40 There is little disagreement on this point, at least outside of some pockets of anarchists, who want no government restraint. If you are either religious or secular, government has a positive role to play in society. Disagreement emerges, to a point, about the source of this bad behavior that must be curbed by government. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, is a penetrating novel. The story is simple, but the message it carries is profound. A sizeable group of young boys gets stranded on a deserted island. The schoolboys are used to uniforms, getting into line, doing lessons, and obeying teachers. They are used to lives of structure and constancy and authority. They are stranded, though, without adults. And while it takes time, Golding portrays a slow but steady degeneration as the boys eventually form gangs and hostilities erupt. At one point, our protagonist, Ralph, witnesses something he would have found previously unimaginable, an act of violence against his good, decent, and largely helpless little friend called “Piggy.” Golding writes that at that moment, “Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of a true, wise friend called Piggy.” More than anything, The Lord of the Flies is a testament to human corruption. It suggests that civilization is a veneer that once peeled away is revealed only to hide a twisted species capable of brutality and hatred. Christians typically ascribe this kind of evil to sin, a word that has fallen out of favor during the last century. While not unlike the “state of nature” discussed above, the novel succeeds when it shows civilization and society apart from governmental order. And though I argue there has never been such a thing as a state of nature, it is not hard to imagine that life apart from that government would be, for most of us, intolerable. When we think of how our government acts, or often refuses to act, or how it wastes money, or how there are elements of corruption, or how it seems our leaders just cannot come together to solve problems, we feel frustrated, and rightfully so. But, to be Christian about government, we must grasp two important things. First, even the government we have, as frustrating as it might be, is far better and more preferable to life without that government. Though it might sound crass, and I cannot speak from personal experience, I think I would rather have a bad government as compared to no government. Without government, I fear we would look not all that differently than
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