Dangerous Democracy and the Tyranny of the Masses
Since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, several states have enshrined a supposed right to abortion into their constitutions. These include liberal states such as New York and Maryland, swing states like Arizona and Michigan, and even conservative states such as Ohio and Missouri.
Most of these abortion amendments were not approved by lawmakers. They have largely been added to state constitutions through ballot measures approved by voters. The people of these states, and many other states, decided with simple majorities to dehumanize their preborn neighbors and subject entire classes of people made in the image of God to legalized murder.
Not every state has approved these measures. Florida has a 60% threshold for ballot measure amendments, meaning the 57% of voters who supported their 2024 abortion measure fell short. Nebraska and South Dakota voters have also rejected abortion ballot measures in their states.
But the leftist political machine continues to rely on ballot measures to advance their agenda, especially in conservative states where legislatures are unlikely to support them. In states such as Arkansas, they are even working to alter the amendment process such that ballot measures can more easily pass, often invoking the language of democracy to support their efforts.
The people of this nation resonate with the notion of democracy, associating the term with the idea that the people should be able to make their own political choices and determine their own destiny. The conservative citizen may similarly recall the blessings of self-government and the unique freedom we enjoy from tyrannical monarchy in the American political system.
While monarchs may indeed become tyrants, the masses can become equally despotic. When a people consumed by vice rather than tutored in virtue are granted access to the ballot box, they will not only loot the public treasury for handouts, but also bestow upon themselves the supposed right to commit even the most unimaginable atrocities in the service of their personal autonomy. Look no further than the abortion amendments as evidence of this harrowing truth.
Christians have always recognized that human depravity knows no limits. That is why the American founders labored to create a constitutional order in which the upright man has a voice in his government, but in which the chaos and degeneracy of the masses can be restrained.
If we are to curb the despotic masses in our day, especially as they seek to murder preborn babies, we must return to our biblical and constitutional heritage against direct democracy.
The Biblical Tradition: ‘Not This Man, But Barabbas’
The fallen nature of man informs not only his individual conduct, but also his corporate conduct. While groups of men can flourish in the fear of God under the restraint of civilizing institutions, in particular the family, the church, and the state, groups of men who reject such institutions and honor no authority higher than themselves only multiply their own individual wickednesses.
God includes repeated instructions in his Law against joining with the masses to perpetrate injustice, warning his people that they “shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice” (Exodus 23:2).
Instead of establishing a government where mobs can lead the people into idolatry and sin, Moses under the counsel of Jethro created a system of delegated, hierarchical authority, comprised of “able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe” (Exodus 18:21). While the people assisted in selecting the men who represented them (Deuteronomy 1:13), they were not granted direct democratic authority over their government.
The wisdom literature also contains repeated warnings against the perils of crowds. Solomon cautions against joining with mobs of fallen men, placing a lengthy discourse about the dangers of keeping the wrong company in the book of Proverbs well before warnings against pride, greed, adultery, and countless other sins that tempt fallen men and cause untold ruin in their lives. Solomon advises that one should “not walk in the way with them; hold back your foot from their paths, for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood” (Proverbs 1:15-16).
Some of the darkest moments in redemptive history occurred at the hands of crowds. When the passions of the people usurped the rule of God and other righteous authorities, chaos quickly ensued, and the people themselves were ultimately the ones to suffer under their own tyranny.
The people of Israel started worshipping the golden calf as Moses was receiving the Law. Aaron enabled their idolatry by surrendering his authority to the mob, which had “gathered themselves together” and made their demands for an idol to worship when they saw “that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain” (Exodus 32:1-6). In the absence of Moses and his righteous authority, the people rapidly descended into rebellion and depravity, even at the foot of Sinai.
When the people desired a king, and their elders approached Samuel with the demand, Samuel was told to “obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them” (1 Samuel 8:7). Israel was supposed to eventually have a king appointed by God, not by the people (Deuteronomy 17:14-20), and their unrighteous demand for a king was judged with the reign of disobedient and prideful Saul.
The most shocking instance of depravity from the democratic masses occurred when Jesus was executed rather than Barabbas. The biblical account says that Pilate succumbed to pressure from the crowd (Mark 15:15) in his decision to abuse his authority granted from above (John 19:11) by punishing Jesus. The crowds chanted “not this man, but Barabbas” (John 18:40) not because they were ignorant of Barabbas and his guilt, since he was known to be “a notorious prisoner” (Matthew 27:16), but simply because they hated Jesus. Peter condemned the crowd because they “denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of Life, whom God raised from the dead” (Acts 3:14-15).
If the crowds who heard the preaching and witnessed the miracles of Jesus were willing to band together and have him murdered, then we should not be surprised that the democratic crowds of our day are willing to enshrine child sacrifice into their state constitutions, allowing them to murder babies who may be deemed an inconvenience to themselves and their selfish desires.
The Constitutional Tradition: ‘Spectacles of Turbulence and Contention’
The men who crafted our system of government were immersed in biblical thought, as well as the Western intellectual tradition, both of which informed the Anglo-Saxon heritage of limited government, separation of powers, and individual rights. These luminaries not only guarded the American system from the excesses of monarchy, but also from the excesses of the masses.
The skeptical attitude of the men who framed the United States Constitution toward democratic excess is displayed by James Madison in Federalist No. 10. Madison discusses the unavoidable reality of faction in a political system, which he defines as “a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”
Instead of “destroying the liberty” under which “the mischiefs of faction” inevitably arise, Madison defends a course of “controlling its effects” through a republican government.
Madison writes in Federalist No. 10 that “a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction.” When some form of “common passion or interest” arises in a democracy, there is no force “to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual.” That is why “such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention,” are often “incompatible with personal security,” and are regularly “as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths” throughout history.
Many other founding fathers maintained this suspicion toward democracy. John Adams wrote in an 1814 letter that democracy soon “wastes, exhausts, and murders itself,” adding that “there never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Adams even said that democracy is no “less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy.” Edmund Randolph said in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention that the “general object” of the Virginia Plan, which formed the basis of the United States Constitution, was to “provide a cure for the evils” under which the fledgling nation suffered, and that “in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.”
The longevity of the American constitutional order has been unmatched in history because of the limits imposed to avoid monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy alike, with each understood as presenting mortal dangers to liberty. The system of government in America retained some elements of monarchy through institutions like the Presidency, some elements of aristocracy through the Supreme Court and the Senate, and some elements of democracy through direct elections of the House of Representatives. But the powers of each are separated and balanced with one another, helping to prevent their respective ambitions from tyrannizing the nation.
While contemporary political movements like the French Revolution also disdained the abuses of monarchy and aristocracy, they reacted by abolishing both institutions altogether and embracing egalitarian popular sovereignty. Instead of lasting for two and a half centuries, the French Revolution ended in a new autocracy after one decade of carnage and tumult.
The influence of Christianity on the American founding undeniably saved our nation from the chaotic violence of the French Revolution. Beyond grounding our struggle for independence in Protestant doctrines regarding just war and the lesser magistrate, our founding fathers affirmed biblical truth regarding the fallen nature of man and the dangers of mob rule, which led them to place the ambitions of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy in check with one another. The lack of such restraints in France on fallen men created the conditions for disorder and tyranny.
The modern sympathy in the United States toward rule by democratic simple majorities, even among some conservatives, would be foreign to the founding fathers who framed our system of government. They would recognize such attitudes as inconsistent with our Christian faith and our Western heritage, and would warn of the tyranny they would inevitably enable in our land.
Democracy, Idolatry, and Baby Murder
Christians must recognize the ways in which positive attitudes toward direct democracy, which are indeed inconsistent with our religious and political heritage, have been weaponized to deceive voters, especially toward the end of denying our preborn neighbors the right to life.
Those who support democratic rule often make emotional appeals, enabled by our modern egalitarian impulses, that anyone who would be skeptical toward offering simple majorities free rein over our system of government is simply oppressive, cruel, or intolerant. They will defend the absolute right of democratic simple majorities to the point of granting them sovereignty over which human beings are worthy of life and which should be vulnerable to legalized murder.
The fundamental sin of democratic mob rule, from the golden calf of Sinai to the bloodstained guillotines of France, is an idolatrous rejection of the authority of God for the autonomy of man.
In his mercy, God exercises authority over fallen man to restrain our evil by granting us civil government, and yet man is constantly tempted to loose those restraints in service of our collective will to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. In our nation, sexual sin is enabled by the murder of preborn babies, and we view any threat to child sacrifice as a threat to our autonomy. That is why the passions of the mob are easily ignited by any perceived threat to abortion.
Christians must lead our nation in repentance from the deceptive impulse of direct democracy. Instead of asserting our own autonomy, we must honor God and the institutions to which he has delegated legitimate authority, and ultimately desire Jesus as our Lord rather than ourselves.
Since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, several states have enshrined a supposed right to abortion into their constitutions. These include liberal states such as New York and Maryland, swing states like Arizona and Michigan, and even conservative states such as Ohio and Missouri.
Most of these abortion amendments were not approved by lawmakers. They have largely been added to state constitutions through ballot measures approved by voters. The people of these states, and many other states, decided with simple majorities to dehumanize their preborn neighbors and subject entire classes of people made in the image of God to legalized murder.
Not every state has approved these measures. Florida has a 60% threshold for ballot measure amendments, meaning the 57% of voters who supported their 2024 abortion measure fell short. Nebraska and South Dakota voters have also rejected abortion ballot measures in their states.
But the leftist political machine continues to rely on ballot measures to advance their agenda, especially in conservative states where legislatures are unlikely to support them. In states such as Arkansas, they are even working to alter the amendment process such that ballot measures can more easily pass, often invoking the language of democracy to support their efforts.
The people of this nation resonate with the notion of democracy, associating the term with the idea that the people should be able to make their own political choices and determine their own destiny. The conservative citizen may similarly recall the blessings of self-government and the unique freedom we enjoy from tyrannical monarchy in the American political system.
While monarchs may indeed become tyrants, the masses can become equally despotic. When a people consumed by vice rather than tutored in virtue are granted access to the ballot box, they will not only loot the public treasury for handouts, but also bestow upon themselves the supposed right to commit even the most unimaginable atrocities in the service of their personal autonomy. Look no further than the abortion amendments as evidence of this harrowing truth.
Christians have always recognized that human depravity knows no limits. That is why the American founders labored to create a constitutional order in which the upright man has a voice in his government, but in which the chaos and degeneracy of the masses can be restrained.
If we are to curb the despotic masses in our day, especially as they seek to murder preborn babies, we must return to our biblical and constitutional heritage against direct democracy.
The Biblical Tradition: ‘Not This Man, But Barabbas’
The fallen nature of man informs not only his individual conduct, but also his corporate conduct. While groups of men can flourish in the fear of God under the restraint of civilizing institutions, in particular the family, the church, and the state, groups of men who reject such institutions and honor no authority higher than themselves only multiply their own individual wickednesses.
God includes repeated instructions in his Law against joining with the masses to perpetrate injustice, warning his people that they “shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice” (Exodus 23:2).
Instead of establishing a government where mobs can lead the people into idolatry and sin, Moses under the counsel of Jethro created a system of delegated, hierarchical authority, comprised of “able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe” (Exodus 18:21). While the people assisted in selecting the men who represented them (Deuteronomy 1:13), they were not granted direct democratic authority over their government.
The wisdom literature also contains repeated warnings against the perils of crowds. Solomon cautions against joining with mobs of fallen men, placing a lengthy discourse about the dangers of keeping the wrong company in the book of Proverbs well before warnings against pride, greed, adultery, and countless other sins that tempt fallen men and cause untold ruin in their lives. Solomon advises that one should “not walk in the way with them; hold back your foot from their paths, for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood” (Proverbs 1:15-16).
Some of the darkest moments in redemptive history occurred at the hands of crowds. When the passions of the people usurped the rule of God and other righteous authorities, chaos quickly ensued, and the people themselves were ultimately the ones to suffer under their own tyranny.
The people of Israel started worshipping the golden calf as Moses was receiving the Law. Aaron enabled their idolatry by surrendering his authority to the mob, which had “gathered themselves together” and made their demands for an idol to worship when they saw “that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain” (Exodus 32:1-6). In the absence of Moses and his righteous authority, the people rapidly descended into rebellion and depravity, even at the foot of Sinai.
When the people desired a king, and their elders approached Samuel with the demand, Samuel was told to “obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them” (1 Samuel 8:7). Israel was supposed to eventually have a king appointed by God, not by the people (Deuteronomy 17:14-20), and their unrighteous demand for a king was judged with the reign of disobedient and prideful Saul.
The most shocking instance of depravity from the democratic masses occurred when Jesus was executed rather than Barabbas. The biblical account says that Pilate succumbed to pressure from the crowd (Mark 15:15) in his decision to abuse his authority granted from above (John 19:11) by punishing Jesus. The crowds chanted “not this man, but Barabbas” (John 18:40) not because they were ignorant of Barabbas and his guilt, since he was known to be “a notorious prisoner” (Matthew 27:16), but simply because they hated Jesus. Peter condemned the crowd because they “denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of Life, whom God raised from the dead” (Acts 3:14-15).
If the crowds who heard the preaching and witnessed the miracles of Jesus were willing to band together and have him murdered, then we should not be surprised that the democratic crowds of our day are willing to enshrine child sacrifice into their state constitutions, allowing them to murder babies who may be deemed an inconvenience to themselves and their selfish desires.
The Constitutional Tradition: ‘Spectacles of Turbulence and Contention’
The men who crafted our system of government were immersed in biblical thought, as well as the Western intellectual tradition, both of which informed the Anglo-Saxon heritage of limited government, separation of powers, and individual rights. These luminaries not only guarded the American system from the excesses of monarchy, but also from the excesses of the masses.
The skeptical attitude of the men who framed the United States Constitution toward democratic excess is displayed by James Madison in Federalist No. 10. Madison discusses the unavoidable reality of faction in a political system, which he defines as “a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”
Instead of “destroying the liberty” under which “the mischiefs of faction” inevitably arise, Madison defends a course of “controlling its effects” through a republican government.
Madison writes in Federalist No. 10 that “a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction.” When some form of “common passion or interest” arises in a democracy, there is no force “to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual.” That is why “such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention,” are often “incompatible with personal security,” and are regularly “as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths” throughout history.
Many other founding fathers maintained this suspicion toward democracy. John Adams wrote in an 1814 letter that democracy soon “wastes, exhausts, and murders itself,” adding that “there never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Adams even said that democracy is no “less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy.” Edmund Randolph said in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention that the “general object” of the Virginia Plan, which formed the basis of the United States Constitution, was to “provide a cure for the evils” under which the fledgling nation suffered, and that “in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.”
The longevity of the American constitutional order has been unmatched in history because of the limits imposed to avoid monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy alike, with each understood as presenting mortal dangers to liberty. The system of government in America retained some elements of monarchy through institutions like the Presidency, some elements of aristocracy through the Supreme Court and the Senate, and some elements of democracy through direct elections of the House of Representatives. But the powers of each are separated and balanced with one another, helping to prevent their respective ambitions from tyrannizing the nation.
While contemporary political movements like the French Revolution also disdained the abuses of monarchy and aristocracy, they reacted by abolishing both institutions altogether and embracing egalitarian popular sovereignty. Instead of lasting for two and a half centuries, the French Revolution ended in a new autocracy after one decade of carnage and tumult.
The influence of Christianity on the American founding undeniably saved our nation from the chaotic violence of the French Revolution. Beyond grounding our struggle for independence in Protestant doctrines regarding just war and the lesser magistrate, our founding fathers affirmed biblical truth regarding the fallen nature of man and the dangers of mob rule, which led them to place the ambitions of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy in check with one another. The lack of such restraints in France on fallen men created the conditions for disorder and tyranny.
The modern sympathy in the United States toward rule by democratic simple majorities, even among some conservatives, would be foreign to the founding fathers who framed our system of government. They would recognize such attitudes as inconsistent with our Christian faith and our Western heritage, and would warn of the tyranny they would inevitably enable in our land.
Democracy, Idolatry, and Baby Murder
Christians must recognize the ways in which positive attitudes toward direct democracy, which are indeed inconsistent with our religious and political heritage, have been weaponized to deceive voters, especially toward the end of denying our preborn neighbors the right to life.
Those who support democratic rule often make emotional appeals, enabled by our modern egalitarian impulses, that anyone who would be skeptical toward offering simple majorities free rein over our system of government is simply oppressive, cruel, or intolerant. They will defend the absolute right of democratic simple majorities to the point of granting them sovereignty over which human beings are worthy of life and which should be vulnerable to legalized murder.
The fundamental sin of democratic mob rule, from the golden calf of Sinai to the bloodstained guillotines of France, is an idolatrous rejection of the authority of God for the autonomy of man.
In his mercy, God exercises authority over fallen man to restrain our evil by granting us civil government, and yet man is constantly tempted to loose those restraints in service of our collective will to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. In our nation, sexual sin is enabled by the murder of preborn babies, and we view any threat to child sacrifice as a threat to our autonomy. That is why the passions of the mob are easily ignited by any perceived threat to abortion.
Christians must lead our nation in repentance from the deceptive impulse of direct democracy. Instead of asserting our own autonomy, we must honor God and the institutions to which he has delegated legitimate authority, and ultimately desire Jesus as our Lord rather than ourselves.