C. S. Lewis on the true Ground of Democracy

Karios Journal posts this today from C. S. Lewis. Lewis is troubled by the Fall, which compromises all. Government, made up of fallen men, has been given "the sword," says St. Paul, to punish evildoers. It has divine sanction to use coercion, as needed, to protect. At the top of the list of crimes, I would think, would be things like murder, rape, theft, destruction of private property, crimes of violence. Since  the mid 1960s, when the Great Society was launched, all of these have risen sharply in the United States. Where I live, entire neighborhoods live in fear of violent crimes, and have for dedcades, with barely a dent being made. The government does not support the work of the police (just ask them). A debt of injustice is being accrued every time the state refuses to punish a criminal. This is not to say that there are no situations in which mercy is the better course. Someday, unless something changes, things may get so bad that security will be demanded and many rights ceded for the sake of the relative safety of a police state. It's happened before. In the U.S.? I won't say it WILL, but it CAN, because we are nation of fallen men, after all. I do not think Lewis would disagree.

Comments

[drpence3]

Mr K:
Your distinction here marks a most crucial understanding needed both in Church governance and the social justice movement amoung the nations. As always, Lewis has a ready lesson. I think Christians and particularily those of us who are Catholics have to admit that for many years even our most orthodox churchmen have been psychologically flaccid in defending the proper use of the sword of state. Our pastors have lost the sense of the sheperd's staff as David understood it in his plea to Saul to let him fight Goliath: "When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. 36) Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear;(Sam 17: 35-36)
Consistently our "good popes" John Paul II and Benedict XVI have pressed to sheath the sword of state in capital punishment and just war. It is no accident that their greatest failures as Popes in Church governance have been in the use of coercion against scoundrels in the priesthood. It is as if the only sword passage in the New Testament is telling Peter not to strike the Roman soliders and Jewish priests the night before he died. That sheathing of the temporal sword of course came from a desire to defeat a deeper Evil the following day.
Is there any greater gift the rich nations could give the poor both at home and abroad than real military and police security? And is there any greater gift the Catholic apostolic priesthood could give the Church than truly washing the feet of the apostles and exorcising away the Judas amoung them? But to do that clergy and laymen alike must act again as men--a brotherhood of fathers- and let the gospel penetrate our chests as it fills our ears. Our problem here is not incorrect thinking as much as a pervading personality defect corroding even the best of modern men.

[Robert Espe]

Dr Pence,
I appreciate everything you just wrote, and agree with the intent of your words. But I think Mr. Kushiner would agree that while it is the legitimate function of government to protect its people from outside attack, it is largely incapable of protecting them from within. The legitimate protectors of a society, as you note, are its fathers, and governments of fallen men only crush liberty when they try to usurp that function. I found the following treatise on the history of law enforcement in this country enlightening, particularly as that is my chosen profession.

http://www.constitution.org/lrev/roots/cops.htm