The defection of the state

The defection of the state July 17, 2015

More from Hermann Sasse, the anti-Nazi theologian, on the death of nations, reflecting on “the deification of the state” and other ways in which governments can “defect” from their true nature and their Romans 13 authority.

via Matt Harrison – The Caesar cult in its manifold forms, the…:

The Caesar cult in its manifold forms, the deification of the state, is the one great form of the defection from the idea of the state. There are also other possibilities of such defection. The government can forget and neglect its tasks. When it no longer distinguishes between right and wrong, when its courts are no longer governed by the strict desire for justice, but by special interests, when government no longer has the courage to exercise its law, fails to exercise its duties, undermines its own legal order, when it weakens through its family law parental authority and the estate of marriage, then it ceases to be governing authority.

Hermann Sasse, What is the State? 1932

 

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