louis_xiv

On religious politicians

Every time I hear US politicians blather aboud God, I get annoyed. Some of them may use religion just to get votes, but some of them - and that's the worst kind - seem really to think that God is on their side. Would god vote republican? Is the war in Irak god's will? Sometimes I wish that the Allmighty would form a habit of striking by lightning everybody who claims exactly knowing His will.

Maybe you are surprised to read such harsh words by me, the very catholic majesty Louis XIV. But let me tell you that there is a crucial difference between a christian monarch and a "christian" politician in a democracy. The point is the following:

Nobody becomes king or president by coincidence. Every leader or monarch gets his power from someone, be it God, the people, a superior leader - whoever. In consequence, the monarch is responsible to the person or persons who put him in charge. Pilatus was responsible to the roman emperor. An elected leader is responsible to the people who elected him. I, king of France and Navarre by the grace of God, am responsible to God.

That means that I am not a despot, I cannot do what I want without consequences. I once said "When you can do what you want, it's not easy to only want what you are due to." ("Quand on peut tout ce que l'on veut, il n'est pas ais de ne vouloir que ce que l'on doit.") I am responsible to God for my acts. "Whatever I do, I will have to answer for to the Allmighty. " That does not mean that I have an idea what's His will, it means that when I do a bad job, He will (excuse my french) kick my royal ass. I don't claim to have done everything right - Lord knows I haven't. Even when I thought I did His will, it sometimes turned out that maybe it wasn't - for example the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. But I know that for all my acts, I will have to answer to God, so I try to do my very best. This attitude makes me think twice about every act, and, more important, it makes me humble. I may be the Sun King, before God I am nothing. That's what it means to be a christian monarch.

History - particularly the part of your history which is still my future - knows monarchs and leaders who have been put in charge by themselves, and feel in consequence answerable to noone. Napoleon. Stalin. Hitler. They were not christian leaders, they were tyrants. Europe - your Europe - has seen what happens when such a monster is unleased.

But what about so called "christian" politicians in a democracy? Well, they have been elected by people, so they are responsible not to God, but to people. In consequence, they should not primarly serve God, or an abstract "Nation", but the people. By serving people, they will please god - not by praising Him and claiming to speak in His name. Besides this, those who claim speaking and acting in His name are the worst of all. Like, "Whatever I do, I will have the Allmighty on my side." That's not only stupid, that's highly dangerous, because it leads to the hybris of always doing the right thing. The worst and longest wars are those where both sides claim to have the Allmighty on their side.

To resume, beeing a christian monarch makes humble, beeing a "christian" politician may lead to a dangerous hybris. That's why I, a christian monarch, distust "christian" politicians in a democracy. Although I think that 21th century's France goes too far with their strict separation of religion and politics, I admit that it has it's advantages.

On a side-note : Am I the only one who has the impression that all those oh-so-christian US politicians who always blather about Jesus only know the Old Testament?

(Sometimes I have the impression that it was a bad idea to put Europe's worst religious fanatics and trigger-happy adventurers on boats and to tell them to sail far, far away to found whatever Jesus-and-firearms nation would come to their mind. Because they did... )