Soft Tyranny

Soft Tyranny by Bill Wilson

In today's society, do you ever feel that you should not speak your mind because you will be labeled something you are not? 

Do you ever feel like you have an opinion and yet uneasy about expressing it? 

Do you think that as a Christian, it is better to not express your views on morality in public forums? 

Have you felt any kind of reservation about what you do and say could be listened to by the government, so you watch your words? 

Are there just certain issues that you don't talk about much anymore because the response is so visceral and examples have been made of those who say something?  

Do you feel your free speech is OK so long as you keep it to yourself? 

It's selective free speech. It's soft tyranny.

 

Alexis de Tocqueville defines soft tyranny in his book Democracy in America, Volume II (1840): "It [the government] covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence: it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."

 

If you are afraid to speak your mind because of the consequences of perhaps losing your job, your livelihood, or that it may invite some government investigation or ruination, you are experiencing soft tyranny.  

Galatians 5:1 says, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." 

A free people can exist only by adhering to the precepts of God. Bondage is bondage, whether it is sin or tyranny. We live in a society where a very vocal minority is bullying your Constitutional rights. Moreover, eternally these people face great peril. Isaiah 5:20 says, "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness..."

 

We must speak boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel. Even though many respond with hatred and accuse you based on the very intents of their own hearts, they will not know the truth unless someone tells them. We would not know sin had we not known the laws of God. Don't be a victim of soft tyranny. Right is greater than might. 

As Ephesians 6:12-13 says, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against power, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." 

Soft tyranny is evil. Stand against it.