THE POLITARCHY 2
How naïve we are!
Any conspiracy theorist is probably now cackling and rubbing his/her hands with glee at the news that Gordon Brown, our prime minister, along with Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, have between them persuaded Portugal's elite into denying their own people a referendum on the so-called Lisbon Treaty, which is in reality, as almost all commentators agree, the European Union Constitution under a new name.1
It appears that one political elite is dealing directly with another. So much for democracy!2
In the same way I imagine it has been very uncomfortable for the Irish leadership, following their country's subsequent rejection of the selfsame Treaty in a national referendum.
However, this is not a rant about the democratic deficit, or the oft-repeated (but no less true therefore) accusations of unaccountability amongst the various institutions in the UK and the EU, but a revisit of the old conundrum as to what extent Christians should get involved in political matters, and engage with current culture.
"Be in the world and not of it" is, of course, the linchpin of the debate.
Jesus said, "My Kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36) but we're also told "You are the salt of the earth..." (Matthew 5:13)
There is plenty of evidence troubling modern Christian thinkers and commentators that the current Politarchy is anti-Christian. It may also be anti-faith. "Christmas" has been renamed "Winterfest" by some local authorities; Christmas carols have been banned. The nativity scene so much loved by primary schools and repeated in the Richard Curtis film Love Actually bears a diminishing resemblance to the original story and its meaning.
Legislation is passed which prohibits Christian comment upon homosexuality as if any such comment, if negative, would in itself be an incitement to hatred. Other anti-discriminatory laws could, if interpreted strictly, preclude Christian organisations from denying employment to non-Christians.
Worse is the increasingly repeated calumny that Christianity in particular, and other faiths in general, have been responsible for the vast majority of bloodshed in this world. Marcus Brigstock waxed long and lyrical in the Now Show on Radio Four in 2007 upon this point, pointing the finger at the "Abrahamic religions" as being the fount of all evil and, in particular, all conflicts. He has a point, of course. It would be foolish to deny the sad history of the Crusades, and a number of so-called religious wars.
Yet in truth, it is an easy accusation to make, and can only be seen in the context of the bloodbaths caused by the various isms and ologies of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Such bloodbaths continue to this day. Thus we have numerous European wars fought between rival nation states, with no overtly religious element and often between people who were actually co-religionists. We have the wars for empire fought, sometimes via surrogates, around the world. We have 1914-1918, and the rise of Bolshevism, which - followed by Stalinism in Russia - led to millions losing their lives.
We have 1939-1945, and then the Korean war of 1951-1953 which also sacrificed millions. We later have Vietnam and after that an attempted invasion of Vietnam by China. We have the genocide (twice) in Rwanda and Burundi, and the early Balkan wars of the twentieth century neatly rounded off by the disintegration of Yugoslavia at its closing, with a number of atrocities perpetrated by Serb against Croat and vice versa, and against the Bosnians. More recently, we have Russia invading Georgia.
All in all a sorry record of human cruelty and misery.
While huge attention is focused on the problems of Palestine/Israel, far less is given to the unresolved and continuing killings in Kashmir, the non-religiously motivated invasion of Tibet by China, the conflict in the Falklands between Argentina and the UK in 1982, and the sequence of wars claiming over a million lives between Eritrea and Ethiopia. The continuing mayhem in Eastern Congo is largely ignored, even though millions have died there. Nobody suggests that religion is a factor in these continuing conflicts.
Nor is the above list exhaustive, although it may make exhausting reading!
So why is it so easy to blame faith as the cause of conflict? The answer again comes back to the Politarchy. I suggest that it suits the Politarchy for religions to be blamed as the cause of conflict and for this to be repeated so often as to attain critical and widespread acceptance as fact. And the reason it is a matter of convenience for the Politarchy is that in so doing the intolerance of religion is emphasised, the reasonableness of the status quo is underlined, and matters of personal conscience are portrayed as anti-social and dangerous.
Thus does the Politarchy continue to hem us in and herd us, and keep us moving in a safe direction.
Basically, the Politarchy is inherently conservative and opposed to change. It may change its own rules itself, as when there are significant ideological changes, but the bottom line is it will always react to anything which challenges its control of power. Should it choose to change direction, that is fine provided such change of direction is as a result of its own choice. Beware of any change promoted or incited from anywhere else!
The Politarchy exists to maintain its continuing control under the status quo. Play by its rules, and by and large it will reward you. Stick your head over the parapet and you will be subject to a hailstorm of criticism, and a barrage of abuse. All the more so if your stand is actually taken upon a matter of principle. Just ask Lord Alton, who battled long and bravely to curtail the legal limit for abortion. He was subject to a campaign of vilification.
In fact the very moment a policy proposal is raised or opposed upon Christian grounds, notice the immediacy and shrillness of the response. It is akin to a knee-jerk reaction. If the thinking is Christian-based, then it must be wrong. It must be intolerant, and in particular it must be (and indeed often is!) opposed to the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age.
Add to this the Richard Dawkins' approach that anyone who does have a faith must be intellectually retarded, and there is a powerful presentation by Mercury, reinforced by the controls of Mammon, to ensure that we keep silent and stay out of these matters.
We do not in reality live under a true democracy. We live under an ochlocracy, ie the control of an elite. Its outlines change from time to time, as do its rules of admission, and there is a fluctuation in its numbers, but there has always been an elite and what is more, there always will be. As the French people discovered, the removal of their monarchy and aristocracy simply created a vacuum into which stepped a new elite.
What is really chilling is the prospect that behind the Politarchy lies its puppet masters, sometimes called Archons in the Bible. They have been known by many names, and for centuries worshipped under many guises. We don't even know their true names, or indeed if they even use names as a form of self-designation. But Mars, Mercury, Mammon, Moloch, Queen of the Sky and Jezebel will do as well as any other cognomens.
These are the beings who, given their longevity and experience of human manipulation, intimate knowledge of human intelligence and motivation, remain ideally placed to continue to push and pull, prod the Politarchy, and shape human events as they please.
"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:12)
The debate is therefore not whether or not we should get involved in politics, but whether we have the courage to challenge the Politarchy's control upon our thinking and being. Do we dare (and preferably corporately, if only for the safety of numbers) actually oppose and withstand its more nefarious activities? Do we dare stand up for the oppressed and seek justice, as well as oppose blatantly immoral laws and regulations?
Who will speak for the downtrodden, if not us?
The very word 'militant' is now a pejorative. Yet unless the Church recovers some of its militancy, and understands and accepts that others' welfare depends upon its warfare, it will continue in its decline and, what is worse, die out with a whimper in the West.
The strategic planners for the puppet masters must be very pleased; they appear to be doing very well.
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1 Reference The Times, Thursday 10th January 2008 p42, article by David Charter and Philip Webster
2 It can be argued that the very idea of democracy is a product of the Enlightenment, and derived from the French Revolution which, like so many subsequent revolutions, was not merely a tide of change in human affairs, but a red tide at that.
Edited by Carol Baker