#Ideas – Thinking Accurately Education

“A Republic, if you care to keep it.”

The Bible, Christianity & American Government, Chapter 9

Make us a king to judge us like all the (other) nations.”
1 Samuel 8:5

There’s a famous quote making it’s way around the Internet, about Benjamin Franklin being asked what kind of government the United States was founded to be. It is said that he replied:

“A Republic, if you can keep it.”

Our founding fathers knew that the history of republics was not good, and that they often tended to end in tyranny.

For example, the once very successful Dutch Republic, formed in 1588, had declined and decayed until it had all but disintegrated by the time of the American founding. And in their own history, their ancestors had formed a republic named the English Commonwealth, in 1649, but it had only lasted for 11 years, until 1660.

But the primary example that the founding fathers looked to – which had been the model for all later republics – was the Roman Republic, which lasted 482 years, but it ended tragically in 60 years of civil wars and the rise of the dictator, Julius Caesar.

Why do republics fail?

In pondering this question, I was drawn back once again to a study of the world’s very first tyrant, Nimrod (first referenced in Genesis 10:8).

“Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth.” (the Hebrew word used here is “gibôr“).
Genesis 10:8

Gibor = "strong, mighty, impetuous" (Genesius' Hebrew Lexicon)

Impetuous = "acting or done quickly and without thought or care," (Bing) marked by impulsive vehemence or passion (or) by force and violence.." (Merriam-Webster)

God had commanded mankind to spread out and take dominion over the earth, but instead the people congregated together in a city and started dominating each other, and Nimrod was the worst of them.

So, why do people follow tyrants?

An article in Psychology Today claims that people hunger for “strong parental figures,” and that they are afraid to take responsibility for their own lives, preferring instead to stay on the sidelines, and “let someone else run the show,” even though the people they follow are often “narcissistic,” “calculating,” and “cruel.”

Do you think that is true? That people are afraid to take responsibility for their own lives, and that they would rather follow the directions of someone else, even if they have demonstrated themselves to be narcissistic and cruel?

That’s exactly what the Bible says that the ancient people of Israel did, although they were warned against it.

“‘This is how a king will reign over you,’ Samuel said… ‘He will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your grain and your vintage… He will take a tenth of your sheep. And you will be his servants. And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves…'”
1 Samuel 8:11-18

When told that George Washington had turned down an offer to become America’s first king, King George III of England said: “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”

But the people who rule our country today have little resemblance to George Washington.

The Psychology Today article goes on to say this about tyrants:

“They tend to have a blend of narcissistic and antisocial personality disorder traits such as a lack of empathy, grandiosity, thirst for power and control, lying and deceit, indifference to conventional laws or rules or morality, and more.”
Psychology Today, February 2, 2017

It remind us of a warning by one of the Founding Fathers, James Wilson of Pennsylvania:

“Sir, there are two passions which have a powerful influence on the affairs of men. These are ambition and avarice; the love of power, and the love of money. Separately each of these has great force in prompting men to action; but when united in view of the same object, they have in many minds the most violent effects. Place before the eyes of such men, a post of honour that shall be at the same time a place of profit, and they will move heaven and earth to obtain it… And of what kind are the men that will strive for this profitable pre- eminence, through all the bustle of cabal, the heat of contention, the infinite mutual abuse of parties, tearing to pieces the best of characters? It will not be the wise and moderate; the lovers of peace and good order, the men fittest for the trust. It will be the bold and the violent, the men of strong passions and indefatigable activity in their selfish pursuits. These will thrust themselves into your Government and be your rulers.”
James Wilson, Constitutional Convention of 1787

In Chapter 3 of our book, we talked about God’s plan for self-government, and the wise advice for doing so from Thomas Jefferson, Alexis de Tocqueville, and William Penn.

Back in the 1970’s and 80’s there was an old album cover that was pretty popular.

The artwork on the cover of the album depicts the scene where Haman, the Prime Minister of the Persian Empire is passing by, and everyone is bowing down to him – everyone but one man named Mordecai, and Haman tried to have him killed.

Some years earlier, another man named Daniel, had to disobey the king of his day, and his political enemies tried to have him killed.

And when that same king went to throw them into a fiery furnace, Daniel’s three friends replied:

“If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, Daniel 3:17-18

William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, once said:

“Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.”

And in our third chapter, we quoted from Thomas Jefferson’s 1787 Notes on the State of Virginia, where he wrote:

“Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.”

What is venality?

venality = "openness to bribery or corruption" (dictionary.com)

One thing that Mordecai, Daniel, and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego definitely had in common is that they were not open to corruption. They were incorruptible, in the same way that George Washington was incorruptible. If we want to be able to stand against tyranny, and against manipulation – even when your government is telling you otherwise, we have to take responsibility for our own lives.

Second Chronicles 7:14 says:

“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

God is ready to heal our land. Are we ready to do our part?

Isn’t Time for Another Miracle?

The Bible, Christianity & American Government, Chapter 8

“The Lord raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them.”

Judges 2:16

The word translated here as “judge” should be understood in the sense of deliverer (see Judges 3:9 & 3:15)

deliverer = "a person who saves someone from a painful or bad experience" (Cambridge Dictionary)

Based on that definition, you can probably think of times when our country was in trouble, and then someone seemed to be raised up -sometimes out of nowhere – specifically to lead the country through that difficult time.

Between 1776 and 1797 – for example – George Washington led the nation through it’s War for Independence, and became the First President of the United States.

David McCullough, in his famous book – 1776 – wrote this about Washington:

“Without (his) leadership and unrelenting perseverance, the (American) revolution almost certainly would have failed.”
1776: The Illustrated Edition by David McCullough, 2007, p. 230

And in our own century there have been numerous cases of this, most notably John F. Kennedy in the Cuban Missile Crisis of October, 1962, when the President of the United States single-handedly “stared down” the Soviet Union when they attempted to to place nuclear missiles in Cuba.

Another example was when, in December of 1980, President-elect Ronald Reagan advised Iran not to wait for his inauguration to release the 52 American hostages they had been holding since November 4, 1979, to the demoralization of our whole country. And that sadness was turned instantly into joy when, just moments after the former actor became the became the 40th President of the United States, Iran complied. To appreciate the magnitude of this event on the American psyche, one only needs to watch Disney’s wonderful production of the 2004 Kurt Russell movie, Miracle.

As we, in 2021, look around us, at the trouble our nation is in, we can be tempted to feel hopeless, even desperate. But we can take a lesson from the people of ancient Israel.

“When the children of Israel cried out to the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer…”
Judges 3:9

“When the children of Israel cried out to the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer for them…”
Judges 3:15

Benjamin Franklin once said:

“Have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we image we no longer need His assistance?”
Benjamin Franklin, address to the Constitutional Convention, 1787

And the Apostle Paul told us that we have been born in America at this particular moment in time for a reason, so that we would

“Seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him…”
Acts 17:27

Yes, times are difficult, and yes, most of the institutions of our society are failing and falling down around us. It’s time to “cry out” to the Lord for a deliverer, and believe that He will provide one.

Here is the word of the Lord for today:

“God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did…” (Romans 4:17)

Do you desire a better country?

The Bible, Christianity & American Government, Chapter 6:

The Embarkation of the Pilgrims

In 1532, Niccolo Machiavelli published his famous work on political theory, called “The Prince.” He had used Spain’s King Ferdinand (the same one who sent out Christopher Columbus) as a model for perfect governance.

Unfortunately, his model included brutality and ambition, and always endeavoring, “above all things,” to gain “the reputation of being a great and remarkable man” (like Nimrod at the Tower of Babel [see Genesis 10:10 and 11:1-9]), and to always keep “the minds of his people in suspense and admiration” of King Ferdinand and his ambitious pursuit of gold and glory.

Statue of Ferdinand in Greek/Roman style

Therefore, it should not surprise anyone that the Spanish Conquistadores who colonized America brought with them Machiavelli’s views that in politics, the end justifies the means and that political and public morality are unnecessary, and even to be avoided.

It is important that we understand that these are the fundamental ideas that the “Spanish Golden Age” was built on.

The Spanish Golden Age (the 1500s-1600s) may be considered to have been contemporaneous with what we often call the Renaissance, and its accompanying zeitgeist.

zeitgeist = "the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time." (Bing)

The defining spirit of the Renaissance was “Rebirth,“ which sounds good… But it was actually only the rebirth of pagan Greek and Roman values and ideas that stood in direct contrast to those of Christianity, upon which Medieval Western Civilization had been built.

And interestingly–but not surprisingly–it was (this same) Ferdinand’s grandson, King Charles I of Spain, who later, as Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, would condemn the Christian reformer Martin Luther as a heretic, ban him as a political outlaw, and order his writings to be burned.

Yet, soon afterward, Luther working in hiding, translated the Bible into the common language of the German people, inspiring a young Englishman named William Tyndale who just happened to be living in exile in Luther’s hometown in Germany at the time. Tyndale then translated the Bible into English, and had it smuggled back into his home country in England.

60 years later, Charles’ son, Phillip II (Ferdinand’s great-grandson) became the champion of what became known as the Counter-Reformation.

The Counter Reformation was an all-out cultural, religious, and even military war intended to reverse the the work of Luther and Tyndale.

Philip II sent the Spanish Armada (the largest fleet ever seen in Europe up to that time) to attack England, and to restore the religious and political status quo of what had been Spain’s Golden Age. The Armada was destroyed by a storm.

In fact, the Spanish Armada was sent three times to destroy England–in 1588, 1596, and 1597–but it was destroyed three times, each time by bad weather!

Providentially, then, William Tyndale’s Bible seems to have ended up making its way into the hands of a generation of common Englishmen, just as their King Henry VIII was making himself the head of a whole new church in England, and just as England was preparing to replace Spain as a world power.

And it was these same Englishmen who brought that same Bible–and its ideas–to the New World.

In 1607, Captain John Smith was among 100 colonists who planted Jamestown in Virginia. In 1608, Smith became the leader of the community, and established measures to save it from ruin, including an instruction from the Bible.

“If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat”
2nd Thessalonians 3:10

This is not to say that Captain John Smith was, necessarily, a Christian–only that the Bible was already starting to affect the way that everyday people chose to live their lives.

But soon after (in 1620) a group of Christian people established Plymouth Plantation as a Christian community–based on the example of the early church (in the book of Acts).

Their Governor, William Bradford (in his book, Of Plimouth Plantation), called the Plymouth settlers pilgrims, referring to the New Testament book of Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 13.

The chapter goes on to say:

“…Those who say such things (calling themselves pilgrims) declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country...”
Hebrews 11:14-16

And that’s the way they lived. They left behind all that England was, and whatever comfort it had been for them, and looked forward to life in this New England, and what they dreamed would be a better world for them and their families.

Other Christians followed them to New England, setting up what they called the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The Governor of the Massachusetts colony, John Winthrop, saw New England prophetically, quoting from Matthew 5:14.

“For, we must consider (he wrote) that we shall be like a City upon a Hill; the eyes of all people are on us.”
John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity,” 1630

And just a few years later, in 1639, Christians from the (then) small towns of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield in Connecticut drew up “the first written constitution known to history...” The “Fundamental Orders” (as they called them) were based on a sermon by Reverend Thomas Hooker on May 31, 1638. The text for his sermon had been Deuteronomy 1:13.

“Choose wise, understanding, and knowledgeable men from among your tribes, and I will make them heads over you…”
Deuteronomy 1:13

In his sermon, Hooker asserted that based on the Old Testament example of the ancient Israelites (which was imitated by early Christians in the New Testament book of Acts), “the foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people…”

That idea could not have come out of the Spanish Golden Age. It could not have come out of the Renaissance, or the thought of Machiavelli.

The Bible says that:

“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
2 Corinthians 3:17

But the Bible also says that:

“The whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs (because it has been subjected to corruption) …”
Romans 8:20

That is why the American experience has not matched up with the prophetic voices of Winthrop and Hooker, or all their hopes and dreams for America.

But one day,

America and “the creation itself…will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the (revelation of the) children of God…”
Romans 8:19, 21

It is time for the children of God in America to shake off the chains of corruption, to step out of the grave-clothes of past experience, and to walk in what has been prophesied over this land.

That is our legacy (and America’s legacy), and (as John Winthrop wrote) “the eyes of all people (shall be) upon us.”