Dr. Patrick Johnston
Why do Americans think democracy is divine? You cannot even hear a speech by the President, his Supreme Court nominees, or hardly any one in his cabinet without them going on and on about spreading democracy throughout the world, particularly in the nations we have invaded.
The United States of America is not and should not be a democracy. Our forefathers bequeathed us a constitutional republic. They greatly feared the tyrannical tendencies of what they called "mob-acracy". Thomas Jefferson stated, "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." Our forefathers were familiar with the lawless democracy that led France to a senseless revolution where mobs of people took turns lynching their employers and their leaders, including the last fellow who led them on guillotine parade. In a democracy, the majority can abuse the minority, the poor can rob from the rich, the white can persecute the black, and the born can terrorize the unborn, because they can "out-vote" them. In a democracy, popular leaders can usurp their God-ordained limits, violate their oaths, deprive their lesser subjects of life or liberty or property without due process, and hand out tax-subsidies to citizens in exchange for ever-increasing power. The rule by men is an invention of hell, not heaven.
Our government was designed to primarily be a rule by law that is based upon Divine Law, not a rule by men. We were given a system of checks and balances that appealed to divine authority as the basis of the Bill of Rights, as the basis for the limitations of the power of the majorities and those in leadership. The authors of our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution intended for our democratic vote to determine our elected representatives, but our government was not designed to be a democracy. A democracy unrestrained by divine law has just as much potential to create tyranny and terror as Islam.
Do you remember why we originally invaded Iraq? Why, because they had weapons of mass destruction in violation of several UN mandates, of course. We invaded to enforce UN resolutions. (One can only wonder how we can justify invading Iraq to enforce UN resolutions when the UN resolved that we shouldn't invade.) Since no weapons of mass destruction have been discovered, President Bush has abandoned the WMD excuse. Then, it was declared that we were invading Iraq primarily to liberate them from their cruel dictator: we were there to set them free from tyranny! Remember the rape houses, the thousands of Kurds killed at Saddam's hands?
That justification has been abandoned of late because more Iraqis have died as a direct or indirect result of our invasion than Saddam Hussein ever killed in his long dictatorship (even if you just count the collateral damage of our bombing campaigns.) A study published by the Lancet medical journal says the risk of violence for civilians in Iraq is now 58 times higher than before the U.S. invasion. Unofficial estimates of civilian deaths varied from 10,000 to over 37,000, both from collateral damage from our extensive bombing campaigns, and from the insurgency we have indirectly created by our pre-emptive invasion. (See , , or one of several other cites for various estimates of "collateral damage.")
Now, according to President Bush, the primary reason we remain in Iraq is to establish a democracy.
He must think we are stupid.
Where does he get the idea that a democracy is somehow sacred? Where does he get the idea that he can usurp the limits of the Constitution, to which he gave an oath, and order the invasion of a nation without the congressional declaration of war that the Constitution mandates? Where does he get the idea that it is noble to sacrifice thousands of American soldiers to establish a democracy in a country whose people un-coerced probably wouldn't vote for a democracy and certainly wouldn't die for one?
Might doesn't make right. A vote doesn't determine right from wrong. What is the basis of right and wrong? God is the arbiter of right and wrong, and He has given us His revelation in the Holy Bible. What does the Bible have to say about a democracy? In one of the first attempts at a democratic vote in Scripture, the ground opened up under the majority who tried to oust Moses and they were swallowed alive down into the pit of hell (Numbers 16)!
A democratic vote is fine as long as they vote for what is right, but when the democratic consensus prefers to violate God's will, they have voted for something that is unlawful and something that will ultimately bring God's wrath upon them.
Why does a democracy tend to evil? The Scripture says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God: people are sinful and, unrestrained by the law of God, they will vote sinfully. Abominations that God said should be outlawed will be legalized and the law without which men cannot be free will be traded for false religion, government hand-outs, and ultimately tyranny, as a stronger, centralized form of government will be voted "the lesser of two evils" in cities ridden with crime, terror, and corruption. The adventure of self-government and liberty will be traded for the cage of security and a Caesar who thinks he's god.
There is nothing intrinsically virtuous in a democracy; on the contrary, a raw democracy is more likely to tend to evil when the majority of the people are evil than other forms of government. A benevolent monarch who rules with the Bible as his guide is much more pleasing to God and would much more likely bring peace to society than a democracy where the majority of the voters are sinful. Who would you rather have rule you? King Josiah (II Kings 22-23), or America's voters? The will of the people does not reign – the God of the Bible does. He may reign with the cooperation of the democracy or the monarchy, but He is the ultimate Governor of the Universe and Judge of Nations, and that His Kingdom is not hindered is the primary consideration. When the democratic consensus votes to rebel against God's rule, to violate His law with impunity, and votes for leaders who promulgate sin in our nation, the people have made war with God.
The Constitutional Republic our forefathers crafted was an ideal form of government designed to maximize our liberties and minimize our potential for evil. But that form of government is only as good as our devotion to God and His Law….As our forefathers warned, the liberties of our Constitutional Republic are only as secure as is our moral strength. The Constitution presupposes a moral people, because an immoral people will violate God's law and their constitution and will cheer to see it violated. Our nation has only degraded more and more into a democracy because our leaders are in the likeness of their sinful constituents; our leaders have violated the Constitution to which they gave an oath and a godless citizenry have not held them accountable. The Bible says that when the wicked rule, the people mourn, but when the righteous rule, the people rejoice – their form of government not withstanding.
We have assumed that if Iraq could just draft their own constitution and vote for their leaders, then they would be more free. This is not necessarily true. While under Saddam's reign, Iraq was one of the most liberal nations in the middle east, with more religious freedoms than most nations in the region. However, due to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in post-war Iraq, Christians are leaving for Jordan and Syria by the tens of thousands. The Iraqi constitution, section 1, reads, "Islam is the official religion of the state and it is the main source of legislations and it is not allowed to make laws that contradict the fundamental teachings of Islam and its rules and this constitution shall preserve the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people…" I have read a letter recently from an Iraqi pastor who was leaving Iraq with his family because of the threat proposed to them by the American-endorsed Constitution. Islamic fundamentalism was held in check by the secular leader Saddam Hussein, but after an American invasion, a popular constitution, and a democratic vote, the Islamists are gaining power and Christians are targets. Iraqi Christians are not as free and peaceful under American-instituted democracy as they were under Saddam's dictatorship.
If Iraq is to be free and have peace, they must avoid raw democracy at all cost, just as they must avoid a theocracy based upon the Koran. Both are evil and tend to evil when the majority of the voters are evil. There will be no peace for Iraqis unless they repent of their Allah-idolatry and turn to the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, who alone died to set them free. Democracy unrestrained by love and authentic divine law will bring them down to the pit of hell just as surely the false religion of Islam.
Iraq can learn from the United States of America: we became the most prosperous and free nation in the world because our forefathers founded a nation based upon the law of nature and nature's God, whose institutions were Christian. But the United States has exchanged the truths of Christianity for the lies of a false religion (religious pluralism) and a self-righteous pride that justifies sin after national sin. Indeed, we have even justified a pre-emptive invasion of a nation that posed no threat to us on the basis of specious justifications that cannot withstand the most elementary cross-examination.
America, if you want to help Iraq, send them Christian missionaries and Bibles in their language. Besides that, leave them alone. Unless the Iraqi people abandon the lies of Islam and turn to Jesus Christ, they do not merit the liberty that comes through divine law, and misery and judgment will be their lot, from the terrorists of Islam as well as the tyrants of democracy. Likewise, until the United States of America abandons the lies of religious pluralism, stops the bloodshed of the innocent unborn, and turns to Jesus Christ, we do not merit the liberty our forefathers intended for us and misery and judgment will be our lot, from the terrorists of Islam as well as the tyrants of democracy.
"Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord" (Psalm 33:12), but "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God" (Psalm 9:17). The Iraqi Islamists and the American proponents of democracy have one thing in common: they both have sided with Lucifer in a war against God, and, barring repentance and faith in Christ, their agendas will come to a screeching halt with a thud of His gavel.
