The Lie of Structural Salvation
- Responsibility: A Solution No Policy Can Write
- Overcorrection
- The Miracle on Your Street
- NYC’s Gateway Drug to Communism
- Fairness Killed Freedom
In my book, What is a Man, I leaned heavily on men to be the man they were designed to be, fathers, husbands of but one wife. Be the man that works hard for his family, comes home to a faithful wife, and serves her in every way. One who finds out his girlfriend is pregnant, and doesn’t run away, but runs towards. At least part of the solution to the abortion issue, in my estimation, is men sticking around and not leaving their ladies feeling helpless and alone. We could get into all the other reasons, which I won’t, so don’t try. But a large portion of the problem stems from men not being men.
Solutions
Like this issue, the issue of solutions to societal problems has a similar twist. No one disagrees that certain things are worse than they’ve ever been. In some cases, things are better than they’ve ever been, but this can be argued. But on the subject of problems, the Monday-morning quarterbacks are quick to diagnose. With the best of them.
- Sects of society are greedy.
- There are too many poor people in America.
- Inequality is at its worst.
- Homelessness must be eradicated.
Macro
But we all fall short on solutions. Many, including the great Richard Reeves, look to public policy for solutions. This is where, much like covid, the cure is worse than the disease. Public policy can only be written, voted, and executed by the government. The government regulates behavior under conditions of conflict. When policy becomes our primary solution, we have missed the entire point! What is being framed as a structural deficit is often a developmental one. Covid taught us that, though history taught us that many times over.
The government does not produce meaning, attachment, competence, or character. Actually, the government does not produce anything. It cannot model responsibility or cultivate resilience. Its function is governance, not formation. And psychologically speaking, entities designed to manage conflict trend towards tyranny, not growth. When we outsource solutions to the state, we bypass the family, the community, and the individual psyche, which is where the actual work of human flourishing occurs. Problems of the human condition cannot be legislated into health, they must be developed into it.
Micro
So what is a viable solution? People. Hearts. Discipline. Perseverance. Resilience. Work. Compassion. Self-sacrifice.
Where it really gets off course is bringing Jesus into it. I hear it all the time.
“If you don’t show compassion to the poor, then you’re not following Jesus.”
And on the surface, that’s true.
We love to use the teachings of Jesus to influence public policy. Except he wanted nothing to do with public policy.
“Give to Caesar what’s Caesar’s. Give to God what’s Gods.”
“But wait? He said take care of the poor. He said if someone asks you to go one mile, you go two. He said if someone asks you for your shirt, give them your jacket too. Jesus was interested in sociology.”
Almost. He was interested in people. But from the individual out, not from society in.
Sociologically, problems are viewed as societal, affecting individuals along the way. If the societal issue gets resolved, the individual will be better. The problem with this line of thinking is, what if the institution or system never figures it out? Then we are completely dependent on the system to rectify our shortcomings in life. When we view problems as individual issues, from the inside out, then we are capable of flourishing regardless of systemic fractures.
The apostle Paul wrote this regularly. He consistently wrote about how he could be jailed, but not silenced. They could try to break his spirit, but they would not succeed. Viewing his problem sociologically, he would’ve fallen to extreme despair. Hope remained alive in the idea that he had autonomy, even in chains.
Individual > Government
My contention is that Jesus said the things he said, addressed the things he addressed, to the individual, not the society. He was not instructing the government to feed the poor. He was instructing us to do it. He didn’t tell the government to help those in need, he instructed us as individuals to do so.
Any reliance on a system, institution, or government, is relying on an outside entity to ensure your own personal well-being. It assumes that meaning, safety, and order can be outsourced to an external structure rather than cultivated through agency, virtue, and responsibility. History shows an extended rebuttal to that assumption. Systems do not love, institutions do not sacrifice, and governments do not exist to make individuals whole. They manage, they regulate, they constrain.
When we treat these abstractions as guarantors of our inner stability, we confuse governance with guidance and authority with wisdom. The result is predictable disappointment. Such entities fail us not because they are corrupt in every instance, but because they were never designed to fulfill existential needs.
This is where I lean on the church. If the government is not to be that, then we are. This applies more pressure, but it’s pressure for which we have received mercy and grace. If we fail, the government steps in.
So the ball is in our court. Step up, or watch tyranny take over.
Stay Classy GP!
Grainger