Longing to be Ruled?
One month from today Americans will head to the polls to elect our next president. Whatever the result, we will invest an incredible amount of power in one person. We will anoint someone commonly referred to as the “leader of the free world.” But was this the Constitution’s intention for this office? More importantly: was it God’s intention for humanity?
When I read our nation’s founding document, I don’t see anything that looks like the modern presidency. To be fair, much of the president’s constitutional powers are a bit vague, and have required interpretation over the last couple of centuries. Still, the scant powers the Constitution spells out might shock many of us. While the president might be commander in chief of our military, the Constitution does not provide them the power to declare war. Our legislatures hold the power to craft laws: the president merely gets a veto (assuming Congress doesn’t override it). Outside of pardons, keeping Congress up to date on the state of the union, and filling an occasional vacancy, Article II provides the supposed leader of our nation with surprisingly little authority. The founders were careful, it seems, to give our executive a fitting name. We don’t have an American King, or an Emperor; we have “one who presides”, which hardly suggests awesome power.
Most interesting to me is how radically this differs from what Americans imagine our executive can do. Contrary to the framers’ intentions, we have invested the office of the president with a level of mystique and authority not far from the kings of old. Yes, presidents are supposed to have their will checked by the other branches of our government. Yet checks and balances have done nothing to limit the power of public opinion. Every four years, we heep praise and blame for everything under the sun onto the shoulders of one person. Lincoln ended slavery; Hoover caused the Great Depression, Roosevelt saved us from it; Kennedy won the space race; Reagan defeated communism; Obama and Trump either saved or ruined just about everything, depending on who you ask. With rare exceptions, Americans place everything from gas prices to world peace solely at the feet of the sitting president. Sounds like someone with absolute power. In other words: sounds like a king.
In this subtle desire for an all-powerful monarch, America actually parallels one of the sadder moments of Israel’s history. Following the time of the judges, Israel insisted that they be ruled by a king, like the other nations around them. The prophet Samuel urged them to reconsider, attempting to warn them how a worldy king would be harsh to them, subtly reminding them they already had an infinitely greater ruler: God himself. Yet Israel would not listen: “‘No!’ they said. ‘We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.’” At the Lord’s leading, Samuel relented, and appointed a king over them. Thus Israel rejected God as their ruler, choosing to be merely like the nations around them.
What followed can barely be called a mixed bag. Each of the rulers recorded in the books of the First and Second Kings receive something of a report card: they are said to have either done what was right in the eyes of the Lord, or done evil. A quick comparison is not encouraging: of the rulers recorded, eight did good, thirty-two did evil. Even those good rulers deserve something of an asterisk. The greatest among these kings—David—was heralded to be a man after God’s own heart. Yet even he succumbed to sin. In the end, David is praiseworthy only because of his willingness to accept responsibility for his sin, repent, and return to faithfully following God. Like most of the rest of Israel’s rulers, David’s conduct—considered outside of God’s redemptive grace—is at times far from admirable. All told, it’s clear Israel’s obsession with being ruled by an earthly king did not turn out in their favor.
This really shouldn’t surprise us. After all, in longing for a king Israel missed the point of what God had for them: he was meant to be their king. God never intended us to rule over each other; why else would the first instance of such domination occur after our fall into sin? We were always meant to live in fellowship with God, under his dominion—and no one else’s. In both Israel’s cry to Samuel and Americans’ longing for an all-powerful president, we point to the innate hunger to be ruled. Both nation’s simply aimed that longing at the wrong target.
In this, I think we find more interesting common ground between our nation and our God. I think the Constitution and our Lord are both disappointed with the amount of power we long for our president to hold. Constitutional scholars can wring their hands over that side of the issue; I’ll focus on a more important point: why have American Christians joined in on this crusade to instill one person with so much power? When did we forget that God is the one who actually provides for our needs? When did we—like Israel before us—decide to settle for a merely human “king”?
As we prepare to cast our votes next month, I think we would do well to consider this point. We seem to want to be ruled, but by whom? I know who I want as my king; he just happens to not be on the ballot.