Father and Son Debates

My father always loved to talk about government. It is unsurprising, therefore, that I do as well. However, it was one subject my father and I seriously disagreed about. Being somewhat patient (perhaps a bit too patient) about letting people prattle on about that which they know little or nothing about out of politness (my life would be nothing but a series of arguments if I had to harhsly correct someone every time they said something wrong--few people speak rightly much at all), it was a long time before I responded to the incipient debate. However, being somewhat irritable at times, eventually I replied. His beliefs and my beliefs, which are wildly different (and to which we both have held to dispite the difficulties they have caused) did not tear us apart, but the origins of those beliefs and the wide gulf between us, and the reasons for those differences, is emblematic of the distance that sometimes takes place between fathers and sons, even fathers and sons who care deeply about each other.

The Debate

My father (and no doubt much of my blog readership, to judge from the kvetching) was a firm believer in one-man, top-down government. People who wished to belittle my father often called him a "good German soldier" because he was someone who was a loyal follower. He was a hard worker in everything he did--whether that was driving 4 hours to church to and from church (yes, for those of you who were not so good at mathematics in school, that is 8 hours total) every week because of his firm devotion to one-man government in the church to his long years of bus driving, to his persistence as a farmer despite the fact that farms feature some of the hardest work for the least material reward possible in the entire world (something I know, amazingly enough, from personal experience). Except of course for school bus driving. Despite intimate and frequent experience with the arbitrary and capricious nature of tyrannical government in the religious, civil, and corporate world (more on that later), the lessons he took and the lessons I took from those experiences and stories are wildly different. To the day he died my father was a firm believer in "episcopal" government. Pity. The same was obviously not the case with me, as I have made abundantly clear on several occasions. The debate basically revolved around the biblical case for leadership, a subject far too large to get into here in sufficient detail, but which is necessary to look at at least briefly.

The Case For and Against Hierarchial Government:

While the case for Hierarchial government revolves around poor interpretation, ignorance of historical and biblical context, and the selection of too limited a sample of proof texts, it is worth examining that case in some detail, because it is a frequently posited claim and many people mistakenly hold to it. At first, it must be candidly admitted that the Bible does not sanction anarchy or people choosing what is right and wrong for themselves. The Bible is severe against the abuses of the powerful against those with less power, but it is equally clear that respect for human authority (within certain bounds) is vital as it teaches us how to respect God. At this point, the debate should merely be about what are the bounds where respect is owed to authority before rebellion (i.e. disobedience) is justified. That is not the case, however. Going further than this, the case often becomes an attempt to justify authority that is unaccountable and hierarchial, and where there is a clear distance between servants and served that approaches the distance between lords and peasants, or masters and servants, which is clearly unacceptable.

There are basically three areas of proof texts for this opinion. The first is the example of Moses, an often cited series of stories involving the penalty and heinousness of rebellion (a point that merits discussion). The second is the example of the monarchy of Israel and Judah. Third is the selective use of certain NT passages (1 Peter 5, Hebrews 13, and Romans 13 spring to mind most readily). Upon these three pillars the case for absolutism rests, and it is fortunate for us that these are very shaky pillars indeed. First of all, let us examine the case of Moses. Moses wished for his people to have the Holy Spirit working with him, was happy to delegate power to others (as Jethro advised and God mandated, whether that was Aaron, Joshua, or someone else fit), and did not wish the great power and responsibilty he had. This is in stark contrast to those who claim to follow his example in these times. There are times, regrettably, when it is necessary to govern societies under absolutism, but only until citizens are capable of rational thought and independent thinking, a task that requires education and should be diligently sought in all organizations and societies in order to remove all justification for tyranny. After all, we govern children differently from adults (thankfully), recognizing that with the age of reason comes certain freedom and personal responsibility. During the Wilderness travels, Israel had not reached that age of maturity. Both God and Moses wished for them to do so, but since they willfully refused to, the next best thing was to have a leader, as Moses was, who sacrificed himself for their best interests, as leaders are called to do in general. The next pillar is the monarchy. It should be noted that God was against the monarchy even starting, only accepting it as the (democratic) decision of the people of Israel. Furthermore, in Deuteronomy 17 there are clear restrictions on the power and prestige of the monarchy. Included rather prominently in these restrictions is a prohibition on monarchs (and hence all other leaders) from viewing themselves as higher than their brethren. In short, leadership position does not grant one a superiority of position over equals (which is not merely other leaders, but everyone else in the entire community). Furthermore, God, though the prophets of this period, continually preached and acted against the wicked behavior of kings, sanctioning revolts (Jehu and Jeroboam spring to mind, as does Joash), defending the rights of citizens against the power of their leaders (as in the case of Naboth), and in pronouncing that tyrannical rule would lead to divine punishment. The third pillar involves certain passages in the NT. Three will be representative, as these are the most important. First, some misconstrue 1 Peter 5 (one of several "submit" passages in the NT) to mean that people have to submit to their leaders no matter what. Instead, the command to submit yourself to each other directly speaks of a mutual reciprocal obligation between human beings for mutual respect and responsibility. Far from advocating any sort of absolutism, it precludes it. Hebrews 13 is used in a similarly wrong fashion to attempt to show that the questioning of authority is akin to desiring that position of authority improperly. This is a common smear tactic. In reality, the chapter comments that those leaders who lead well are worthy of respect. When that is at question, though, to demand evidence of claims is not improper at all. Finally, Romans 13 (a chapter I have written a 40 page analysis of, much more detailed than I can be here) is often used improperly to justify an "obey leaders no matter what" mentality. After all, leaders punish evildoers and good people have nothing to fear at all, ever, from government, right? If you believe that I have some swampland in Florida to sell you, and I might be able to come up with some tundra in Alaska if you ask really nicely. Seriously, the chapter is an example of an implied social contract about 1600 years before they became popular, and goes like this: for a leader to have divine sanction for their position, they must punish evil and protect good people. Or, it may be phrased more negatively to say: those leaders who abuse their power of the sword to punish those who do nothing wrong have no divine sanction for their position. Think about that for a while.

Origin of Difference of Opinion:

It was not as if my father did not experience first hand tyrannical behavior from leadership. On the contrary, it appears to have occurred often (although, my father not being the philsophical sort of person, may not have added it up the way I do). He experienced abuse of power from government on two notable occasions. First, his college education at AC in Big Sandy was cut short during the late 1960's due to the Vietnam War. He was drafted, and since AC was not accredited he was not able to receive any academic deferrment. Instead, he had to serve four years of service at the AC farm and was unable to afford to finish his college education, a major regret of his. I should note here that he behaved honorably in this situation, as he did in general, as he did not burn his draft card or flee to Canada like many cowards did. He opposed war on principle, and suffered for his principles without complaint. If I view his restraint as somewhat inexplicable, it was certainly noble. The second occasion relates to the separation of my mother and father. After my mother and father separated, my mother for two years received welfare (technically, AFDC, with food stamps if I remember correctly). After my parents divorced some time later (a few years), my father (who was, as I have implied earlier, not a wealthy or even middle class man) had to pay not only child support but repay the government for the aid which my mother received. All of this on the salary of a bus driver. Shameful.

My father was not exempt from suffering rather serious abuse at the hands of the church as well. The way in which the church dealt with my parents' divorce was (as I have mentioned before in another entry) in all areas irregular and beyond excuse. My father, for his part, always considered himself "bound" (as in, he never saw sufficent reasons for the divorce to be legitimate, though he would have had a good case for "fraud" as my mother had a claim for "abuse" as well as "fraud"). When my mother left my father (in rather abrupt circumstances) my father was disfellowshipped for, I believe, not being able to keep control of his household. In addition, the yo-yo nature of the church's decision-making concerning the "bound-unbound" status of my parents after divorce made closure somewhat difficult, as church administration flip-flopped worse than a certain 2004 Democratic Presidential candidate. The collapse of Worldide(and my father's inability to deal with a type of government that was not rigidly top-down) also added a significant amount of stress to my father's life, though he bore it silently and (as usual) without complaint.

Finally, my father had to deal with some rather heinous examples of corruption and abuse of power in the business world. Despite (or maybe because of) being a loyal and dedicated worker, my father basically got the short end of the stick. For many years while being a bus driver, he was a member of the local AFL-CIO chapter. The bus driver's union worked hard and had a contract to drive the buses for the local school board. Then, due to some false promises by a large-scale company in the mid 1990's, the bus driver's union was crushed, pay dropped dramatically (about a third), and the company was still unable to (in the end) meet the contract for the same price that the school bus drivers had. In addition, now instead of a gradually increasing salary, my father's salary dropped precipitously every five years when a new contract was negotiated because a new company would come in and make the same false promises about keeping prices (read, wages) down and in the end would (out of political pique with the corrupt school board or out of inability to earn sufficient profits with high management costs) fail to win a bid on the contract after the five years were up.

Reasons For Difference

It should be clear by this point why my father and I had such seriously different opinions about government. My father suffered much without complaint, but because he was unable (or unwilling) to piece together the corruption on all levels of leadership together (which demonstrate a marked wickedness as a direct result of carnal human beings having power for which they do not have responsibility to the people they lead) he held to a false view of government, which he learned from people who were at best equally misguided, and at worse downright and deliberately wicked. I will leave God to judge that, though I have my own opinions on the matter. By the time my father had to deal with this, though, he was an adult and had made the decision (no matter how difficult it was) to endure all things as a good soldier. He was a good soldier, though not a German sense (in the sense his enemies claimed).

However, that was not the case with me. I grew up, from my earliest days, as a witness (and sometimes as an unwilling participant) in these examples of flagrant corruption and abuse by government. I learned from youth (both from these stories involving my family and from my own childhood experiences, recollection of which pains me to this day) that leaders in religious organizations, schools, governments, and so forth, care more about image and holding on to their own power than they do about serving the people. This is unacceptable. Since leaders cannot be trusted, and since they behave, on the whole, so wickedly, people must be able (and willing) to defend themselves. From youth I have had to stand up for myself, and could not expect help from any other (human) quarter. That sort of life does something to someone--not least of which it reduces the ability I have to trust others, especially others in power. Since authorities stand by without concern or participate in abuse, they cannot be exempt from accountability. Or else the suffering of my father and myself, and many others, would be in vain.