As one reader noted, with full consciousness I subject the intellect to the Spirit. The mind was granted by God to serve the Spirit. Western Christianity typically presumes to intellectualize the Spirit, and that’s backwards, because it subjects the Spirit under the flesh. The intellect is carnal, folks; the mind of man is flesh. Redemption of the mind is not through logic and reason, but through subjection to the Spirit. God help you if you can’t distinguish the two.
The concept of efficiency through uniformity is from Hell, not from God. There are times when we persuade men to act in concert for a limited purpose. We do not revel in uniformity as some noble value, but hold it a necessary method on this fallen earth. When men join together in the flesh, it always leads back to the Tower of Babel, to the false powers of the flesh and human arrogance — the boastful pride of human existence. Men joined in the spirit will commune with the Spirit of God in worship. It is a spiritual reflex to set others free to follow their own individual spiritual imperatives.
Perhaps you recognize that the practice of medicine is more art than science. Good medicine is educated guesswork. Give mankind endless resources and time and he will never be able to fully account for the variations and factors. Wise physicians recognize they cannot possibly account for every biological, biochemical, neurological, environmental and other kinds of factor. The wisest of all are conscious of how moral character most certainly affects the medical outcome. They recognize there is a Creator who has the last word, and they don’t patronize people’s attitudes about such things. The regimentation of lawful medical practice is a confining prison on the conscience of real doctors.
Regimentation is nothing more than human laziness, a refusal to deal with natural variations. Bureaucrats love reducing their fellow humans to a collection of ciphers with only the slightest difference so they can be counted and controlled. It is the authority to compel people to conform to whatever the bureaucrat is willing to do, making them mere reflections of his own moral imperfections. This is the foolish reflex of projection writ large and conscious.
The whole point of seeking to respond to your fundamental spiritual apprehension is to discover your unique standing before the God who made you and intimately knows you individually. It includes surrendering to His divine wishes, willing participation in His art of redeeming humanity. We surrender that arrogance of power into His hands and act only with what we rightly control: ourselves. Others must decide for themselves to act in concert or not. We can employ violent force only within the limited things of the spiritual calling. We have a vast supply of precedent, sufficient to estimate how that looks when carried out in divine justice. While we cannot be absolutely certain, we can discern when we have to act to defend something, or die trying. No human life is inherently precious to you, least of all your own. Rather, justice is precious to us, justice as defined by the presence of the Spirit.
Uniformity as an organizing principle usurps the authority of God. As a passing tool for limited purposes, it may well be morally tolerable. The ultimate peace begins with the divine conviction you don’t always know what He wants for others, and that you have no mandate from Heaven to rule that is not accompanied by the evidence of people clamoring for your word on things. Whether they are all idiots is not the point; you do what you must in pursuing the mission of His calling on your life. You can flee that clamor as Christ did because it was not His mission, or because it is not your time to play the shepherd. But if you sense at all the desire to rule, you can be fully certain that impulse is from sin.
Good moral people flee from ruling others, but may well lead them if others insist on following.
