Tag Archives: Democracy

The “Human” Problem

August 3, 2022 Tom Vander Well 3 Comments

But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us.Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”
1 Samuel 8:19-20 (NIV)

As a youth, I was always involved in student government. I served regularly from junior high and into my college years. There was a period of time in those years that I dreamed of running for elected office as an adult. A few years ago I ran into one of my high school classmates at a coffee shop. As we enjoyed a casual conversation and caught up on each other’s lives she asked me if I still thought about running for office. I told her that the desire left me a very long time ago. She graciously teased me about reconsidering. It was kind of her.

Along my life journey, I’ve come to the conclusion that the problem with any human government is the fact that humans are involved. It has been famously observed in history that power corrupts, and it is true. Even with all the checks and balances the founders of the United States placed in the Constitution to diminish the possibility, an objective glance at Washington D.C. reveals all kinds of waste, fraud, and abuse that result from corruption at all levels.

In today’s chapter, the Hebrew people come to Samuel, who was leading the tribes as a Judge, and demand that he appoint a king and establish a monarchy. This didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s been brewing for some time.

What I found fascinating in today’s chapter was the fact that what brought the issue of national governance to a head was the fact that Samuel’s own sons, whom Samuel had appointed as his successors, were corrupt, just as the sons of Eli had been corrupt in the time of Samuel’s childhood and youth. I don’t think it is a coincidence. It’s a pattern and a very human one, just as it is tempting to believe that another form of human government will be better than the one under which you’re living. But I cannot escape the “human problem” on this earth. I can discuss the relative merits and downsides of every form of human government that’s ever been tried in the history of civilization, but there are always downsides to every system of government because human beings are involved and no matter how much I want to believe that humans can be good and altruistic history has proven that at some point the one(s) in power take advantage of their power in the system to personally benefit.

This is what God tells Samuel to remind his fellow Hebrews. Having a king will bring certain benefits, but the monarchy is also going to have negative consequences that the people and their descendants will experience acutely. This is correct. The rest of 1 Samuel and the next five books in the Great Story (2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, and 2 Chronicles) are a testament to the truth of Samuel’s words.

As I ponder these things I am reminded of the Apostle Paul who was, himself, a citizen of Rome and took full advantage of the exclusive rights and benefits that came with it in his day. He also reminded Jesus’ followers in Philippi that they were citizens of God’s heavenly Kingdom. In that same vein, I consciously consider myself as having dual citizenship with the rights and responsibilities that come with both U.S. citizenship and citizenship in God’s eternal kingdom. One of those citizenships will end at some point while the other will not.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Just Like Yesterday

November 9, 2016 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

“What troubles you now,
that you have all gone up on the roofs….”
Isaiah 22:1 (NIV)

I have a very clear memory of an episode of Happy Days, the iconic sitcom about American life in the 1950’s. Ron Howard’s character, Richie, along with his friends go all-in campaigning for Adlai Stevenson. Richie even falls for a girl in the campaign office. At the end of the episode Richie comes home heartbroken when his new girlfriend says she can’t see him anymore because he’ll only remind her of Stevenson’s defeat. He returns home and his parents inform him that Eisenhower was declared the winner. It was one of my first lessons in the roller coaster of American politics.

I grew up in the angst of the Watergate scandal. I remember in high school and college the heated anger toward Reagan from the left and assurances that he would lead to America’s demise. I remember the same predictions on the right, and conservatives threatening to leave the country if Bill Clinton won. The same things are now being said on the left these days.

As a student of history I have learned that the political pendulum is constantly swinging back and forth. One of the amazing things about the way the American Founding Fathers designed our system was the opportunity we have every four years to go a different direction, and how often we do exactly that.

Isaiah’s prophetic word this morning was for a generation of people in Jerusalem who were experiencing political upheaval much greater and more dire than anything we are experiencing this morning. The siege of Jerusalem would end in mass death, starvation leading to cannibalism, and the enslavement and captivity of an entire generation of people (read Lamentations for Jeremiah’s poetic take on those terrible events).

As I wake in my hotel this morning my day is starting pretty much the way it did yesterday, the way it did when I started this job in the Clinton years, the way it did after 9-11, the way it did during the eight years of the Bush administration, and the way it did for eight years under President Obama.

America, in its relatively short history, has proven to be incredibly flexible and resilient. I don’t see that changing. Richie Cunningham may have suffered the defeat of Stevenson, but the election of JFK was just around the corner as America left the stodgy Eisenhower to embrace a new political generation. Happy Days ended long before it could tell that story, just as Isaiah’s prophecy would end long before he would witness the restoration of Jerusalem whose destruction he prophesied. No matter how you feel about the election results this morning, you can be assured that the story will continue.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to work. Just like yesterday.

Chapter-a-Day

Laying Down the Law

August 24, 2015 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

Furthermore, I [King Darius] decree that if anyone defies this edict, a beam is to be pulled from their house and they are to be impaled on it. And for this crime their house is to be made a pile of rubble.
Ezra 6:11 (NIV)

One of the things that I loved about college was that you got to explore, study, ruminate and argue about all sorts of questions of life. I remember one semester a classmate of mine and I had an ongoing discussion and argument as we worked together in food service at Judson College. The argument was over the best system of government. I started by arguing that a representative republic was best, and he argued that a socialist system was best. By the end of our argument we came to agree that we were both wrong. We agreed that if you had a good, true, intelligent and just person to lead [which, we conceded, you’d never consistently find in this fallen world], then the ideal form of Government was a monarchy.

I won’t belabor or editorialize on our debate. I will say, however, that one of the reasons we came to our conclusion was that a monarch does have the ability to lay down the law. A strong central leader can cut through red tape just like Darius did. Which is why I thought of it while reading today’s chapter.

When we left off, the Hebrew exiles had been harassed by their local neighbors and officials regarding the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. The Hebrews appealed to King Darius that their construction had been decreed by his predecessor. In today’s chapter, King Darius responds, firmly lays down the law, and settles the matter. Sure enough, the King’s scribes found the original decree and he allows the building of the temple to continue. Darius goes one step further and commands that the local officials who caused the ruckus, to their humiliation, assist in the rebuilding. If they don’t they’ll be impaled on a load bearing beam from their own home so that they die and their own house collapses. [Yikes!]

Today, I’m thinking about the fact that all human institutions are fundamentally flawed because humanity will always have to deal with this nagging seed of corruption that God’s message refers to as sin. In today’s example, the outcome was favorable for the Jewish people. History, however, is rife with examples of unfavorable outcomes for the Jewish people. This side of eternity we all must face joyful victories and disappointing defeats for our particular political and spiritual persuasions. Perhaps that’s why Jesus laid down the law in a very different way:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Isaiah 16

April 6, 2010 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

"A Ruler you can depend upon will head this government, A Ruler passionate for justice, a Ruler quick to set things right."Isaiah 16:5 (MSG)

While in college, I worked breakfast shift in the kitchen. My friend Claudius, who hailed from Zimbabwe, worked the same shift and we would clean together after breakfast. We talked as we cleaned and the discussion would often turn to politics. Claudius came from a very different experience in Africa and we would talk about the pros and cons of different systems of government. Democracy, Monarchy, and Socialist, we walked through them all in our after-breakfast scrub fests.

There was a lot on which Claudius and I did not agree, but as fellow believers we did come to agreement on a couple of key points. First, every system of human government is ultimately flawed because of our imperfections and sin. Because human beings are self-centered and given to lusts of the eyes, lusts of the flesh and pride, then the power of humans to govern is ultimately corrupted no matter what the system of governing might be. Therefore (and here is the second point on which we agreed), the perfect government is a loving, just, all-knowing, all-powerful, ever-present God sitting on the throne.

Compared to having God Himself on the throne, every other government is just shadows, smoke and mirrors.

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Flickr and blackplastic