Christian Liberty and The Unmanned Drone

“Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me in the shadow of your wings”

Psalm 17:8

Rand Paul’s grand filibuster speech this week pointed up the concerns many of us have about the growing fleets of drones being operated by agencies of government at every level. It seems the governments find it almost impossible to understand why citizens are worried. For the people who operate these machines these are simply a natural extension of their existing practices and philosophy. To the citizens, these new spy tools are another extension of an already over-grown state enterprise that seeks to capture our every movement.

With each passing year we have a sense that our natural liberties are fleeting away but we have a difficult time understanding why. I used the word natural above, because that is the word often used by the libertarian crowd to describe their perception of the source of liberty. They somehow believe that there is something in nature that should compel society toward right forms of liberty. This naturalistic philosophy denies the supremacy of God and lifts the unfounded hopes of sinful men. They believe there is something within nature that should propel mankind into an Eden without God. As Biblically-informed people we have to understand otherwise.

Liberty Is Not Natural

Nature does not produce liberty. Due to the fallen condition of our world we understand that nature groans for redemption (Romans 8:22) as does our race.  The capture of Christian minds by humanist talk of natural rights indicates more about the dearth of taught doctrine in our churches than it does about any defect in the Christian message. Nature is the carrier of the fall, as are we, and hence, will never lead to either redemption or liberty. It is rather, Christ and His law that open liberty to mankind.

These drones are of some concern to liberty loving Americans. We kind of liked them when they were deployed over other people’s countries, photographing malefactors and hitting them with Hell-fire missiles. Now, to our consternation, they are encroaching ever closer to our own zones of living. We are starting to understand that those eyes in the sky can be turned back toward their makers.

All-Seeing Government vs. All-Seeing God

This is another expression of the problem with making the civil government a god. We never saw it coming. Maybe a few of us did, but for the most part everybody thought these gadgets were marvelous. Now, these inventions may be wonderful, but the men who operate them, perhaps less so. The God of heaven promises, “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on the innocent or the righteous, I will not acquit the guilty.” Somehow, the all-seeing eye of God who watches over His own has been transposed into an all-peeping eye of civil government that spies on our every wiggle. It is another extension of our humanist philosophy, as that philosophy bores its way into every facet of human existence.

This type of threat from our own government would not have been tolerated a few years ago. However, we have been accepting ever growing encroachment from those who once were described as civil servants. They were supposed to protect and serve the public. That Biblical concept of serving has been turned around into its polar opposite. We citizens are now considered as the ones who are supposed to protect and serve the government. Many of these people truly believe they are to rule over us, and we are to serve their every whim for power. They are to rule and we are to support them. They are to watch us and we are to be watched. It is a flip on the Biblical construct for civil authority. We hardly see it because we, so long ago, stopped thinking about Biblical law or its parameters for government or life. By our own indolence in doctrine we have become victims of the machine.

Christians Should Resist

When David wrote, “Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me in the shadow of your wings” there were no motorized drones to worry his troops. His concern was that the Lord would preserve him from hidden dangers, protecting him in over-shadowing preservation as He watched over His own below. His words were an expression of trust in the omnipotence of the ever living God in whom he trusted. Civil governments, perhaps unconsciously, work ceaselessly to replace the omnipotence of God with their own versions of His mighty attributes. As Christian citizens of a greater kingdom, we ought to resist these state efforts to be as god. Our loyalty is always first to the real God of Scripture. Our liberties are His liberties and our safety is His safety. All else leads to slavery.

For Christian Culture,

Don Schanzenbach  3-9-13

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