The Christian and the state

the intersection of church and state by Ben McLeod

In Romans 13 Paul tells his readers to ‘submit’ to secular power, and this is usually the starting point for a discussion of this topic. But what does this mean in practice? What are the limits to state power? And what about civil disobedience? These are huge questions and I can’t hope to do them justice here, but nonetheless I hope that I can provide some insight and spark some debate.

Paul begins Romans 13 by saying that ‘Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God’[1].

At first glance this might appear to suggest that, given that God Himself has ‘established’ the state, a Christian’s attitude should be uncritical and subservient. I want to suggest, however, that this view is way off. The tragic example of the German church during WW2, supine in the face of much of the Nazi horror machine, illustrates how way off it can be.

What does Paul say that the state is for? The administration of justice, for one thing. We are told that ‘[the ruler] is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer’[2]. Paul here affirms the secular legal system as a way of redressing wrongs, with personal vengeance forbidden.

Paul also affirms taxation as a way of financing the state’s running costs: ‘this is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing.’[3]

Of course, the Bible is not a guide for statecraft and we should be vary wary of reading it as such, but in this passage Paul, it might be argued, is suggesting that the state’s demands of us should be limited to raising enough tax to fund itself and administering justice (the legal kind). All in all, the maintaining of order.

It would be foolish to ignore the social context of Paul’s letter. Part of Paul’s purpose in writing to the Roman Christians was to calm them down; some believers were making revolutionary noises and Paul wanted to convict them of the ungodliness of violently overthrowing their government. He wanted to impress upon them that their struggle was spiritual, not political.

Similarly, in 2 Corinthians: ‘For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.’[4]. Verses like this can be challenging to Christians working in politics, especially at campaign time, when things can get dirty - it is often very difficult to focus on our ultimate calling as Christians and not to ‘wage war as the world does’ in this sense.

What these passages make clear is that, whilst God does ordain worldly authorities, there is a fundamental distinction between these two kingdoms. Jesus of course told us that ‘[his] kingdom is not of this world’[5] and that we should ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.’[6]

In saying this Jesus was also implying limits to our submission to the state. There are some things that are God’s, which ‘Caesar’ has no claim to. Worship being the main one. When the state demands our worship, then it has taken the place of God and cannot command our obedience in as much as it does that.

In Romans 13 Paul tells us that governments are the servants of God. Even though he has ‘ordained’ them, then, they are subject to his standards and authority. I want to suggest that, as Christians, we have a role in ensuring that our governments are held accountable to their creator. When appropriate, we should speak truth to power. It’s true that Paul doesn’t encourage his brothers and sisters to be politically engaged, but context is again important here: he was not writing to citizens in a representative democracy, but a dictatorship, so engagement was not an option.

(As an aside, I find it interesting that the concept of the state being subject to a higher authority, is mirrored in (secular) legal theory by the concept of the rule of law, popularised by A V Dicey in the 19th Century[7]. The relevant piece of his thinking is the principle that all are equal before the law, including governments. Another parallel is that of 20th Century legal thinkers to assert the innate dignity of all human beings through ‘discovered’ universal human rights, usually without reference to faith[8]. The law therefore presents good opportunities for apologetics.)

But what about civil disobedience? As Mark Driscoll pointed out in his sermon on this topic to Mars Hill early last year[9], awareness of our innate rebelliousness is a good place to start. Since the fall man has been in rebellion against God and disobedience is part of human nature. So we need to be careful.

There are examples in Scripture of God’s people disobeying the powers that be. The first was that of Shifrah and Puah, the midwives who resisted Pharaoh’s order to kill Hebrew babies in Exodus. Jumping ahead to the New Testament we see Peter and John refusing to obey the Sanhedrin’s command not to teach or speak in the name of Jesus: ‘…But Peter and John replied, ‘Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.’[10]

One chapter later, again ordered to cease and desist by the Sanhedrin (who wielded state authority, granted by Rome) they reply, ‘We must obey God rather than men!’[11]

There are other examples that tell a similar story; that civil disobedience is justified when the secular authorities require us to disobey God. But, as Driscoll points out[12], in our rebelliousness we will naturally look for loopholes, whereas in reality, most of us aren’t hiding Jews under our floorboards so the occasions when we have to say ‘no’ will be very few. Of course, times may change, and of course Christians in other countries will be wondering when to disobey on a regular basis.

So if I were to sum up what I believe Scripture is saying, I would use the phrase ‘critical submission’. ‘Submission’ because God has ordained it, and a ‘critical’ approach which holds the state accountable to God’s standards and reserves the right to disobey in certain circumstances.

Another question might be: ok, but what sort of state should Christians desire?

The starting point here has to be one which does not exceed its God-given authority and allows the gospel to be preached. This much is uncontroversial.

And it is true that even for people who work, or are interested, in politics, the invisible kingdom of God should be our primary focus. And yet some states are clearly ‘better’ than others. To take an extreme example, today’s Germany is clearly a ‘better’ state than that of the one 70 years ago. (A similar point was made by CS Lewis to illustrate general revelation through awareness of good & evil[13].)

If we are to go further I want to reiterate my earlier point about Scripture not being a guide to statecraft. Nonetheless I want to make some suggestions; brief ones, as this is a huge topic in itself. I anticipate that debate will follow!

Just as it’s important to be aware of our own fallen nature, it’s equally important to recognise that the state, despite being ordained by God, is fallen too. In 1 Samuel 8 we see this prophet warning God’s people that the king they were crying out for would oppress them. Luke 4: 5-7 shows us that secular governments are under the influence of Satan. Again, we need to remember that Jesus’ kingdom is ‘not of this world’.

If we have the heart of God and passionately desire justice, it is therefore a mistake to invest too much of our hope for it in the state. Scripture does not give us a mandate for utopian political creeds such as socialism, which are at their core materialist. As one of Dostoevsky’s characters points out in The Brothers Karamazov:

‘socialism is not merely a matter of the labor question… but is first and foremost a problem of atheism, a problem of the contemporary incarnation of atheism, a question of the Tower of Babel which is being built without God not in order to reach Heaven from Earth, but in order to bring Heaven down to Earth’[14].

It is of course true that Scripture is full of God’s heart for the poor and the weak, and for justice, and if we ignore this then our faith is pretty much dead. But to say that this gives us the right to enforce this through the coercive power of the state is to go way beyond what Scripture tells us. God’s justice and ‘social justice’ (in the sense of state-enforced wealth redistribution) are not one and the same. This is clear from passages such as Leviticus 19:15: ‘Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favouritism to the great, but judge your neighbour fairly’ (emphasis mine). The Bible does not set the state up as the means of ministering to the needy: that’s the job of individuals, families, and communities. And if we are advocating a small state then we’d better make sure we are ‘salt and light’ by doing the job well.

Christianity is in one sense an exercise of free will; we initially choose to follow Christ, and we have to choose to make ourselves living sacrifices every day. I want to suggest that this principle of non-coercion and freedom should inform our politics. Liberty is preferable to coercion, but it can only take us so far. It’s what we do with our liberty that counts: ‘Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.’[15]

Lest we forget, Christ preached forgiveness from sin, not economic equality, and as Karl Barth outlines in his The Epistle to the Romans,[16] we Christians should free ourselves from hope in the state. Instead we should place it in Christ, whose kingdom shall never end.

References:
[1] Romans 13:1-3 NIV
[2] Romans 13:4
[3] Romans 13:6
[4] 2 Corinthians 10: 3-4
[5] John 18:36
[6] Luke 20:25
[7] ‘Introduction to the Study of Law of the Constitution’ (1885)
[8] See, for example, Values for a Godless Age, F. Klug, London, Penguin, 2000
[9] ‘Trial: Submission to authority’, 23/02/2009
[10] Acts 4:19-20
[11] Acts 5:29
[12] See note 9 above
[13] Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, London, Harper Collins, 1997
[14] The Brothers Karamazov, F. Dostoevsky, London, Penguin, 1958 p.26
[15] 1 Peter 2:16
[16] The Epistle to the Romans, Karl Barth, London, Oxford University Press, 1933, p. 477.

Share:

Share

What do you think about this article?