David Alan Black 

Two out of three Americans believe there was a connection between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. That’s perhaps understandable. What is more difficult to swallow is why the current administration has been less than completely honest if not just plain crooked when it comes to its rationale for going to war in Iraq.

Malfeasance of an officeholder has three general causes: the temptation to misuse power once in office; the authority to compel obedience to the law; and access to large sums of money. As a result, Americans have always been suspicious of government power. This suspicion found eloquent expression in the documents of the American Revolution. A corrupt or evil government was a violation of God’s moral law. Thus a people could appeal to God for justification in altering or overthrowing their unjust government and rulers.

Daniel Webster summarized the attitude of our Founders by saying that “whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens” (The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster [Boston: Little, Brown, 1903] I. p. 220). Our Founders expected public officials to be servants of the people and trustees of their delegated power. But the Founders were realists. Experience had taught them to distrust the nature of political power, and so they developed a system of constitutional government in order to insure that tyranny could not take hold in the new nation.

Today we have a political system that is a mockery of these original checks and balances. Sad to say, we have grown accustomed to expect our public officials to be less than men of honor, integrity, and decency. We are stunned to hear a cabinet official state that the government has the right to imprison – without trial – U.S. citizens in Guantanamo Bay. We hear constantly of the “right to preemption” and of the need to “democratize” the world through force. We are lied to, and then told to blindly follow.

The standard reaction to all of this by the average American is to do nothing. And that is precisely our problem. An old saying goes, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” This maxim precisely describes where we are today as a nation.

When it comes to political ethics, too many of us have done nothing. We have forgotten that the transforming message of the Gospel is applicable to the social battles all around us. We have forgotten that if there is unethical behavior in government, it is because we have allowed it to develop. Yes, We the People elected our public officials – the good ones and the bad ones.

The solution to this problem is twofold. Acknowledging that the selfishness of men accounts for most of our political problems, we must be committed to obeying the Great Commission to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Then we must elect men who will serve unselfishly in a position of public trust. Politicians with inflated egos have no room for others in their lives. But the ego can be humbled by God.