-John Moraga
Founder, Conservatives Corner
It is understandable, when people do not have a relationship (or have a nominal or weak one) with God, they will predictably gravitate towards alternative authorities of truth and morality. Frequently, these people will invest much of their lives championing certain secular political agendas. It is for this reason that these people will apply purity tests on politicians. However, even God-fearing conservatives can sometimes apply these tests as well (for different reasons). I want to encourage conservatives to be wary of such tests.
To many Americans with little familiarity of political history, it can be difficult to understand how democratic or representative institutions have been extremely rare, prior to the 20th century, and how conspiracies were actually the universal standards of governance. The supreme appreciation of democratic and representative institutions was catalyzed by the American Revolution. However, it would take one and a half to two centuries before nations throughout the world would implement similar forms of government and absorb them as normative.
SUPREME RULERS
Throughout the vast majority of history, people have been governed by one supreme ruler. Since the dawn of time, even small tribes have been ruled by a familial patriarch or communal chieftain. Larger civilizations have been under the authority of kings or their counterparts. There are some rare examples of democratic or representative governments such as ancient Grego-Roman and Germanic (Nordic/Viking) regimes. However, those were some outliers of history and did not incorporate expansive systems of checks and balances. The American Experiment is objectively unique, and it has been so effective that it has caused the American psyche to essentially forget that for nearly the whole of history, humanity has been governed by single rulers. Invariably, those rulers did delegate some power and authority to other people, but supreme authority rested with them. No surprise, there are several accounts of those kings, caesars, pharaohs, etc. being assassinated.
CONSPIRACY THEORIES
The Bible teaches us that individual human beings have a fallen, sin nature. Predictably, groups of people exacerbate that nature of corruption, especially groups of people in government. A survey of history bares this out. Conspiracy theories were not taboo hypotheses of a fringe population. Conspiracies were assumed to be standard methods of governance. That is why the governed have always been suspicious of those who govern them. If we consider what the classic definitions of the terms conspiracy or conspire mean, we will find that they refer to a group of people working in harmony to achieve a common goal albeit often to another group's detriment.
The American Revolution was based on several grounds of government corruption of the British Crown. The vehicle of that corruption was the conspiring of those in power in the British government against the American colonists. Ironically, the American Revolution itself was achieved by American patriots conspiring against British loyalists. Several covert plans were strategized, in order to overthrow the British government e.g. conspiracies. Obviously, that conspiring was in the effort to acquire freedom and liberty, and we see those values as part of the American fabric, even though the means to acquire them could reasonably be understood to be conspiratorial. Unfortunately, even the American Experiment has not be able to eliminate conspiracies, but it has provided institutions that make them less acceptable. Stipulating that the majority of governmental conspiracies tend to be nefarious, my point is that conspiracy theories should be part of a normative political calculation and not dismissed as the paranoia of a delusional segment of the population.
POLITICAL PURITY
Now that I have established a base-line of the nature of secular politics, let us consider how we should involve ourselves in the political arena, as God-fearing conservatives. First, we do not "leave God out of it." On the contrary, our hope is in God as the arbiter of truth and the parameter of what we determine to be right. It is exactly because of God's nature and our relationship with Him that we should not have an expectation for secular governments to be perfect or apply a purity test to any politician. Second, because we accept the fallen nature of individuals and the conspiratorial nature of groups of people, we should incorporate these factors into how we choose to get involved in politics. Finally, we need to apply a seasoning of cynicism to our assessment of politicians, and not dismiss them if they get "dirty" in the political process. Obviously, if they completely disavow conservative values, we should revoke our support for them, but that revocation should be the exception. We should reserve our condemnation for the most egregious of offenders, and offer grace to those who may not be perfect but who can still be effective in advancing our values.
Of course, I will be dismissed as a conservative sell-out, or a compromiser of values, for discouraging the use of political purity tests on politicians. However, I believe conservatives should consider the imperfect secular nature of politics and develop efficacious strategies, in order to productively involve ourselves in the sport of the political process.
ONE FINAL NOTE: In a recent ConservaCast, I reflected on the relationship I had with my late father and how it has influenced my perspective of politics. I recalled how I was hyper-critical of my father, as many young boys can be. "Why didn't my dad do this better, or do that more perfectly?" "Why didn't he say something more eloquently, or why didn't he achieve a higher social status?" "Why did he offend me or discipline me the way he did?" My criticism culminated right before I entered the U.S. Air Force. As my training in the military commenced, I was drastically humbled, obviously.
My father was a Vietnam War veteran. He did not just happen to serve in the military during the Vietnam War era, he "got dirty." He manned an M60 machine gun on helicopters and recovered dead bodies. He returned home and suffered from PTSD, as so many other Vietnam War veterans did. He got married and fathered my siblings and me during the 1970's. He knew and feared God, and successfully made a good life for himself. He was faithful to my mother and my family always had food to eat for every meal. He completed a graduate degree program and managed a design team for Northrop, which developed the B2 bomber. I grew up in an upper-middle class suburb in California (which by most standards is upper class in the majority of other places of the U.S.), and I was expected to be well-spoken. Above all, my father taught me to fear God.
My father was not perfect, but he was a giant of a man and only in retrospect have I been able to appreciate how near perfect he actually was. I may have been a member of the U.S. Air Force's Security Forces and gone through combat training, but I was never deployed to a battle field. I have the utmost respect for my dad who made it out of a war and established a successful life upon his return. My respect for my dad only grew exponentially, as I have become a husband and father myself. My pop had his flaws and obviously he could have done things better in his life. However, in sum total, he would be considered an ideal father. No father, no man, can successfully pass a purity test based on his own merits.
Let us place our faith in God. Let us invest our political strategies with pragmatism. Let us reclaim the conservative movement with zeal and fortitude!
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