Whilst there were a lot of issues raised that night that I wanted to respond to (being a member of the audience, I was only able to ask a question on one) it was this point that I woke up with in my head the next morning; I awoke with the question/statement I wished I’d have asked/said on the night fresh in my mind. Here it is:

Mr Pacifist, you said that if someone wants something from us and we do not want to give it to them that is the sin of selfishness; if someone wants to take from us we should let them without resistance because that is what Jesus did when he let himself be crucified. Is that about right?

So if I go out to the parking lot and a man pins me to the ground and starts raping me and my hand find a rock in the darkness next to me, is what you are saying that I should let him take what he wants, that I should not use the rock to smash him in the head but rather I should lie back and think of Jesus?

I think the point you are missing is that Jesus let his life be taken to save humankind. If I let myself be taken I am saving no one; if I smashed the rapist in the head with a rock I could at least save the next victim. I could mount the argument that by responding with my choice to be pacifist I was selfishly not thinking of the next victim?

And what if it was my daughter? What if I heard a noise in the night and found some man pinning my 10 year old down raping her? Should I tell her to lie back and think of Jesus too? Not call the police who might force him away in handcuffs to face a justice system that will deprive him on his liberty? Not smash him over the head with a frying pan or attack him with a kitchen knife? Because I’ll tell you what, anyone who I found doing that to my daughter would leave my house in a body bag or I would give my life trying.

Pacifism might sound trendy but it misses the point that while Jesus might have lived a fairly pacifist looking life when he was on earth, Jesus is part of a Trinity and there are other parts of the Trinity that judge, that wage war, that strike down and destroy. Yet another part of the Trinity inspired the writing of  the whole Bible. All three elements of the Trinity’s example must be read together to understand the contexts they fall in and I believe Romans 13: 1-10 is the key:

On the Authority of the State to Govern Justly and the Directive to us to Consent to be Governed:

¹ Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. ² Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. ³ For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. ⁴ For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. ⁵ Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience. [Emphasis mine]

⁶ This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. ⁷Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Given the State’s Authority and our Consent to be Governed, how we should treat each other?

⁸ Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. ⁹ The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰ Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

The context of how we should live in peace and love must be read alongside the role and authority of the State to bring force and justice to those who do not. Choosing to only look at your perception of how Jesus lived without looking his example within the context of  what we know of God the Father and what the Holy Spirit has caused us to know through the Word of God is effectively denying the Trinity.

Recommended further reading:
Sunday Study R 13: Romans, Revelations and the Role of the State
All MandM War Ethics Posts
All MandM Old Testament Ethics Posts

And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority.(Re 13:1-2)

The first beast, the roman emperor, is said to get its “power,” “great authority” and “throne” from the dragon. The imagery of the dragon is explained later in Rev 20 as “that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan.” The text then explicitly states that the Roman Empire and the emperor’s authority, was satanic. While space does not allow me a full treatment here, the text goes on to predict the destruction of the Roman Empire and those who support it.

Why the excursus into apocalyptic literature? Because it is important to put in context another, more well known passage, which is widely quoted; the locus classicus passage on obedience to the state in Romans,

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. (Romans 13:1-7)

The contrast here is important, in both Revelation 13 and Romans 13 we have a reference to the roman emperor. In Romans the emperor’s authority has been established by God and he is a servant (minister) of God, Christians are called to submit, obey and to not resist the state. In Revelations 13 the Roman emperor and empire is said to gain its authority from Satan, is implicitly said to be a minister of Satan and Christians are called to not submit to or obey its demands to absolute obedience and worship.

The contrast is fairly evidently explained by the different contexts the passages occur in. The book of Romans was written around 55-57 AD; this puts it just after the death of Claudius and during the early part of Nero’s reign. During this time, Nero was strongly influenced by Seneca the Younger and Barrus and his rule was widely considered to be competent and relatively enlightened. Revelation 13 is written later, after the great fire of Rome in 64 AD where Nero had transformed into the infamous persecuting, brutal, power-hungry tyrant he is immortalised as.

Similarly, the specific literary context makes the differences clear. In Romans 13, after commanding Christians to submit to authority, the text goes on to give reasons as to why Christians are to do this, “He [the state] is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience.” The reason we submit out of conscience i.e due to a moral requirement, is because the state is God’s servant and this is explicated as “an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” The context makes this clear when after spelling out that governments are God’s servants the text explicates this as “he [the state] is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” In other words, the government acts as an agent of God in its function of commending good and punishing evil.

Revelation 13, however, is not talking about the emperor punishing wrongdoing and commending good;

The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority…. Men worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?” The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months. He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast–all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world. (Rev 13)

Here the context is quite different; rome is a world empire, which makes war against other nations and through violence gains dominion over every tribe, nation and language. It is a state that demands worship and absolute obedience and which persecutes and murders innocent people. In this context, Christians are called to resist it and its authority is said to be from the dragon.

This is vitally important because some people apparently misinterpret Romans 13 to support absolute dictatorship. A correspondent of Madeleine’s once wrote the following,

“Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.” To be blunt the above makes me feel sick. I don’t think the Nazi regime, or fascist Italy can be compared to the individualism that occurred in the birth of the United States. How can you hold these in the same regard under the excuse that they’re established by God? The only bromidial, evasive and ludicrous comeback that the victims under those totalitarian regimes got was “its God’s purpose and plan” even if you don’t understand it just have faith and follow Christ.

Madeleine’s correspondent here interprets Romans 13 to teach that dictatorships and totalitarian regimes are instituted by God and are morally on par with limited governments. He also seemed to think that throughout history Christian theologians have never addressed this issue but have just told people to “have faith and follow Christ” in the face of being governed by dictators and tyrants.

Apart from the flawed understanding of the history of theology, the author here misunderstands the passage. Romans 13 needs to be read next to Revelation 13. When one does this one sees that the picture is quite different. Romans 13 says that states that use force, “the sword,” to punish the guilty and to defend the innocent act as Gods agents and hence, have legitimate authority which must be respected. Revelation 13 states that when states grossly exceed their mandate like the Nazi unjust conquest of other nations, persecution of the innocent and Hitler’s deification of the state are not exercising a legitimate, God given, authority but rather are portrayed as something satanic.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett is tracking down the Work and Income staffer who wrote to beneficiaries telling them to take out loans to cover their debts.
After being tackled on it in Parliament, Ms Bennett said last night she was “appalled” by the “totally unacceptable” advice …

So what was that advice? The NBR reports it as:

* Taking out loans to cover arrears;
* Pawning cellphone and children’s PlayStation;
* Ringing debtors to reduce payments or refinance debt; and
* Seeking budgetary advice.

Of course spun well the advice becomes ‘go to a loan shark and deprive your children of their toys’ but the letter never said that, despite the headlines and the title of the Labour Party press release.

I think the advice is pretty reasonable.

As a family going through a rough financial patch, due to my recent job loss and the need for Matt to retrain this year, we have very quickly run into financial difficulties as our income has significantly dropped.

The first thing we did was take a good hard look at our budget and asked ourselves what we could live without – cell phone costs were an obvious first choice but there were a lot of other areas too. When too many things hit us in one week we pull out the credit card and then immediately make a plan to pay it off which includes an assessment of what we could sell on Trade Me and what additional things we could all go without until it was sorted.

We don’t have any HP’s or loans currently, but in the past when we have we have and they have gotten on top of us, we took out a debt consolidation loan and we exercised the other advice above by contacting those we owed money to and seeing what we could sort out.

None of this is of course easy or pleasant. Sherry is most peeved that we cannot buy her a new pair of jeans until we get a week without any extra costs (and even then it won’t be the brand she wants) and the kids all complain that we now never take them out for hot chocolates or to places you have to pay an entry to get in anymore and that dinner is never takeaways. We are all sick of mince night after night too – though threatening them with lentils shuts them up. It is going to get worse the deeper into the year we go; we have survived it before when we spent Matt’s PhD years living on a $20,000 p/a scholarship in Dunedin so we know what is coming – the lentil threat is not an idle one.

The case worker wrote the letter in question in the context of having granted the person financial assistance; it wasn’t like the person was refused help. I mean, if you want a handout then I fail to see how you get to complain about getting a how-to-manage-your-money-better lecture.

Personally I wouldn’t advise anyone to pawn their possessions because the money you get isn’t great and the interest rates are steep but the general idea that you give up some of your less necessary items to get yourself out of the hole is not unreasonable. I am not saying sell the shirt off your back but then neither was the case worker.

Kids don’t need PlayStations, adults don’t need cellphones. I don’t begrudge anyone on a low income having these items as we don’t know the circumstances they got them in, they may have been gifts, bargains picked up on Trade Me or might have been purchased when the family was financial but you have to be able to recognise them for what they are – luxuries.

Sheridan knows that if she cannot pay for her horse this year, then she has to sell him as we cannot bail her out. Non-essentials can always be replaced no matter how attached to them we might be.

Before you put your hand in someone else’s pocket would it really kill you to tighten your own belt first? People not on WINZ benefits do the sorts of things mentioned in the letter off their own bat to sort out their own messes so why shouldn’t those on benefits.

Recently I read a document that stated, “This institution seeks to honour the partnership between Pakeha and Maori that is laid down in The Treaty of Waitangi.” I have seen this type of statement numerous times before in the mission statements of many different kinds of New Zealand institutions. I think this claim is nonsense. Below I will argue why.

At the heart of this kind of statement is the notion that The Treaty of Waitangi (The Treaty) constitutes a partnership between Maori and Pakeha; Maori and Pakeha apparently entered into an agreement which contains mutual obligations.

The problem with this claim is that only persons can enter into contracts. Persons are either rational self-conscious agents, such as adult human beings or legal persons which are an organisation of rational agents into an institutional structure of some sort. One cannot enter into a contract with concrete objects that are not persons such as rocks or trees; nor can one enter into contracts with abstract objects such as the colour blue. One would have thought this was an obvious point which did not need pointing out.

‘Maori’ and ‘Pakeha,’ however, are not persons. Individual Maori people and individual Pakeha people are persons, and individuals of either race can organise themselves into an institution which will have a legal personhood separate from their own individual personhood, but the racial groups ‘Maori’ and ‘Pakeha are not persons.

The term Pakeha is an abstraction, it is simply a reference to an aggregate of individuals who share a particular genetic trait. It is false that everyone who has these genetic traits signed The Treaty. In fact, as The Treaty was signed in 1840, no individual alive today signed The Treaty. It is equally false that simply because someone with the same genetic traits as me at some point in history signed a treaty that it follows that all members of my race signed a treaty.

What is accurate is to say is that two institutions entered into an agreement, the Crown and various Maori tribes. No Pakeha individual can be identified as the crown and no Maori individual can be identified as a tribal group unless the individuals are acting in an official capacity as the agent of these institutions. Hence, no Maori or Pakeha individual is bound by The Treaty; no individual is responsible or culpable for breeches of The Treaty.

Someone might object that the Crown being the head of a representative government acts on behalf of all Pakeha and hence, Pakeha can be said to have entered into a partnership via The Treaty. I think this claim is mistaken. It assumes that whenever a government performs an action one can attribute the actions of the government to any and all private citizens of that government.

This error is precisely the error we condemn when terrorists target a civilian population. When terrorists target non-combatants they assume that because a government has unjustifiably committed aggression against them that it follows that the citizens of that government can be attacked. The principles of non-combatant immunity, however, deny this. If a state engages in aggression then the military personal who act as the state’s agents can be attacked but citizens who are not acting as agents for the state cannot be. They are innocent third parties.

Maori and Pakeha, therefore, did not enter into a partnership at the time of The Treaty was signed, and private individuals from either race have no obligations to each other under The Treaty. To suggest they do is to commit the error of attributing personhood to racial groups as opposed to individual members of that group. It suggests that the actions of one person who has a particular genetic trait can be attributed to everyone who has that trait. The implication of this is that whenever a Maori gang member commits a crime one could justly claim that ‘Maori’ committed the crime. This is of course racist and would justifiably be condemned in any other context. It should equally be condemned in the context of discussions over The Treaty of Waitangi.

Of course this is not to say that Pakeha and Maori individuals do not have duties to each other. The normal duties to not steal from each other or vandalise each others property, to refrain from rape and assault, etc still apply. These apply because these are general duties laid down by God. I am not bound to fulfil them because some other person signed a contract with a third party. Moreover these have nothing to do with race. I have a duty to not steal from a Maori individual because I have a duty to not steal from any human being. The duty would hold whether the person in question was Maori, Chinese, Persian or Tongan. The duty has nothing to do with a historical event in 1840.

Nor are my comments meant to deny that one party to The Treaty was treated unjustly and unfairly by the other. There is probably good historical evidence that they were. My comments simply point out who the parties in question are. They are not Maori and Pakeha. They were the Crown and certain Maori groups.

By all means let’s have a discussion about what the Crown should do to honour its obligations under The Treaty. I have no problem with the idea that a state should keep its obligations to other states and parties. I have no problem with the idea that government should both protect and respect the property rights of its citizens regardless of their race. I also have no problem with courts demanding the state compensate its victims if it can be proven in a court of law that the state has not done these things – one of the insidious features of the former government was its continual rejection of these principles. But stop suggesting that Maori and Pakeha are “partners” under The Treaty and that they and private individuals have obligations under it. They do not. As Dr Martin Luther King said, individuals should be judged by the content of their character not the colour of their skin.

In a more recent article “Christianity and Social Justice,” Wolterstorff attempts to defend his thesis against the three criticisms I mention above.

Turning to the first problem, Wolterstorff’s response is to note that “acknowledging a person’s right to some good does not imply laying on everyone else a duty to extend to that person that good.” This seems odd, if a right to sustenance on the part of the poor does not mean we are obligated to give them the means to sustenance, what bite does it have?

Wolterstorff puts forward an interesting suggestion. Turning to the paradigm of a right to not be assaulted, Wolterstorff suggests that while we have a duty to not assault people we do not have a duty to protect every person against assault. However, he goes on to note that in addition to having a right to not be assaulted, people have a right against their society “to have practises” and “social structures” that protect them from assault. In particular, such things as a police force, courts and an army. Clearly, if the right does not just mean that members of society refrain from attacking people, it also means that these members have a duty support the police force. Further, if the police force is ineffective, people have a duty to try and improve it (through such things as voting and lobbying).

Moreover, Wolterstorff suggests if “I see you about to get mugged when no policeman is in view – then I may be obliged to offer you my protection in a direct way.” Wolterstorff’s argument is that sustenance rights are analogous to the right to not be assaulted in this way. People have a duty to support whatever institutions or charities exist that alleviate poverty. If they are ineffective, they have a duty to reform them. Further, if one encounters a person in extreme necessity one is required to assist them in a direct way.

Turning to the second criticism, Wolterstorff makes three points to get around the totalitarian implications sketched previously. First, he states that,

the general idea behind having such a right to some good is that individual actions and social practices ought to be such that one enjoys that good. But the role of the government in practices which secure that right may be nil or negligible. Not all rights are enshrined by law. Sometimes in the early church the care for the poor of society was principally in the hands of the bishop.

He goes on to note, correctly I think, that,

Far from acknowledging that there is such a right, nothing directly follows as to what, if anything, governments should do by way of securing that right. In particular, it does not follow that the poor should be put on a dole supported by public taxation. In principle there is a wide variety of other practices which would undo the violation of this right, some of which the government would have little or no role.

Accepting sustenance rights then, does not entail accepting massive public ownership or redistribution.

Second, he tries to mitigate the objection by appealing again to the analogy with assault; “in our fallen world… we do not suppose that, in the face of all the aggressive impulses of human beings purely voluntary arrangements would suffice to secure our freedom from assault.” He goes on to note, “why should we suppose that, in the face of acquisitive impulses of human beings, purely voluntary arrangements would suffice to secure our right to sustenance?” Finally he notes, “it is true, indeed that there are dangers lurking when governments try to ensure that the rights of the poor are respected. But who would be so foolish as to argue that the armies and police forces that we assemble propose no threat?”

Wolterstorff makes some pertinent points here. However, it is worth noting that if one takes the assault analogy seriously, several things are evident. First, the police and armed forces actually do not play as big a role in protecting us from assault as it may appear.

The Police do not patrol everyone’s houses at night, nor does it have 24/7 video surveillance cameras set up on every home, nor do we have publicly funded burglar alarms. If people want any of these things, they hire private security guards, install privately owned cameras and buy their own alarms. The police are called when these systems fail and there is immediate danger.

It is also worth noting that the ability of the Police to catch and prosecute assailants is limited by such things as the presumption of innocence, the need for warrants, probable cause, etc. In societies with lower crime rates, police typically have more sweeping powers, powers our society rightly rejects precisely to avoid the danger of excess state intrusion and its subsequent abuses. As such, if the state is to secure our rights to sustenance similar limits should apply.

Turning to the third criticism, Wolterstorff states that while people do not earn their basic human rights by merit, such as the right to be free from assault or the right to liberty, the same is true of the right to sustenance. Wolterstorff notes correctly that a person can forfeit these rights by misdeeds; if a person attacks another his right to be free from assault is forfeited and I can strike him if necessary to defend myself. Similarly, if a person commits a crime they forfeit their right to liberty and can be imprisoned.

In the same way, Wolterstorff suggests that the right to sustenance can be forfeited if a person is capable of providing for themselves but refuses to do so; just as a needy person has a right against society to sustenance, society has a right against those it supports that they will take responsibility for themselves when they can and not pass of their responsibilities onto someone else.

As far as I can tell, Wolterstorff’s responses enable him to accept sustenance rights without falling into the problems mentioned in my previous post. It is worth noting, however, his response makes the claim that the poor have sustenance rights significantly qualified.

What it means is that individuals in a society have a duty to support various institutions that aid and assist those who are unable to provide for their own needs. These institutions may or may not be run by the state but if they are, the state plays a last resort role and is subject to careful checks on its power. This picture may differ from that some proposed by certain types of Libertarian, particularly those who believe we have no obligations to support the poor at all, but it is hardly the charter for statism or massive public ownership

That, however, left me with a burning question. What about the poor? If the classical liberal or conservative view is correct. What about the poor?

In the next two posts I want to discuss my thoughts on this a bit. I will do so by examining Nicholas Wolterstorff’s defence of welfare or sustenance rights. I will argue that, as initially stated, Wolterstorff’s position is subject to three problems. In my second post, What About the Poor? More on Sustenance Rights, I will suggest that while Wolterstorff’s position can escape these problems, it does so only by qualifying itself in such a way that there is no necessary link between accepting the poor’s right to sustenance and the kind of statist re-distributionary policies favoured by the left

In, When Justice and Peace Embrace, Nicholas Wolterstorff suggests that “If a rich man knows of someone who is starving and has the power to help that person, and chooses not to, then he violates that person’s rights as surely and reprehensively as if he had physically assaulted the sufferer.” Wolterstorff suggests further that this conclusion is orthodox Christian teaching. He provides citations from Basil, Ambrose, John Chrysostom and Aquinas to substantiate this claim.

One immediate problem with this line of analysis is it ignores something of the context in which these theologians wrote. They were addressing the situation of alms-giving. A wealthy person living in a small town or village in the Roman Empire would come across destitute people in his community whom would ask for assistance in most cases a wealthy lord would be able to do so. In the age of the mass media, however, things are quite different. It is not just about the poor person down the road; I am regularly bombarded with stories of poverty and suffering of thousands of people all across the globe when I turn on the new or surf the web.

In this context, to suggest that failure to alleviate any poverty I know about violates the person I fail to help and is analogous to assaulting them is problematic for a couple of reasons.

First, take my duty (and corresponding right on the part of others) to not assault people. This duty applies 24-7, it is not like I can refrain from assault on Fridays but smash peoples heads in on Sunday. There are 6 billion people in the world, as I have a duty to not assault anyone I owe that duty to all these 6 billion people. Moreover, each one of them holds a right to not be assaulted against me. This is not problematic, because discharging my duty to all 6 billion is not hard, I can do so by refraining from assault.

Discharging such a duty and its corresponding right, is unproblematic because the duty to not assault is a duty to not do something

A claim right; a right requiring me to do or give assistance, however, is different. Clearly I cannot give assistance to all 6 billion people in the world at all times. I simply do not have the resources or the ability to do that. Hence, each individual poor person cannot hold a right to assistance against me. At best, I have a duty to help some people, some of the time, with some of my resources.

A related problem is that unless I live just above the sustenance level and force my family to do the same, and donate every cent I earn above that level to the poor then I will be failing to discharge my duty. Hence, accepting Wolterstorff’s claim would quite literally imply that everyone has a duty to live just above the poverty line. Wealth of any sort is a sin, a conclusion at odds with scripture which commends many wealthy people (like Job and Abraham) as Godly people and not as mass murderers.

A second problem is the quite oppressive political implications of Wolterstorff’s claim. Given what I have outlined above, if failure to give to a poor person when we can is analogous to assaulting them then every person who does not live just above sustenance level and does not donate everything they own and earn to charity is in fact a serious criminal. A just government would then be required to lock all these people up, their children would end up in foster care and all their property confiscated and given to the poor as restitution. The implications of accepting a right of the sort Wolterstorff affirms is totalitarianism; a system where everyone is poor and anyone else is arrested and detained. The state would be obligated to take almost everything.

A third problem, which follows on from the first and second, is that if everyone must be self-frozen in their income to just above sustenance level and any falling below it grants one a right to receive what’s needed to get above the sustenance line wouldn’t this destroy all incentives to work or be productive in any shape or form?

The problems with the idea of ‘sustenance right’ were not lost on Aquinas, whom Wolterstorff interestingly cites. In the Summa Theologica Aquinas addresses the question of whether a destitute person who steals food to avoid starvation has committed theft. Aquinas’s answer is no and he cites with approval the claim of Ambrose of Milan that the poor have a right to sustenance and any property given to those unable to maintain themselves is money they are owed.

However, Aquinas goes on to offer some important qualifications. First, in the articles prior to this section of the Summa, Aquinas defends the concept of private property and argues that those who claim the private property of others are in sin, further, those who claim we are required to renounce property to be Christians are expounding a heretical doctrine. Second, Aquinas states that;

Since, however, there are many who are in need, while it is impossible for all
to be succored by means of the same thing, each one is entrusted with the
stewardship of his own things, so that out of them he may come to the aid of
those who are in need. Nevertheless, if the need be so manifest and urgent, that
it is evident that the present need must be remedied by whatever means be at
hand (for instance when a person is in some imminent danger, and there is no
other possible remedy), then it is lawful for a man to succor his own need by
means of another’s property, by taking it either openly or secretly: nor is this
properly speaking theft or robbery.

Aquinas observations are worth noting. Because there are so many in need and I cannot give to all I am not required to give to every needy person I know of. Instead I have a duty to give some of my money to some needy people and it is my choice to decide who. It follows from this observation that giving to the poor is an imperfect duty. Unlike the duty to refrain from assault it is not a duty to be discharged to all people at all times, but rather it is a duty to give some money to some poor people. But it is at the discretion of the property owner to decide who.

While there is a duty to give to the poor there is not a duty to give to any specific poor individual and hence no individual poor person has a right to my property (although I will be in serious dereliction of duty if I give to no-one).

Aquinas does provide an exception; what has been called the case of extreme necessity. As Donagan puts it, if a person “encounter[s] another who then and there needs help, which only he can give without disproportionate inconvenience” then such a person has a duty to give it and the other has a right to such help.

The medieval position Aquinas expounded is well summed up by Donagan in The Theory of Morality. Donagan suggests that all people have a duty of beneficence, “it is impermissible not to promote the well-being of others by actions in and of themselves permissible, in as much as one can do so without proportionate inconvenience.” By promoting the well-being of others, Donagan means things such as [paraphrasing Donagan] promoting the well being and up-bringing of those who are not adults, especially orphans; helping those who have duties, which owing to bereavement, injury, illness or desertion, they can’t perform without help; restoring to a condition of independence those who have been incapacitated with illness, accident, or injury and caring for those who are crippled, deaf, blind, are chronically ill, or senile.

However, the principle of beneficence is an imperfect duty. No individual poor person has a right to my assistance except in cases of extreme necessity. Donagan draws the appropriate conclusion; apart from cases of extreme necessity,

Duties of beneficence, seeing they are not owed to specific individuals generate
no enforceable rights; and apart from duties of beneficence, no innocent
person has any obligation to contribute to the wellbeing of others, except as he
may freely undertake.

Donagan suggests that the duty to benefit the poor is an imperfect duty to pursue a particular end and not based on a right that another may have. While one has a duty to pursue this end, it is at a person’s discretion as to how exactly they would pursue it.

It would seem then that social polices based on alleged welfare rights of the poor and the authority of the state to coercively uphold such rights are unjust. While we have a duty to aid the well-being of the poor as an end, no poor individual, outside of cases of extreme necessity, has a right to such assistance and hence one cannot justly be forced or required to give any individual such assistance.

In my next post I will look at how Wolterstorff responds to criticisms of this sort and how he qualifies his position to do so.

One of the things I like about being left wing is how often the best moral decision is also the best economic decision.

Take economic stimulus for example. In a recession it’s the most vulnerable such as beneficiaries, low paid workers and youth that are hit worst because they are the ones least likely to have any financial backstop. The good thing is the best way to ameliorate the effects of a recession on society as a whole is to help these people out.

Irish Bill here insinuates that only left-wingers support giving to the poor and right wingers do not. The problem is that this claim is false. As I pointed out here, evidence suggests that religious conservatives actually give significantly more money to assist poor people than secular liberals do.

The difference between the left and right is not about whether or not financial assistance should be provided to the poor. Contrary to the false moral superiority (and slander) propagated by left wing activists, the difference is that the left primarily believe in taking other peoples money by threats of violence and giving it to the poor and in practice they give very little of their own money voluntarily. Conservatives, on the other hand, give generously of their own money and take others by force only when as a last resort.

The Standard can con themselves into thinking that the former is the more moral stance, but I think that is fairly questionable.

Extract from: So who AM I voting for? (the election blog, part 3)

Basic Human rights/freedoms
There are some bottom line human rights and liberties that should always be protected. They’re sometimes called “first generation” human rights. Whatever you call them, here are the big basic things that no government anywhere should neglect, and which no state has any right to diminish. These are the non-negotiables, the rejection of which means that you’re simply morally deficient and unfit to be in power.

Right to life
Christians believe that human life is sacred. Humanity is made in the image of God, and as such taking life is a serious matter. Prima facie, we have a duty to not kill. That is to say, if there are no other factors to consider, then killing human beings is always wrong. Some times, of course, there are other factors to consider. Sometimes people are attacked (or their families, friends etc), and in the course of defending themselves they kill the attacker. This is rare, since self defense usually does not require killing anyone, but sometimes it happens. Sometimes this happens not merely on a personal level, but a national one, where your country is attacked by another. Here too, most of us recognise that although we may not want to kill anyone, that may be an unavoidable outcome of defending our country.

Even in the controversial case of abortion, many conservative Christians accept that – although it is a terrible thing to have to do – there are cases where the very existence of the unborn child poses a clear and imminent threat to the life of the woman carrying the child, and removing the child at an early stage of gestation involves ending the life of that child. It’s the doctrine of double effect – you save life and prevent both mother and child from dying, but a consequence of this is that one of them dies. A more controversial example still for some Christians is the issue of capital punishment. Here, while we have a prima facie duty not to kill people, a person is deemed to have done something so terrible that they give up their right to life itself, and they are put to death.

None of these scenarios, of course, involves rejecting the right to life, since the right to life imposes only a prima facie duty. But it is still a duty, and the fact that there are a few rare cases where we can take life should not allow us to trivialise this right or duty. For that reason, abortion should be regarded as prima facie wrong (even if there could conceivably be isolated cases where it is permissible), and not merely wrong but such an abridgment of human rights that it ought not be permitted.

Similarly, because of the value of human life, most forms of euthanasia are likewise not permissible. I say “most forms” because there are some forms of euthanasia that are arguably not killing, or which are sufficiently indirect that they are not morally on par with killing (such as withdrawal of extraordinary means, or death as a double effect resulting from pain relief). Firstly then, I think that any party that has a permissive policy on abortion or euthanasia has a big black mark against it when it comes to being a party worth voting for. I know of only two parties in the election race who pass this hurdle, namely the two Christian parties: The Kiwi party and the Family Party.

[Support for Abortion is illiberal; any liberal who supports it is inconsistent. Don't agree? Then read our series and post a reasoned rebuttal.]

Free speech
The right to freedom of speech means that if I want to say it, and if I am able to say it, then I must be free to say it and the state should not prevent me from doing so. As with the right to life, this is a prima facie right, and there are limits on what I can and cannot say. Sellers are not allowed to mislead people about products and services they sell, for example. I am not allowed to defame somebody: Say things that are not true or reasonable to believe and which damage another person (for example, I cannot spread rumours that a local retailer is a paedophile in order to get people to come to my store instead). But the right to free speech means that it is wrong for the state to censor or inhibit the propagation of any point of view in society.

If I want to print and distribute fliers telling people who I think they should vote for, or if I want to rent billboard space to do the same thing – no strings attached, it is something I have a right to do. Of course, nobody has a duty to promote or protect my views, so another person can refuse to use her private property to promote my views (e.g. if I leave comments on her blog she may delete them, because it’s her blog), but that’s an issue of that person’s private property rights, and it doesn’t mean I no longer have a right to free speech. What’s more, free speech doesn’t come with extra conditions.

For example, the state can’t say “sure, you can voice your political opinion and attack our policies, but if you do then you must wear this big bullseye so that people can identify you in public,” or “OK, so tell people that you’re opposed to our regime, but you’ll have to attach this big yellow star to the front door of your house so that our goons know where to look for you.” That’s not free speech because it’s not free. All it would do is discourage people from expressing themselves via intimidation or fear of reprisal.

Generally speaking, free speech exists in New Zealand, and few parties pose any sort of threat to it. As far as I know, none of the parties listed in this blog entry would threaten free speech. I haven’t listed the Labour Party or the minor parties on the far left, as they tend to fail just about every single criterion I present here. Free speech is no exception for Labour, who are responsible for the “electoral finance act” that I discussed recently. The act in effect does the same thing as would a law that says you can have free speech as long as you paint a bulls-eye on the door of your family home. Check out my earlier blog entry to see why.

Property rights
People have certain rights over their own property. What they earn belongs to them, and it cannot be taken from them without due process and given to others. The government cannot commandeer land that you own for its own projects, and if it requires land you own, you must be compensated at market value. This has implications for taxation as well. Prima facie, the government cannot tax you at all. Only after good grounds have been given for obliging you to pay tax can the government take money from you, and it must be transparently accountable to you for what it does with that money, and continually justify the level of tax taken. Remember, “thou shalt not steal.”

In addition to what we might think of as basic human rights and freedoms, there are a few other important principles of government that have in common the pursuit of justice and/or the reduction of corruption by state interference.

Separation of powers / due process
By “separation of powers” I mean that Parliament, while it has the authority to make laws, has absolutely no authority to enforce those laws, and no role whatsoever in the judicial process. It will respect the decision of the courts, it will not commandeer the police to do its bidding, and it will not influence the likelihood of a person facing (or not facing) charges, among other things. The Labour government and its ministers have blatantly violated each of these principles as I have noted elsewhere.

Small government / non intervention
This is really the broad principle underlying many of the rights and principles I’ve outlined here. In a pluralistic society, we all have our own agendas. Some will get married, others will not, some are happy with one type of school or educational method, some prefer others, some people might like one insurance company, some prefer others, some people take fewer risks, and so end up having fewer accidents and less accident related expense, some people make foolish choices and end up disadvantaging themselves and so forth. You get the idea. Small government means that the government does not intrude into private life, and it lets people make their own choices and bear responsibility for the consequences of those choices. People will save money or waste money depending on the options they choose, they will have more or fewer accidents, they will spend more or less on education, and so forth. Likewise, the government might not like the values that parents instill in their children, but it is not the job of government to raise children, that is the role of parents. Likewise again, the government might not like the fact that a court reaches a certain decision, but it is not the job of the government to settle cases, that is the role of the courts.

In the political tradition that I am partial to, namely the Christian classical liberal tradition, the role of the state is limited by the law of nature. It should only do what the basic precepts of the law of nature (that is, minimal standards of justice and upright living) require of it, and beyond this, it usurps the role of the private sector.

Safety net for the poor
Why am I listing this last? Doesn’t the Bible say more about caring for the poor than it does about free trade or property rights? Yes it does. It also says more about worshipping God in song than it does about free speech, but that doesn’t mean we should only vote for a party that promises to create taxpayer funded hymn singing squads. The fact that something is encouraged in the Bible does not automatically mean that we are justified in saying that the Bible advocates it as a duty of the government. Just about every time the Bible says anything at all about caring for the poor, it is clearly speaking about the duty that we as people have, rather than describing government spending programmes. I’m also listing it last to deliberately contrast myself from some Christians who (as far as I can tell) seriously believe that social justice just is wealth redistribution to the poor. Those who think this are somewhat selective in their reading of the Bible. For some reason none of them ever seem to quote 2 Thessalonians 3:10-12:

For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

That being said, there does need to be a safety net for those who fall into genuine hardship. People who are genuinely unable to earn a living (or who are demonstrably doing all that they can to obtain work) and who have no other means of support should be assisted for as long as is necessary. Although by no means a desirable state of affairs, it’s like the Proverb says, “people do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his appetite when he is hungry.”

Far from being some sort of socialism, this has always been a part of a conservative or classical liberal outlook. John Locke gives his rationale for limited welfare in his treatise on government, book 1, paragraph 42:

But we know God hath not left one man so to the mercy of another, that he may starve him if he please: God, the Lord and Father of all, has given no one of his children such a property in his peculiar portion of the things of this world, but that he has given his needy brother a right to the surplusage of his goods; so that it cannot justly be denied him, when his pressing wants call for it: and therefore no man could ever have a just power over the life of another by right of property in land or possessions; since it would always be a sin, in any man of estate, to let his brother perish for want of affording him relief out of his plenty. As justice gives every man a title to the product of his honest industry, and the fair acquisitions of his ancestors descended to him; so charity gives every man a title to so much out of another’s plenty as will keep him from extreme want, where he has no means to subsist otherwise.

Likewise in biblical law, allowance was made for those in genuine need to receive something from the surplus of those with plenty. See Leviticus 19:9-10 – “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.”

This has particular relevance here because it is not simply moral instruction but law, and therefore enforceable by the authorities.

What should be pretty obvious in all this is that having basic safety nets for those in genuine need has little (if anything) to do with enormous wealth redistribution programmes to equalise all middle class families and give them advantages over people with no children. One other reason for listing this criteria last is that it really serves no value as a means of distinguishing between political parties in this election. There is no party that stands any chance of being in Parliament that does not meet this criterion in some way. Most parties go well beyond a safety net, and end up pursuing admirable ends by immoral means.

So how do these parties measure up?

National
I won’t say much about National, other than to say that they have painted themselves into a political corner. In order to attract Labour voters, they have become as much like Labour as its own supporters will let it, which is quite a lot unfortunately. Think enormous government, duplicating Labour’s massive welfare programmes, shaving tiny amounts off tax for most people, and calling it a change. There’s no principled stance on matters of human life that I can see, and little to redeem the party apart from the fact that they could be worse (e.g. they could be Labour). It does, however, have two redeeming features (I said there’s little to redeem them, not nothing). One, they aren’t Labour, and two, Stephen Franks (one of the finest politicians in this country, and a former ACT MP).

United Future
Ditto for United Future, but add to the mix a leader (Peter Dunne) who will literally support any other party no matter how bad, as long as it gets him leverage as a minister and coalition power broker. This is the man who was happy to prop up the minority Labour Government in exchange for a ministerial portfolio.

The Kiwi Party
The Kiwi party presents a strong Christian image, opposing abortion and the legal manufacturing of same sex marriage, but they are a bit of a political Frankenstein – sometimes appearing to favour a socialist state (when it comes to, for example, spending taxpayer funds on pre-marriage counselling), sometimes appearing to favour a more limited state (opposing the so-called “anti-smacking bill” as a government intrusion into the home).

There’s a statist approach to employment (and effectively job cuts), advocating raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, which is a big nod to leftist voters, and then they’re back in the lower tax camp by advocating income splitting for couples. On the whole they certainly seem to advocate more of a limited government/personal responsibility stance than the current government (additional policies like tax rebates for private health insurance bear this out). So while I like them when it comes to a few specific issues, on the whole I just don’t see them as having a particular political vision or unifying set of principles, and they fail quite badly in some cases when it comes to the scope and power of the government. An improvement? Sure. Will I vote for them? No.

ACT
On the whole, the ACT party score very well in regard to the principles that I look for in government, as outlined here. It’s such a shame that they do so abysmally poor when it comes to issues of human life. As a party perceived as being fairly extreme (only because most New Zealand parties contain so many socialistic elements that any party that lacks them appears very different and therefore extreme), it attracts extreme supporters, and like Labour it has managed to capture the affections of some young voters very hostile to Christianity. There’s great potential in what the party quite self-consciously stands for; individual rights and responsibilities, personal liberty, strong policies on justice and other things, but the fly in the ointment – terrible policies that lack regard for the sanctity of life and a support base that contains some crazies – is pretty distracting.

The Family Party
Lastly there’s the youngest of the parties that have my interest, the Family Party. OK, least important things first: I hate their party name. It gives the unfortunate and misleading impression that they want to benefit families and forget everyone else. There are people who wouldn’t vote for a party with a name like that. Their policy statements reveal that their concern is much broader than this, so they should have a different name. But that aside, I like what I see.

They’re the second explicitly Christian party. They have what I think are some great policies on taxation. They advocate removing sales tax on necessities like food and gasoline. Freedom of choice in education is a priority, a welfare policy designed to get people away from welfare, a clearly pro-life stance on abortion, and policies across the board that as far as I can tell line up very well with the values that I outlined at the start of this post. So what’s the drawback? Why am I not coming out in full force telling everyone that this is who I will vote for? The answer lies in a fairly embarrassing pragmatism. In order for a party to get into parliament at all in New Zealand’s electoral system, they must either have one candidate who wins an electorate seat, or they must win at least 5% of the party vote, and I’m not sure that the Family party will do this. If I knew that the party I vote for would definitely get into parliament, I would vote for them in a second. As it is, I still might do so, but my mind hasn’t been made up.

Ask me who I’m not going to vote for, however, and I’m as clear as day (they aren’t listed here).

We definitely differ; see our respective scores on The World’s Smallest Political Quiz, mouseover to see whose is who’s.

So I am clearly in the libertarian camp (I am not in the Libertarian camp as in capital L or “Objectivist” (Randian)). Does that mean I can be both Christian and libertarian? Well not if my approach to the role of the state is to simply hold the single absolute principle “that nobody should initiate force against another.” However, yes if the outworking of what I do hold puts me closest to the libertarian perspective than any other position.

I find the non-initiation of force principle to have no basis in divine or natural law. However, something close to is definitely there and I believe that it is the closest secular position to the correct application of Christianity to the role of state for the following reasons.

Scripture teaches that it is wrong to kill an innocent human being. This prohibition on killing can plausibly be extended to a prohibition against violence and force in general. This is the heart of traditional Christian positions on war, abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, etc. The idea is that the state can use retributive force against guilty people but it can never threaten the life, liberty and property of an innocent person unless they engage in unjustified aggression against another. In both situations there are important limits further still, for example, retributive force can only be used by a lawful authority after a impartial trial has found the person guilty the force must be proportionate to the offence and cruel and degrading punishments are illicit. Similarly, with defensive force. It can be used only when it is necessary to stop the aggression and again the force used must be proportionate to the perceived threat.

A government that limited its use of force to these functions and only taxed its citizens to ensure that these functions were carried out would be severely limited and would look like no current government anywhere, yet this is the Biblical picture and you can see that it does look a lot like the libertarian non-initiation of force principle (and nothing like the strawman-caricature that Rand paints in her books).

The key passage on the role of the state is Romans 13:1-7:

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been stablished by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

This passage spells out the reasons why we are required to obey the government and why we are required to pay taxes. Paul states that governments act as God’s agent, that is on his behalf, to perform a specific function, namely, to punish wrong-doing. Paul emphatically states that the state does not bear the sword, have the power to use force, for nothing but to act as an agent of retributive punishment. It is because it is an agent of God in carrying out this function that it can legitimately demand obedience and financial support. Nothing in this passage provides any basis for claiming that a government that did other things apart from these basic functions and used force to back it up would be acting as God’s agent (in fact the opposite is suggested in 1 Samuel 8:10-22 – any government that taxes its people more than 10% and undertakes functions outside its legitimate mandate is corrupt). If a government steps outside this mandate then it is acting unjustly. The passage states that the government is God’s servant, it is under God and therefore subject to the same laws as its people. In Revelation, written in the latter part as opposed to the earlier part of Nero’s reign, the same ruler is no longer described at God’s servant but as Satan incarnate because he sought to be God, he stepped outside the mandate of legitimate government.

In summation, if you are a Christian you should either be a libertarian or a classical liberal. You might end up as a conservative if you throw some pragmatism in but if you end up as a centrist or left wing you have failed to understand Scripture, you are placing government in the role of God.

One of the biggest problems New Zealand faces is the same the world over and was the same at the time of Samuel; the people want a government in the place of God, they want the government to provide welfare, health, education, families commissions, art, television (well maybe not that one at the time of Samuel but you get the picture). It feels and seems easier if we don’t have to take our responsibility to love our neighbour personally.

Biblically speaking, the state’s role essentially boils down to law, order, justice and defence. Do we then get to forget about all the rest? No.

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

This means that looking out for others is our responsibility but, contrary to the picture Rand paints, this is strictly qualified. We do not have an obligation to give to everyone who has their hand out. If their own choices and refusal to help themselves has led them to the dire situation they find themselves in then unless they are prepared to get off their buts and help themselves and learn from their mistakes we owe them no charity. If people refuse to help themselves then we are justified in not helping them. The scriptures are full of examples, if people refuse to work then they don’t get to eat (2 Thess 3:10), you left the corners of your crops un-gathered so the poor could come and work and feed themselves – you did not hand them the fruit of your day’s labour while they sunned themselves all day, they had to work for it (Deut 24:19-22), families had to take responsibility for their own, the needy only receive private assistance if they could not work and had no family who would provide for them and were not idle people (1 Tim 5), etc.

Given this, I have less than a month to decide who I will vote for. The choices below (in the order they appear on the Decision 08 website) are not great because none of them fit the criteria above.

Resident’s Action Movement
The Bill and Ben Party
ACT
Alliance
Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis
Party
Democrats for Social Credit
Direct Democracy Party
Green
Labour
Libertarianz
Maori Party
National
New World Order
New Zealand Pacific Party
NZ First
Progressive
The Family Party
The Kiwi Party
The Republic of New Zealand
Party
United Future

Matt and I want to be really careful to not endorse a political party so we are still debating each other as to whether we will publicly state who we vote for but we agree we can take this next step, the first cull, namely getting rid of the no-way, no-how parties and assessing the pro’s and con’s of the remaining possibilities. Our intention is to more thoroughly look at and read up on these parties, their philosophy, their people and their policies. The revised list, and this goes for both of us (at this stage, last election we each voted differently), is this (again the order is the order as above):

ACT
Libertarianz
Maori Party
National
New Zealand Pacific Party
The Family Party
The Kiwi Party

Libertarianz and ACT would be the closest to my political position but the points I part ways with them are fairly major. Both parties philosophically adhere to the non-initiation of force but both throw their well reasoned, consistent thinking out the window on the topic of abortion (and a few other issues).

Rodney Hide spoke at the recent Forum on the Family outlining clear and sensible policies all sharply reasoned, setting aside emotion, appealing to doing what is right, promoting a consistent
theme of personal responsibility as opposed to state dependency and then when asked for his position on abortion outlined a mushy, soft and sentimental pile of rubbish. Gone was his consistent personal responsibility – non-initiation of force reasoning, suddenly his reasoning skills dropped to that of Sue Bradford’s as he spoke of it being a conscience issue (it is not – abortion is either killing, therefore the initiation of force, 100% homicide or it is not killing and is on par with tonsillectomy’s and there is zero problem with it). Rodney, citing his emotions, said he didn’t want to impose his beliefs onto women (but apparently he can when it is restricting women from, say, theft). [Here are some secular reasons on why libertarians should be pro-life]

Rodney, ACT and the Libz on this subject are inconsistent. I am not. I have a problem with voting for a party that 1. endorses or is agnostic on homicide (and has no reasoned position that can withstand defeaters justifying their stance) and 2. that is that inconsistent.

Further, the Libz and to a lesser degree ACT, are riddled with pathological secularists who have a closed, caricatured view of Christianity – extremely closed minded which makes supporting them difficult as many within their ranks refuse to see the similarities and work together. Also the Libz are prone to massive in-house fighting amongst the factions which seriously kneecaps them at times.

The Maori Party make our list because they get it right on a number of issues, less often than ACT and the Libz, but best demonstrated by their policy on the seabed and foreshore where they are a seemingly lone voice speaking against the Labour government’s worst attack on the right to due process in recent times otherwise known as the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 (all Christians should be horrified at the passage of this law). Further we respect Tariana’s daring to cross to Helengrad and the fact that they are, by and large, a party that stands on principles not on popularism and even though many of their principles are too left/statist you have to respect that and you definitely want more politicians like that in parliament.

National. National is not Labour. If their policies reflected their stated principles I might say more.

The Christian Parties. First of all, so what if there are three of them? How many secular parties are there? Christians need to get over this. How many denominations of Christianity are there? Demanding that the three merge before you will support them is as ridiculous as refusing to attend church unless every denomination merges. We still somehow manage to be one body despite our differences. As with denomination and church choice, if you want to go there, look at the options and pick the one that best reflects which is right.

• NZ Pacific. Putting aside the accusations against Taito, remember due process, Taito was part of Labour which makes him left/statist. However, like Tariana he earns brownie points for sticking it to Helengrad and he is a Christian so he makes the cut.
• The Family Party. Putting aside the Destiny factor, they must be judged on their merits and not a knee-jerk reaction, there have been serious allegations made that they do not adhere to the theological position of separation of church and state, if this is true then they are no go, but again they are a Christian party so we will look at them.
• The Kiwi Party. Probably the holds the number one spot of the three at this stage but this is the party that has candidates who stood with Labour and were responsible for inflicting the families commission on us and worse they seem to have not learned from their mistakes and are advocating government sponsored marriage promotion. That said their intention is good but like all the other Christian parties they are too statist and fail to understand that only when we get the state out of the lives of good law abiding citizens and when the state stops usurping the role of God can the church really flourish.

The Christian parties are really disapointing because all of them have access to the truth and have missed it. Contra Celsum writes on the issue of whether Christians should be in politics at all. He outlines four critical reasons why he believes it inappropriate for Christians to seek political office at the present time. His four reasons are right on the button in terms of my issue with our choice of Christian parties, particularly the part on vacuous minds and points 2.d) and e)., I just am really reluctant to concede his conclusion. Am I really in that much of a minority? How did we fall this far?

1. Whipped parties. In Jerusalem, one of the most important institutions is the believing and confessing heart. In Romans 10: 9,10 we read: “ . . . if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” This means that each individual must be free, as a Christian, to profess and act according to his belief. The institutions of Jerusalem are built on this principle. This is why Luther’s declaration at the Diet of Worms is in accord with the heart of the Gospel and the Kingdom of God:

Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason – I do not accept the
authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other – my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen.

But the modern political convention of whipped parties, where one is bound to vote and act, not according to conscience but to the policy of party [this applies equally to parties controlled by churches], means that Christians in the modern political arena are inevitably forced to approbate and vote for actions, laws, and policies which they
know to be wrong and intrinsically evil.

Of course, opponents would counter by pointing out that this does not preclude a Christian party from participating, provided that such a party stipulate that all votes would be conscience votes. This is true, as far as it goes, but we immediately see that such an approach would be virtually inconsequential within the current functioning of Parliament itself, contributing little to justice and the legislative task. It would therefore be of little use. There are far more urgent and practical things which Jerusalem should be engaged in at the moment.

2. The Prevailing Dominant Ethic of Secular Humanism. We have seen in recent history that parties can only win reasonable support if they ground themselves in the incumbent control-beliefs of our day. Every political party can only build appeal if it agrees with the following controlling creed:

a.) The Living God has no relevance to politics and government.

b.) All government must be secular.

c.) Government is the ultimate power in our society.

d.) Government has a duty to expropriate income from some and extend welfare to others.

e.) Government has a duty to provide for the health, education and well-being of its people.

As long as people generally are held in the thrall of this creed, no Christian or Christian party can make any meaningful contribution. However, when sixty or seventy percent of the society are professing Christians who fear and love the Lord, it will be a very different matter. The creed of secular humanism will be seen for what it is and Christian politics and government will come into its own.

3. The Small Numbers of Believers. Part of wisdom in God’s Kingdom is knowing when something is appropriate, and when it is not. In the end, government and law reflects the heart of the people. When such relatively small numbers are found in Jerusalem, talk of political activities is premature. The priorities before us now are the extension of the Kingdom through the preaching of the Gospel, on the one hand, and the building up a Christians in the faith, on the other. It is only as we act consistently with our God-given duties and responsibilities that we can expect the covenantal blessings of God to fall upon us. As they fall, the cultural power and influence of God’s people in the community will grow as an inevitable result. Eventually, the citadels of unbelief will be surrounded, and the halls of government captured. But we must build an army first—a host of God’s people living, working, serving in the community, doing good to all men, but especially to those of the household of faith.

4. Vacuous Christian Minds. The majority of professing Christians have been taught all their lives in the state’s secular education system. They have been indoctrinated to think as humanists in almost every area of life. Jerusalem’s great and urgent duty is the reformation of Church, Family and School. Until we are able to educate our children in a manner consistent with our faith, we cannot expect that the Christian community will be able to distinguish between the counsels of secular humanism, on the one hand, and faithful Christian principles, on the other.

Until our children are properly taught and educated, we will not produce faithful Christians who think and act Christianly in their professions, whether they be in science, medicine, law, the liberal arts, or whatever. It is only upon such a foundation that true, God-honouring political views can emerge.

If Christians cannot distinguish between the justice of secular humanism and the justice of Jerusalem we are utterly ill-equipped and malformed for roles in politics. If we are not clear according to Scripture on the God-ordained roles and responsibilities of the Church, the Family, the State, the School, the Corporation, how could we distinguish between the policies of God and of Baal in the civic and public sphere? And if we cannot even get our thinking right on these matters, any actual Christian political involvement will end up as an abortion.

An important part of moral education is to teach people they can’t just take whatever they want. One’s conduct needs to be guided by principles that often restrict one from doing certain actions one might want to do. The phenomena of temptation involves cases where what one wants and what is right are at variance. In such cases a person of integrity should resist doing what she wants rather she should do what is right.

These points are obvious or at least one would have thought they were.

Today while driving I heard people ringing talk back radio complaining about the fact that New Zealand does not have as much sport on free to air TV as Australia does. One caller in particular stated emphatically that there was something unfair about this; without free to air TV those who enjoyed rugby would have to pay money to watch it and not everyone can afford this.

I find this reaction, well, odd.

I have had a similar reaction to arguments that were proposed by fellow students when I was studying at Uni. The argument was made that student loans or course fees were unfair. Why? Well, because it meant those who want an education have to pay for it. The price means those who cannot afford this can’t get it or at least have to borrow money to do so and if they borrow money they have to pay this back. Notice the premise in both arguments; if I am unable to afford something that I want to have then that is unfair.

Surely a moments reflection shows this premise to be false? Surely this is obviously so? I for example want to visit Greece, Italy, Isreal and Eygpt as having spent a good part of my life studying the history of these places I want to go there. I really would love to visit friends of mine in Colorado. I would love to live in a bigger house. Does it follow that it is unfair that this is not given to me ‘free’? Is the fact that if I gained these things I would have to pay for them unjust? Is the fact that I cannot currently afford everything I want really an issue of justice? Surely not!

Some would say that I am belabouring a straw man here, particularly with the tertiary education issue. The issue is not that it is unfair merely because I want to study at Uni as going to Uni is not a luxury item like a trip to Rome. It is unfair because I have a right to a university education. (So the argument goes.)

Now I think this is one of those areas where appeals to “rights” is misleading. Rights and duties are correlated. If I have a right to Q from P, then P has a duty to provide me with Q. Moreover, in a political context, these duties are enforceable. Not only does P have a duty to provide me with Q but the state should punish P if P fails to discharge this duty.

Once this point is realised, appeals to rights can be seen for what they are. They are attempts to impose by force a duty upon other people. Liberal lefties love to talk about defending human rights and opposing evil religious conservatives who “impose their values on others” but their language hides the real moral situation. What in fact they want is to reject the imposition of some duties on others while supporting the imposition of others. This is one of the reasons why I incline to the view that rights talk is redundant and should be dropped and replaced with the older moral discourse which merely emphasised duties. It enables situations to be viewed with a clarity that is otherwise hidden.

The phrase I have “a right to Q” is ambigious and couching the issue in terms of duties clarifies the issues. When someone claims they have “a right” they could mean a negative right or a positive right, a negative right to rugby watching or tertiary education means that the person whom the right is against has a duty to not prevent you (via coercion or intimidation) from accessing those things. A positive right means that the person has a duty not to prevent you from accessing those things but to actually give them to you. In addition, saying I have a right to X does not tell us who this right is held against couching the issue in terms of duties does.

Returning to our example, what these people appear to be saying is that the government has a duty to provide people with free rugby games and a tertiary education if they want these things. Everyone else in society has a duty to contribute their money towards their TV watching or their tertiary education and breaching this duty is so serious that justice requires that those who do not do this be arrested and incarcerated. Is this a plausible claim?

I think it is not. I agree that parents have a duty to provide their children with a basic education and I agree that parents who do not do this are guilty of neglect and should be prosecuted for doing so. But the suggestion that the state has a duty to educate adults up to masters and PhD level and that a citizens failure to provide other adults with the funds to do this is a serious breach of their duties warranting prosecution seems far fetched. It is not as though failure to watch the All Blacks thrash Italy or to gain a PhD in physics means one is condemned to a dehumanising degrading existence.

It is hard to resist the conclusion that people who make these claims are presenting sophisticated versions of my six year old son “I want that so I am going to take it. You give it to me or else.” They are essentially calling on a powerful strong person (the state) to intimidate other people to give them what they want. Maybe I am missing something, but I do not understand how intelligent adults can believe that this constitutes serious moral or ethical discourse in our society. Or how words like “rights” can cause people to systematically deceive themselves as to the nature of what they are doing.

This view of “rights” and public discourse essentially turns democracy into an egocentric mob where one segment plunders another for their own personal gain and political parties compete for votes by promising their faction the better spoil. To pass it of as progressive caring policy is nonsense.