Small Gods and Big Governments
"Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the the government our god." - Not Psalm 20:7
Last year, there was a big hooplah made about repealing the First Amendment. "It's 2017! Time to make offensive speech illegal!" Today, we've moved on to repealing the Second Amendment. "Who needs guns? We're protected by a militarized police force that kills minorities and is run by a tyrannical dictator that looks like a Cheeto."
The joke going around is that civil rights activists used to march to obtain rights, now they march to give rights away.
Now, I don't really want to provide a commentary on the Second Amendment. I've done that already. What I want do today is give a little commentary on why we, as a culture, are so jonesing to give rights like the Second Amendment away.
It's not just a political issue. It's deeply theological.
You see, we live in a secular bubble. And in our secular bubble, we section off religion into it's own little category. What we fail to see is that secularism is its own religion.
Man cannot live without God. So when we try, what we end up with is not a life without God, but a life with other gods.
The government is one such god.
If you look across history, you'll find that as God decreases, government increases. This is not a coincidence. It's an inevitability. We can choose our god, but we cannot live a truly godless life.
Rendering ourselves unto God is ingrained into our very being. We want to give ourselves to Him. We want to put our faith, hope, and trust in Him. It's an act of worship. It's what we were created for, and thus it's what we do.
And so, it's no surprise that when we make the state into our god, we treat it as such. We praise it with taxes such as we praise God with tithes. We surrender ourselves to our lord, just as the Bible calls us to surrender ourselves to our Lord.
It's not that government is bad. It's that we've put it in a seat too big for its $21,051,700,208,427 debt butt.
And the tell is pretty easy.
Ask yourself this: Which should have a bigger impact in my day-to-day life, God or the government? When I make a purchase, should my mind go to what God thinks of the purchase or what the total will be after tax? If I'm struggling to put food on the table, should my first thought go to how the state will put it there or how God will put it there? When I break the speed limit, should my concern be that I'm transgressing God's law and it hinders my relationship with him or that I'm transgressing the law of the land and might get a ticket?
The founding fathers created our country with minimal state governance because they knew that a society that valued God had little need for it. The further we slide away from Him, the bigger we have to build the government, the god we're making our image.
"But my government shall provide all your needs according to its riches in taxes." - Not Philippians 4:19