Many Christians feel that it is the calling of the church, the discipleship community: to see to it that Christian morals are upheld and enforced by the state. As such, Christians put pressure on lawmakers to pass "Christian laws" and on parishioners to vote for "Christian lawmakers." However, there are several reasons why such a strategy is both impossible and undesirable.
- The most primary reason is that the New Testament never calls Christians to impose their moral standards on the general society, but rather to win over those in the society to want to follow Christ. 1 Peter puts it this way, "Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us."
- The only way to live out the values and ethics of Christianity is with the help of the Holy Spirit. Non-Christians simply lack the resources to live according to the values and ethics of Christianity. Throughout the New Testament, there is never a description offered of people being able to choose to live holy lives; one is either a slave to sin or a slave to Christ.
- Most of the values and ethics of Christianity are defined by the New Testament specifically in relation to Christ. Look at Eph 5:1, "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." You can't translate that into a third language so that non-Christians can live by it. It can only be understood in relation to the cross.
- Furthermore, the values and ethics of Christianity are focused around the heart and intentions, not outward actions. You can make a law against adultery, if you think that's best for the country, but you can't make a law against lust. Seen this way, it is actually impossible to legislate the values and ethics of Christianity in the first place, let alone for citizens to obey.
- Finally, what are you going to do to enforce the the ethics and values of Christianity in a nation? Are you going to kill those who violate the Christian ethic? That in itself is not consistent with the ethics and values of Christianity, which rather admonish the church to suffer for doing good. The entire program is backward.
But this leaves us with two questions. First, how is the church to call individuals to righteousness, if not through the imposition of "Christian laws"? Second, how is the church to call nations to righteousness, if not through the political process?
To the former, the answer is clear enough. The church calls individuals to righteousness the only way possible: through repentance and conversion. The only community over which the church exercises moral authority is its own. As Paul put it 1 Corinthians, "What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not rather to judge those inside? God will judge those outside."
To the latter, the answer is more complex. John Howard Yoder observed that while the church cannot call the nation to act as though it were Christian, it can call on the state to act according to its own stated ideals. This is what Reverend King was doing in the civil rights movement. (Thanks to StephenandGinny for bringing this point to my attention recently.) Yoder further argued that the church can call the state away from particular instances of injustice, such as particular illicit military maneuvers and specific governmental corruption.
Finally, according to Yoder, the discipleship community can demonstrate in its own life what the reign of God looks like, and wait for the state to see the benefits and co-opt such practical strategies. Yoder cites public schools, peace corps and state-run hospitals as historic examples of this phenomenon. Another example includes court-mandated Victim-Offender Reconciliation programs. Perhaps one could point to South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (in contradistinction to the Nuremberg Trials) as another instance, though opinions are divided on the desirability and efficacy of the Commission.
What do you think? Given that the discipleship community has a calling to manifest the Kingdom of God on earth and to make disciples from all nations, how should the church act to see to it that God's will is "done on earth as in heaven?" Is there a biblically sanctioned and practical way to bring the nations more in line with the values of Christianity?
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Comments (19)
Great post. I'm actually reading Yoder's book "The Christian Witness to the State" that the OP recommended to me. It's been interesting so far. I'd recommend it to anyone interested.
Great post.
There are definitely a lot of grey areas, but I agree that the church needs to change moral behavior by preaching Christ, not changing laws. I think a government's primary job is to ensure the rights of it's citizens, which is why I think it's acceptable for Christians to try to change public policy issues such as civil rights and abortion.
That's also why I disagree with the church's involvement in homosexual issues. If a homosexual isn't allowed to get married because Christians passed a law saying they can't, the Kingdom of God gains nothing. They're still in homosexual relationships, they're still living a lifestyle that displeases God. It just seems like a waste of time.
Other issues, such as prostitution, are a grey area. While it's obviously not pleasing to God, it could be argued that legalization of prostitution would put more women into the industry, it would increase the spread of STD's, and would be a bad thing for society (even apart from the moral aspect of it.)
(on somewhat of a side note, I have no idea why Christians fight so hard to have the Ten Commandments posted. They do realize we're not under the law anymore, right? Even if a kid in a school sees them and tries to obey them, he's no closer to God than he was before. If we're going to fight for religion in schools, why not fight to put Jesus in there?)
Romans 13:1 -
"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."
If as the word says, authorities have been established by God, then, is he not able to influence any leader he wants? He did to the Pharaoh, and to King Nebuchadnezzar. So then if he can influence any leader he wants for his will, it should be something we fervently pray for, which is why we are called to pray for our leaders. Then, we remain blameless, and at peace with everybody, and God answers our prayers, and influences the leaders to pass laws of according to his will.
Good post. Religion has no place in government.
If Christians should not vote, according to Biblical principals, then what do we use?
How do we make disciples of the nations, if there are nations that look down on us, because of the behavior that is allowed here?
Some religons look at the U.S. and point out our laws allowing homosexual marriage, abortion, and divorce, and call us Satan because we allow this behavior as a nation.
If we do not vote according to biblical prinicpals, then are we not saying this behavior is allowable?
@ProudToBeAChristianFruitcake@xanga - the problem with other nations looking at America and being turned off by it is America is not a Christian nation. It never was and never should be. The founders were Christians and they put a lot of old testament morality into the nation, but it was not a Christian nation. We are called as Christians to be strangers and sojourners. Aliens in a foreign land. Ambassadors. The problem with starting a nation that is quote on quote Christian is that non-Christians can not live a Godly life. God helps Christians live a better life, He does not help non-Christians live a better life. He waits for people to choose Him before He helps them with their morality. By setting a bunch of Christian morals up for non-believers to have to follow we are trying to force them into a religion that is not theirs that they should not have to follow. And we destroy Christianity's reputation because every country that sees how individuals in our country act will be turned off.
Prudence is a cardinal Christian virtue. So it is with prudence that we "apply moral priniciples to particular cases without error and overcome doubts about the good to achieve and the evil to avoid."
From the Cathechism of the Catholic Church:
1806 Prudence is the virtue that disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it; "the prudent man looks where he is going.""Keep sane and sober for your prayers." Prudence is "right reason in action," writes St. Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle. It is not to be confused with timidity or fear, nor with duplicity or dissimulation. It is called auriga virtutum (the charioteer of the virtues); it guides the other virtues by setting rule and measure. It is prudence that immediately guides the judgment of conscience. the prudent man determines and directs his conduct in accordance with this judgment. With the help of this virtue we apply moral principles to particular cases without error and overcome doubts about the good to achieve and the evil to avoid.
In a secular but Godly government it is not prudent to make general laws against adultery and such, because these laws have nothing to do with the constitutional functioning of the government.
The virtue of prudence, right reason in action, instructs us that it is the Church, not the government who calls individuals to righteousness. Further, ethics are not to be enforced as the OP suggests. Ethics are the moral scaffolding, or reasoning that forms the basis of law and moral action. The law must be enforced but moral action can only be addressed by the law if the moral action leads to a breaking of the law.
The following quote from the post demonstrates a clear factual error:
Furthermore, the values and ethics of Christianity are focused around the heart and intentions, not outward actions.
Clearly, what we have in our hearts determines our actions. Jesus preached exactly that and that it is the hypocrite who tries to disguise inner wickedness with an outward appearance of good. Nevertheless, it is the intention of the hypocrite that determines his actions.
If the OP's understanding of Yoder is correct, it appears that Yoder was devoid of the virtue of prudence as expressed by the ancients; and that he was simply a modern philosopher trying to stick the round peg of Christianity into a modern philosophical square hole.
Also, though Yoder preached pacificism, he was disciplined multiple times for abusing women. And I couldn't find any mention of him in Catholic academic circles. Someone please correct me on this if I'm wrong.
@squanto_07@xanga - Have you ever done international missions, or worked with people from overseas? I have. It does not matter on if America is a christian nation or not. What matters, is that we are trying to tell them of the truth path, of the only God that can change lives, and some of them are not convinced because we come from a nation of sex, drugs, and sin. They see us as Americans, coming from a nation of legel abortion, legal gay marriage, and wonder who on earth we are to tell them they need to repent from sin and seek God.
Now, does this mean that I think, that America needs to clean up it's act before we can witness? no, but a vocal christian voice, speaking out against the sin in it's borders, would go a long way towards repairing the witness of Christians that is tarnished because they are americans.
@ProudToBeAChristianFruitcake@xanga - Either way forward works to some degree. On the one hand, if Christians became known as a group of people who calls the nation away from consumerism, pornography and divorce, then the international religious community will be more likely to see us as a moral community and take our preaching more seriously. On the other hand, if we make it known that America is not even capable of being a "Christian nation," and loudly decry the claims of power-grabbing politicians that America is God's country, then the religious community both here and abroad will learn to look past America to a church that is, indeed, universal.
There are difficulties with both approaches. With the former, it is difficult to imagine that America, even if we made pornography, abortion and divorce illegal, could become the sort of people capable of representing Christ to the world. With the latter, it is actually somewhat frightening to imagine the world judging Christianity by the church, when in many sectors our divorce rate exceeds that of the general American populace.
For my money, though, the most faithful way is in accepting that the church is the ambassador of Christ, not any nation, which means we must make it clear that America can be as moral or immoral as its citizens and politicians allow; but America is not the church.
@Bubbathecat2010 - I like your strategy of using prudence (a Christian virtue but not restricted to Christians) to work for a state that is "secular but Godly." I see no problem with Christians getting on board with that, to work with people of good will for the structuring of a more just social order. Just don't slap the label 'Christian' on that, or try to bring that inside the church, and I think we're on common ground.
There will of course be times when those people of good will with whom Christians work to create a just government will differ on what exactly that entails.
As for inward intentions and outward actions, you're right that one proceeds from the other, and that Christian ethics are concerned with both. But where Christian ethics and any sort of national law differ is that Christian ethics are concerned primarily with purity of intent, so that Jesus can say that it's not enough to refrain from murdering; hatred is the same deal. You cannot legislate that.
Yoder's account of political theology is far more complex than I presented it here. If Yoder is vulnerable to any charge, it is not being a modernist philosopher attempting to fit Christianity into anything external to itself. No theologian I can think of (except perhaps Karl Barth) is more doggedly Christocentric in his approach to theology than Yoder. If you are interested in his political theology, his short book Discipleship as Political Responsibility is the most basic introduction. The Christian Witness to the State is the work I was drawing from.
I trust you won't mind if I leave the ad hominem on Yoder aside, as it doesn't materially affect the arguments. For a Mennonite theologian, Yoder actually made some serious in-roads into Catholic theology, which is hardly surprising since he taught theology at Notre Dame for some time.
@SirNickDon@xanga - I won't get into too much background, because I don't want to blow his cover, but I had the rare priviledge of meeting someone from the middle east who defected from Hamas/hezbollah. He was a muslim who was a terrorist and used to plan where to place suicide bombers in order to get the most dead possible. He became a Christian and realized that killing Jews was not as good of an idea as he originally thought. He defected and came to America.
When he first came to America, he had the preconcieved notion, that Church and State are one. He came from and grew up in a Country where the two were intertwined.
To tell him, that America is incapable of being a Christian nation, is to tell him that the Bible and Jesus not powerful enough to bring forth righteous living. That is not the message that we want to send to muslims. Personally, I believe that if Christians started witnessing more, and talking to people about a God, that wants them to renounce sin and accept the free gift of eternal life, Then America can be a christian nation. God and God alone is the only path to eternal life. We need to tell people this. We need to tell them they are no good wretches who need Jesus. It may not be a popular message, but it is the truth.
@ProudToBeAChristianFruitcake@xanga - I have been to Mexico, Costa Rica, Canada, and Tanzania on missions trips. We are currently planning a trip to Haiti and one for next year to the Philippines. My wife and i plan to go into full time missions once i finish my degree and she gets her degree in Midwifery.
And it does matter whether we are a Christian Nation. We should not be because it gives a false impression of what heaven and Christ is about. He is not about a worldly nation he is about a heavenly nation.
Dead-on.
@SpokenThruScott@xanga - @ProudToBeAChristianFruitcake@xanga - The bible calls on believers to act individually as moral agents. The Constitution is meant to protect religious practice from the government, our government is to respect no religion over another, and thus must remain neutral. If you want to tell someone how much they have sinned, you have the right to. But, you don't have the right to enforce it at the point of a gun, even if the gun is hidden behind some corrupt senator. The reality is, even if you want a "Christian Nation", what kind of "Christian Nation" will it be? Will we be enforcing the Pope's word, the Southern Baptist Convention's word, or some other authority? I know that the idea is that it would be God's word, but I sometimes wonder if it takes an outsider to point out that even though you guys call yourselves Christian, that you maybe radically different from some other guy who calls himself Christian right down the road. Should it be your verision that should be enforced, or some other guy's? The post makes a great point. Sure, call the homosexual a sinner. Make all the laws you want, ban every form of union politically possible. But, the homosexual will still be a homosexual. Some law isn't going to change what is in someone's heart. If you want to change someone's view, and actions, you are going to have to do it with spiritual or intellectual discourse. At least if the Federal Government is kept in check, and only exists to protect us from force and coercion, you will still have the chance to that discourse without fear. Force begets force, anyone who studies even a little history should see that. Feel free to disagree with me, but don't tell me that it is "majority" rules, because even the majority is meant to be put in check. We are a nation, that is supposed to have a rule of law. Laws are supposed to be based on a principle. The American principle is that of rights. The right to act in accordance with what you see as your self interest. And a right doesn't come at the expense of another. Initiating force to enforce morality would really be no different than a secularist who views religion as an ultimate evil and seeks to ban it by law. When the law is based on the principle of rights, laws are not required to enforce morality. People thus have the right to act on what they believe to be moral, but only within the range of their own life. Besides, absolute morality does not require a government to tip its hat toward it in order to exist.
as a non-Christian, i don't want the secular laws governing me to have their only foundation in a religion i don't practice. if you want a theocracy, go elsewhere and set up your own state. become a Christian version of Iran, and see how that works out for you.
@ProudToBeAChristianFruitcake@xanga -
I feel others have talked about your other points in depth, but I just wanted to point out that when Jesus said to make disciples of all "Nations" he was not referring to geo-political borders that we recognize as nations now...the word is "ethnos" which refers to ethnic people groups. So regardless of whether our geo-political governments recognize Christianity at any level we can and are still called to reach every "nation" (people group) with the good news.
@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - As a believer I don't want a theocracy either. There is no record of a benevolent theocracy....ever in the history of civilization. So, I'm with ya on that one.
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