I had this surprising conversation with my six-year-old daughter the other day.  She is quite a talker with fascinating ideas about almost everything. 

For some reason the topic of the moment was how to make the world a better place and how to get people to make good and right choices. 

Since she brought up the subject, she had a few ideas to start with. But then, to bring the topic down to a scale we could make more sense of, I asked my own question: 

 “If you could do anything to make the world a better place, and you were certain that one of the ways the world could be better was for our friend Matt to clean our neighbor’s car, how would you get him to do this good and right thing?

 Her first answer was, “I would ask him to.” 

Then I asked, “What if he didn’t want to clean the car?”

She said, “I would talk to him and convince him it was the good and right thing to do.“

Then I asked, “And if he still didn’t want to clean our neighbor’s car, then what would you do?”

“I would make him.” she said. 

“Okay,” I replied, “So, how would you make him do it if he didn’t want to do it?  What would you have to do to make him do what he doesn’t want to do?”

She looked down a little bit and in her small little voice said the answer we all know, “Hurt him?”

She gave the answer we all know because it is our default setting.  It is the human go-to and we witness it being played out in the most precious little playground all the way up to the most intimidating halls of power. Make things good and right by convincing people if you can, by force if necessary.

This is the voice of the tyrant that – big or small – can be found inside of all of us.  The more we are convinced that our ideas are the important, good, and right ideas about how the world should be and how people should act, AND that these ideas are worth using manipulation and force to implement and get people on board with, the bigger and louder that tyrant voice inside of us will be. 

If we were ever in charge we would, of course, be a benevolent dictator.  The smart and good people would naturally want what we want anyway.  Other people would need some convincing.  The more base people would unfortunately need sophisticated propagandizing or clever re-education in order to see the light, but the good is worth manipulating people to achieve.  It is what is best for them and everyone else after all. Tragically, there will always be a few bad apples that, no matter how wonderful your vision for society and human life might be, they just won’t get on board.  Those people will somehow need to be silenced, marginalized, or removed. A benevolent dictator wouldn’t let them ruin things for everyone else.  

This spirit of the benevolent dictator is prevalent in our world and may increasingly be our future – it is common to human nature after all.  It is well-intentioned, convinced of its superiority, and believes the ends justify the means.  The spirit of the benevolent dictator can be found in the heart of the lowest laborer, in the academic, in the politician demanding that in every instance, an ever-increasing mountain of laws must be passed to control what people can do, what they can say, what they have, what information and opinions they have access to, and on and on – laws that are always backed up by violence, the threat of hurting and killing people.  The tyrants aren’t just the people at the top, they never are.  The benevolent tyrants are every person who blesses, supports, and cheers on the goodness and beauty of the statist vision, the glory of Rome, or the glory of the party.

The majority of benevolent tyrants are, and have always been, regular people like you and me. Ignoring this or pretending it isn’t so is to bury some of the most important lessons of the twentieth century.  All the people who blessed, cheered on, worked for, and fought for Hitler’s national socialist party, Stalin’s communist party, or Hirotho’s empire believed they were a part of something great and good, that made rational sense, and was worth making sacrifices for – 263 million sacrifices in the last century through government murder alone (people were sacrificed in many other ways as well).¹ 

These are and were normal people who wanted good things for the world, but chose to go about it in the way of Caesar instead of the Way of Jesus.

Back to my conversation with my six-year-old daughter – when I asked her how she would get our friend Matt to clean our neighbor’s car, to do what she thought was best, when he didn’t want to, she said, “Hurt him?” 

I responded by saying, “AND that is the difference between us and Jesus.” 

Jesus had all the power, and more than we can comprehend was brokenhearted over human suffering, injustice, and what had become of the world, but he did something that none of us would have considered.  When faced with the problem of how to heal and rescue the world, Jesus’ big move began with giving up all of his power.  The fact that God loves us so much and people having a right and freedom to choose is so important to God and so central to our humanity, that despite the costs, God wouldn’t turn us into automatons.  That’s not how God would heal or rescue the world.

If far too often we fail to choose or want to choose what is good and right, God won’t force us. Instead God’s plan is to change our want-to’s through the power of love, truth, and self-sacrifice.

That is what Christmas is all about – God launching a mission to heal the world in a way none of us would ever have considered, and I think it’s working.  Without a doubt the Way of Jesus has had a greater healing and liberating impact on the world than all the Caesars who have ever lived. 

My guess is, if Jesus wanted Matt to clean our neighbor’s car, Jesus would have asked him to do it. Maybe Jesus would have said something really profound and insightful or even have done something incredibly loving for Matt first – not to manipulate, but to lead by example – and then asked him. If none of that worked, Jesus wouldn’t have given up on Matt, but continued to pursue him with love, truth, and self-sacrifice.  Maybe one day, God would win his heart and that love would change his want-to’s. 

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¹ See Democide and Rummel’s Power Kills page at the University of Hawaii.