I read Doug and Dr. Beckwith here, with Dr. Beckwith amening our radical Presbyterian homeboy, and it all seems very reasonable and humane.
Then I open my Bible this morning to Act 26, and I’m reading there about Paul who — as Doug rightly pointed out at his blog — preached the Gospel to those in the highest political places in the ancient world. And as Paul preaches, I read him saying, “Agrippa and Festus: the Roman province under your command needs to be christened because politics is not a necessary evil and and vice needs to be more difficult to obtain.”
Anyone?
Yeah, see: here’s Paul about 15 minutes from being convicted & sentenced to death, and rather than seeking a political revolution or solution, or seeking to speak some kind of political innovation to Agrippa and Festus, what’s he say? “Whether short or long, I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am—except for these chains.”
The implications there are absolutely more radical than innovations of secular law, and you don’t need a “modernist” view of government (which, btw, I might concede to Dr. Beckwith) to see that Paul’s vision is not political and it does not require or seek the reformation of politics.
One of the things I think Dr. Beckwith may not be fully informed about in locking arms with DW is that Doug’s a post-millennialist, and believes that the Gospel wins the whole world to Christ before Christ’s return. Let me say that I love the optimism of that view and think that all of us non-post-mil folks could learn a thing or 100 from guys like Doug about having a Rom 1:16 confidence in the power of the Gospel to save. But that confidence simply translates into overconfidence in the here and now.
If one of the points of the Gospel (I want to refrain from being overly-reductive here because Doug is certainly not saying, and Dr. Beckwith is certainly not saying, that the main point of the Gospel is socio-political reform) is to reform Governments, why does Paul refrain from taking a stab at it in Act 26? Paul instead preaches the Gospel to Agrippa and Festus to win a different victory. And this is in a case where his own life is at stake — when he is about to be condemned to death for no reason at all but that he is calling the Jews and all men to repent.
And this is an important point for at least 3 reasons:
[1] Paul is not talking to the UN or the US Senate here: he’s talking to men who were monarchs ruling over a pagan system of government where the emperor is overtly a god. You would think that if Paul was on-board with the idea that government “can make it more difficult for one to drift away from [good] virtues,” he would have said something about the appalling moral conditions under the Roman emperor. I think it is extraordinarily-narrow in historical scope to project backward that the rule of law today is not far superior in the West than it was in the near-eastern provinces of Rome c. 60 AD, and that Paul was speaking to men who are civilized the way we are civilized. Yet in that circumstance, Paul opts for the Gospel rather than a speech on moral reform.
[2] It is clear from Luke’s description of Paul’s journey to this moment that Paul was resigned to death. That is: he knew that there was no moral plea to be made to reform this injustice. His hope, therefore, was in the Gospel and not in making sure this didn’t happen to anyone else. Using the reasoning from Doug and Dr. Beckwith, I think Paul would have been inclined to give up a plea for secular tolerance so that men don’t have to die for their ideas. But rather Paul pleads with Agrippa and Festus to become as he is — except for the chains.
[3] In the end, Paul pleads up to Caesar to have justice as a Roman citizen. This is an iteration of [1], but let’s make it clear: in Paul’s vision of God-ordained government, those who rule are to be honored and prayed for, even though they are even putting the messengers of the Gospel to death. I think that as Dr. Beckwith wants us to not see government as a “necessary evil”, he doesn’t actually go far enough in his reasoning — because we don’t really base our Christian view of the world on Aristotle (even if he is somewhat helpful or congruous to the truth) but on the Bible and its assertion that God ordains all government and has declared the times and places of their authority. I’d put the verse number sin here, but I’m trying to shake off the Fundie rep which has wrongly been hung on my neck.
And I say that simply to point out all the examples in Scripture where the God-established rulers were contemptable enemies of God yet were allowed to rule anyway — the first among them being Saul whom David honored as God’s annointed even in his death.
And with that said, here’s what I expect: I expect someone to say in response, “Frank, fine: so we’ll withdraw from public life and let babies die and see women again demoted to chattle and let slavery make a comeback and relinquish all the things which — let’s be honest — the Gospel has done in the west as the culture was Christianized. If we take a completely passive view of the world and have confidence in God’s decrees as you suggest, then we will just be sheep murdered for his name every day, and selah.” (or some other such nonsense which wants to say I think we should do nothing)
Here are the problems with that: it reduces “preaching a real Gospel” to “doing nothing” (which I think we should find radically offensive; more offensive than using rank scatology or calling those who disagree with us “bigots”), and it reduces the real effects of the Gospel as witnessed in History to (in the best case) accidents or merely good fortune.
Here’s what I think: for 3 centuries the Christian church suffered unto death for its faith in a Lord and Savior who rules now and in the life after life after death — and it got so far out of hand for the pagan, idolator rulers that they had to do something other than kill these people. They couldn’t kill enough of them because their deaths were a greater testimony to truth than any law enforced by the sword.
The testimony of scripture is that our love should exceed all demands of the law, and that we should not be ashamed that we are persecuted in a gonna-lose-your-life way, and that this is how we live as ambassadors to Christ. And when we do that, we are bringing the Shalom of God – we bring real peace, and real reconciliation, and real hope that there is a way to end the injustices of this life. The plea, then is toward the Gospel so that men do not enslave those in God’s image, and that women are seen as divinely-given helpers and that we do not forget the orphan or murder our own children for the sake of mere comfort and wealth.
Government is reformed when men are first reformed. Even our mixed-bag of founding fathers knew that law does not instill morals but that only a moral (read: Christian) people can live under law with freedom.
There’s plenty more to be said here, and I’ll be glad to say it. However, it’s only fair to give the other side a chance to make their case.
October 22nd, 2009 | 8:41 am | #1
One of the things I dislike about some blogs is the number of “atta boy” comments, and lack of substantive discussion. Yet I have nothing else to contribute to this discussion.
This is one seriously good post. I mean, really good.
I told you were an Evangelical.
October 22nd, 2009 | 8:42 am | #2
(high five)
October 22nd, 2009 | 8:58 am | #3
[...] this is the best blog post ever on the topic of christian involvement in Politics, and where our focus should [...]
October 22nd, 2009 | 9:17 am | #4
“Government is reformed when men are first reformed. Even our mixed-bag of founding fathers knew that law does not instill morals but that only a moral (read: Christian) people can live under law with freedom.”
I don’t disagree, Frank. But remember that individuals are formed by families and families are parts of communities and communities (at least in our time) are parts of states. There is no linear causality here. Thus, you can’t say, “Let’s just get X right before we do Y.” Human communities are more like organisms than like machines. This means that the goodness of individuals, in a sense, is advanced (or made more likely) if they are nurtured in communities of other virtuous people. The relationships are symbiotic.
As for Scripture, remember that the same Peter who courageously stood up for the Gospel in the Book of Acts tells us in his first epistle that in this world we are “aliens and exiles,” and that we ought to “conduct [ourselves] honorably among the Gentiles [i.e., unbelievers], so that, though they malign [us] as evildoers, they may see [our] honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge” (I Peter 2:11-12 NRSV). Peter goes on to write:
So, the Christian must use his freedom wisely and be honorable to his unbelieving neighbors as well as accept and respect the rule of law and the authorities put in place to protect it, all for the sake of the common good. In a liberal democracy, such as the United States the Christian citizen has unprecedented access to the levers of power in comparison to her predecessors in the ancient and medieval worlds. For this reason, Peter’s instructions, as well as his and Paul’s examples in the Book of Acts, may have more practical application today than at any time in the 1500 years following the establishment of the 1st century Church.
Nevertheless, Christians who uncritically look to Scripture for guidance in politics run the risk of treating the church at one point in its history—the first century—as the norm for the church’s political involvement for all of history. Although the Bible does indeed offer us principles for human conduct that may be applied universally and across time to a variety of political regimes, we have to be very careful in how we extract those principles from a church that was in its infancy and whose members were without any real political or cultural influence. Compare that church with the 4th century church, which had become a dominant force in the Roman Empire. Christianity was attracting converts from every walk of life and profession. Thus, unlike their first century counterparts, the 4th century church and its members had to actually wrestle with issues having to do with the proper exercise of political, social, and cultural power. They really had no choice. They could not just let the pagans run things, since the pagan world and its influence were rapidly diminishing. Christians themselves had to figure out how to run things. Although they, like us, had the resource of Scripture, they did not have the benefit of two millennia of Christian reflection on church and state. This is not to say that the church has not made political mistakes throughout its history. It most certainly has. Rather, what I am suggesting is that each generation of Christians has to rethink the church’s role in the political realm, with reliance on Scripture coupled with an appropriate, though not slavish, deference to the insights of our predecessors. This is because each generation faces new and different challenges that its ancestors could have not anticipated. Consequently, each subsequent generation has a larger reservoir of resources (including the church’s successes as well as its tragic political mistakes) at its disposal in comparison to its immediate antecedent.
October 22nd, 2009 | 9:25 am | #5
One more thing. The Book of Acts records an incident in which Paul, after being beaten and imprisoned with Silas for preaching the Gospel, appeals to his Roman citizenship in order to exercise his civil rights and to remedy a wrong:
Several points stand out here. (1) The Apostle used political status—Roman citizenship—in order to ensure that the Gospel could be preached freely. (2) He was not afraid to exercise the rights that this political status accorded him as an act of community leadership, even if it struck fear in the hearts of the magistrates. (3) He directly cited a violation of his rights as a citizen—lack of due process (“we… have not been tried”)—against those in the government that committed the act. (4) Paul employed political leverage to correct an injustice done to him and a fellow Christian.
Here’s my point, Frank. You can’t isolate Acts 26 from Acts 16. It’s of a piece.
October 22nd, 2009 | 10:14 am | #6
but what was the injustice?
What was Paul appealing to the Govt for?
Was it for “Agrippa and Festus: the Roman province under your command needs to be christened because politics is not a necessary evil and and vice needs to be more difficult to obtain.”?
No, he was in jail because he preached the Gospel.
October 22nd, 2009 | 10:18 am | #7
You write:
“Yeah, see: here’s Paul about 15 minutes from being convicted & sentenced to death, and rather than seeking a political revolution or solution, or seeking to speak some kind of political innovation to Agrippa and Festus, what’s he say? “Whether short or long, I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am—except for these chains.”
I guess my question is, what should Agrippa and Festus have done if they had gotten saved? Should they have quit the political sphere and become missionaries like Paul? What happens when governments get saved (i.e. King Nebuchadnezzar)?
Maybe that’s why we have John Newton’s and William Wilberforce’s (and praise God for it).
I don’t think anyone disagrees that the gospel is the main thing, I think we all agree that much of evangelical involvement in politics is screwed up. Doug Wilson even points out that he believes governments need a savior, which is kind of what Paul is telling Agrippa and Festus.
I think at this point a more constructive conversation would be, “to what extent and in what ways should Christians be involved in the political realm and to what ends?”
Jared Wilson posted some initial responses in the comments of his last post, I’d love to hear some others comment on this as well.
October 22nd, 2009 | 10:38 am | #8
Dr. Beckwith said:
This is a reasonable statement and objection — and I admit that this is one way that this process can happen.
The problem we face, however, is that history indicates to us two examples which cause us to rethink whether this is the only or best way for this to happen. The first example is the first 300-400 years of the Christian church in which the underwhelming number of 12 plus 3000 in a back-water near-eastern city, in spite of rigorous persecution, morally overwhelmed the culture when it was being decimated by the law. The student of this process should read Mathetes’ letter to Diognetus to see exactly how this dynamic was worked out in real time.
The second example, however, is far more devastating: the last 150 years of the Christian church. As the preaching of the Gospel went into steep decline, the morals of the civilization followed, and we are in the final phases of that decline where the common morality has degenerated so far that the laws are now being aligned to the common ideal of virtue.
My opinion is that pragmatism is indicted by these examples relating to social renovation: the Gospel preceeds the change, it is not aided by the change.
You opinion may vary, and I look forward to this response.
October 22nd, 2009 | 10:46 am | #9
Dr. Beckwith also said this:
The irony is that I agree with the words, but I would invert the intent.
Peter’s charge here is to change the world not by force but in fact by love — which, of course, is not puppies and bunnies but the kind of love which Jesus shows us in dying to save us; it’s the bloody and costly love of the Cross, not the weak-tea love of hippies and greeting cards (no offense to hippies, Hallmark employees or those which are both, or those which love them). To say we “love” someone by making them do what we ourselves will not do is, um, weird to say the least. And the “Culture War” is not just about the things we are doing like adoption over abortion and caring for the poor: it’s also about whether or not we understand and demonstrate marriage before we say nobody else can have it.
October 22nd, 2009 | 10:50 am | #10
[...] Frank’s argument that “Government is reformed when men are first reformed” is persuasive, and I doubt that anyone could seriously disagree with it. I was all prepared to raise the issue of Acts 16 and Paul’s strategic use of his Roman citizenship, but Dr. Beckwith got there first. [...]
October 22nd, 2009 | 10:51 am | #11
Lastly on Acts 16 and 26:
I agree whole-heartedly — this is one long chain of civic interaction. But what Paul was not doing was asking for new rights or seeking to reform the system: he was appealing to the law they had for the sake of such justice that the pagans could muster (cf. Rom 2, btw, which I think is the real basis for us having an expectation of rudimentary justice under the law: God’s law is evident to all men in creation and through conscience).
It’s a far cry from demanding the vastly-inferior pagan system subject itself to the commands of Christ, let alone the Mosaic law.
October 22nd, 2009 | 10:53 am | #12
Let’s bring in the other Apostles.
Scripture, tradition and other sources report on their ends
In general, there lives all ended “badly”, at least from the worlds perspective.
But why did they die the way they did? Universally, it was because they presented the gospel, and in several cases, refused to recant, even under prison or torture
Even Simon the Zealot (called such because he believed in the violent overthrow of the Roman empire), became a zealot for the gospel after he witnessed the resurrection of Jesus
They all “wasted” their lives on one thing – the gospel. It seems instructive to us, that perhaps that is how we should waste our lives.
October 22nd, 2009 | 10:59 am | #13
BTW, the long part of Dr. Beckwith’s first response needs some attention, but I have a conference call which is going to take me out of action for a few hours.
October 22nd, 2009 | 11:35 am | #14
Frank, glad to see you here, making good sense as always. But here is my response. The only difference between salad and garbage is timing. For Paul to demand widespread political reforms at that moment would have betrayed a woeful misunderstanding of how leaven works through a loaf. Three centuries of Christians had to go to the arena before the rulers were willing to ask the Church, “What should we do then?” For Paul to tell them before that moment had arrived would have been garbage, not salad. But when that moment arrives (as it did, and as it will again when Christian begin in significant numbers to live like Christians), it is not responsible witness to refuse to answer the question. So I would sum it up this way: don’t answer the question before the time. And secondly, when the time has come, don’t have ethereal theologies in place that enable you to evade the question.
October 22nd, 2009 | 11:57 am | #15
Just as a preface here, Dr. Beckwith & I have a history which has been rancorous, and I appreciate his approach to these questions, and his graciousness.
At any rate, he said:
I would agree with this in principle as I think the way the church will act in 19th century America is probably different than it will act under Maoist oppression in the 1960’s or under the threat of the Muslim Dhimmi in the 10th century. Context does matter.
However, the substance which ought to get poured over the context is the Scripture mandates for the Christian life, particularly the consequences of the Gospel. I think this is where Dr. Beckwith and I separate significantly as I read his comments here. It seems to me that his view is that history can/should/will be authoritative for us when I would say it can be informative but it cannot be on-par with what Scripture teaches us.
I suggest that if we are talking about the faith history presented by Scripture, then we have a significantly less-foggy vision of what the church ought to be vs. the mere facts of the life of the church after the Apostolic period.
I would agree – but I would also say that they had to wrestle with it and seek to resolve it by relying on Scripture. Without putting words into your mouth, I think your ecclesiology requires you to think something else happened there, and to minimize the rancor I would let you offer whatever correction is necessary before I make a more significant point in that matter.
Agreed – no stipulations. But what that says is that we can learn from their mistakes and seek to improve our reliance on Scripture and the Gospel as we enter our day and age.
Many people are overly-nostalgic for a golden age of the life of the church somehow lost in the first 400 years of church life; I hope I can distance myself from them because I think they are uninformed. But even in that, we can’t simply change the target of our nostalgia from 100 AD to 400 AD and think we have solved the problem. I think post-Constantinian Christianity had its own problems to deal with, and it had the significant liability of having to deal with the fall of civilization. It made pragmatic choices, and we should se them that way – but that doesn mean we have to make the same choices.
I agree with almost every word. My problem is that I think Scripture is our sufficient guide to solving these problems without suggesting for one minute that we should be ignorant of the past. I think we have to look at what our fathers in the faith have done, see if what they did matched Scripture’s guidance and rendered a Gospel-glorifying result, and consider the lessons learned.
In all of that, I am convinced that the overt pursuit of political power is antithetical to what Scripture asks us to do, and to what we demonstrate to the world when we do it. I hope when we are finished you will be equally persuaded.
October 22nd, 2009 | 12:20 pm | #16
[...] and Politics By Doug There’s a very interesting comment thread going on over at First Things "Evangel" blog (a new group blog that our own Mark Olsen is [...]
October 22nd, 2009 | 12:27 pm | #17
Doug –
Thanks Heavens! I thought you’d never make it!
Now, my friend, let’s be careful with the reasoning by analogy. I love a good turn of phrase as much as the next fellow, but here’s the thing: Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
I don’t want to over-realize my eschatology, but what Paul did before Agrippa and Festus is what he required of Timothy. I think it’s a little triumphal of you and at the same time a little uncharacteristicly reticent to say that Paul is being a little leaven when festus thinks what he’s saying proves he has somehow lost his mind.
What Paul does here is profiundly radical — far more radical than any other revolution. It is from that which we must take notes.
Here’s the part of the discussion I never quite get: what I am suggesting is that Christians live like Christians — but that we not use the means of the world to get what we want.
If we are going to reason by analogy, here’s the analogy I’d use: in 1Sam, the people come to Samuel and tell him, “You are old, and your sons are no good, Samuel. Give us a king so we can be like all the other nations.” And Samuel frankly loses it — takes it personally and mourns before God.
Now, why does Samuel get so worked up? The reason is spelled out by God: “They haven’t rejected you, Samuel: they have rejected me.”
I know you get this, Doug, but for the Deuteronomically-impaired this is perhaps the most crushing moment of the OT to this point — it may be the worst moment in the whole OT in context. See: when God gave Israel the law, he wasn’t just telling them something they already knew: the Mosaic covenant was the constitution for the nation of Israel, bringing them from being merely a family to being a nation. And unlike the US which constitutes itself by “we the people”, Israel is set apart by God to be a nation which is not like all the other nations. (see: Mike Horton is good for something after all)
So when they say, “give us a king so we can be like all the other nations,” they aren’t just wrong: they blaspheme. They it’s top-shelf disobedience.
It’s in that analogy that we have to be extremely careful to never say, “we want to be like all the other nations.” It is categorically what we DO NOT WANT.
So when we are here, where we are today, we don’t want to pass laws to get our way — especially when we are law-breakers already. And to try to speak with a prophetic voice to others when we are ourselves just like these sinful gentiles misses the point that we are not called to enforce the Law but to instead bring the remedy for the Law.
I don’t think this is an ethereal theology. I don’t think that the a-millennial vision for all things leaves us as post-gnostic people with no answers. But our answers aren’t like all the other nations’ answers.
We think that the law makes all of us guilty and condemned, and that we have a savior who saves us from our wicked selves. That means that we believe the problem is us, and the solution is alien to us.
October 22nd, 2009 | 12:37 pm | #18
With all the high-fliers stepping up here, I missed Caleb’s comment:
Hopefully, not what Constantine did — which is pave the way for institutionalized requirements that all citizens be made Christians. Then babies start getting baptized and the whole thing goes completely to pot.
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:-)
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I think they should have lived at peace with others inasmuch as it was possible, pray for their leaders, and be in fellowship which the other believers, sharing their burdens, praying, taking bread together, and receiving the teaching of the Apostles. That’s the stuff that persecution could not destroy.
October 22nd, 2009 | 12:39 pm | #19
Doug,
In light of Frank’s last paragraph: Would you say that your post-millenialism motivates you to pursuit of political power?
Or does it give you the expectation that, through the preaching of the Gospel, men and women will be transformed by the Spirit into disciples of Christ, till we find that we have become an overwhelming majority? At which point, the question will be, what do we do with the political power this has given us?
October 22nd, 2009 | 12:40 pm | #20
Whoops, Frank went ahead and posted more comments while I was typing. I meant the last paragraph of his 11:57am comment.
October 22nd, 2009 | 12:43 pm | #21
Curse you Jugulum and your clarifying questions!
October 22nd, 2009 | 12:45 pm | #22
Frank,
I’d really be curious for a bit more justification for why you think sola scriptura has anything to do with Dr. Beckwith’s position. As someone who broadly agrees with Dr. Beckwith on this issue, yet holds to sola scriptura, I think that methodology is beside the point. As best I can tell, the issue isn’t whether we are bound to the witness of previous generations, but whether we should listen and be chastened by them–which is, on this issue, all Beckwith has said and really all that is needed. The tradition doesn’t seem to speak monolithically on this issue and hence not authoritative (for Catholics) in the same way as, say, the Nicene Creed.
More thoughts on this later, no doubt. Thanks for being awesome and letting a kid like me play.
October 22nd, 2009 | 12:49 pm | #23
Frank, no worries, I’d worry about the high flyers too :)
However, as you pointed out in your post, Agrippa and Festus are like the UN or Congress. Obviously if they are saved they should become disciples of Jesus as any Christian should, but their whole man is saved, not just their “spiritual man.”
What should their “political man” do as a regenerated follower of Jesus Christ?
October 22nd, 2009 | 1:05 pm | #24
If the question is to get involved or remain apart, one consideration which pre-dates Paul somewhat is Jesus remark, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” … and in a Democracy more is demanded of us than just our coin.
October 22nd, 2009 | 2:18 pm | #25
Matt –
I am perpetually stunned that I am among the eldest bloggers, but then I am also stunned that I am in my mid-40′s and can’t eat anything without gaining 2 lbs.
I can be honest and say that part of my slipping in of SS toward Dr. Beckwith is a rhetorical attempt to take him off his game. I think it’s a sound critique, but it’s one which, if played right, will cause him to re-justify his own theological choices and help me look more focused and therefore influence more people. Just between you and me, anyway — don’t tell anyone. Tactics win battles.
However, I think there’s a subtext or a presupposition in the way Dr. Beckwith has framed this that is more evidentialist than presuppositional, and I have a problem with that. There is no question we can learn from history — but history is not self-interpreting. We need a lense through which to view history, and some trust in this theory or that theory, but our lense is by definition Scripture.
So for example, we look at the council of Nicea which did some good and necessary and biblical things, and it also did some pragmatic and unnecessary and unbiblical things. It may have also done some biblical things poorly and some unbiblical things well. However, in order for us to ever even approach that grid, we need to first have a grasp on biblical ecclesiology and gospel-centered missiology and gospel-centered apologetics. The Bible has to inform the grid which we view this event through and not be merely a participant in the conversation.
Jim Belcher’s new book Deep Church does a great job, I think, of underscoring this in his chapter on “Deep Preaching”.
So I say all that to sort of say this: the Bible is not another authority. It is a pre-eminent authority with no peers. Our brothers in Christ before us can be useful and even edifying, but we have to weigh their efforts against Scripture and see where they were found wanting.
October 22nd, 2009 | 2:27 pm | #26
Caleb –
John the Baptist told the soldiers, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.” That’s not a massive moral breakthrough: that’s just handling the Rom 13 commission justly regarding the ministry of the sword.
My opinion for the legislative officer and the judicial officer and the executive officer is that he handle the second table of the Law wisely. He cannot legilate mercy or kindness, but he can legislate in the common law those tyhings which are known clearly by all men. And he must do it with the clear picture that his is a minister of the Gospel, and in that anything he would do to spoil that greater commission must be avoided.
October 22nd, 2009 | 3:36 pm | #27
Jugulum, out of your two options, I would pick the second. More on this in a minute.
October 22nd, 2009 | 4:11 pm | #28
Frank,
“However, I think there’s a subtext or a presupposition in the way Dr. Beckwith has framed this that is more evidentialist than presuppositional, and I have a problem with that.”
I’m lost amidst the layers of irony in that statement. It’s just amusing to me that we are identifying Beckwith’s presuppositions as evidentialist.
But I’m actually sympathetic to evidentialism as an argumentative strategy, so I (alas) again find myself siding with Beckwith.
I also wonder often what we Protestants mean when we say ‘Biblical.’ There’s a real question there.
That aside, I think one thing that you left off your list of what we needed to identify was a biblical anthropology, that is, an understanding of the humans relationship to the political order as expressed in and through Scripture. Also, I have worries about formulating the political order strictly around the exercise of power. Much more seems to happen in politics than simply coercion, which may make it a more hospitable realm for Christian action.
But then, that gets back to Dr. Beckwith’s initial critique, which is that we’re approaching this issue with lots of modernist presuppositions that are affecting how we constrain ‘biblical’ and what counts as biblical.
Done rambling. I’m sure we’ll go around a few more times on this before the internet dies.
October 22nd, 2009 | 4:12 pm | #29
Frank, I don’t want to pass laws to get our way. I want to get our way so that we can pass laws. I am now prepared to take questions.
October 22nd, 2009 | 4:47 pm | #30
Doug:
I think you just creeped me out.
So we preach the Gospel (which is greater than any law because it does what the Law cannot do) in order to call out those whom God will forgive when they repent in order to pass laws which … do what if not “get our way” with those who are not called out?
October 22nd, 2009 | 8:13 pm | #31
Okay…being ADHD, long discussions become a little hard to follow…so what I say, may or may not have already been said or are not relevant…
Whilst there seems to be a large focus on the New Testament for all this talk of Government and Laws, I would think the Old Testament might be a more appropriate place to investigate, simply because, in the Old Testament (or parts there of), we see the only place where God’s people had the power to create laws.
Arguing about how Paul told us to follow laws etc, seems to be missing the point, as in Paul’s day, Christian’s had no power (or ‘talents’) to influence how the government was run.
Today, we do have power to influence how government is run, and so the question cannot properly be resolved by appealing to Paul or other new testament writers.
October 23rd, 2009 | 1:31 am | #32
Just arrived in Ohio for a speaking engagement at Franciscan University (to talk at a bioethics on the subject “Human Dignity and Its Discontents”).
In any event, I don’t think what I’ve written is contrary to sola scripture (though, as a Catholic, I don’t hold to SS), though it is contrary to some points of view held by Protestants. But it is a view that does not really differ from views held by other Protestants. Consider, for example, this excerpt from my forthcoming book:
October 23rd, 2009 | 11:27 am | #33
Alan –
I would say that there are at least three significant discontinuities between the OT and the NT which are relevant here. Another way to say this would be, “Israel is not like the Church because …”
[1] In the OT, Israel is not making its own laws: it has a law (or “constitution” if you will) drawn up by God which they must abide by. God makes them a nation like no other for His own purpose, and in that there is no legislative activity needed — only judicial and executive action, if we can even make those parallels (I think we can, but I see why someone would not want to).
[3] In the OT, the better parallel for the sake of the church is Israel in exile rather than Israel conquoring the land. Someone will disagree with me about this, but here’s why this is true: the intention and the objectives of israel while in exile reflect how the church is not a citizen of this present age but a citizen of God’s kingdom which is also yet to come. We are here already — already servants of a Lord and Savior — and our hope is frankly in the “not yet”. Daniel in Babylon did not seek to subvert the kingdom, but rather to seek the common good of the kingdom in order that it would go well for him and his fellow Israelites.
[3] I have a hard time making the ethic expressed by statements like “the last shall be first and the first shall be last” and “take up your cross and follow me” as rationale to seek to possess temporal power. I think the ethic expressed there turns the tables on how we see power and authority and subverts statism (both left and right) and also libertarianism and anarchism, putting those who are saved from the sting of death in a position of moral freedom to do for one’s neighbor whatever is necessary to demonstrate that there is a real savior. That ethic is not expressed clearly in the OT because the savior is not manifest.
Your opinion may differ — I look forward to hearing what you think.
October 23rd, 2009 | 11:30 am | #34
Dr. Beckwith said:
It’s unexpected, I guess, that none of those institutions existed in the first three centuries of the church, yet the church flourished and overcame the ancient pagan world.
Unexpected, but true.
October 26th, 2009 | 10:53 pm | #35
Frank,
Thanks for taking the time to respond.
Is the question how the OT church/nation differs to today? Or is the question, at what point did the church or nation in the scriptures most resemble our current situation?
I agree that Israel in the OT was given laws by God, not made up by the Israelites, but I think it still most resembles todays situations, more so the the NT Church or even Israel in exile because I think the key question is what power and authority do we have to create laws.
I.e., in a democracy, I believe we have been given by the State itself, power to influence the laws being created.
I think the parable of the talents makes it quite clear that as Christians, we are to use the opportunities, and abilities we have in order to further the kingdom of God.
So, I would say that this implies we have a responsibility and duty, as Christians, to attempt to influence our societies laws in order to create a society where Christian principles reign. Not just so we can feel good about our power and influence, but in order to best help those in need. The oppressed, the widows, the poor. It isn’t about overcoming the non-Christian with power, but to show love is the most complete possible sense.
Just as the Church has used it’s influence to abolish slavery (twice!).
As per your third point, I think the ethics expressed can be seen as servant leadership and so can be consistent with seeking power. It seems to me that this is similar to a family, where the father seeks money in order to properly love his family.
Regarding the early church, I’m not sure ‘flourishing’ is the right word. The growth was, on average, around 2.5% per year.
The victory over the pagan world would seem to be more to do with Constantine removing state funding from them (a state act!), rather than the conversion of the general population.
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