The Corrupted Nature of our Republic

I am continuing to enjoy Bill Everett's gem of a book, God's Federal Republic: Reconstructing Our Governing Symbol. The overall premise of the book is that the Christian imagery of the Kingdom of God is anachronistic to the Constitutional democratic republic of 21st-century America.

But Everett points out in stark terms that representative democracy is not a panacea for what might be a primary goal of government, which he posits as protecting and advancing the common good, or at least mitigating the tragedy of the commons. In his view, representative democracy devolved very quickly from a group of honorable representatives seeking consensus on the common good (at least in the ideal) to a forum in which competing interests seek to advance their own goals. In this 21st-century republic, outcomes are driven by poll results, or more insidiously, by money. The "government of laws, not of men" described by John Adams in the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has become public policy by campaign contributions.

And so politics is not an appeal to the better angels of our nature to face with unity of purpose the challenges that confront us. Instead, politics is ruthlessly calculating in finding those particular special interests that drive wedges between families, neighbors, and friends. No means is too vile to advance the end of the special interest. Truth is blurred, morality transactional, and facts debatable. The law becomes a minor annoyance, to be countered by stacking the courts with judges friendly to one's interests.

Yet in our nation's history, we have had very few idyllic moments, where calls for the common good prevailed against the siege from the special interests. Lincoln's 2nd inaugural address, "with malice toward none, with charity for all," FDR's "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," and JFK's "we will send a man to the moon and return him to the earth" come to mind. In fact, NASA in the 1960's demonstrated the heights we can achieve when we harness the imagination and technical superiority of the American people, relying on science rather than myth.

Today cries out for another call to national unity, to setting big goals, to achieving big things, to continue to press for the more perfect Union. In the words of the Apostle Paul, we must throw off all the weights that hold us back, the weights of cynicism, of science denial, of false religion, of greed -- and press on to the goal of liberty and justice for all.