government. This number more than triples, to 5.26 percent, for periods of unified government. That’s a hefty premium to pay for a bit of unity.

Power attained only leads to the desire for more power, whether it is Republicans or Democrats. I wouldn’t even trust the size of government under control of the Libertarians. Some people think increased spending and government intrusion in our lives is a good thing (and yes, they do go together). I don’t. So, a Democratic Congress may not be too bad as long as a Republican gets elected in 2008.