Relocating To Elfland

I have always found big government ideology hard to understand. Why on earth would anyone want a centralized, bureaucratic government to stand as the supplier, guardian, and regulator of all civic blessings (or, worse still, private freedoms)? Has history not given us sufficient examples of how “benevolent” tyranny corrodes into just plain old garden-variety tyranny? Is it so hard to understand that there are multiple spheres of sovereignty, not just beside the state but also within it (thinking here of such outmoded concepts as federalism), and that this is a basic safeguard to human freedom and flourishing? Setting aside constitutional issues for a minute (you see, I can get with the times), isn’t there a failure of basic good sense in statism?

It recently dawned on me, however, that if a nation takes seriously its refusal to “kiss the Son” (Ps 2:12) this leaves some very big shoes to fill. Who’s going to provide for the poor and needy? Who’s going to grant, preserve, and regulate civil and private liberties? Who’s going to defend us from aggressions within and without? Who’s going to train up our children? Who’s going to take care of us when we are old? Who’s going to tell us what will make us really happy, and then gives us lots of it? Who will assure our future? On whose strong arm shall we all lean? We need a messiah who is big and powerful and impressive and benevolent, who inspires confidence and guarantees security, who solves our problems and grants us shalom. It’s tough to find such a savior on the local level, or in a bunch of fragmented spheres. So enter the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-providing central government. And the louder the advocates of self-government shriek, the gladder we are that big brother is there to preserve order. He is compassionate. He is mighty. He is dependable. And we are dependent. But it’s a small price to pay.