Thu 3/7/2024 8:08 AM

One of the errors we contemporary Americans are prone to make is to confuse civics with politics.  We often think of civics entirely in terms of government institutions, voting for political candidates, asserting our constitutional rights, or petitioning our city councils. 

To be sure, civics and politics are intimately connected, but regarding them as one and the same is not merely wrong as a matter of definitions—it reflects a fundamentally disordered view of human beings altogether.

Before there were great nations of the world, there were cities and towns.  Before there were cities and towns, there were tribes and clans.  And before there were tribes and clans, there was the family.  Adam and Eve were created in a garden, not in a democratic republic; they did not give birth to Cain and Abel in a constitutional monarchy.  They started, just as you and I and every other human being does, as a family.  It isn’t until Genesis Chapter 10 that clans emerged from the sons of Japheth, and cities like Babel and Nineveh were built by Nimrod, a grandson of Ham.

As Edmund Burke observed, the family is the origin of “the little platoon we belong to in society,” and it is “the germ of public affections.”  Your family is the first and most important of all civic institutions—more important than the Presidency; more important than the Supreme Court; a more important institution than the governor, your city council, or this school. 

When God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments as instructions on how to live in community, the first four commandments were about honoring God—but the fifth commandment, before thou shalt not murder and before thou shalt not steal, was to honor your father and mother.  So, if you love your country and want to make it better, start by not confusing civics with politics.  If we start with our families, the politics will take care of itself.

Have a wonderful day.