STATEMAN
A statesman is referred to as a morally right leadership at a polity level. Statesmanship has been associated with the significant political figures who led the country in times of war and other crises such as Abraham Lincoln, Churchill Winston, De Gaulle. Women such as San Suu Kyi and Thatcher can also be associated with statesmanship (Overeem & Bakker, 2016). The state stands for a specific polity, currently known as the national level, which is developing through constitutionalization and democratization processes. Statesmanship, which is according to the biblical principles, is expected to be transparent, justice, love, and protection for the people. A state’s person following the bible works for the states and ultimately gives credit to God, and they depend on him for success and prosperity. Therefore, biblical norms should be recognized and acknowledged in the government for us to live according to God’s will.
America’s founding father believed that working for the government means that they should serve the people with all they have and not the other way around. One of how the government would serve the people is by protecting the people’s rights in that they are treated justly. One of the essential themes in the bible is treating people justly and with righteousness (Fischer, 1996). Statesmen are required to exercise justice among their people by protecting their rights. In psalms (11.11) says that the Lord loves Justice (Bandow, 2010). Throughout the bible, people are fostered to exercise justice for all people. Many issues that are going on surrounding this currently where the people in power are sometimes not able to exercise justice to the people (Kollie, 2019). For instance, the killing of African Americans in the United States means that people’s rights are not protected as they are killed without any justice. Individuals should look out for their neighbours; the government should regulate and protect the people by ensuring that they are treated justly. Despite the government’s role being controlling people, they should refrain from practicing tyranny and govern people in the right and acceptable ways (Fischer, 1996).
Also, the government is required to be neutral and protectors according to g to the biblical principles. Biblical justice calls for the statesmen and women not to oppress and rob the people. In Jeremiah 22:13, God declares that “woe unto the person who builds their place with injustice and unrighteousness from the labour of the other country people and fails to pay them for their work” (Bandow, 2010). One of the first theories of limited government in history was the Caesar story, which states that we should give Caesar what belongs to him (Lindsley, 2018). Caesar should be given the money because it belongs to him. This is where corruption began and continues to thrive in today’s governments. Being a statesman means that one has a position of leadership. Therefore, they should protect the people’s interests first, the government, most especially because they are working for the people (Bandow, 2010). Both the poor and the advantaged in society should be treated with the utmost fairness. In America and most countries, low-income neighbourhoods have a low quality of ever government service from health to education. The shootings mostly affect the African Americans, which shows there is discrimination which is against the bible.
The people choose government officials, and they are therefore answerable to them. In the bible, people are allowed to choose their leaders, such as the Israelites in Deuteronomy; they are given the responsibility to determine their leaders and judges who will govern them. After people have selected and established their leaders in the office, who govern them, the chosen people are transparent and open with the people. Similar to the biblical theme, the American government is also a democratic one where people get to choose their leaders (McDowell & Beliles, 1995). These leaders have their roles, which are to serve the people, and therefore they are answerable to the people. American is one of the most democratic countries in the world where people have the right to vote freely, although this was not the case previously. In the earlier days, women and also African Americans were not allowed to vote. This is not the case currently, as people get to vote for their leaders who should meet specific qualifications and making them accountable for the roles they were appointed for.
By holding them accountable is ensuring they serve the people justly. In the bible, the appointed judges were governed and judge people justly. In the current government, if the elected leaders fail to deliver the people have the power to impeach them from their positions, although it’s a long process, it’s possible. Although the most ultimate authority is from God, the people have the magisterial jurisdiction to remove a person from their office (Mansfield, 2013).
The civil government should be decentralized and have a local orientation. The Israelites were divided into gates, which ensured that a government was set in every town and village. This means that the government should include the most basic and essential. In the United States, we have the federal government, the state government, and the local government to ensure that all people are covered and can reach the government. This also allows important community issues are discussed, and solutions are determined. In the court’s perspective, there are different types of courts with the Supreme Court as the central court. In the bible, this division was necessary as every tribe had their jurisdiction over in their territory; the statesmen were responsible for overseeing that the villages, towns, and cities have a proper civil government (Testa, 2013). The biblical model of the Hebrews gives a locally oriented ad decentralized rule, one that had different levels of government (Mathews). Israel had local judges, gates, tribes, a council of elders, and the king’s topmost. Most often than not, biblical law does not support a centralized government.
Politicians should govern with just according to the biblical model. Judges in the book of Deuteronomy are required to control people with both wisdom and Justice (Cliteur, 2012). As leaders in the government, they should not bend the laws for their personal interest or favour other people over others. They are required to serve the people as they have been ordained by God for that purpose and do God’s purpose. Along with this, they should not accept any bribes. The effect of the actions mentioned would be corrupt Justice (Stevenson, 2004). The law should be standard for all people regardless of their race, ethnicity, and social status, among other things. Law and justice should be held high and should be regarded as valuable in a country. Practicing injustice is not only selling out your should but also the country as a whole.
The Hebrews acknowledged the presence and authority of God. Therefore they operated under his sanctions, having a decentralized government, people being accountable to govern justly, and also the selection of wise leaders to govern them, the rulers being responsible. The civil judges in Hebrew who never accepted brides or never practiced any form of corruption because of their commitment to the law’s rules and regulations. It’s by God’s grace that this model has years later been adopted in a majority of the nations.
In our efforts to seek Christian reconstruction of the government and the statesmanship, we must have a common standard based on the Hebrew and Israelites governments. The term model is used because some aspects were only found in the Hebrew civil government and not anywhere else (Einwechter, 2000). However, the most exciting thing about this aspect of my study is that we have learned that the United States, with all its shortcomings, has been able to develop a government which in many ways, depicts the biblical principles. We are hoping that America will go back on the track of the other biblical principles, thus back to liberty/freedom, something that the Lord loves.
In the modern state, there are three different characteristics, which include constitutionalism, democracy, and bureaucracy—depending on the states, the variations of the mixture of other elements, however, the mix from statesmanship. Modern states aspire to become more democratic (Overeem & Bakker, 2016). The combination of democracy and statesmanship in the democratic (Jones, 2019). With constitutionalism, which has brought a limited government power, it’s becoming challenging to combine with statesmanship. An ideal statesmanship lives and operates outside the constitutional order, and it, therefore, becomes a threat to constitutionalism; in other words, it becomes a threat to the other constitutional orders. For instance, the founding father thought it was better to resort to constitutionalism rather than statesmanship as the primary source of political orders.