This past Sunday we celebrated Easter. As we listened in Church to the various narrative readings from Scripture recounting the passion of Christ, it was impossible not to reflect on the political nature of the miscarriage of justice that occurred. While every scornful abuse was divinely ordained, ultimately turning every mockery upon its head as a submissive tool of God’s sovereign will and triumph, the human action was indisputably a product of the classic democracy. It is not hard to imagine the mob, prodded by their ecclesiastical lobbyist, prefacing their demands for crucifixion with “We the People!” as the rightful authorities flagrantly abdicated their responsibility with the washing of hands.
Admittedly, this Easter reflection is distinctly American. As such, the passage pulls the curtain on a number of our cultural assumptions. The foremost is the challenge it poses to the sloppy generalizations we often make when assuming that democracy is an intrinsically good thing, and that (naturally) the United States is a democracy. Though many would like to sterilize the two subjects into two separate and independent compartments, this passage, in revealing our political generalizations, inescapably states something about our underlying theology as well. Many will balk at this, and still more will suddenly grow shy and uneasy, but the unavoidable truth of reality is that, as one talented writer put it, your theology is what comes out of your fingertips. It is inescapable, regardless if you are an atheist, deist, agnostic, Muslim, or Hutaree “Christian”; What you believe about the ultimate nature of Right, Wrong, and it’s relation to the Universe will eventually (or at least should, if you’re living consistently) make its way to the surface of your daily thoughts and actions. In this case regarding America’s unchecked confidence in democracy, what is revealed is an unqualified faith in human nature.
This confidence in the basic goodness of man manifests itself all around us, and Easter weekend was no exception, as one friend described. He and his young family went to a public Easter Egg hunt which was open to children ages 2 through 15. At the outset, the coordinators of the event used a megaphone to clearly communicate to the participants the reasonable regulations in place, including a quantity limit as well as a special hunt area set exclusively aside for the younger ages. What followed was a complete thwarting of equity, as the older kids rampaged the field with unblinking self-interest leaving the younger children with precious little. Apparently, many parents were noticeably shocked, expounding upon various expressions of “I can’t believe this.” So much for these Innocents “trailing clouds of glory,” as the poet wrote.
These cultural assumptions regarding the intrinsic value of democracy and the basically good nature of man are not only out of step with the founding principles of this nation, but they pose a serious hazard to its future that can only be remedied by a cultural recovery of careful distinctions. As best outlined in a brief history lesson, the tried and true means to this recovery must necessary be a holistic, culture-building education.
Shocking as it may be to some, the United States is not (or was not meant to be) a democracy. It was distinctly crafted by the Founders as a constitutional Republic. “What form of government have we?” asked one Philadelphia women upon Benjamin Franklin’s exit of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. “A Republic,” he stated (and then added ominously “if you can keep it!”). In the writing of John Adams, there is “no good government but what is republican…the very definition of a republic is ‘an empire of laws, and not of men.’” This quote is found within Thoughts of Government (1776), which became part of an influential Adamsian “handbook” of sorts for the sovereign states as they crafted their new constitutions in the wake of the Declaration of Independence. These state constitutions in turn had a direct and pervasive affect on the thinking behind the construction of the subsequent Articles of Confederation and Constitution. Despite the ten dollar word it is today, in the time of this nation’s founding the word “democracy” had distinctly negative connotations, conjuring all sorts of historical examples of chaos and mob tyranny in the minds of our classically educated Founders. The effect may have been something near to the reaction of most Americans today given the word “socialism”. Adams’ provides the rationale for this that was common at the time:
“If a majority are capable of preferring their own private interest, or that of their families, counties, and party, to that of the nation collectively, some provision must be made in the constitution, in favor of justice, to compel all to respect the common right, the public good, the universal law, in preference to all private and partial considerations… And that the desires of the majority of the people are often for injustice and inhumanity against the minority, is demonstrated by every page of history… To remedy the dangers attendant upon the arbitrary use of power, checks, however multiplied, will scarcely avail without an explicit admission some limitation of the right of the majority to exercise sovereign authority over the individual citizen… In popular governments [democracies], minorities [individuals] constantly run much greater risk of suffering from arbitrary power than in absolute monarchies…” On Government, (1778).
Thomas Jefferson summarized the same more succintly: “Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty nine.” Even George Washington, who was not formally trained in the classical studies like most of his counterparts, gleaned enough from the company he kept to disparagingly distinguish the French Revolutionaries as “democrats” in a letter to Jefferson while sparring over the merits between the English and French models of government.
This is not to undermine the equally common conviction of the day that Lawful government essentially rested upon the consent of the governed, and that power remained vested in the people to establish and modify that government as needed. The Founders, being wise to the examples of history and accurately understanding the corruptible nature of man, charted a route of both and versus either or. They were not stumped by the simplistic dichotomy historical precedent may have pressed upon them: Monarchy, Oligarchy, or Democracy? No, they forged a middle way, retaining the strengths of each while crafting a system of checks and balances that would help safeguard the country from the common evils of each. Powers were divided, systematic accountability established, and representation was balanced between the people in the House and the states in the Senate. This unprecedented achievement was only possible because they, generally speaking, were the products of a culture whose educational norm was broad enough to produce a robust intellectual fabric capable of careful distinctions and circumspect, qualitative evaluations. Indeed, in reading these early debates a modern reader can sometimes grow weary of the intense debate that often attended even the most seemingly trifle issues.
As referenced earlier, the French Revolution, which ran on the heels of the American War for Independence, merited recognition as the true democracy. Initially, the two new governments shared a sort of sisterhood, sharing, at first glance, various Enlightenment ideals surrounding the intrinsic rights if man. Many French fought within the colonial ranks even before France’s formal entry into the American Revolution. Later, Bostonians reciprocated their moral support by donning red caps and greeting each other as “Citizen So-and-So” during the onset of France’s revolutionary upheaval. But it soon became apparent that the two new countries were headed in very different directions.
The French Revolution sprang directly from the overlapping French Enlightenment philosophies of Meslier, Voltaire, and Diderot, all of whom stated (with slight variations) that utopia could be had only by strangling the last king with the entrails of the last priest. Removed of these obsolete authorities, mankind was entering the “Age of Reason” (at one point described as the Cult of Reason), a secular philosophy placing a primary confidence in the moral potential and prowess of man. Such ideology produced the aspiring Robespierre, nicknamed “the Incorruptible” for his ascetic dedication to his ideals, who served as a leader in the early days of the Revolution. As the atrocities of mob rule erupted in what became known as the Reign of Terror, Robespierre justified the anarchy, stating that “Terror is nothing else than swift, severe, indomitable justice; it flows, then, from virtue.” How ironic that shortly after this statement Robespierre himself fell prey to this lawless “virtue” beneath the blade of the guillotine.
The American Revolution, in contrast, was marked from its beginning by unwelcome British troops accused with the Boston “Massacre” being acquitted by a colonial jury dissuaded from prejudice through the talented efforts of a Boston lawyer (and future president) committed to the unimpassioned rule of Law. Whereas the French Revolution attempted to bear only upon “Natural Law” the Founders of America at large embraced Enlightenment Ideals rooted within the Reformation before it, thus “the Law of Nature and Nature’s God.” The French, in their exultation of godless Reason, reaped a moral and social insanity. The Americans, broadly speaking, sowed Enlightenment Ideals submitted to Reformation truths and applied with a rigorous classical methodology to produce a country of freedom, peace, and affluence for the common man that became the envy of the world. While not asserting that every founder was a devout Christian parishioner (though most were), this politically realized hierarchy reflects the pervasively Protestant culture of America at that time. This perspective identified man’s nature as depraved and continually suspect of evil, requiring various checks and balances of accountability, and only finding happiness when in submission to the Reason and Law of God. This was a recognizable culture, carefully maintained and prolonged by a comprehensive system of belief and thought. In this enculturation, their Theology interconnected with their evaluation of History, which in turn influenced their Politics. This “turn-key” education provided the philosophic foundation necessary to avoid the naivety (and rampant bloodshed) of the French courtship with goddess Reason and her democracy.
It is no wonder then, that the Founders placed such an importance on education: “Religion, Morality,and Knowledge being necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and all means of education shall forever be encouraged.” (Northwest Ordinance, 1787). It is striking to recognize that it was within the schools that they naturally expected “Religion, Morality, and Knowledge” to be necessarily taught! This approach to education is broad reaching, bearing a profoundly centrality to the culture at large. What a striking contrast to the morally-paralyzed and limp-wristed public school curriculum we have today! We moderns, for various reasons, have dismembered the comprehensive educational approach typical to the Reformation-based cultures of the past. The result is an anemic and dissected system of belief only affordable because a more robust culture before it paved the way for the current blessing of comfortable and tolerant living. As Dorothy Sayers identified in her essay The Lost Tools of Learning, the great defect of our education today is that “although we often succeed in teaching our pupils ‘subjects,’ we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think: they learn everything, except for the art of learning.” In referencing the Greek word choice of Ephesians 6:4, Doug Wilson identifies this holistic approach as The Paideia of God, recognizing that the pervasive enculturation indicated in “paideia” bears profound ramifications for our response to St. Paul’s admonishment to “train up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” (Eph 6:4).
This broader vision for building sound culture through education is a monumental task. It cannot be understood or applied beneath the guise of “neutrality” found within the State schools. This has left the work to us, and thousands like us, who are willing to recover our rightful responsibility for the all-encompassing education of our children. In submitting all things to the Wisdom of God in Christ, we will be building a well-fitted culture that may once again draw the careful distinctions between democracy and republicanism, and between the Cult of (Postmodern) Reason and the happy fruit of Biblical Obedience.
