Political systems really represent individual beliefs, in particular how one’s beliefs impact how one should behave in the wider world and how you believe others ought to behave.  Ultimately, one cannot separate one’s politics from their worldview.  Since the Birth Pangs series is an exploration of worldviews, it follows that political musings will come, too.  A person who derives no political implications from their world view probably doesn’t even understand their world view or doesn’t really believe their world view.

Part of the problem in today’s culture is that many people have a worldview but then political beliefs that are inconsistent with planks in their worldview.  The latent idea is that one’s beliefs are private matters whereas how one feels about the government or governance is in a separate category.  Of course, one’s feelings about politics is in fact a belief, so even the attempt to compartmentalize fails in the end.  Somewhere, somehow, people’s politics relate back to a belief or two that they have.  Much of the heated discourse today arises because people from different political bents cannot trace their political ideas back to their core beliefs and then they present their political assertions as matters of self-evidently true, which of course they are not if you come from a different starting point.

Birth Pangs is very concerned about determining the best starting point.  It is not concerned because it has the goal of erecting a political system.  There certainly are deeper motivations than that!  But it does not pretend that there won’t be political implications.

Now, in the Birth Pangs series, set in the not so distant future in our own country, the various political systems that strive to fill the void have their historic roots in our own past and present.  Socialism and Communism get a special treatment rather than say, a Monarchy, because America has not had anyone advocating for a monarchy for a long time but socialism is constantly advanced under different guises.  There is also a long history with capitalism and a form of democracy, so it is natural that people will rise up who represent shades of that view.

In the Birth Pangs series, though, there is a ‘deeper reflection’ that permeates it all, and that is an analysis of the nature of humanity itself.  In a word, what the theologians call ‘original sin.’  Even those advocating for democracy in the Birth Pangs series tend to forget why there is a need for checks and balances.  Political systems reflect our views about the human race itself.  Do we believe that people are by nature ‘good’?  Do we think that people are in the main ignorant and untrustworthy, not fit for self-governance?  As an exploration of the facts about humanity, a discussion of the political consequences of one’s view on humanity is unavoidable.

Personally, I wouldn’t chalk any aspect of the Birth Pangs series as being merely incidental or superficial.  I wrote it with the idea that the series would be like an ocean… one can dive deep and explore the ocean and it is then filled with excitement and adventure, crushing sometimes, or one can stay in the shallows and have fun frolicing.  I wanted the series to be accessible and enjoyable in the shallows but open to those who wanted to dive deeper at just about any point.  Fidelis is a start to that and it will take the rest of the books to bring to completion.