Relocating To Elfland

There have always been Christians who have little respect for the Christianity that grows under the auspices of a favoring state instead of weathering the harsh rigors of the desert, or who scorn such of their coreligionists as do not make the cut for a spiritual elite. But the Church of God cannot turn itself into a corporal’s guard gathered around the old rugged cross without doing some violence to the universality of the Gospel. (Robert E. Rodes, Jr., “Pluralist Christendom and the Christian Civil Magistrate“)

It’s only January, and I’m already so sick and tired of election commentary, I wish there were a “dislike” button for every time another friend sends out another link on Facebook. That said, I would offer one small comment, in the spirit of showing interest in the future of my country.

I don’t want to be, nor do I want my children’s children to be, ruled by fools. And there are few things God more clearly condemns as folly than the breach of an oath (Eccl 5:4–6). A man who will not keep his vows and oaths is a fool. No two ways about it.

Familiar to us all is the constitutional oath taken by each President of the United States:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the United States.”

I want a President who is under constitutional law, and who takes his or her oath to preserve, protect, and defend that law seriously. Our constitution is not perfect, but a nation governed by imperfect (amendable) law is a far cry better off than one ruled by fools who swear allegiance to a law they have no intention of upholding. (Do you like your political thuggery blue or red?)

My vote in November will go to a candidate who won’t have his fingers crossed around this time next year. Now that would be a change to believe in.

“Politics has become so central in our time that institutions, groups, and issues are now defined relative to the state, its laws and procedures. Institutions such as popular and higher education, philanthropy, science, the arts, and even the family understand their identity and function according to what the state does or does not permit. Groups (women, minorities, gays, Christians, etc.) have validity not only but increasingly through the rights conferred by the state. Issues gain legitimacy only when recognized by law and public policy. It is only logical, then, that problems affecting the society are seen increasingly, if not primarily through the prism of the state; that is, in terms of how law, policy, and politics can solve them.” (James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, p. 103)

This has everything to do with the biblical political theology our congregation has been exploring in the Books of Samuel:

“[God’s] authority is divinely majestic just because it has nothing in common with tyranny, because its true likeness is not the power of a natural catastrophe which annihilates all human response, but rather the power of an appeal, command and blessing which not only recognises human response but creates it. To obey it does not mean to be overrun by it, to be overwhelmed and eliminated in one’s standing as a human being. Obedience to God is genuine precisely in that it is both spontaneous and receptive, that it not only is unconditional obedience but even as such is obedience from the heart. God’s authority is truly recognised only within the sphere of freedom: only where conscience exists, where there exists a sympathetic understanding of its lofty righteousness and a wholehearted assent to its demands – only where a man allows himself to be humbled and raised up, comforted and warmed by its voice.” (Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, p. 2.661–62)

Truism: the history of church-state relations is long and troubled. A variety of readings and some recent teaching on the subject, along with my current preaching series in Samuel, have led me to ask this question: if the priests in the Old Testament represent the church, and the kings the state, isn’t it significant that from the beginning the priests are subject to Yahweh’s prophet (the “great prophet” Moses) and that from the inception of the monarchy the kings, too, are subject to God’s prophets (notably Samuel)? Not that the prophets could coerce priests or kings, but they could (and did!) regularly call them to repentance in the strongest possible terms. And doesn’t that say something about how church-state relations should be configured? It is not that the church should rule the state, or the state the church, but rather that both should be subject to the Word of God in the mouth of His holy prophets.

“If criminals are to be treated as sick people, the downside of this is that the sick must be ‘nursed’ in the manner of criminals. If the state has no other right to act against criminals than thereby to protect itself and to improve them, on what grounds then will it be denied the right to deal with all kinds of sick people on its own authority and by its own methods, to view the religious and moral convictions on which it cannot agree as so many diseases, remnants and aftereffects of an earlier state, and to take charge of the entire upbringing of its citizens and the whole culture of the society in question? Those who wipe out the boundaries between crime and disease let a state grounded in principles of justice decline into a state based on cultural mores, violate freedom in the life of the people, and hand all its citizens over to the arbitrariness and omnipotence of the state.” (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, p. 3.166)

Readers should also consult C. S. Lewis, “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment,” in God in the Dock: Essays in Theology and Ethics.

1. I have a longstanding interest in the natural law question, going back to my law school days. Here’s a worthwhile article responding to recent developments of natural law theory at Escondido.

2. First Things recently posted another essay from one of my favorite contemporary theologians, David Bentley Hart. You really must check it out.

I try to be charitably disposed toward our friends at the New York Times, really I do, but the depth of fatuity to which some of their op-ed stuff sinks simply invites derision.

Here’s a gem from Gail Collins celebrating Tax Day; the flourish with which she ends should inspire us all:

“Paying a lot of taxes should be a badge of honor. It proves you made it into the league of big money-makers, not to mention the fact that you’re supporting the upkeep of the Grand Canyon. If the I.R.S. had been doing its marketing properly, little kids would dream of growing up to become really big taxpayers.”

Well, dingblast it, why didn’t we think of this before? Can’t you see the TV ad? An avuncular Uncle Sam, armed with a big stick, chases rich kids around a playground; as the music swells, he grabs away their lunch money (they have more at home), bestowing it on a group of poor kids happily swarming around him; overdub a cheery female voice, “Come on, all you kids, to Uncle Sam’s fun park. Rich kids receive this shiny platinum badge [insert closeup of shiny platinum badge]. Poor kids get free lunch. See local IRS office for details. And watch out for that stick!” Yes. That’s a winner.

Adults coveting the badge of honor might ponder a blurb by the late Richard John Neuhaus in the December 2006 edition of First Things:

“There are little exchanges that stick in memory. It was a conversation many years ago with Eugene Carson Blake. He was then the oldline Protestant establishment’s main man in just about everything, beginning with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the National Council of Churches. Blake was complaining one day about the lack of compassion among conservatives who whined about high taxes. ‘I love to pay taxes,’ he said. ‘Taxes are the way we help government to help people. I wish I could pay twice as much in income tax as I do.’ Being very much his junior, I hesitantly suggested that the Treasury Department would gladly accept his check for the extra money he wanted to give the government. ‘That,’ he dismissively responded, ‘would be quixotic. In a just society, I would be required to pay higher taxes.’ I suggested that one might view it not as quixotic but as a way in which he could set a good example. The conversation then turned to other matters.”

Happy Tax Day, everyone!

I think this is pretty much what I was trying to say earlier, only said better:

“The conflict between Rome and the [early] Church is really a microcosm of a larger struggle that both predates the first century and has lasted to our day. It is the story of men and their quest to be like God that is as old as the pre-cosmic warfare between God and the devil. In the temporal realm the struggle takes shape in the form of earthly potentates that claim all dominion in heaven and in the earth. The Empire is said to be the source of salvation and the government to be the great protector and provider of its people. It can deliver because the Emperor is God. But herein lies the challenge to the Church. Because the Emperor is said to be God, there must be no others. Kyrios Christus must bow to Kyrios Caesar, or else. The history of Rome . . . demonstrates that autocratic rulers and their bureaucracies that reject the God of the Bible become utopian in outlook. What they require is not merely the right to rule, but unlimited power and jurisdiction in the lives of their people . . . . The messianic nature of godless government creates conditions whereby it is virtually impossible for Christians to stay out of politics.” (John Barber, The Road from Eden, pp. 27–28)

I have always found big government ideology hard to understand. Why on earth would anyone want a centralized, bureaucratic government to stand as the supplier, guardian, and regulator of all civic blessings (or, worse still, private freedoms)? Has history not given us sufficient examples of how “benevolent” tyranny corrodes into just plain old garden-variety tyranny? Is it so hard to understand that there are multiple spheres of sovereignty, not just beside the state but also within it (thinking here of such outmoded concepts as federalism), and that this is a basic safeguard to human freedom and flourishing? Setting aside constitutional issues for a minute (you see, I can get with the times), isn’t there a failure of basic good sense in statism?

It recently dawned on me, however, that if a nation takes seriously its refusal to “kiss the Son” (Ps 2:12) this leaves some very big shoes to fill. Who’s going to provide for the poor and needy? Who’s going to grant, preserve, and regulate civil and private liberties? Who’s going to defend us from aggressions within and without? Who’s going to train up our children? Who’s going to take care of us when we are old? Who’s going to tell us what will make us really happy, and then gives us lots of it? Who will assure our future? On whose strong arm shall we all lean? We need a messiah who is big and powerful and impressive and benevolent, who inspires confidence and guarantees security, who solves our problems and grants us shalom. It’s tough to find such a savior on the local level, or in a bunch of fragmented spheres. So enter the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-providing central government. And the louder the advocates of self-government shriek, the gladder we are that big brother is there to preserve order. He is compassionate. He is mighty. He is dependable. And we are dependent. But it’s a small price to pay.