There is a very deep tendency in human nature that when things are going very badly, we want a king to come in and magically straighten them out. That is why our presidential elections have become far, far too important. We’re treating the president as if he were our saving king, the anointed one, the messiah who saves us in the darkest hour from our enemies, and sets things to right with a few quick thrusts of his terrible swift pen.

Slashing deficits, expanding health care, cutting health care costs, dragging in the Wall Street white collar pirates in chains, boldly slashing off all the welfare chiselers, reviving the economy by reducing regulations, expanding the economy by stimulus, passing more regulations to protect workers and consumers, saving social security, reducing entitlements, reducing the military, making us safer in a world of increasing terrorism, staving off government encroachments on our personal liberty.

There is no end to our list. All of this is now expected of a president, and the president wanna-be’s are only too willing to make promises that only a messiah could fulfill. Hence, the hideously immoderate stress we put on the election of a president,  a process now stretched out to the point where (like the Christmas shopping season being pushed ever earlier), no sooner do we elect one president in than the hopeful messiahs for the next election start queuing up.

That accounts for how we’ve misspent the last weeks of 2011 worrying about the elections in November of 2012, nearly a year hence. That’s a terrible waste of Advent, what should have been a thoughtful, holy time leading up to Christmas.

Time is not money. Not even the Federal Government can print up more time. How we spend time, or misspend it, as it flows past us tells far more about the state of our soul, of our character, of our confusions, than how we spend our money.

We’ve spent our Advent brooding about the dark state of the economy, the deficit, Wall Street, Welfare, the collapse of Europe, and everyone else’s appalling wickedness and stupidity. We’ve spent our Advent watching every move and straining to hear every utterance of the Republican messiah hopefuls, and of the current chastened Democratic messiah in the White House.  We’ve spent our time immersed in the frenzy surrounding what state would host the first primary or caucus in January, and which one would really be decisive, each state jostling against the others so as to become the Bethlehem in which the long-awaited savior will be given political birth.

Well, here’s the Good News: the president will not save us. Not this president. Not the next president. Not any president.

So, if you voted for Obama, thinking he was the long-awaited messiah, rejoice! If you were awaiting a sterling Republican nominee who would save us from the appalling mess we’re in, and all you’ve got is Mitt or Newt—rejoice! You’ve learned a deep and painful lesson. Presidents aren’t gods, so presidents aren’t saviors. Presidents are mere mortals with all their mortal faults, character flaws, inconsistencies, confusions, misjudgments, malodorous entanglements, and yes, plain stupidities.

In one sense, this isn’t even a religious lesson. It’s a merely political lesson. Our Constitution was originally defined to exclude political messianism by doing everything it could to keep presidents from becoming kings.  When presidents are treated as king-messiahs, we are looking to them as gods. When we look to them as gods, we tend to give them political omnipotence to act as our quasi-divine saviors. We give them more and more power, as our desperation increases. We’re getting more and more desperate, and that’s more and more dangerous. That desperation is seen most vividly in the spiraling intensity of the presidential election process.

So it’s is dangerous sign of our lapsing into political messianism when we hear—when we want to hear—the president or president hopefuls say, “When I’m president, the first thing I’m going to do…” and then outline a whole host of programs and legislation he or she is going to draft and “push” through Congress or even worse, impose by fiat through executive orders.

That is not the president’s job. That’s actually Congress’s job. Or, far more accurately, it is the job of the various state and local governing bodies. That’s where our fundamental political, economic, and moral responsibility was originally placed. We the people are supposed to govern ourselves, to mind our own businesses carefully and fruitfully, to support our own families and communities by our work and sacrifice, to invest and spend our money and our time prudently, to bring our own children up well.

That’s the political lesson. We have to clean up our own messes. Washington has only as much power as we give it, and if we think it can save us from these darkening times, we’ll give them more power than even honest men should have.

Yet, it is a religious lesson, a lesson tied to the political lesson. These really are dark times, very dark, but history is full of dark times. There really aren’t any light times, even though some times are lighter than others. But something is deeply broken in human nature, and it seems to bring about, very predictably, wars, oppression, greed, fraud, political manipulation, political catastrophe, baneful waste, and real suffering. No frail mortal can save us from all this, especially when we realize that “all this” includes us, and our own sins. The shifting of political power will inevitably shift it from one fallen mortal’s shoulders to another.

There are better and worse mortals. The real cads, bounders, opportunists, swindlers, and demagogues should be thrown out, and better mortals brought in. But no election can take the place of the need of a real savior, someone who’s aiming at the root of the problem in our hearts rather than merely trimming the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of our government.

Reader Responses to Secular Theocracy:

Theroux article excellent, very relevant to today. Could you ask someone to respond to the idea that people today, especially young people, believe that "Truth is whatever is true for ME"? Thanks for To the Source! I look forward to each one and read them front to back. - Bill