Who Rules?

Christ Pantocrator, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, photo by Andrew Shiva

I think the Declaration of Independence represented an advance for all mankind, and I think that the Gettysburg Address put a right focus on those words: "All men are created equal." Those words are true in a metaphysical sense, that is, all human beings are equally human beings, or one human being is not more human than any other, or some humans are not less than human. No one can truthfully claim that any human being is subhuman or superhuman. Once we step below the metaphysical, inequalities are everywhere. Morally, some people are inhuman and some people are fully human in living their lives as they are meant to. Some are short; some are tall. Some are smart; some are stupid. Some have more talents than others (indeed, recall the parables of Jesus about the talents).

Then there is the spiritual battle beginning with Original Sin. We're at war with evil. But as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn noted, the battlelines of good and evil cross through every human heart. It seems to me that this is why Jesus in the parable of the wheat and the tares (or weeds) had the harvest workers wait until the harvest (meaning the time of Judgment) before separating the wheat from the tares (see Mt 13:24-30). Evil will be with us until the Judgment. Repentance or succumbing to evil are the choices ever before us. This means that all men will stumble into sin; this means governments and cultures will fall. Furthermore, there is no perfect government, and utopia is impossible for as long as men's hearts remain impure. At best, we can design governments to account for human fallness, but there is no guarantee that any government won't fail. It's always "a republic, if you can keep it."

And so governments are set up to keep order and peace. And the better governments will strive for justice (but perfect justice in this world before the Judgment will never prevail). And while with the help of technology, modern governments will increasingly look to police minds and hearts, such efforts will always be totalitarian and inhumane. Liberty will only be found when individuals police their own minds and hearts. "The truth will set you free" (from Jn 8:31-32, Jesus then said to those Jews who believed in him, "If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free").

And the truth is key. Rod Dreher's latest book is titled, Live Not by Lies. I've not read the book, but what I've read from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Václav Havel about life under tyranny, its broad thesis is not hard to discern. We cannot accept the lie. Jordan Peterson passionately expressed this regarding the use of pronouns for transgender and the like, "If they fine me, I won’t pay it. If they put me in jail, I’ll go on a hunger strike. I’m not doing this. And that’s that. I’m not using the words that other people require me to use." But there is something deeper than mere thoughts and words. It's personal integrity, how one lives his or her life. After the Holy Spirit descends upon the Christian disciples, after Peter heals a cripple, the Jewish authorities told them that they must stop preaching about the Christ, to which they replied, "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29).

Jesus Christ is King. But he is not like other human rulers, he will not force himself into a human heart. Indeed, in the battle of good and evil within our hearts, we must invite Jesus into our hearts if we ever hope for the battle to be won by Goodness and Truth. We must pray and ask that God transform our hearts that it might be a suitable throne for the King; "A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh" (Ez 36:26).

CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
by Andrew
modified by adding text