Who Rules? The Roles of Truth and Desire In Politics

“But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin…” - James 1:14-15

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When it comes right down to it, there are basically two kinds of people in the world: those who live to see their own desires fulfilled at every available opportunity and those who subordinate their desires to a higher authority. 

The Book of James tells us that desire is what fuels sin. We desire - we want something - and are willing to violate moral law in order to have it. With this basic framework, we begin to see how our desires come to master us through the many verses of scripture that describe how the natural state of humanity is one ruled by sin:

“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions [or desires],” - Romans 6:12.

“For at one time we too were foolish, disobedient, misled, enslaved to all sorts of desires and pleasures,” - Titus 3:3.

“Establish my steps through Your promise; let no sin rule over me,” - Psalm 119:133. 

Sin rules the unrepentant heart and sin is fueled by desire. 

Without the liberating grace of God, we are enslaved to our sin and ruled by our desires.

Through the liberating grace of God, the Christian comes to both subordinate his own desires to the authority of God and then to conform them to the desires of the Holy Spirit. The grace of God changes the people of God by causing us to not just decide to obey, but to want to obey. God changes our desires so that what is at one time the gritty work of denying ourselves, taking up our crosses and living a life of obedience becomes an entirely new nature: we come to want what He wants and hate what He hates. 

God-willing.

This duality plays itself out in a myriad of different ways throughout human life, but one of the most explicit is in the realm of politics. 

Remember: there are two kinds of people in the world: those who live according to the dictates of their own desires and those who constrain those desires out of respect for a higher authority; those who live according to how the world is and those who live according to how they wish the world to be. 

In politics, painting with an admittedly broad brush, you can predict with almost absolute certainty which party or candidate a person will vote for based solely on how they engage with this particular reality. Those on the right acknowledge that there are immutable realities and truths above their own personal desires that must be upheld, respected and considered when it comes to matters of policy and legislation. Their counterparts on the left, however, believe that reality itself can be shaped and changed through intention, language and action.

These two perspectives are enunciated for us by the voices of their respective sides. Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro is famous (or infamous, depending on your take) for stating, “Facts don’t care about your feelings.” Democrat Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, was once quoted saying, “I think that there's a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right.”

For the right, there is no moral coherence without truth and truth is upheld through factual correctness. For the left, morality and truth are not necessarily the same as what is factually correct.

One side submits to truth, the other tries to establish it through their desire. 

For instance, all of science and reality inform us that there are two biological sexes: male and female. The Word of God is crystal clear about this topic, as well (Genesis 1:27 and 5:2, Matthew 19:4, Mark 10:6). But within just the last handful of years we have seen a seismic shift in the cultural discussion as the left side of the political spectrum has adopted a position that claims that gender is culturally constructed and therefore fluid, and that the potential number for possible gender identifications is infinite. This discussion has been framed as a new civil rights crusade by many and those that disagree with the idea that a person’s gender can be literally whatever they wish it to be are labeled as hateful and bigoted.

Never mind that less than 10 years ago, even the most ardent leftists weren’t discussing this issue at all, and certainly not with the ferocity of moral certainty they argue with now. 

So what changed? Not the position of the right: they still look to things like nature (chromosomes, biology, DNA, etc.), the Word of God (consider the verses above), human history (all of it is replete with the idea that there are men and women) and a dime’s worth of common sense to maintain the same position they’ve always held. 

But the left writes new academic position papers, creates new words and labels (like ‘ze’ and ‘zer’), and begins to declare their preferred gender pronouns on their social media accounts in order to create the impression of a new way of doing things. Make no mistake: the goal is to conform reality to desire instead of subordinating desire to reality. Those who resist are cancelled, fired or prosecuted for their trouble. 

Politics plays out like a macrocosm of society. If we will not uphold a solid, universal standard of truth, we will instead assume the responsibility of defining truth for ourselves. But people are fickle, selfish and insecure. Left to our own devices, we will change the definitions of truth and reality as often as we decide on a new favorite movie or restaurant. 

In Ephesians 4:13-14, Paul contrasted “mature manhood” and “the stature of the fullness of Christ” with being “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” To look to an outside source for ultimate truth, namely Christ, and to conform your desires to Him, is to anchor yourself against the storms of human madness that threaten to beat and batter you in every conceivable direction. Mature manhood, sanctification and wisdom consist in the bending of your knee to something greater, purer, truer and more dependable than yourself. Your desires, meanwhile, like a ship adrift on a stormy sea, can be thrown around and redirected by any number of different influences, from peer pressure and political correctness to lack of a good night’s sleep or a particularly emotional episode of television. What we want can change with the ticking of a clock. What is true is true yesterday, today and forever. 

Do not allow your politics to be driven by your own personal desires. Instead, let them be driven by truth. Allow for hard things, bitter pills and discomfort in the correction of past mistakes. That is how truth deals with human beings, after all. 

The truth can hurt. That is because none of us are completely conformed to it yet. The elevation of human feelings and desires over and above it, however, will lead only to ruin, both personal and societal.

The truth is hard. But it’s the only thing that can set you free. 

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