Put Not Your Trust In Princes

A Bible verse is appropriate for our times right now.  Psalm 146:3 says, “Put no trust in princes, in children of Adam powerless to save.”

January is well under way, and across the country legislatures and elected officials are beginning their new terms and sessions. The usual proclamations of doom and gloom, countered by declarations of delight and euphoria, accompany these new beginnings. And, as always, 10 to 100 years from now it will all be history. School children will also complain about having to study this because “it’s boring!”

It was ever thus.

The first election I voted in was the general election of 1972.  In that election Richard Nixon defeated George McGovern.

Senator McGovern had gotten onboard an idea involving a $1,000 tax credit as a sort of minimum income for all Americans. Nixon, however, was running on his own economic record. Both also had strongly divergent foreign policy ideas.

In the end Nixon won by a landslide. Ironically, he didn’t need any of the “dirty tricks“ (including the infamous Watergate burglary) that eventually brought his resignation from office to avoid removal.

Even then I was becoming skeptical of catastrophic predictions of doom and the destruction of the country popular with intense political partisans. Today I barely even twitch as the rhetoric escalates and the predictions of dire consequences and devastating ruin howl out of the television. I tend to turn off the sound until something resembling real news flashes across the screen.

I’m Too Old A Bunny

Like German General Hans von Salmuth, as portrayed in the movie The Longest Day said, “I’m too old a bunny to get too excited about this.”

Any time I need some perspective on matters political, I ask myself “Were I to start preparing for Confession right now, would I be done in less than 30 minutes or an hour?” If it has been more than a few hours to a day or so since my last confession the answer is virtually always “Not hardly!”

That being the case, I find getting exercised about politics – as often as not – mostly an attempt at distracting myself while putting another layer of whitewash on my personal sepulcher.

Not that politics isn’t important. It permeates our lives, a little more so every year. But ultimately, when it comes to eternity, I suspect Hell is much more interested in our political affiliations than is Heaven.

Don’t Immanentize The Eschaton

The political philosopher Eric Voegelin coined the phrase “to Immanentize the Eschaton.” The phrase was later edited and popularized by William F. Buckley as “Don’t Immanentize The Eschaton.”

The Eschaton is the term given to the “end times.” Immanentizing the eschaton” refers to attempts to bring about the utopian conditions expected to characterize the time of the Earthly Paradise.  This is a period of time some theologies expect to be a period of earthly paradise that precedes the second coming of Christ.

But this is also a Protestant notion which has, at times, crept into the views of Catholic laypeople.  It is, however, rejected by mainstream, orthodox Catholic thought.

The point for us as Catholics is that while we have an obligation to do what we can to leave the world a better place than how we found it, we cannot presume to think that we can create a perfect world through our own efforts. We look to the second coming of Christ as the ultimate promise of fulfillment of our human destiny.

The reality is that there is nothing we can do to bring about that return and that perfection. We await Jesus’ coming again. We should not presume to try bring it about or even approximate it though our own efforts.

Human Institutions

It seems to be a kind of truism that human institutions tend to over-promise and under-deliver. There are exceptions, of course.

Alcoholics Anonymous, for example, replaces promises of result with offers of support in achieving results. And it does a pretty good job of delivering. This is mostly, I think, because it concentrates on enabling humans to try their best rather than building itself into a structure focused on institutional action.

Political institutions in particular are prone to over-promising and under-delivering. It is built into their operating model.  Politics trades on favors and promises but operates on compromise and “realism.”  This is clear from our first written samples of political theory and practice, both fictional and non-fictional.

Media penetration of our lives makes politics unavoidable. But politicians make it – sometimes – unbearable.  Little to none of it lends itself to building trust, if for no other reason than human fallibility solidifies in human institutions. Anyone who has struggled with bureaucratic snarls and complications can testify to this.

As St. Paul puts it in Ephesians 6:12,  “. . . our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens.”

That is, we struggle against them; we do not put our trust in them.

Cause For Hope

There is cause for hope, however. Against the world we have the Holy Spirit, the Sacraments, the Magisterium, and the community of the Faithful.

We do our best with our engagement with politics, working to keep the political open, above-board and transparent.  We should also be actively involved in selecting and supporting leaders who share that commitment.

And if we are wise and prudent, we understand that our prayers (both private and in community) are powerful forces in keeping our polity open not just to our participation, but to the influence of Heaven.

Best of all, our entire system is designed to keep any one faction or party from holding total control, at least for very long. But there are rare periods of what seem like a unitary structure to our political representatives. These periods are, however, always brief and countered by inevitable reaction and counter-reaction in elections that follow the one that seemed to deliver unanimity – or dominance – for a time.

In the words of Psalm 121:5-7,

The LORD is your guardian
the LORD is your shade
at your right hand.
By day the sun will not strike you,
nor the moon by night.
The LORD will guard you from all evil;
he will guard your soul.

So may it always be!