Do what they want. Give them a king.

In the Hebrew Bible, there is a story about how the people of Israel received their first king. It is told in the book of Samuel, named after a leader who was a priest, prophet, and judge. In the eighth chapter, all the leaders of Israel come to Samuel and demand that he anoint a king for them. They’re tired of getting beaten in battle by the Philistines, and they want a strong man, a warlord who will fight on their behalf. They have seen other nations with kings who lead armies, and they believe if Israel has its own king, they can stop being pushed around by other nations.

Samuel, being a priest and prophet, replies to the people on God’s behalf. He tells them how a king will demand a heavy sacrifice from them. He will force their sons to join his army. He will enslave people to provide for his life of luxury: growing and preparing his food for him, dressing him in fine clothes and perfumes that the people will have to produce. He will lay claim to the best, most valuable resources and property, and then distribute them among his favored chosen few.

In the end, Samuel says, you will cry out for God to deliver you from the king you demanded, but God will not answer you.

The Bible is a terrible script to follow

Are there important lessons in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles? I think so. They document stories across centuries that Jewish and Christian communities felt were essential to preserving their identity and understanding of the world.

But most of the time, the stories we read in the Bible are about how often humans get it wrong! Over and over and over again, we screw up. We create corrupt systems that become brutally oppressive. We hand over our autonomy to rulers who strip away our rights in the name of security. We turn on our neighbors or even our siblings in hopes of acquiring a few more scraps of material wealth or privilege.

More often than not, the Bible we know is a series of lessons in what not to do. And in this case, the thing not to do is to ask for a king. Samuel delivers this message to the Israelites, but they refuse to listen.

So, God shakes his head and says, “Do what they want. Give them a king.”

There is an argument to be made that the people were right. The kings who followed did increase Israel’s power. They beat back the armies of competing nations and created an expanding empire.

After the boy David defeated Goliath on the battlefield (when Saul was still king) and went on to further military victories, a chant rose up among women as the soldiers returned home. “Saul killed his thousands, David killed his tens of thousands.” The killing never really stopped as David ascended, claimed the throne, and turned Israel into a dominant power. Even on his deathbed, according to the Biblical story, David’s dying wish is for his son Solomon to continue killing the enemies David didn’t get to before his death.

I remember once when the popular rabbi and professor Jay Holstein at the University of Iowa posed this question to us students during a lecture about the Holocaust: What makes king David, this Biblical figure we are taught to celebrate and revere, any different from Hitler? No one had a satisfying answer.

A strong man always serves himself, not the people

Many Americans—especially, ironically, many of those who claim to be Christians—have forgotten both their Bible and their history. They forget that God warned us against kings and all they would demand from their subjects to satisfy their unending lust for more power. They forget that this nation, as imperfect as it has always been, had at least one thing right from the beginning, a vehement (even violent) rejection of authoritarian rule.

Some people still remember. And we won’t go down without a fight.

Two weeks ago, when Trump gave himself the birthday present of a hugely wasteful military parade through the streets of D.C. in hopes of elevating his image as a strong man, other streets throughout the nation were filled with protests declaring that we would have no king in the United States of America.

Even in little old Cedar Rapids, Iowa, thousands of people turned out to remind our citizens that we will not be subject to a wannabe dictator. We mocked our would-be emperor and reveled in our own power. The mood was defiantly celebratory. It felt good to be free. It felt good to feel powerful, standing together in solidarity with our neighbors.

But as good as that day felt, we still have a lot of work to do. The truth is, we aren’t as powerful now as we should be. We have allowed ourselves to be complacent for far too long, letting billionaires call the shots and rig the game to continue filling their coffers. People like Elon Musk, the richest man in the world who thinks we spend too much money on vaccines for children in poverty. People like Jeff Bezos whose company weasels out of paying taxes and can’t afford to compensate many of his workers with a living wage but thinks it’s perfectly valid to spend $56 million (of the wealth they created) on his second wedding.

I’m not a prophet like Samuel.

I can’t tell you which way this thing is going to go. Will we give in to the ancient human urge to give up our power and follow the demagogue? Will we let our damaged democracy slip away irreversibly to a point where we simply don’t have the strength to bring it back?

Or, will we pull ourselves back from the brink and reaffirm our commitment to self rule? Will we put public servants back into the place of actually serving the public?

What stories will be told about us?