Contra Mundum
Channeling the Populist Rage
How should we respond to the loss of confidence in the government?
Charles Colson with Catherine Larson | posted 4/06/2010 08:50AM
If you hold your ear close to the ground in Washington, D.C., the rumble you will hear is not the Metro but a populist rage hurtling like a railroad train toward the Capitol.
Americans have by and large lost faith in their institutions, and the evidence is everywhere. According to a CBS News poll, at the beginning of the new millennium, 45 percent of Americans trusted government to do the right thing most of the time. Now less than a quarter do so. A January 2010 joint poll by NBC and The Wall Street Journal found that the percentage of people who view the President negatively has nearly doubled in a year's time. Approval ratings for Congress were even lower: 21 percent.
In some respects, the distrust is justified. Hurricane Katrina was a blow that the Bush Administration never fully recovered from. A cumbersome government bureaucracy too slow in providing help shattered citizens' faith in government's effectiveness.
But the ineffectiveness of government was magnified in the case of the Nigerian terrorist who almost brought down a Northwest airliner headed for Detroit in December.Brave passengers, not a massive government apparatus,thwarted him. In the postmortem, we discovered that despite a multitrillion-dollar campaign to protect citizens against terrorism, and the fact that the visa office in Lagos, Nigeria, had been warned that Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab was dangerous, it issued him a visa anyway. Appalling.
The bigger that government gets, the further it grows away from the people. From the massive expansion of health care to increased environmental controls, higher taxes, and mind-numbing budget deficits, people feel overwhelmed and powerless. It doesn't help when Congress closes its doors to draw up the health-care bill in conference committee—signaling a request to the public not to butt into its affairs.
Where will all of this lead? There are a few likely scenarios. Government could get a dose of reality and put the brakes on. But its leaders give us no indication of restraining themselves. A second scenario could drive us off a cliff into national bankruptcy, which has happened in many countries whose governments spend irresponsibly. The third possibility, and the one I think we are on the verge of witnessing, is a populist revolt.
Populist movements in the U.S. can be healthy, as when Andrew Jackson broke the grip of the eastern elite on the presidency, or when William Jennings Bryan, three-time Democratic candidate for President, led a movement to give greater voice to the disillusioned masses. But this time, a massive wave of anti-government sentiment could shatter the political consensus, which may well leave the country virtually unmanageable.
The inevitable consequence of all of this should deeply trouble Christians, who, of any segment of our society, understand the necessity of a strong government.
The Bible teaches that God ordains government, appoints leaders, and requires obedience so that we might live peaceable lives.
Why is this? God recognizes that even abad government is better than no government. No government leads to chaos and mob rule. When order breaks down, justice is inevitably undermined. As Augustine of Hippo argued, peace flows from order, and both are necessary preconditions to the preservation of liberty and some measure of human dignity and flourishing.
This is why great leaders of the faith throughout history have held government in such high esteem. Some, such as John Calvin, considered the magistrate the highest of vocations.
April 2010, Vol. 54, No. 4
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