What kind of government? (Part 2)

the civil magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of the word and sacraments or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

So they're saying, OK. He shouldn't take the keys of the kingdom,

yet he hath authority and it is his duty to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed, and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed. For the better effecting whereof he hath power to call synods, to be present at them, and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God.

So when you think about the degree of authority that they're giving him in spiritual matters, things pertaining to doctrine and the life of the church, it's quite I would argue that while they're saying, well, he doesn't have the keys to the kingdom, they're sort of functionally giving the civil magistrate, the civil authority, a lot of control of the keys. Now, after Charles II takes the throne in 1660, so after the period under Cromwell, He doesn't do what the Presbyterians were hoping, and the Puritans sort of quickly fall out of favor. He issues something called the Act of Uniformity in 1662. I think it was a couple thousand Puritan ministers wind up resigning. And, you know, it becomes a period where there's a lot of persecution. This is also a time when guys like John Bunyan, so he's a Baptist, but he's there preaching. Bunyan winds up being imprisoned for the crime of preaching without a license. It's in prison that he writes Pilgrim's Progress. And, you know, this whole experience is one of the things that's really forcing people to start thinking more about this relationship between church and state. Significantly, in 1689, the London Baptist Confession is written, which mirrors the Westminster Confession very closely. But when they get to the third paragraph of the section of the civil magistrate, they do not include that paragraph that I just read. They're clearly not in agreement that that's the way, the kind of authority that the civil magistrate has. Also, late in the 1700s, the American Presbyterian Church revises that paragraph that I read as well. quite significantly to kind of take away some of that authority. So I think the moral for us as we, you know, just briefly think about this question of separation of church and state is, you know, it can seem appealing to want the government to back us up with the power of the sword. And I think, well, if the government's going to come and the church is going to give this decision with the keys, wouldn't it be good if the state was sort of behind that? You can see how that would be appealing. And I think, well, isn't that promoting good if they're promoting true doctrine? The problem is it's a two-edged sword. You give them that power and it can easily come back against us. And so I think Helwes had it right.

Let them be heretics, Muslims, Jews, or whatsoever. It appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure.

I think that's the kind of government we should want. Now, that brings us to a fourth principle, which is sort of the other side of this. The separation of church and state doesn't mean the separation of theology from politics. So for one, obviously, Jesus is Lord of all. That includes the political realm. So separation of church and state is not saying that somehow the state is separate from Jesus' authority. The state is still accountable to Jesus. Also, it's saying that an institutional separation of church and state doesn't mean that there should be an ideological separation between theology and politics for us. You know, sometimes you'll hear people say things like, don't try to tell me abortion should be illegal because people are made in the image of God. That's a religious argument and it doesn't have any place in the political realm. But of course, the reality is every political argument ultimately comes back to some sort of religious or worldview convictions. And so really what's going on there, you know, to say that separation of church and state means we can't appeal to theological truth in political arguments is really just a sneaky way of privileging and presupposing an atheistic, materialistic worldview. You know, of course, that worldview does not lead to righteousness. So we should absolutely let theological biblical conviction drive the way we vote, drive the way we think about politics and political parties and all of that. You know, do not think I have to put this on the shelf. when I step into a political realm. Now, of course, sometimes, you know, from the perspective of trying to persuade non-Christians to agree with whatever policy we're promoting, you know, that may mean in addition to some biblical argument, we're going to need to appeal to some other things. You know, they might not be persuaded to vote against or to vote against abortion because the Bible says we're creating an image of God, but you can bring scientific arguments, sociological arguments. There's other things you could sort of marshal in support of that. That's certainly a good thing to do. But again, as we think about what are we going to vote for? How are we going to think politically? There is not this separation of theology from politics. They're integrally linked. And so in the little bit of time we have left, I want us just to take a couple minutes to try to be a little bit practical and think about, well, what would be some biblical principles that will necessarily affect the way we think about political policies? And just to get us started, I'll give an obvious one, which would be the sanctity of all human life. Of course, we've thought about that with regard to abortion. But what about things like, you know, in European countries today, we're seeing things like assisted suicide is becoming increasingly, you know, promoted. Historically, we can look back at things like the eugenics movement, slavery. You know, we as Christians should see all human life as equally holy and valuable, no matter how old, how young, how disabled you are, what your skin color is. We're all created in the image of God. Our value comes from that and not what we can contribute. So that's going to have radical implications for what policies we would vote for. What are some other things that you all can think of? Some biblical principles that, yeah. And I think in some ways that's going to come back to what we were talking about before of how do we respond to the government. So if I'm in control and I can kind of influence, well, yeah, I think separation of church and state is good. There's going to be times where maybe that separation isn't the way I think it should be. And then we got to figure out how do we honor God in the midst of that, which doesn't mean oh, the government has no authority at all, I can just write them off. But on the other hand, as we thought about some of these exceptions, there's time to say, yeah, but you don't have the authority to limit our ability to worship Jesus. And so we don't have to submit to you if you're interfering with what God has commanded us to do. So I think that's sort of how you'd have to wrestle through it. Good question. Yeah, Matt? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, I mean, there's, there's so much you could get into on how we wrestle through responding to the laws as they are. And then what kind of laws we want to see promoted, what kinds of things we want to see taught in schools. Um, you know, the way that has kind of been taken to say, we're going to try to teach children this. I mean, I think we should have a voice there of wanting to protect kids, David. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yeah, yeah, I think that's a huge one. And I think that one is really helpful. Oh, sorry, she said caring for the poor, the sojourner, the fatherless, the widow. I mean, those are things we as Christians need to care about. It's also a good example to, I think, illustrate a principle that, you know, there's the desire to do that, and then there's the question of what policy will best accomplish that. You know, so we can wrestle through, what do we think of welfare? And, you know, probably some of this room will say, well, I think the state should stay out of that so that, you know, and churches should do more. Maybe others are thinking, well, I think there's ways that that could be sort of revised to limit, you know, this tendency for there to become a dependence that's not healthy. And, you know, we can have all those conversations. And yet at the same time, I think it's so important that at the end of the day, we care. about the poor. We care about the fatherless, the widow, the sojourner. And so, yeah, there needs to be a healthy, you know, don't jump to the conclusion, someone who's against welfare, well, you just don't care about the poor. Maybe they really do and they just have a different way of wanting to see that work out. But at the same time, I hope we don't oppose the idea of welfare because we just care about keeping more money for ourselves and not having to give as much taxes. I hope we have that genuine concern, and that should very much be reflected in us. Yeah. to value neutral education, that in our schools right now, I think Christians have largely accepted the idea that, oh, our faith is supposed to be completely separate from the public sphere, including theology and politics. And so we end up with schools that are just preaching pure secularism and whatever great stuff that's not going on there. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know that I have the decisive answer. I think in some sense it starts to illustrate the tension I was talking about before of like there's no perfectly stable solution. Like when you have people who just have diametrically opposed worldviews, like how do you all agree? Now I would hope, you know, on one level it's like I would think a school could teach children you should love your neighbors yourself. That's generally something that even people who are not Christian would see as a good value, and we could all agree that's good to instill in our five-year-olds. At the same time, yeah, you're right, there is an assumed value system behind anything that somewhere down the line is going to start to have tensions. And I think that's part of the awkward tension we're inevitably living in in this present world. Keith? Right. Right. So we could continue enumerating principles like this. Obviously, we don't have the time to flesh all of this out. But I hope it just helps illustrate this point. These are the kinds of things that we should be wrestling with, thinking about. How do I go from biblical principle and think carefully about political policy, while at the same time knowing some of those issues are very straight line, like abortion, God says don't kill, abortion is murder, like that's wrong. Others, okay, we want to help the poor. We want to see children educated well. Well, what mix of policies is going to actually help that happen in our society? And there, there's a lot more jumps we have to make. And so we need to be, I think, humble and listen to one another and try to have good, healthy conversation. So to sum this question up, what kind of government should we as Christians want? Well, again, I think going back to 1 Timothy 2, it's one that enables us to live quiet, peaceable lives in all godliness and dignity. It's not a Christian government that tries to instill Christianity, because that's the work of the church, but a government that enforces a basic standard of morality so that people can't oppress and victimize others, a government that allows society to function in a stable way so that people's basic needs can be met, and so that we as Christians actually have a stable platform on which to go about carrying on the work of the church. And I think we can desire a government with leaders who fear God and submit to the authority of Christ themselves. We can pray for that, desire that. But whatever the case may be, in the end, we should know that there is no perfect solution for this fallen world where so many don't even recognize Christ. At best, human governments are provisional and temporary, but we can look forward to the perfect and eternal kingdom of Christ Jesus, our Lord, and his return. So that's the government we should desire most of all. Let's pray. Father, we thank you again for this time to discuss these things together as a church family. We pray that you would give us wisdom to think about them well. We ask this in Jesus' name in forced glory. Amen.