Conservatives…
and the State

Back on 02 March 2008, I posted on “Who are the Conservatives?” in light of the criticism of John McCain as not being conservative. I opined that being a conservative is not about conserving what or where we are now, but rather about reclaiming permanent things with “redeemed imagination”. The principle is that modernism, and now post- modernism, has corrupted the western culture’s view of what is important and those permanent things need to recaptured. But, that in itself is pretty unsatisfactory. How is this applied in looking at the world? We will try to answer that over the next few weeks with reference to certain specific topics.

We start with the state, not Pennsylvania, Ohio, etc. but the governing authorities whomever they may be. Geo. W. Bush is portrayed by the media and his political adversaries as a conservative. But, is he really when it comes to the state? On his watch, the federal government underwent unbelievable growth. He liked all kinds of spending bills and that extended the power of the state. So, too did the expansion of bureaucracy. TSA alone added thousands of individuals to the government payroll, and the increased emphasis on security has spread the tentacles of the state further into the lives of the citizen.

Most government spending is to enhance the state’s position in the lives of those living in the state. And, state authority and power is not the goal of the truly conservative. Read what Robert Nisbit says about state power:

The contemporary state with all its apparatus of bureaucracy, has become more powerful, more cohesive and is ordained with more power than at any time in history…the whole tendency of modern political development has been to enhance the role of the political state as a direct relationship among individuals, and to bring both its powers and its services even more intimately into the lives of individuals.

That was written in 1953! How much more appropriate today. The massive leviathan state of today with all its intrusions and influence in individual lives would make Nisbit wince.

Conservatives oppose the growth of state power. Why? Because it shifts allegiances away from home and community, local influences, to regional, state and federal influences. The power over individual lives becomes vested in the state, and in the US, especially the federal government. The live of the individual is more and more affected by power centers removed from him when state power grows. And, the larger the state grows; citizens take on more of an impersonal, numerical identity. You are more likely to be on a first name basis with your mayor or township supervisor than your governor, state or federal representatives or anyone in the Executive Branch of the federal government. At least you local leaders have a better chance of knowing who you are…that you have a name! The state rarely knows you so there is no personal touch or compassion in you relationship to the state as there are with family, neighborhood and community of place.

If you have ever had to deal with the bureaucracy of the state or federal government, you understand. Your issue better be one that has stock solutions. Square pegs find no answers in a bureaucracy of round holes. The state is not in the business of addressing your particular problem and it cannot tailor a specific solution not allowed by the operations manual of the bureaucrat. The idea that “I am from the government and I am here to help you” is indeed a joke. The state is not about individual problems; it is about government solutions.

That is to be expected when the seat of power and authority is far removed from where you live your daily life. The bureaucrat in Harrisburg or Washington is not concerned with you as a person and how your problem affects you. His mission is to field your question, open his little box of pat answers approved by the state and see if you fit the profile for “help” he is permitted to dispense. If you do not fit the profile, then you are passed off to another bureaucrat. The mass of red tape and paper work needed to address the simplest question is often mind boggling.

For the conservative, the role of the state is to maintain order so its people can live in peace and safety and punish wrongdoers while promoting good. A friend of mine used to say: The role of government is to deliver the mail, protect the borders and keep the highways open…and they do a lousy job at all of them!” With that many can concur. At what are they good? Taxing and spending comes to mind. Redistributing income so that incumbent politicians can hand out our money to those who are best suited to see that they are re-elected. The expansion of the power of the state permits the state to control more of our lives and keeps those who exercise that power to remain the entrenched political elite. We do not have a King George, we have KINGS George!

The expansion of state power is not a tenant of conservatism. Conservatives place a premium on the individual, his family, his local community and local associations as being most important in forming life and character and permitting an individual to flourish. What Burke called “the little platoons.” For the conservative, the power of the state is to be limited for a healthy society. There is little doubt that the power of the state over the lives of the people dramatically increased under Geo W. Bush’s stewardship of the USA.

As we approach the November election, it is pretty clear that neither major candidate is a “limiting state power” kind of guy. Neither is likely to capture the vision of my friend as to the role of government. The real question may be: Can the present political climate ever produce a conservative candidate who wants to recapture the idea of limited state power for the good of the country? That is, one who values family, community and place as the power centers of life over and above the influence of the state.

Living in the World/Tales from the ECD
China, Clearfield County and Rights

[As the Summer Olympics wind through the second week in China, I wanted to share an article I wrote that first appeared in SGM Magazine. It has a reference point when Chinese were in Clearfield County to examine how open pit mining was conducted in the US. It also involves a discussion of the changing attitude toward “economic rights” in China and the US. That is not to say one should prefer the PRC over the USA. It is obvious to all who have watched the run up to the Games that there is much wanting and a distance unmeasureable to go in the matter of “human rights” in China. Yet, we see the “times are a changing”’ with respect to “economic rights” both in China and the US.]

In November and December of 1978, Deng Xiaoping eased Communist party and State controls into his hands. Quite a feat for one who was twice exiled by Mao.Deng was an economic reformer. He believed that communism did not mean poverty. One of his greatest reforms was the Special Economic Zone [SEZ]. Much of the growth of China today is based on the SEZ and the partnership forged between free enterprise and the Communist Party. In 1984, Deng described the SEZ as:

a medium for introducing technology, management and knowledge…a window for our foreign policy…and to import foreign technology, obtain knowledge and learn management.

The success of Chinese economic reform can be seen by all in the big box stores in the USA. Many of the goods sold are marked “Made in China” which was unheard of ten year ago.

But, before the onslaught of Chinese consumer goods into the USA, Clearfield County came face to face with the economic reforms of the People’s Republic of China [PRC]. In the early 1980s, the PRC sent a delegation of mining engineers to the US to investigate mining technology.

Their first stop was Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, for good reason. According to Geologist C.H. Chance, as reported in The History of Clearfield County by Lewis Cass Aldrich published in 1887,Clearfield County is divided into three great coal basins separated by two anticlinal axes. The county sits on one of the largest deposits of bituminous coal in the Commonwealth. And, in the 1980s large amounts of coal were being mined by the surface mining method. The Chinese delegation wanted to investigate the types of machinery used in removing coal by the surface mining method.

During the one and one-half days they were in central Pennsylvania they crawled all over the bull dozers, rock trucks and loaders typical of surface mining. They took plenty of notes and pictures. The group consisted of 30 men…18 engineers, 4 interpreters and 8 “pilots”. The later were actually agents of the PRC accompanying the others to ensure the others returned to China at the completion of the three week visit.

At a banquet honoring the Chinese visit to Clearfield County, I sat with six of the visitors. When the conversation turned to what I did, I responded that I was a lawyer. The six looked at each other and after a long silence, one of the “pilots” responded. He spoke directly to me and said: “We do not need lawyers in our country. The government takes care of us.” Another period of silence ensued. I finally responded, “I see.” The conversation resumed without any reference to “rights talk”.

My how times have changed. Because of China’s burgeoning economy and international commerce, the PRC has developed a commercial legal system. This does not included a legal system protecting personal, property, civil or political rights of individuals. After all, it was the economic reformed Deng who turned the troops loose on the students in Tiananmen Square in 1989. But, even that is changing. A new brand of legal activists, trained in Chinese law schools, is pushing the envelope on public interest and human rights issues. In Chinese courts they have raised issues involving illegal land grabs, freedom of press and illegal taxation. Such actions, like Chinese goods in Walmart, were unheard of ten years ago.

The Communist Party is not yielding ground easily, however. Trudy Rubin reporting from Beijing, tells of Chen Guangcheng, a blind peasant lawyer, who tried to bring a class action suit challenging forced abortion and sterilization in Linyi. He was seized by the PRC and is being held in an undisclosed location. The Chinese media is forbidden to mention his case. Nevertheless, the New China with its presence on the world stage and the coming 2008 Summer Olympics, is clearly emboldening lawyers to push for peaceful internal political change through the courts.

Wang Xixin, associate dean of Peking University Law School has even created the China Center for Public Participation and Support. One of their key projects is to help farmers assert their legal rights to comment on draft legislation affecting them and challenge expropriation of their land by the government. All in all, strides are being made in a communist ruled country to free folks from the tyranny of the state involving the property rights of the people.

At the time of these encouraging changes, the USA seems to be moving in the other direction. While most conservatives were roiling about the two Ten Commandment cases in the last term of the US Supreme Court [USSC], Kelo v. City of New Haven, flew under their radar. In Kelo, the USSC approved an eminent domain taking by the City of New Haven, CN, not based on:

blight in the Fort Trumball area, but their determination that the area was sufficiently distressed to justify a program of economic rejuvenation..

The city used a state statute authorizing “eminent domain to promote economic development.” Kelo argued that economic development does not qualify as a “public use” under the explicit language of the 5th Amendment of the US Constitution. The USSC agreed with taking statute:

There is, moreover, no principled way of distinguishing economic development from other public purposes that we have recognized…Clearly, there is no basis for exempting economic development from our traditionally broad understanding of public purpose.

It appears that the PRC and USA are moving in two different directions. While we are a nation of laws not men, the US Constitution is being molded like a wax nose. As Justice Thomas points out in his dissent, the Constitution is being stretched to the breaking point in justifying economic development as “public use”:

Public utility, public interest, common benefit, general advantage or convenience…we are afloat without any certain principle to guide us.

The USSC has opened the door to any government action based on “general public economic good” to condemn private property. Isn’t that what the public interest lawyers in China are trying to curtail? Practices by a totalitarian regime are being adopted by the USSC. We are witnessing quite a role reversal. If you live in an economically depressed area, watch your perfectly fine home or your neighbor’s home may be condemned so a Wal-Mart can be erected to sell Chinese goods. After all, it will bring commerce and jobs to the area. Economic development is a constitutional public use.

God bless those brave Chinese who want to obtain and keep personal, political, property and human rights. God help us here in the USA and the Eastern Continental Divide as our courts continue to limit our rights as a constitutional principle. If you live in a state where a Kelo result is possible, call you state legislator. And if you live in a state where it is not, keep it that way!

Living in the World
Technology Famine

It is truly amazing how we see Olympic events from Beijing and other venues in China live. As we have commented many times, however, technology is not a zero sum game. It has taken a toll on individuals and cultures. Technopoly by the late Neil Postman is a great read from that standpoint. As you watch the Olympics and text you friends about the amazing competition, keep in mind this quote from Albert Borgmann from Power Failure: Christianity in the Culture of Technology:

Telephone and television are the technological devices that have weakened literacy and impoverished the culture of the word. Electronic machines have disburdened us of the demands of reading and writing. Once we had to impact our worlds through the work of writing or telling, and we had to gather our worlds laboriously from the promptings of writing and our fund of experiences and recollections. Now information is handed to us as readily available sights and sounds. Engagement with the world has been yielding to the consumption of news and entertainment commodities.

So, take a break from the events and write to your aunt [not e-mail, a hand written note] and read a good book. The written word written and read word will nourish you in an image sated world of entertainment.

Election 2008
Is Politics an Idol?

In Joshua 24: 14, 15, Joshua exhorts the Israelites to put away the idols their fathers served before they arrived in the promised land. He then utters that famous verse about whom to serve and he makes clear he will serve the Lord. The context is important. In verses 2 through 13 he recites the history of God’s covenant faithfulness to the Israelites. Therefore, it begs the question: Why would you not serve this God with the sincerity and faithfulness He has shown to you?

We all know the history of the Israelites. They were constantly unfaithful and they turned to idols for their worship. They did not always see the problem. After all, wasn’t the golden calf just a representation of our God? And, sometimes a compromise is warranted because of the people who live in and around you. A little synthesizing helps keep the peace. And isn’t keeping peace and harmony the goal?

In this Presidential election year, Joshua’s reminder should be taken seriously. If you are your house are serious about serving the Lord, it is time to cast off the idols and the gods they represent. They are sometimes hard to recognize because of the syntheses we all live with. We are, after all, modern folks and we have acquiesced to the way of life established by our forefathers. What are other gods that are substituted for or compromised with Jehovah in our day? How about the god of the Democrats…or Republicans? How about the god of civil religion? The god who recognizes all religions as true? The god of personal peace, the pursuit of happiness or personal prosperity? I am sure you can come up with many more…you own personal idols.

This is what makes the idol of politics so dangerous. We want our own little gods to be promoted through politics. We agree with the candidate(s) who will push our personal agenda(s). Maybe that is why professing Christians work so hard in the political process. But, you can work hard in preparing for disaster. Remember the words of our Lord in Matt 24:24-27? Both the wise and foolish man worked hard. In fact the foolish man could have worked two, three, you name the multiple, times harder than the wise man. The results were still the same. When you make bad choices hard work does not make them good choices. When the storms come, the good investment survives; the bad does not. The key is the foundation of the work…rock or sand.

Choose this day whom you will serve. And, in doing so put away the false idols and gods they represent. By all means vote, and campaign for the candidate of your choice if you are so desire. Some of you may be running for office. There is nothing wrong with that. It is whether you are building your future on the political process. Oh no you say. Examine yourself carefully…we all must…for the gods of this world are everywhere. Look closely at Jesus’ words again. “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them…” is the premise of His rock building statement. The wise man listens to the Word. Are you?

Living in the World
Edwards on Sin

No, not that Edwards…John Edwards former NC Senator and professional candidate. He says he made a “mistake.” Nothing is indicative of the “spirit of the age” like redefining behavior. Edwards admits sexual dalliance as a mistake, but what about the lying about it. What was that? Another mistake or what everyone does in a circumstance where they have been caught? It appears that his trip to the west coast to meet his paramour was to keep his behavior private. Certainly not the actions of one who wants to come clean in repentance to obtain forgiveness. And, how about a revelation of his “mistake” on a Friday night of the beginning of the Olympics, was that an attempt to bury the news? He says he has asked forgiveness from his wife and God. John Edwards professes to be a Christian. None of us has the right to question another Christian’s repentance. But, we can question how actions are characterized and the sincerity of the revelation of behavior. For me, I intend to continue to look to the other Edwards for interpretations of sin and repentance.

Election 2008
The Political Christian

Christians are strangers in a strange land. Not, however, in the world of politics. We see Jim Dobson on television telling the world why he can or cannot vote for a particular candidate. The Evangelical vote is commented on, courted and analyzed by political pundits virtually every day. Liberal Christians [whatever that is?] are also a part of the current campaign probably because of Obama’s tie to the UCC. The press can only be concerned about these things because Christians have made politics a concern to themselves. Would it not be nice if Christians were known for the practice of their faith in word and deed that for their political involvement?

May involvement in politics be the Slough of Despond of the modern day believer on the way to the Celestial City? Is political activity distracting us from our real mission and making us more comfortable here in the world than we should be? Is this too other worldly? Yes, we are to reform the culture but is that to be through the political process? Should not our efforts be more firmly entrenched in making the church reflect the Biblical mandates of the church? The reformation of the culture comes through the reformation of lives which is the work of the Gospel. The church is the expression of Christ in this world until He returns. It is where the “already” is expressed. It is the supernatural institution created by Him for His worship and His work. Like Jesus, we change the world one life at a time.

Is it just coincidence that the church has seemingly deteriorated as the Christian has taken on a greater role in politics? As we have taken more interest in who is our President than who are the bishops, we find bishops who are not in line with Biblical standards. Look around carefully. See how much worship has changed; how less people read Scripture and Scripture is exposited in a corporate worship service; the renewed attacks on justification by faith; the boldness of the new atheists; the general worldliness of churches in how they operate; and the lack of holiness and virtuous living among church attenders; all since politics became important to Christians.

The politicization of what passes as evangelical Christianity today is not the sole cause of the church’s malaise today. But, one must acknowledge that the zeal for things political by believers has diverted their time, energy and treasure from the work of Christ’s Church. Every Christian knows Christ said “seek ye first the Kingdom of God”. Yet, we seem to look “first” to things of this world for the solution to what we believe are the world’s ills. We know better…sin is the ill of the world. And, for sin there is only one solution. And, that solution is not found in the state house or the White House.

Ask your Christian friends who are headlong into politics how their hard work to have someone elected their civil magistrate fits with St. Peter’s identification of Christians as aliens and sojourners in this world. Cultures that are Christian are not founded upon politics but upon the preaching, teaching and living out of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ through His embassy in this foreign country…the Church. This is not our home and we should be working more diligently for the homeland than for a land that belongs not to us and is passing away.

Election 2008
Christian as an Adjective

Both Presidential candidates profess to be Christians. This points out the problem with the adjective “Christian.” What exactly does it mean in the realm of politics? Can a politician be a Christian politician if he wants to raise taxes to a confiscatory level? Or, how about one who believes global warming requires drastic action that empowers international tribunals to regulate energy consumption in the US? How about one who is against the death penalty, or turn it around and say one who is for the death penalty?

For “conservative” [another questionable adjective!] we easily draw the line on abortion, homosexual marriage, the usual shooting fish in a barrel subjects. But, in the real world of political action it is much harder to draw lines. Is a judge who enforces no-fault divorce a Christian? Can a politician who wants a high or low minimum wage a Christian? Does a Christian politician promote more off shore drilling for oil?

These social issues do not easily translate into a test of Christian belief. Why? Because except for moral behavior based on Biblical warrant, these types of decisions are based on individual conscience informed by Christian principles. If the Bible teaches on a matter with sufficiency and clarity it alone binds the conscience of the believer. If not, then the Christian has liberty to decide what is the right course of action. And, the clarity thing is, well, not clear within the church. My RP friends believe in exclusive psalmody in worship; my Baptist friends believe in believer baptism; my dispensational friends believe in pre-tribulation, pre-millennial rapture of the saints. Are they not Christian friends?

There are two forces at work here that complicate matters. The first is our extreme egalitarian democratization that allows us to believe we have a better idea than anyone else. We believe each and every one of us is able and entitled to discern the good, the true and the beautiful just because we breathe and live in the USA. The other is the failure of the visible church to display unity over what Biblical belief binds the consciences of the followers of Christ. The church in its fractured state knows not what it believes and, trying to accommodate to the world, is making up what it believes as it goes. If we cannot understand Biblical Christianity in the church how can Christian be applied as an adjective to those operating in the world…especially our politicians who represent Caesar not the church?