| I thought I would expand on a theme that I mentioned a couple of days ago. In the Bible, the idea of raising up the least is pervasive. Slaves are chosen as God's people; shepherd's are made kings; younger brothers supplant older brothers; fisherman become Apostles; and so forth. Two ideas lie behind this, I think. First, the demonstration of the glory of God, insofar as he accomplishes great things through humble instruments. Second, the idea that the dignity of man is greater than the dignity of race or class or even, for that matter, gender, as when he raises up heroines like Deborah and Esther. Being enslaved is not disqualification from being Chosen; a carpenter from a small town can turn out to be the Son of God; the important action of history can turn out to be in a conquered backwater, rather than the Imperial City. God is more concerned with saving the stray lamb than with the fate of nations. This exaltation of the human person as such was a leavening influence in Western civilization, and found its strongest secular expression in the rise of liberal democracy, with its concern for the rights of the individual and minorities,and its invitation to all to participate in the processes of government. This is what we seek to conserve, against attempts to undermine individual rights, or to make certain ethnic groups perpetual wards of the state, or to reduce the child in the womb to the status of parasite......... |
