What Next?

Despite the desperate optimism of some conservatives, the United States govenment is headed toward a statist takeover of the medical sector of the country. This involves tax payer money going to support abortion.

I cannot overestimate what a titanic change in American civilization this represents. The Constitution is not a statist document; neither does the Bible promote statism or view the civil government in the messianic terms that the Democrats do. Both the Constitution very specifically and the Bible more generally limit the power of the state, since the state is composed of fallible people who have a monopoly on legal violence and coercion (incarceration, conscription, and extraction of funds). For the kind of state we are moving toward, read Revelation 13. I am not making an end-time prediction, but pointing out a biblical category: the state as a beast.

If this so-called health car bill passes, many of us will have to fundamentally reassess our relationship to the federal government and our mode of living in general. "When the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?", as the Psalmist wrote.