Islam is a worldview masquerading as a religion intent on world domination through fear, terror, and the ballot box. The talk from both ends of the political spectrum is that “democracy” will cure the ills of Iraq, Iran, Egypt, and the surrounding Muslim nations. What if the protesting people of Egypt decide they want a Taliban-style social and political system whose goal is to defeat the infidel West and impose Sharia law on Muslims and non-Muslims worldwide and they choose violence to accomplish the goal and the masses remain silent because they are afraid of reprisals? Democracy in the hands of wild-eyed fanatics is perilous. In the end, they would have used the democratic process to deny the democratic process once they gain power through the democratic process. It’s been said that Democracy is like a streetcar. When you reach your destination, you get off.
Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying. There are democratic elements in our constitutional system, but these are balanced with courts and elected representatives. Moreover, western-style democratic principles are built on the remnants of a Christian moral order. Self-government under God’s government tempered the potential harmful effects of a pure democracy that could be manipulated by evil men. Attempts to export our political form without the worldview that gave it its heart will lead to unintended consequences. Democracy in the Mideast will only lead to the imposition of the prevailing worldview which is anti-Christian and anti-Western. (Being anti-Western is not an all-bad thing. Just take a look at some of last night’s Super Bowl commercials and what pours forth from our televisions every minute for the whole world to see. This says nothing about the legalization of homosexuality and the bizarre notion that two people of the same sex can get married and adopt children. See Dinesh D’Souza’s The Enemy at Home for a discussion of what makes some Muslims anti-Western.) There will be enough people in Egypt, influenced by Islamo-fascist terrorists who have their own special kind of death wish. They would love to get the chance to vote in a “democratic election” so they can see their dream of an Islamic world realized.
Holland used to have a Christian base. Over a period of time, the government adopted a form of religious pluralism, giving equal standing, first, to all Christian denominations, then to religion in general, and finally to every worldview imaginable. Holland has lost its worldview base. It has become a haven for drugs, prostitution, and euthanasia—all legal! Its liberal immigration policies are beginning to worry people, especially after the murder of Dutch filmmaker and outspoken critic of Islamic extremism Theo van Gogh. Tens of thousands of Dutch citizens have moved elsewhere, mostly to New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. This has led to a higher concentration of Muslims.
Muslims make up ten percent of the population. If population trends continue, Muslims could become a viable political force and remake Holland into a Muslim nation in the lifetime of our grandchildren. Holland’s religious pluralism could be its downfall. Is it too late? The rest of Europe is in a similar demographic predicament.
There is so much talk about democracy that few people have considered what our founders have said about this fictional ideal. Consider these comments about democracy. Democracy is no moral cure all. John Winthrop (1588–1649), first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, declared direct democracy to be “the meanest and worst of all forms of government.”[1] John Cotton (1584–1652), seventeenth-century Puritan minister in Massachusetts, wrote in 1636: “Democracy, I do not conceive that ever God did ordain as a fit government either for church or commonwealth. If the people be governors, who shall be governed?”[2] James Madison (1751–1836), recognized as the “father of the Constitution,” wrote that democracies are “spectacles of turbulence and contention.” Pure democracies are “incompatible with personal security or the rights of property. . . . In general [they] have been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”[3] John Adams, the second president of the United States, stated that “the voice of the people is ‘sometimes the voice of Mahomet, of Caesar, of Catiline, the Pope, and the Devil.’”[4] Francis A. Schaeffer described democracy as “the dictatorship of the 51%, with no controls and nothing with which to challenge the majority.”[5] The logic is simple: “It means that if Hitler was able to get a 51% vote of the Germans, he had a right to kill the Jews.”[6]
This misunderstanding of democracy prompted me to write the God and Government series. No government—family, church, or civil—can function well and with longevity without acknowledging that God is both the source and limiter of our delegated authority by revealed law, and without self-government all institutional governments will fail (Ex. 18 and 1 Tim. 3). If Egypt and the Middle East are to survive, they must adopt a biblical worldview. Unfortunately, there are too many Christians who believe it’s impossible because it is their contention that the stage is being set for some end-time inevitability.
- Quoted in A. Marvyn Davies, Foundation of American Freedom: Calvinism in the Development of Democratic Thought and Action (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1955), 11. [↩]
- Letter to Lord Say and Seal, quoted by Perry Miller and Thomas H. Johnson, eds., The Puritans: A Sourcebook of Their Writings, 2 vols. (New York: Harper and Row, [1938) 1963), 1:209–210. Also see Edwin Powers, Crime and Punishment in Early Massachusetts: 1620–1692 (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1966), 55. [↩]
- Quoted in Jacob E. Cooke, ed., The Federalist, (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961), 61. [↩]
- John Adams, quoted by Gilbert Chinard, Honest John Adams (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., [1933] 1961), 241 in John Eidsmoe, “The Christian America Response to National Confessionalism,” in Gary Scott Smith, ed., God and Politics: Four Views on the Reformation of Civil Government (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1989), 227–228. [↩]
- Francis A. Schaeffer, The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century (1970) in The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian Worldview, 5 vols. (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1982), 4:27. [↩]
- Schaeffer, The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century, 4:27. [↩]
Gary is a graduate of Western Michigan University (1973) and earned his M.Div. at Reformed Theological Seminary in 1979. Author of countless essays, news articles, and more than 27 book titles, he also hosts The Gary DeMar Show, and History Unwrapped—both broadcasted and podcasted. Gary has lived in the Atlanta area since 1979 with his wife, Carol. They have two married sons and are enjoying being grandparents to their grandsons, Calvin and Paul. Gary and Carol are members of Midway Presbyterian Church (PCA).
Excellent article.
I am reminded of the following passage from Paul K. Ryu and Helen Silving, “The Foundations of Democracy: Its Origins and Essential Ingredients”: “Common to all these [aforementioned] forms of [democratic] government is the assumption that the basic postulate of democracy is the majority rule, whereby the majority of the people in a community makes the decisions that are to govern. On this assumption most scholars trace the origins of ‘democracy’ to Greece. They disregard democracy’s other constituent element, civil liberties. It seems to escape their attention that Socrates was sentenced to death in ‘democratic Athens’ for teaching dissenting views. In this essay we proceed on a more concise basic assumption, namely, that the essential of democracy is the status of the individual within society, his rights vis-à-vis the State, whereas the majority rule is but a compromise solution in a state of necessity.” (Silving goes to argue that the true source of democracy is none other than the Bible.)
Also, I am reminded of this passage from Edwin S. Corwin’s The “Higher Law” Background of American Constitutional Law (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1955), p. 4, quoted in Steven Alan Samson’s “The Covenant Origins of The American Polity”: “The attribution of supremacy to the Constitution on the ground solely of its rootage in popular will represents, however, a comparatively late outgrowth of American constitutional theory. Earlier the supremacy accorded to constitutions was ascribed less to their putative source than to their supposed content, to their embodiment of an essential and unchanging justice…. There are, it is predicated, certain principles of right and justice which are entitled to prevail of their own intrinsic excellence, all together regardless of the attitude of those who wield the physical resources of the community.”
Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism seems to evince a similar view, saying that consent to a social contract by one’s ancestors cannot bind future generations, and that Romans 13 attributes the authority to God. The way I understand it, if Calvin in the Institutes says that all the various forms of government are valid, according to the nature of the people, then it means that social contract can determine the form of government, but not its substance. The laws themselves must be from God, and social contract can determine which offices exist and who fills those offices.
Likewise, compared James Otis, Jr.’s saying “The supreme power in a state is jus dicere [to declare the preexisting law]: jus dare [to legislate the law], strictly speaking, belongs alone to God…. There must be in every instance a higher authority, God. Should an act of Parliament be against any of His natural laws, which are immutably true, their declaration would be contrary to eternal truth, equity, and justice, and consequently void.”
Most of the ‘democracy’ talk is just rhetoric, they aren’t advocating for a pure, raw islamic democracy but a US driven and influenced Democracy to extent that’s possible.
One problem, of many, is that in many of these countries the Illiteracy rate is very high and the Dictators have no desire to educate their slaves. Going to be hard to evangelize to them if they can’t read and write.
This is an important column for Christians to read. I disagree with nothing stated explicitly in it, but I might with one position implied. Mr. DeMar states “Holland has lost its worldview base. It has become a haven for drugs, prostitution, and euthanasia—all legal!”
I do not agree with any of the positions taken by libertarians on social issues — for the reasons that libertarians give, which are humanistic when not atheistic. I know that no society can aspire to be Godly if it permits prostitution or euthanasia. The former is not simply an “act between two consenting adults” (the old libertarian favorite): it is fornication, it is anti-family, and it can be (and often is) in no unchecked way adulterous. It defies the Seventh Commandment. Euthanasia defies the Fifth Commandment — it’s murder.
But what of drug use? Excessive use of alcohol — drunkenness — is sinful, yet moderate use of wine and spirits is Biblically permissible — they are even among life’s fruits, and accompaniments to Lawful celebration. There are secular laws, and rightly so, against drinking to excess: public drunkenness, drunk driving, selling or giving liquor to minors among them. But, while the police have a right to break into a private home if they have grounds to believe someone inside is running a house of prostitution or is practicing euthanasia, the police don’t have a right to break in if they are even positive that some guy is getting plastered.
That guy needs to answer to God, and he’ll be judged by God. So too, I believe with the drug user versus the drug abuser. (I personally deplore mind-altering drug use and have never done it, if you don’t count sitting in a beclouded college dorm room with 5 marijuana smokers a few times some 40 years ago.) The federal government is spending a fortune of taxpayers’ money on a failing War on Drugs that has not only wasted billions of dollars but indirectly has caused murders to innocent cashiers (many of them kids) at 7-Elevens and other retail establishments.
Members of a church should rightly go to a communicant who is abusing drugs and try to get him to change his ways for the sake of his eternal future. The police should not go to him (and lock him up) unless he is selling drugs to kids, or, while under its influence, staggering around or even displaying its use publicly (a form of public lewdness), or driving a vehicle. (If he’s beating up his family or robbing stores under its influence, he is dealt with foremost because of the beating and the robbing.)
Some level of drug use IS sinful, I believe, under the category of drunkenness as proscribed in The Bible. But that is a matter between a man and the Lord. If convicted, his punishment will be far worse than Sing-Sing.
I’ve had the pleasure of reading the essays in American Vision for a few years now, and they’ve enlightened me in many ways. One of its positions I’ve wondered about but not seen to this point concerns how a Christian society should deal with drug use. Was Prohibition not a mistake? Is our government-run War on Drugs (as opposed to a morally admonitory war on drugs waged by caring Christians) any different ?
Possibly when Mr. DeMar uses the term “haven” he is evoking the public displays of drug-taking that the Netherlands is infamous for. Certainly, a Christian society should outlaw these: they are morally repulsive to view and are corrupting examples for children. But a nation that deals with drugs and drug abuse the way we deal with alcohol use and abuse — “Purchase your stuff but don’t you go over the line publicly; privately, you will deal with your Maker” — seems to me to be true to a Christian nation.
All that said, my jury is still out. I welcome Biblical testimony to the contrary.
Dear Gary,
Generally I agree with your politically related comments, democracy, etc.
You said that we must acknowledge that all “laws” or “morality” rested in a belief in God .
Well, western civilization did not know about God until the Jews or Christians brought him to us.
So lets thank the Jews, more properly, the Israelites first. Their God was not good enough so along came Jesus Christ who fulfilled their “law” prophecy [ to some extent} but basically did away with their laws and replaced them with “Love God the Father above all else, love your neighbor as yourself.” something like that.
Kant, said that all laws can be summed under this one: “treat others as you want to be treated.”
So we don’t really need to believe in God to have morality. Of course it sometimes helps, sometimes hurts. Beliveing in Christ is good. Believing in Mohammad and what they say about “Allah” is bad.
So where do we go from here?
I whole-heartedly agree … though I had to read to the end of the post in order to discover that. I believe that many people mistake “The Christian Reconstruction” as a bunch of people intent on taking over the reigns of government FROM the people, in order to tell them what to do. (Or at least, it seems that some/many Reconstructionists feel that this approach is justified, as long as a thin layer of surface-level “righteousness” can be imposed upon the people, from the vantage point of the physical sword.) This does not appear (to me) to be what you’re saying at all, though I couldn’t see that from the first few paragraphs.
In a recent episode of Glenn Beck’s show, he agreed with a certain Jeffersonian muslim (maybe an oxymoron, but that’s “cognitive dissonance” for you). The muslim man said that he would like to see us reach out, and make massive efforts to proclaim and educate the public in other countries, rather than meddling in their politics. The war of ideas. In other words, educate the public, make MASSIVE and coordinated efforts to win the minds and hearts of the people. And let them govern themselves, in freedom (if they can). Bring a battle to the world of ideas, and win that battle, even while the enemy tries to come at us with physical weapons. Defend ourselves and our families. Care for our neighbors. Elect people that represent US, personally. But don’t meddle in politics, funding, and imposing our own rule on a foreign people that are not governing themselves. In other words, we shouldn’t be propping up anyone in a foreign country. Let them decide. Their decisions will always fail, unless they are following God.
The key is to educate the public, and win their hearts and minds. It’s not about who has control at the moment, so much as about them as people (their hearts and minds). Preach convicting messages of truth to them. Be creative in this. (After all, us losing the “propaganda” war resulted in the 20th century’s largest errors. Christians failed to communicate our message as well as the other side has, probably because of faulty eschatology and lack of unity.)
This appears to be what you’re getting at. This appears to me, to be totally genuine, biblical approach. People must be won. Otherwise, governing them by force does not matter (for eternal or even long-term temporal purposes). People must be allowed to choose, and choose wrongly. Or they will never clearly see the “sides” and the alternatives. God wants us to SEE, and embrace Him and His ways. Punishment comes if we choose wrongly, and usually at the hands of a wicked adversary. Until people choose the good, and stand for it to the death.
I believe that (for many years) the christians were not as effective as they could have been. We were lobbying “the government” for change in our direction. Rather than exposing evil to the public eye, and educating the public. Early conservatives took a top-down approach: heal the head and elect the right politician, and the body will follow. Problem is… WE ARE the head. Not the secular civil state. THEY are the tail (those who think they are rulers). WE (having unity and love in our hearts) are the only possibility that the world’s people and their leaders have for productivity and peace. WE generate these things, as our society wins over theirs. It is more “bottom up” than top down.
And I believe that this needs to be represented in our tone. In today’s political/cultural climate, the FIRST thing we should be talking about is the fact that we are not trying to control our neighbors: we just want to govern ourselves, and let them govern themselves. And we are willing to show them how to govern themselves. It is possible to have urgency, boldness, and logic… without immediately jumping on the “reform the civil state” bandwagon. It begins with INDIVIDUAL moral self-government (under God)
This is not a weak-knee’d pacifistic “joining hands and singing ‘cumbaya’”. It’s more like “hallelujah, our God reigns, and let me tell you about how and why”.
When Reconstructionists speak of “theocracy”, may they be talking about God ruling over our heart, soul, mind, and strength? Or does “theocracy” mean God ruling with a heavy-hand through our regulations, imposed upon a people who do not understand them?
We cannot afford to stay out of the dialogue on these things. These are all honest questions. From a newcomer to the “Christian Reconstruction” dialogue. Most people wouldn’t have probably stuck around as long as I have, and waded through all of it. Potential power-plays are always on the forefront on a man’s mind, as soon as he encounters someone who disagrees with him, about much of anything. Rather than simply explaining our entire worldview to him… I think that it may be more important to first communicate to him that we are not trying to lord it over him. And THEN proceed to explain principles of obedience to God. (Otherwise, all people can think of when they encounter such firm opinions about “governance” is civil control, papacy, caliphate, Roman Catholic Church of the middle ages, etc.)