The Testimony of a Rock and Roll Child and Other Christian Writings Three In Defence of Bible-Based Conservatism

Three  In Defence of Bible-Based Conservatism

Conservatism doesn't make any sense, does it? Not unless it's compassionate it doesn't, no, and for me this means Biblical. Personally I know little of the roots of Conservatism and its many forms, but I have read of a type that has been variously described as Classical and compassionate. But it's “tough” on the surface in its uncompromising exaltation of faith, tradition, family, nation and region, which would make it controversial in the eyes of its critics. Which are of course many.
 Yet, compassionate Conservatism has also been likened to Classical Liberalism in the latter's purported affiliation with the Wesleyan-Holiness Social Gospel of active care for the most vulnerable members of society. And in keeping with its Biblical roots, this must include “the stranger among us.”
 And its equally uncompromising belief in Non-interventionism, which is still another feature of Classical Conservatism according to some of its adherents, could be said to be “soft” at the centre, which is to say, “meek and humble of heart.” And if it truly aspires to be Biblical, it must be these things, for the Bible commands all professing Christians to seek Holiness: 1 Peter 1: 16: “Because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy.”
 One possible root of Conservative Non-interventionism as I see it is God's deliberate dispersal of the nations in the Book of Genesis in the wake of Man's first attempt at a united One-World empire known as Babylon, and presided over by Nimrod, who is described as “a mighty hunter before the Lord.”
 Could it thence be that certain Conservatives honour God's decision to disseminate the nations, in the belief it's in Man's interest to operate not in unity, but as a series of sovereign nations...for power to be decentralised? This one certainly does. But again, I know little of politics and the history of Conservatism, nor its different varieties.
 But as I see it, the truest Conservatism accommodates Man's connate competitive and hierarchical instincts though the most successful economic system in human history, Capitalism, while recognising that without a strong moral underpinning, this degenerates into the pernicious doctrine of the Survival of the Fittest, which should be anathema to all Biblical Conservatives.