At this time in America, it is quite simple to see the many changes that the American government has undergone since our founding. Over the last century alone one can observe the many large increases in the power of the federal government at the expense of individual and local liberty.
The definition of liberty itself has gone through a major transformation. Many today view liberty as a license to do what we want within the governments “permission”. Therefore, those “law abiding citizens” that still exist look primarily to the government to find out what is “right or wrong”. However, many look no further than their own desires for direction and break whatever institutional boundary they desire.
This is a far cry of what the general understanding of liberty was at the founding of America. Liberty, or freedom to live one’s life without restraint, came coupled with such qualities as responsibility, duty, ownership. The Bible and a God given conscience created guidelines and Biblical institutions of individual, family, church and civil government were established and practiced. These governments operated with a principle known as jurisdiction. The civil government served only to preserve the liberties the people from those who would practice license and in the beginning many checks were placed to keep the civil government in its proper place. Volumes have been devoted to each one of these topics but I simply wish to give an incomplete picture of how far our nation has come.
Today, if you own land, the government in many places will tell you what you can and can’t do with your land, what you can and can’t grow on you land and which land you can and can’t own. If you own certain sizes of businesses the government controls who you hire or don’t hire. Tragically, the government not only allows but actively promotes a disregard of the sanctity of human life. They try to get their hand in almost every area of our lives. So how did we get to this place and who is responsible for these changes? I submit that the word responsibility has a lot to do with the answer
Many people have seen these changes as a reason to jump on different “bandwagons”. As a result we are seeing large numbers of people joining groups protesting the many injustices around them and justifiably so. I have been involved in some of these groups myself. However, I tend to wonder if much of the outcry is truly leading from righteousness and truth or is it simply over the loss of security and prosperity or the sense of joining a “good cause”.
When we look back at history, we find many examples of times when the people of a nation, spurred by acts of tyranny by their governments, rose up and demand change. One such example is the French Revolution. The people during the time of the French Revolution faced a lot of injustice and “inequality”. Things were not fair and in many ways the old feudal system of the so called dark ages was still in effect. The family was hurting, the church was corrupt and the government was vast and overreaching. It seemed that there were at least two types of people that were involved in this revolution. First, there were the masses, which were the largest, lowest and poorest members of the French society. They had little education and they faced extremely hard lives with very little hope for the future. The second group was the philosophers of the revolution. This group had a higher education than most and probably was mostly small business owners, etc. It was this group that organized the masses into a force of terror that brought about the great massacre of the
religious and political leaders and all the lawlessness that composed the French Revolution. The French revolution had at its very core a hate for God and Christianity and the leaders perpetrated many ungodly ideas such as communism (called fraternity) and unchecked liberty having at its source lawlessness.
One thing that the French Revolution revealed is that that too much “liberty” brings slavery. After all the chaos had subsided, the people were left with a God-hating, inhuman tyrant who instead of bringing liberty left the people more stricken and enslaved to their bad situations than ever. They tried to solve real problems with unbiblical solutions and reaped more serious consequences.
Scripture says, “if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Psalm 11:3”. Much of the chaos surrounding the family, church and government relationships is directly related to our separation from a solid foundation. No longer is the Bible the foundation of every element of society. God’s Word is not the primary Source we turn to for all life’s decisions and trials. In many situations the traditions of men and “situation ethics” seem to guide the functions of many churches. Most of our civil leaders feed off the influence of interest groups and totally disregard the Biblical and constitutional framework our founding fathers created. These changes have greatly complicated the problems in our society.
The challenge that I have that I would ask you to join me in is to examine myself and see how I have traded responsibility and duty for security. This would include my relationships, goals, and actions or lack of action. If I will do this, I believe I will see God’s leading in the causes worth standing for. It is time to get back to the basics.
Jonathan Pound
