I have a lot of friends who vote left. In part, this is because I live in Dunedin, which has returned a Union backed candidate for almost 100 years, had one of the first female MPs, and where being progressive is seen as a very good thing. In the aftermath of this election, these people are hurting, for the progressives lost, and lost badly.

But the left did badly. They were crude, and this election placard may have been part of the reason.

Dunedin hospital is old and needing a retrofit. The board is having to spend millions to make it weathertight. It is a bit of brutalist architecture, and removing it would improve the landscape. The area it is in abuts the university and is quite crowded, without green fields to build on.

The rational thing would be to demolish the even older hospital on the other site in the hills (Wakari), build a new base hospital and then sell the land in the central city. But that would lose political points, and there is, to my knowledge no plan for this. Besides, It takes years to plan a rebuild of a hospital, and a few hundred million.

Which the board does not have, nor does the government. It was a bribe, one that could not be delivered.

So why are people so enamoured with the left? Why is it that historically, Christians have driven the progressive platform to the point that Lenin called us all useful idiots? In part it is the preaching of John about being just and charitable. .

John the Baptist Prepares the Way

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall become straight,
and the rough places shall become level ways,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”

(Luke 3:1-14 ESV)

Please note what John does not preach, which is rebellion. The Roman and Herodian tax collectors and soldiers are to do their duty and not extort. The people are told to share with one another: to give their possessions to the poor. to share.

To not hold on. As a sign of their change, and the forgiveness of their sins, not as a duty, or a tax, or an institution.

For institutions and politicians do not do charity. They do clients: as the Roman Senators cultivated and funded their minions into positions of power, so does both the right and the left. The right tends to attract those who can give and share: and takes from them monies that should be going to charity as they are defending property and income from depredation from the hard left. This distortion of charity is wrong: in a rational state (which is a small state) it would not be needed.

The left used to argue that the state can provide: that by taxing people we can get rid of the stigma of poverty and indeed remove poverty from this nation. But, after 50 years of social welfare, instead we have a client group who are generally run by politicians (UNITE in NZ would be an example), or we have parties that cater to a coalition of minorities, judging people as traitors if they do not stay on the plantation. David Cunliffe betrayed this when he said that the “Labour caucus is the Maori caucus” in is speech (which was triumphant as his party slumped to the lowest vote they have had since 1922). This is a client status, not charity, not caring for one’s brothers and sisters.

What are we to do? Well, John was preaching to Jews, to a people of faith, to a tribe. Paul says that those who do not provide for their family are to be treated as if corrupt. And Jesus, dying, asked John to care for his mother.

We have a few duties; to care for our families, then the people within the congregation, then the wider church, then those around us in general society. With wisdom, and with discrimination.

Not as a right, but giving freely.

And we should leave the politics to the commanders of the tax collectors and the military, noting they have a duty not to exploit the people, driving them to be clients of their latifunda, their plantation. .