I learned a little more than a decade ago that democracy is not the end all and be all of governmental systems. I learned it when groups at local universities inspired a movement to democratize the Catholic Church. Their real motive was to change our teachings and silence our political voice. I reminded people at the time that Hitler was elected by a democratic process and, therefore, democracy was not always a good thing.
We discussed before how Alexis de Tocqueville, in the eighteen hundreds, discovered a flaw in our US governmental system. It is that we are susceptible to a form of tyranny. He also found that what kept that flaw under wraps was the our nation’s churches, but if we destroy the churches, then our whole system comes down like a tent that loses its poles.
Our country is in some difficult times because of the actions of some in the name of democracy that have exploited not only the system, but the flaw. So they have used both to undermine our freedoms in the name of creating democracy. For example, in one course for community organizers a text book is used where the idea of cheating on elections is addressed and supported. However, our system cannot survive too much election fraud. There is a video that appears online where a community organizer in Arizona is shown stuffing a ballot box.
The Bible gives a powerful image of a tree that is planted by running waters. If you imagine the scene, you have a desert, however, there is a river running through the desert and there are trees whose roots absorb that river water and they flourish. Far from the river, there is the classic scene of the desert, sand and no trees. A tree planted near running water will flourish, a tree planted in waterless sand will not. The image of the tree planted near running water is that of those who root themselves in the word of God and enjoy His wisdom in their lives. God’s law, says the psalmist is a lamp unto his feet. God’s law is real and is life giving when followed, but the opposite is also true.
If you think of the laws of physics, you recognize that they cannot be disobeyed without serious consequences. An example can be that I drove a well known heavy vehicle in a test drive just for the fun of it. The vehicle’s brand name is well known and it has a military counterpart, I was driving the civilian version of the vehicle. I was fascinated how it ran, but my first impression is that this vehicle would survive any accident with but a scratch, but I am not sure I would want to part of a collision which would demolish the other vehicle regardless the speed of the crash. One friend said it well, “Anyone who drives that vehicle does not understand the laws of physics.” Those laws can only be disobeyed with the understanding that severe consequences will result.
Our democratic system is rooted in the laws of God. Love the Lord the Your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. These are not only the laws of life for each of us, they are God’s laws for any society including God’s kingdom. Those who follow God’s laws find life, and those societies who follow them find it as well. Indeed, Thomas Jefferson’s admonition that the government that governs least, governs best can only happen when the people personally self govern by following those two laws of God. This is what makes democracy work. Please note, I said these two laws, not sharia law, not the laws of the Catholic Church, not Jewish law, but the two laws cited by Jesus.
Billy Graham this week warned that we have become like Sodom and Gomorrah, but let us examine that statement. What happened in Sodom and Gomorrah was a breakdown in society where everyone sought their own narcissistic goals and were slave to their own passions. It, by the way, had nothing to do with poor hospitality. It was a system that broke down to one where mutual love gave way to self aggrandizement.
This actually is what happens in democracies when they break down. They give way to tyrannies of self interest of a few who become overlords of many; this opens the door to eventual dictatorship. A democracy can only work when people take to heart the interests of each other in a mutual system of love of God and neighbor.
The two laws of Jesus which are the basis for every word in the Bible are two solid laws that bring life to a community. When the are rejected, the community will fall into tyranny. This is because God’s Kingdom is based in those two laws. The Kingdom of Hell is the most vicious of tyrannies rooted in vicious forms of narcissistic tyranny.
If we truly are going to live our Catholic life, we need to be in love with God, experience His love for us and share that love with others. However, if we seek our own self interests and reject these laws, we may still live in our own world, but will watch the American system crumble into the exact tyranny that Tocqueville warned about to his readers. As we approach the election, we have to understand that it is our civic duty to vote, but we must be voting wisely and honestly. We must choose not as self-interested Americans, but as Catholic Americans seeking that our country lives the principles of Truth and Justice. It is losing those principles because of the injustice of groups in our country including Catholics among them that have cast those principles aside while fighting for something else besides the truth and justice that bring life.
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