Wisdom is as wisdom does!

"Does orthodoxy have a satisfactory answer to the dilemma which this nation faces?
This is an important question and demands an answer. If liberalism has been such an
influential agency for the creation of a movement away from constitutional government
and the traditional American freedom toward a collectivist society and some kind of
totalitarian regime, does Christian orthodoxy have a remedy for this situation?
The answer is found in the biblical view of government. The Scriptures clearly teach
that human government is of divine ordination and does not have as its origin in any
social compact or contract, as Hobbes and Locke taught, nor was it created by man
himself to meet the needs of his society. Rather does Christian theism insist that
government was ordained of God for man and that its just powers come from Him and not
from man. Government is not ordained primarily to defend human liberty, but to insure
that kind of society necessary for man to carry out those duties which he owes to God
alone. Thus, government has clearly defined powers and operates in a clearly defined
sphere. The basic error of liberalism at this point has been its insistence that
human government is a social institution, responsible to those men who created it and
is primarily concerned with the preservation of human rights as they were defined by
Jefferson and others of that day. This error is very popular among Christian people as
well as the nation at large and it has been productive of great error for it has allowed
the forces of political liberalism to extend the operations of government into spheres
where it has no right to be, and in so doing it has actually become a menace to the
human liberty which the liberals insist that it must protect. But above and beyond this, when human government extends its powers and operations to those spheres of human life
which God did not render subject to it, government then finds itself in opposition to
its divinely bestowed purposes for it takes unto itself powers which were never bestowed
upon it. It is this extension of power into these forbidden areas which has created the
modern totaliarian state. When human government enters into the field of labor relations,
education, mental and physical health, agriculture, housing, and those many other areas
of legislation so characteristic of the federal government today, it leaves its proper
functions and enters into those areas of life which God has either ordained that the
church or the family should have as their particular sphere of responsibility, or that
they should be the concern of some human institution which man may erect for his own
civil purposes under Gods grace.
The real problem then, is not basically the reduction of governmental expenses(as imp-
ortant as that is), nor the proper relationship between the states and the federal government, or the victory of one political party over another. All of these have their
place. But the basic issue is the reduction of the total scope of government, on both
the federal and state level, to those spheres which are clearly conferred upon it by the
Scriptures and the surrender of those extra-biblical powers which liberal political
philosophy and practice have given to it during the last one hundred years or so. Only
then will our government be truly Christian and freedom restored to its former and proper
place in the life of the American people."
C.Gregg Singer
A Theological Interpretation Of American History

Uncle D.