By James Wilson
When Christians gathered in Washington, DC, to commemorate 911 this year they entered a new covenant with the God Who gave us our nation. They called it a Covenant of Obedience. They made no pretense about coming together as a governing body with political or military power. They simply re-committed themselves to “walk in God’s Law and do all the commandments of the Lord,” as it says in Nehemiah 10:29, and “love one another in unity as one people of God, as the Lord God has loved us,” per John 13:34. They may not have arrogated governing power to themselves but they surely expect to exercise the authority of the centurion depicted in Matthew 8 who said he recognized the authority of Jesus to heal, teach, and sacrifice Himself because he serves under the authority of those over Him and so commands for good. Our God releases awesome power in those who first submit to Him and treat others as though they matter.
Another covenant is unfolding in our land, a covenant of co-opting. In a story published by World Net Daily Douglas Ernst exposes an Obama executive order directing federal agencies to hire psychologists to help these agencies manipulate citizens into accepting federal policies. The order states, “A growing body of evidence demonstrates that behavioral science insights…can be used to design better government policies to better serve the American people.” But policies are the fruit of political and economic insight; behavioral science is the study of how people react to policies and other stimulants – and how to better program adjustment to them. Obama adds that streamlined applications for federal aid and automatic retirement payments are two successful examples of behavioral insights working to encourage cooperation with federal programs and directions.
This approach has its genesis in a 2008 book – Nudge – authored by Obama regulation czar Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler. In it they make the case for government policies that “nudge” people in the direction government thinks they need to go for the greater good. The order continues, “To more fully realize the benefits of behavioral insights…the federal government should design its policies and programs to reflect our best understanding of how people engage with, participate in, and use and respond to these policies and programs.” In plain English, government needs to figure out how to make people want to go where they are led, as opposed to a government accountable to the aspirations and values of the governed. Per the book programs should now be “giving particular consideration to the selection and setting of default options.”
Calling in behavioral scientists to advise government on how best to manipulate the public should be chilling to anyone. In all fairness, most government policies – and all tax policies – have a manipulative component government prefers to call incentivizing, but this initiative of the Obama Administration brings a new cynicism to the practice. What federal programs might benefit states who quickly embrace climate change, for example? And let us remember these are the carrots that can always be followed by the sticks of coercion – incentives and constitutional protections to be withdrawn at that point.
The people who entered into covenant with God under Nehemiah claimed no power but the power derived from that centurion model of authority found in Matthew 8. The had no means to drive the Persians from their ancient territory and no way to jumpstart their economy other than the promises contained in Zechariah 8 to let their hands be strong and they would become a blessing – not just to themselves but to their neighbors. They knew they had to be in it for the long haul because the God they served recreates character before circumstance. They knew as well that they were bankrupt – at the end of their rope re doing things their way – their prophets from Ezekiel to Haggai reminded them the path of obedience to God always begins in bankruptcy and ends in abundance. They have taken – in obedience and the patience that is its fruit – a malarial swamp called Galilee and transformed it into the citrus capitol of the world, as one example. Today Israel is the crown jewel of the Middle East politically, militarily, and economically.
The same dilemma – and the same option – faces our nation and the entire world as the noose of lawless and conscienceless government allied with a clueless culture tightens around the necks of the whole human race. If we permit ourselves to be co-opted the adventure will begin well and end badly; it always does. If we re-engage covenant with God it begins badly and ends well; it always does.
James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times, and Kingdom in Pursuit – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at praynorthstate@charter.net
