America’s pursuit of third world institutions
For six years I lived in what most would call a “third-world country”. Here’s how institutions work there: Kenya has a well-written Constitution that guarantees its peoples’ rights on paper, but police regularly abuse their power with impunity. While I was there, police rounded up minorities based on nothing but suspicion of their being illegal immigrants by virtue of their ethnicity, detaining them in harsh outdoor conditions (to say nothing of the extrajudicial killings). The police were able to continue to operate this way because there was no effective check on their power from the judiciary. As long as law enforcement had the blessing of those on top for their abuses, Kenyan minorities had none of the civil rights granted to them by the well-written Constitution.
Today, from drone strikes against citizens to pardoning a lawless predator sheriff, guilty of everything I described above, there is no question that American institutions are moving in the direction of a third world country. This is not a political issue, though politics seem to blind people to it; it’s about the basic rule of law and protecting the people from the abuse of the state.
The good news is that you can live in a third world country and be relatively OK as long as you can deal with the low-level stress of hoping you’re lucky enough never to be at the mercy of the police or the state, and the stress of being surrounded by more injustice than you are able to remedy. For one thing, you find it easier to embrace the faith of Abraham in “longing for a better country, a heavenly one” and “a city whose builder and maker is God.”
This last part is important for someone who rejects the idea of a “Christian nation” and believes that Christians should not seek earthly power and control. It’s not entirely bad that I can put no faith in my own government anymore. Ultimately I know the institutions of men will fail and it’s idolatry to place my hope in them.
But Christ also told me to love my neighbor. And ignoring injustice can hardly be called love for my neighbor. Out of love for my countrymen, I just can’t shake the responsibility to try to hold this country to its own high standards. Our founding principles, however poor our execution, were in many ways inspired by universal and radical truths about the equality of all, and the virtue of protecting the people from the powerful. These principles are consistent with the teachings of Jesus.
So even though I reject the idea of a Christian nation, I do not reject the struggle for more justice in whatever nation one finds him or herself. I can’t just accept our pursuit of third-world institutions. I’m not yet clear on resolving this tension except to say that it must be possible to be committed to the ends of a just society while relying on the “power-under” means of self-sacrificial love.
