One of the notable and fateful incidents of ancient Israel occurred when in the 1000s BC (recounted in 1 Samuel 8) the people of Israel thought that a change in constitutional government would solve their difficulties with other nations and their weakness as a state. It is common in times of great disunity and anarchy for there to be a great longing for a powerful leader to come and save a family, a church, or a nation from itself. At the time that ancient Israel asked for a king, so that they could be like all the other nations around them, they had been governed rather loosely under a system of judges whose tasks it was to model God’s ways, enforce and teach those ways, and to defend Israel from its enemies through ad hoc tribal levies made of civilian militiamen as well as the periodic demonstration of God’s miraculous power.

It ought to have been obvious to Israel, although it was not, that it was the strength and power of the Lord of Hosts and not Israel’s own military capacity that gave them victories against their enemies. Similarly, it ought to have been obvious that the curses of agricultural, economic, and military defeat suffered by Israel, and their domination by others, was a sign of their moral failings and their refusal to keep their end of the covenant that they had made with the Eternal. Instead of examining themselves and seeing their own failings, the people of Israel pinned the blame on Samuel’s sons, and demanded a king so that they could have the same sort of governing structure and constitution as all the nations around them. Instead of being consciously different than the nations around them, to serve as an example of God’s ways and therefore as an influence of godliness on their neighbors, Israel wanted to follow those neighbors, seeing in the centralized power of their kings a strength and power that they lacked for themselves.

It is easy for us, more than 3000 years later, to mock the Israelites for their desire to find salvation through a strong leader. It would be unfair to do so, however, unless we are willing to reflect that we are not so different from them despite all those years of history to learn and understand how futile such a desire is. If it was foolish (and it was) for Israel to expect salvation from their national troubles simply by making a stronger central government, it is equally foolish for us to expect the same thing for ourselves. It was, after all, the lack of virtue among the various state governments that made the Articles of Confederation such a failure in the United States, exhibited by their lack of common concern for others apart from a common national government powerful enough to protect its own revenues. Some confederations, like that of the Swiss, have endured because despite linguistic differences, there is a powerful sense of common action and common identity among the Swiss people that does not require the same level of central government as that possessed by other nations. This is not to say that the Swiss are perfect, for they have their own flaws, but rather to say that a powerful central government all too often exists because of weakness rather than being a sign of strength. In a strong body politic, where each part is acting according to its functions for the benefit of the whole, the level of central domination does not need to be all that great for life to carry on well.

More to the point, even those who consider themselves deeply religious often have the same misguided longing for powerful central government as if that would coerce others into obedience. This belief, though sincere and widespread, is also woefully misguided. It has always been the desire of our Heavenly Father to woo his children into obedience, and always been His wish for us to feel loved and secure in our relationship with Him. All of His blessings, and even the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior, were meant to provide a dramatic demonstration of His love and mercy towards us, even though we are completely unworthy and undeserving of such mercy and kindness ourselves. The righteous judgment of God upon the moral failings of people, institutions, and nations is not a sign of His power, but rather of our failures to respond to love with repentance. It is also a sign of the limitations of reason and persuasion in the face of stubborn resistance to His ways. The Eternal does not wish to rule with a rod of iron, but sometimes no other option exists. That it exists means that it can at times be the way in which God must deal with a rebellious people, but that it is not ideal means that a powerful and mighty and domineering central authority is not the way things ought to be.

Those who know me well, and know the purpose and origin of this blog, know that I come from a religious tradition that is very deeply divided. The reasons for this are legion, and are complicated, but within my lifetime what once had a semblance of unity has become clearly broken and shattered to an immense degree. In light of this particularly chaotic and anarchic state, there exists in many a longing for a powerful central authority to reunite these pieces under a domineering central control that would be able to crush the freedom of thought and action that exists. Such action and such power is supposed to represent the ideal and perfect government of God Himself, even if it is obvious to even a superficial reader of the Bible that such a government is the way of the heathen rather than the way of God. To claim that such a government is necessary to govern us amounts to an admission that we are just like the heathen and lack any kind of godly virtue or self-government and self-discipline ourselves.

The purposes of godly government are not to dominate and control other people. Rather, godly government is conceived in terms of serving and shepherding. A leader must guide his (or her) people through example, and ought to have demonstrated a concern for the well-being of the governed so that it is possible to reason and persuade with gentleness and kindness and mildness. This face of tenderness and affection towards the governed ought to be matched by an equally notable face of protectiveness to the outside, a fierceness against all who might threaten and attack those whom are beloved. Our kindness ought not to ever be mistaken for weakness. A shepherd is mild and loving and tender with his sheep, as helpless and ignorant as those sheep might be, but is fierce towards predators who would take advantage of the sheep for their own selfish purposes. We also ought to honor our commitments and covenants to men (and women) given the sincerity of our commitment to our covenants with the Eternal, and also ought to behave in our dealings towards others with equity and justice, as well as compassion and understanding.

It is ultimately not the form, but rather the content [1] of our regimes that is the most important for ourselves or to God. It is not wicked to have a king, or a president, or any other kind of executive leader. Nor is it a virtue. It is neither wicked nor righteous in itself to be governed by judges or a council of elders or democratically elected representatives, nor even to participate in direct democracy with the suffrage of every man, woman, and child among us. The forms by which we are governed are merely that, forms, which ought to reflect our own historical experiences, our culture, as well as our personality as a people. When those forms no longer represent the sort of people that we are, they ought to be changed. Let us not, however, confuse that change with progress, as it most often represents regress, given the sort of virtue and responsibility and self-restraint that was assumed in the past can no longer be assumed with us. It is a sign of failure, rather than success, that we appear to require more complexity and more detail in our governing laws, as it means that we no longer are willing or able to read a simpler and more straightforward text and to apply it with the spirit of its laws, but must have everything spelled out because we would otherwise manipulate every ambiguity for our own selfish and corrupt aims. That fault is our own, and if we are just people, we must own up to our failings to govern ourselves such that we would need external restraint to save us from the consequences of our own wickedness and folly, for that is the truth of the matter.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/two-approaches-to-authority/