Shalom everyone,
If you have been brought up in a Christian environment, you have probably been taught that religion and politics don’t mix. You have probably also been taught that a religious minister or leader should not criticise the government, and that meddling in politics is just not the right thing to do for a Christian.
This is all down to the teachings of Paul of Tarsus: ‘Let every person be subject to the governing authorities’, Rom 13:1; ‘Rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad,’ Rom 13:3; and ‘aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own business,’ 1Thess 4:11. He was concerned that Christians should not be seen as dangerous to the Roman Imperial authorities, and so his followers did their best to reassure Rome that Christians were not a threat – in fact, they went overboard, and made their pro-Paullist writings both pro-Roman and anti-Jewish.
Introduction
My personal view is that there is no human political system that God fully endorses, 100%. For that reason, I believe that it is wrong for any religious person to claim that God fully backs all their political beliefs.
One particular failing of religious people today, is that their psychological outlook, and their political leanings and biases, inform how they approach politics, instead of letting God’s ethics inform their politics. For some people, aggressive and sociopathic values have become so admired and desirable, that most of God’s own, righteous ethical values can comfortably be ignored in this environment where religion should not interfere with politics.
In contrast, in the Israelite religion, the power and authority of Yahveh – the God of Israel and of all Nations – extends to every aspect of life, even politics. With Yahveh, you don’t check in God’s values once you enter political office; God’s ethics are not abandoned outside polling stations. Yeshua said, ‘No one can serve two masters’ – and that applies to politics as well as money.
The biblical Israelite approach to politics is that governance should be fair and just; a government should not enact oppressive or unjust laws; rulers should not be authoritarian, but should be open to fair criticism from their citizens; religious and civil authority should be separate, and judges should not be political appointments (in ancient Israel, a priest could not be king and vice versa, and the king could not interfere with judges, who had to be impartial); society should be built on social justice and equity; the least in society should not be oppressed, and foreigners should not be ill-treated or made to suffer, and the elderly and widowed should not be disadvantaged.
The modern State of Israel was built upon Jewish ideals, and that is why it is the only country in the Middle East that is a full democracy. It is, admittedly, not a perfect democracy, but to move away from the ideals of democracy would be to turn away from Torah and from God.
What happens when people don’t care about ethics in government
‘When the wicked rule, the people groan.’ (Prov 29:2b)
You have probably seen the sad pictures in the news about the collapse of the economy in my birth-country of Sri Lanka. This all happened because of the corruption and mismanagement of the Rajapaksa family, who over the past decade or so, have run (or more accurately, ruined) the country, using the country’s finances as their own personal savings account.
Bad economic decisions and bad investments (such as taking out loans with Communist China, which the country could never hope to pay back), has meant that the country has no foreign currency to import the food, goods and fuel that its economy needs to function.
People put their trust in the government, and thought everything would turn out right. Unfortunately, when governments fall so calamitously, the ordinary people suffer. People struggle to feed their children, there is no money, very little to buy, and there is rampant inflation. When you don’t care about the ethics of government or how a country is run, then something like what is happening now in Sri Lanka will hit you. Taking the utterly irresponsible attitude that ‘Oh well, that’s just how life is, governments rise and fall’, won’t put food on the table, or put affordable goods in the shops, or acquire the medicines that people need to stay alive. If you are the kind of person who believes that governments should do as little as possible, rather than help their country to achieve and maintain a healthy economy, then your country will collapse, just like Sri Lanka, and you and your children will suffer.
What religious values cover, and what they don’t
‘Can wicked rulers be allied with you, those who enshrine injustice by statute?’ (Ps 94:20)
Israelite values do not cover the minutiae of economic policy, or how fiscal policy should operate. Religious values don’t dictate what policies you propose in government, but rather how you do it, and your general attitude towards governing, social values, leadership, and the poor.
The Israelite religion has no place for authoritarianism – this is why Jewish people have been so persecuted by authoritarian governments, because our presence in amongst the general population, means that non-Jews come to hear about Jewish social and ethical values, and Jewish ideals of freedom and equality – which are distinctly anti-authoritarian and anti-tyranny. Just look at those political and religious systems that hate Jews, and my point is made.
A government should not diminish the laws of their country which are intended to protect our freedoms; or institute laws which enable wealthy fraudsters and swindlers to prosper.
Personally, I am opposed to both Communism and Fascism, because both deny human rights and personal freedoms. Both groups believe that they have the right to have their opinions, but that people who disagree with them, do not have any right at all to their opinions. Both believe that society can only be run according to their political dogma and doctrine, and any other political thought has to be suppressed. Both Communism and Fascism attract people who have a pathological need to control others. I hope that that trait does not apply to any of you!
I have often mentioned the biblical outlook towards kings, but I’ll mention it again here, because it’s relevant. In ancient times, there were no politicians as we would understand them, just people who wanted power. Across the ancient world, the kings and emperors were the government. The vast majority ruled with absolute power – with the notable exception of the Kings of ancient Israel and Judah. Israelite and Judahite monarchs could not do as they pleased, because they had God’s Torah to contend with.
They also had God’s prophets to contend with. Most religious people today think that the job of a prophet was to deliver predictions about the future, or convey new revelations from God. However, in the Israelite religion, that was not what a prophet’s job was. The primary job of a prophet, was to tell rulers and the people what they were doing wrong – wrongful actions which would bring down God’s judgment on the nation, and so endanger their continued habitation in the Land. The prophets were there to remind their rulers and their people of God’s existing values, principals and ideals that were being ignored, how far they were straying from them, and what would happen if they continued such an iniquitous path; that’s the job of a Hebrew prophet.
When you forbid prophets, in a Yahwist society that is tantamount to telling God to shut up – forbidding God to tell people where they are going wrong, and what they can do to correct their course.
Someone who believes that the biblical prophets never spoke to rulers or leaders, somehow thinks that Nathan never castigated David for sleeping with Bathsheva and having her husband killed; or that Yochanan the Immerser (John the Baptist) never castigated Antipas, or that the prophet Yeshua never castigated the religious and Temple authorities of his day. It’s true that we don’t have any recorded sayings of Yeshua criticising the Roman authorities, but that’s because doing so would have meant immediate death – Yeshua was no fool.
We should not make excuses for the wrongful actions of leaders we support
In the mindset of the Israelite faith, the higher up in authority you are, the greater responsibility you have towards keeping God’s social and ethical laws, because kings and priests are held to greater account by God than ordinary people.
In the Israelite faith, there was the belief that if you supported wrongdoing, or made excuses for the wicked and cruel actions of others, then you suffer the same punishment from God as if you had committed the sin yourself. This comes from Prov 17:15 – “He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the righteous, both of them are an abomination to Yahveh”.
If leaders we admire do wrong, we should never cover up or try to justify those wrongdoings. There are some people who defend the wrongdoings of leaders, simply because they agree with their political views – or what’s worse – purely because they belong to the same religion as they do (such misguided support brings the integrity of one’s religion into disrepute).
A Talmidi has to understand that, the higher up in social status or office that you are, the more that is expected of you from God, and the greater will be the severity of judgment upon such a person for their misdeeds and misrule.
For example, if a lay person commits adultery, then they have committed a sin, and God will deal with such a person appropriately. However, if a religious leader commits adultery, the judgment against them is greater, because they have brought the good character of God into disrepute.
When the king of Israel commits adultery, the judgment against him is greatest of all. When David committed adultery with Batsheva, the prophet Nathan told him that war would never depart from him, his wives would be taken by other men, and his firstborn would die (2Sam 12).
If you expect little from your leaders, then you will get very little from your leaders. Only the people who expect great things from their leaders, will have great things delivered to them.
The leader of a country exists to serve all their people
The prophet Yeshua said, ‘You know how the rulers of the Gentiles lord their authority over them, and how their great leaders control and dominate them. But this isn’t how it is to be among you. Rather, whoever wishes to become great among you must be your attendant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be servant to all – just as this son of man wasn’t called by God to be served, but to serve.’
The Talmidi ideal of a political leader, is that they have been elected to serve all the people of their country, not just their own political interests. If their policies and actions cause one, large section of their society to plummet in their living standards, and another, small section of their society to rocket higher than they have ever been before, then they have failed as a leader before God.
A good leader has to love their country and its citizens more than they love themselves or their own interest group. Loving only some of your nation, or only those who share your political views, does not make you patriotic; it just makes you a poor leader who lords their authority over their country.
A leader should not seek power purely so that they can make those who disagree with their political views suffer. Such a leader is more interested in vengeance and getting back at those he doesn’t like, than actually running a country so that its economy is successful.
The Israelite religion does not allow tyrants to rest
‘Put not your trust in leaders, in human beings, in whom there is no salvation’ (Ps 146:3)
In ancient times, kings and emperors existed for their own aggrandisement. They were there to attain power and keep it. They weren’t interested in the welfare of their subjects. That was not how it was to be with Israel.
If you criticised a pagan ruler, you could expect to live a short life. However, a king of Israel could be criticised, because he was to be held to a greater standard. Lev 19:26 said that the king was to read Torah everyday of his life, so that he did not become a haughty or authoritarian monarch. The king of Israel was to be just and fair, as Torah was just and fair, and as Yahveh our God is just and fair.
When you allow responsible criticism, and constructive criticism, then you can ensure that bad ideas are nipped in the bud, and good ideas are allowed to prosper. But if a ruler ignores the will of their people, and instead listens only to the demands of the rich and powerful minority, then what needs to be done to enable the country to prosper, never gets done.
The part that the rich and wealthy play in society
If the laws of a country are dictated by the wealthiest 5% of a country’s population – if they pay lobbyists to push only their agendas and their interests, and the needs of the other 95% of the country are ignored, then such a country is not a democracy – it is a dictatorship by oligarchy. A country will not survive if such a situation continues for decades and generation after generation; eventually there will come a crisis point, and God will be behind that crisis.
Wealthy and powerful people seem to think that it is the law of the jungle that operates in human society – that we should live according to the ‘kill or be killed’ way of life, and that it’s perfectly acceptable to trample over others to get what you want. They ignore the reality that it is God’s natural law that underpins God’s ideals of human society.
The Israelite ideal, is that a just society should have concern for its poorest members – and that ideal applies to those in government too. God said, “If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that YHVH your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be.” (Dt 15:7-8).
The Israelite ideal is to create a Just Society
‘Choose for your tribes wise, understanding, and experienced men, and I will appoint them as your heads’. (Dt 1:13)
Those who admire authoritarianism, view the words, ‘social justice’ as an obscene and evil term. They view people who seek a just and fair society as evil. But ‘Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who take darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!’ (Isa 5:20). Woe to those who say that “All who do evil are good in the sight of YHVH, for God delights in them.” (Mal 2:17).
Social justice is one of the pillars upon which the Israelite faith is founded. In Talmidi shabbat services, each week we read of God’s views on an ideal society:
“Is it not to unlock the fetters put there by the wicked,
to untie the straps of their yoke,
to set free the broken and downtrodden,
and shatter every yoke?
Is it not to share out your food with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into a place of shelter?
To cover those you see without adequate clothing,
and not to hide yourself from your flesh and blood
when they are in need?
Because then the radiance of all the help you give
will break forth like the dawn,
And the recovery you bring to others
will soon gather speed.
Your righteousness will go before you at your head,
and My Glory will be your rear guard.
Then if you call out in prayer, I will not fail to answer you;
You will cry out, and I will say, ‘Here I am.’
And if you get rid of the heavy burdens in your society,
the mocking fingers that accuse the innocent,
and the hearts that can only speak wickedness –
if you open your hearts to the needs of the hungry,
and satisfy the needs of the starving among you,
then your light will rise in times of darkness and despair,
and your days of gloom will become like the light of midday.
Then I will be an unceasing guidance to you –
I will satisfy your thirst in times of drought,
and invigorate your bodies in times of famine.
Then you will be like a permanently watered garden –
like a spring of water whose waters never run dry.
(Isaiah 58:6b-12)
Those who say to you that religious faith is nothing to do with how government and society are run, are lying to you for the sake of their own political views. Don’t believe them, believe Yahveh. Because their gods might lie to them, but Yahveh, the living God of truth, will never lie to you, or deceive you.
Through the prophet Jeremiah, God told the Jewish people to seek the welfare of whichever society we live in, because if it prospers, then we prosper (Jer 29:7). To ignore the ethics of government is to ignore the just commandments of our God. To ask us to just ignore bad government, and get on with our lives as if nothing is happening, is asking us to turn a blind eye to wrongdoing, and to ignore the ideals of God. Ignoring a sin, is a sin in itself.
Where it will end
The world is currently heading in the wrong direction. Most countries are going backwards, and becoming more authoritarian or totalitarian. Human beings seem to think that the best way to deal with the world’s worsening problems is to become more and more extreme in their political views. But extremism will not make crops grow, stop the seas from rising, or stop the world from getting warmer – and ignoring that such problems exist will not stop them from happening either. A little fascist can stand atop a sandy hill on a beach, but no matter how loudly or forcefully he spouts his toxic rhetoric, his sandy hill is going to crumble under the rising waves of the sea – even if he denies the fact that it is happening.
The human race is on notice – and has been for some time. If people do not care about the ethics of their governments – if they do not care about what governments should be doing, then we will have more and more ruinous governments that have a very quick trigger finger, and then we won’t have a world to worry about.
That might be good news for religions that have a psychopathic longing for the end of the world, but it is bad news for God, who actually promised us a world of universal peace. Do you think that YHVH is going to stand idly by and let it all happen? Do you think YHVH is someone who will let God’s promises be broken? When people are moved to speak out and warn us, who do you think is behind such people? You can either serve your politics, your religious fanaticism, or you can serve God; you can, after all, only have one Master.