The Politics of Death

{Excerpted from R.J. Rushdoony, "Government as a Monopoly, or, the Politics of Death," Systematic Theology Vol. 2, pp. 1024-1026}

In Genesis 11:1-4, we have the account of the building plan for the Tower of Babel, man's great early effort at a total one world state. The Tower was to be the world's governmental center. They were determined to make a name (Shem) for themselves, an expression for acquiring fame or a reputation ever since. This is the meaning "making a name" for oneself has acquired from this account. It did not have that meaning then, given the unity and proximity of men one to another. To make a name or a Shem for themselves was their goal as against God. God rightly saw their effort as directed against Himself. This world governmental center represented a rebellion against God and God's judgment. Two great facts of judgment were in the minds of all. First, there was the Fall and the curse. Second, there was the Flood.

To rebel against God means to wage war against His law or rule, and against all the judgments based upon that law and government. The Tower thus was, as Leupold said, "the symbol of defiance of God."1  It was man's attempt to veto God's judgment. By means of a humanistic scheme of government, law, and science, men would attempt to subvert the efficacy of God's law and judgment. The Tower represented a scientific mastery of building and engineering problems. As a stepped pyramid, it was a symbol of man's ascent, step by step, into power and divinity. Thus, to make a name for themselves meant to supplant God as the governing power.

The fact of government is an important one. God alone is Lord or Sovereign, the governing power over all things. In terms of His law-word, government on the human scene is decentralized. The seven key areas of government under God are: the self-government of the Christian man, the family, the church, the school, our vocation, our society, and civil government (which is one government among many). Each of these areas are further decentralized. The family is a good example. The Bible makes clear that the husband is the head of his wife and household, not the sole governor (Eph. 5:23). The model wife is Sarah (I Peter 3:6), who issued an ultimatum to her husband Abram concerning Hagar, and later ordered Abraham to cast out Hagar and Ishmael. God vindicated Sarah and commanded Hagar to obey Sarah, "in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice" (Gen.16:1-16; 21:1-21). (Most churches today would have insisted on putting Sarah on trial as a rebellious wife.) The wife thus clearly has governing powers. The children also have various duties and hence powers delegated to them.

There is a very important fact here. Work under God is a form of government. To have a responsible child capable of governing in his or her sphere, it is essential that work become a part of their training. This is not to say that work is identical with government and dominion, but rather that it is inseparable. Any society which separates the three is in serious trouble. It creates thereby the politics of death.

The politics of death seeks dominion by means of government and without work. It seeks a monopoly on government and works to control every sphere of life: persons, families, churches, vocations, society at large, schools, the arts and sciences, and whatever else there is, in order to play god and create the good society.

The Soviet Union and Red China are very clear examples of this, but, in varying degrees, every modern state gives us an example of the politics of death. It stultifies and penalizes work and therefore responsibility.

The image of God in man requires work, responsibility, and self-government under God. It is man, not the state, who is created in the image of God. For the state to usurp the governing functions beyond its appointed place is to attempt to play god. In every instance of such a usurpation, there is either resentment or rebellion against the state. The state is not a person, nor a responsible, conscious entity; it is an institution. When it seeks to supplant men, it cuts itself off from men and from humanity and becomes inhuman, an ironic conclusion for the humanistic state.

Then, instead of godly work as the means to dominion, coercion takes its place. Coercion leads to a repression of freedom and responsibility, and finally to death. Hence we must call statism the politics of death. The Bible requires, for offenses against certain aspects of God's justice, the penalty of death. The humanistic state requires the death penalty, not for violations of God's justice, but the state's laws, a vast difference. Death then becomes the final solution to problems, the first step being statist coercion.

In 1971, testifying before a U. S. Senate Committee, a criminal mob defector, Michael Raymond, said: "You cannot exist in a society where the ultimate solution to everything is to kill somebody, which is the answer of organized crime to any problem."2 This, however, is increasingly the solution to all problems confronting the modern state. In some form or other, coercion and repression are the solution, or, finally, death. Death in the humanistic society replaces work as the means of dominion and government.

Not surprisingly, the most repressive societies have problems producing food and material goods. A repressive and death oriented society is not productive.

God's judgment on the Tower of Babel was thus a blessing for mankind, in that it restored the polity of work as against the politics of death by breaking up the planned monopoly on government.

We have today, in court decisions, federal and state legislatures and administrations, and in the thinking of many humanistic voters, a great trust in the politics of death and a readiness to grant a monopoly on government to the state. Behind this trend is man's sin; man's sin in Eden was to play god, to attempt to become his own source of ultimacy and law, to determine good and evil for himself (Gen. 3:5). Adam and Eve had grown weary of the responsibility of work. In their sin, they forsook work under God and in faithfulness to God's law in favor of a direct and unmediated seizure of power. The Kingdom in all its potentiality could thereby be realized by them. God's fiat word can create anything; why not utilize man's fiat word to create a new heaven and a new earth? 

The Tower of Babel renewed this quest, as has the modern humanistic state. In the process, work has been relegated to slaves. The Soviet Union is economically dependent on the slave labor camps; only there are men to any degree productive. The production of slaves, however, is not dominion oriented but survival governed, and the state which depends on it has no good future. 

In every age, God confounds all Towers of Babel.

1. H. C. Leupold: Exposition of Genesis. (Columbus, OH: Wartburg Press. 1942). p. 387.

2. David E. Sheim: Contract on America, the Mafia Murders of John and Robert Kennedy. (Silver Springs, MD: Argyle Press, 1983). p. 28.