Meditation – Rethinking Democracy
by Isaac Overton
In last week’s meditation, as we started off our series of meditations to help us think biblically about how to use our vote wisely, we considered one basic idea, that: civil authorities are appointed by God as his servants, and are answerable to him for their conduct. This week, as we continue, I’d like for us to think about another idea, and here it is: don’t deify democracy. Way back in 2005, when I was studying at the University of Tasmania, I took a unit called “Introduction to Government 101”. There’s one thing from that unit that I remember with particular clarity, it was in one of our early lectures. In came the lecturer, kind of looking like Benedict Cumberbatch in a black trench coat, and this is what he said: “vox populi, vox dei”. It’s a latin phrase, and here’s what it means: “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”
That phrase, “vox populi, vox dei”, has had broad usage in our cultural heritage for hundreds of years, but I think that it has generally come to mean that the will and voice of the people is the ultimate source of authority in our society. The voice of the people, it seems, is generally viewed as the voice of God. If I can borrow from Henley and adjust his poetry to fit a communal instead of an individual perspective, we might put it this way: “We are the masters of our fate, we are the captains of our soul.” I think that this has come to be the common view and commitment of democracy in our society today. Certainly it is not God who is honoured, but rather it is the people as a whole who determine who is elected, and who have the final say on who makes rules (or so the thinking goes). I believe we can see this in reality in the decision making of most of our politicians. When our politicians make policies, most of them are aimed at – to put it crassly – buying our votes. “Vox populi, vox dei” is not a common phrase, but it is very much the philosophy underlying the way that our current political system works.
Now in exploring this a little further, it’s important to see that this basic belief underlying democracy, the belief that authority in a society ultimately flows from the people, has a religious character. Apart from the fact that it stands as a direct inverse to Romans 13:1, which shows us that authority flows from God rather than man, it represents a commitment to the belief that we – in and of ourselves – have an innate moral authority to decide what is right and what is wrong. Scripture, on the other hand, makes it very clear that only God has that prerogative. In that sense, our democratic political system as it currently exist is merely a more sophisticated version of what Adam and Eve did in the garden. They decided that they would be the ones to determine right and wrong, our political system functions in exactly the same way – that we, through our representatives, determine what is right and wrong. If you doubt this observation, look no further than the changing sands of policy in Australia over the last century, and consider whether or not these policies have been honouring to God! This basic belief which underlies modern democracy as a political philosophy has no essential ground in the natural sciences.
It’s spiritual, religious, and philosophical belief.
This insight, as I see it, goes a long way to explaining why people in Western Democracies are so strongly opposed to other forms of government, and that they view democracy as the pinnacle when it comes to the options for governance. We celebrate the establishment of democracy in nations where democracy didn’t previously exist, we give a mildly disapproving frown to countries that differ from us, and we are outright hostile to e.g. dictatorships. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating for any other particular form of government as such, and to be sure there is much evil that has been done under the banner of dictatorships and totalitarian regimes in the last 100 years or so. God, in the gracious kindness of his common grace, has given us a number of blessings through democracy as a general system. In a society of godly people, some form of democracy would probably even be a good way to go (as Ex 18:21-23 seems to suggest, and which would be consistent with the principle of governance we find in Acts 6:3). My point is merely to highlight the nature of our own culture’s religious commitment to democracy. More specifically, I would say that this commitment does not arise from a place of faith in God. On the contrary, the basic commitment of democracy, that the voice of the people is the voice of God, stands as representing a humanistic worldview as opposed to a Christian worldview.
Now, here’s the question you’re probably really thinking about here: how is all this relevant to me and my decision on which party I will be voting for in the upcoming election? I think that the things that we’ve considered here have a number of practical implications.
First, as we touched upon last week, we live in a culture that puts much of its hope for salvation in our political system. Let me try and show you why I say that. A political history of Australia over the last 50 years or more would chronicle a story of growing influence and control on the part of our national and state governments. We have governmental departments for almost every area of life, most things are regulated in some way or another, and our population typically even blames our governments for not doing enough when something goes wrong. As though the government should have anticipated something and, well, saved us. In light of this, our governments themselves have come to believe that it is their job to make sure that they respond and “save” everything. That messianic complex comes to fruition in a constantly growing horde of regulations. Now the public narrative, nor the public themselves, will not state it in these terms, but the truth is clear: we look to our governments for salvation, and they try hard to provide it. The tragedy is that it is a false salvation that operates only in material terms. Meanwhile, there is spiritual desolation everywhere we look.
Now this is helpful for us to consider, because even being aware of these sorts of things will give us an immediate and basic perspective when it comes to elections. It will teach us to detach ourselves from the commonly held convictions of the surrounding culture. It will teach us not to be sucked in to the promises and hopes of the culture in politics. It will also give us a deeper sense of the significance and importance of the gospel in comparison to the temporary institution of civil authorities in a fallen world.
Secondly, this kind of insight will also teach us not to idealise democracy. We live in a culture that believes in: “vox populi, vox dei.” For us, it is: “vox dei, vox vitae” – the voice of God is the voice of life! The voice of fallen man cannot bring life – politically or otherwise. It is to God whom we must turn, and it is to him that our nation needs to turn. We need this eternal perspective to be refreshed in our minds every single time we come to an election. In Isaiah 40:15 we read: “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.” There are many commentators with much to say on the outcomes of the approaching election, but we would do well to give more attention to the prophet Isaiah than to the newspapers. This election is a drop in the bucket, as are all the nations of the world before God. History moves on, nations rise and fall, mankind and all the various forms of government come and go, but God and his purposes remain ever steadfast and sure.
In Daniel 2:44 we read that “in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever.” Ultimately, the greatest and best “form of government”, so to speak, is the kingdom of heaven. How does this inform you on who to vote for? At this stage, in this meditation and the last, we’ve been looking at things from a higher level, but this high level gives us the basic perspective we need to start thinking about this issue. And we need this big picture before we can get more specific. Our surrounding culture has deified democracy, but we ought not to be so foolish, for God is God alone and to him alone belongs all the glory. As you prepare yourself to exercise your democratic responsibilities in the upcoming election, be sure to keep these things in mind. SDG.