July 16, 2015
That Old Fox
Power for power’s sake becomes the only thing of value when a culture abandons God and His word. Even human life becomes merely a means to an end.
For those tracking with international news, whilst Rod Stewart faces a furor from anti-fur campaigners concerning his wardrobe, the Scottish National Party in the U.K apparently wants to save more of the foxes that overrun English towns and countryside, their ‘revenge votes’ in the House recently forcing British Prime Minister David Cameron to back down on loosening restrictions on fox hunting. And yet, at the same time, the palpable indifference regarding the value of human life in Western culture is staggering and deeply disturbing. We hear much today about the importance of inculcating ‘liberal’ or Western values in society, but for many disillusioned citizens looking on, the value that seems most often on display amongst the cultural elite is unprincipled self-interest expressed in political posturing amidst lust for power. Moreover, unelected lawyers continue their agenda of social activism, advancing the revolution against Christianity in one court decision after another that overturn the historic morality of Christendom. In Canada, the Supreme Court has given Parliament a year since February 2015, to come up with regulations and design a regime to govern doctor-assisted death in regard to assisted suicide and euthanasia, after it struck down assisted suicide as a criminal act.
In England, whatever one’s personal view of hunting, fox hunts have been a traditional sport for many in rural England for generations, but the Scottish National Party in Britain now seem to want to make the proposed killing of people a matter of ‘political sport’ – human life treated as little more than a football to be used for political advantage, as the U.K now confronts doctor death as well. The SNP threat of an ‘ambush’ on the government in the House of Commons in September regarding the assisted suicide bill, as part of what The Times called ‘a war of attrition,’ takes political power over principle to new heights. The power-hungry Nicola Sturgeon (leader of the SNP) seems ready to use what is a matter of life and death to thousands of people in Britain as of no more consequence than a few dead foxes, if it serves the purposes of the SNP.
Pundits already know that Rob Marris and other Labour MPs believe ‘British values’ should, as in Canada, include the social promotion of euthanizing the old and infirm and sponsoring the lawless, yet state-sanctioned murder of people who say they want to die – a culture of death has been invading the West like a virus. Thus whilst human life in our lands is becoming all too cheap, the hunt for power, for power’s sake, is disguised in the rhetoric of fairness, compassion and social justice. But who really believes this facile lie anymore? In a culture where certain U.K politicians think human life can be traded for more devolved power, British values are clearly not what they once were, and are not worth defending.
In a social order that abandons God and His word, political leaders will increasingly become like the foxes they want to save – devious predators looking for an advantage. In Luke 13:31-32, Christ specifically likened one of the political leaders of his day to a fox, for King Herod was seeking Jesus’ life in the interest of preserving and consolidating his position and authority. When truth and right are sacrificed on the altar of power, life is soon regarded as dispensable and instrumental to other ends. This deplorable state of affairs is the product of political atheism, where a culture seeks to ground social and political life in something other than God and His moral law (a faith and law which gave birth to Britain and Canada and their historic virtues). When this happens, people’s beliefs, ideas and habits of heart are radically altered, and they get the kind of leaders they deserve.
Rejecting the living God and thereby playing God, societal leaders will relocate meaning, law and justice into the state itself, with sovereign power becoming an emergent property of the body politic. Once political leaders see themselves as free from the authority of transcendent moral law, power is all that is left. Alexis de Tocqueville observed that the English parliament was omnipotent and citing Delolme said, ‘It is a fundamental principle with the English lawyers, that parliament can do everything except making a woman a man, or a man a woman.’ It is ironic that two hundred years later, Western powers are increasingly claiming that states can do even that! In short, when transcendent law and power is rejected, it is transferred to the immanent realm, to the state, with politicians and justices freed to act with impunity in the interest of position and unbridled power, in the name of the people.
Whatever the merits of greater devolution for Scotland, all Christians and people of moral conscience in Britain, on both sides of Hadrian’s Wall, must speak, pray and work to ensure that this highland fox is not permitted to use the most vulnerable in society as pawns in her cunning political hunt for greater power. Pray for Britain’s House of Commons that she does not pass the assisted suicide bill in September!