192 — How Entangled Should We Be?
Back to the questions… and we have a doozy today!
I’m a young student and I spend a lot of time thinking about government, especially now, and the role it plays in our lives. A lot of the “hot-button” issues are directly related to the Church and it’s ideals. Is it wrong to involve Christian beliefs in others lives by law? Is gay marriage something we should stand up against as a law? Or should we be talking to them instead? I’m very confused on where the line is that we cross when involving the government. Here lately, things tell me to have the government do the least amount possible! 
I have made a LOT of mistakes in trying to sort this out, so keep that in mind as you read my answer. And if you quote me, date me, because by the time you quote me I might have changed my mind!
I am a soldier. No, I have never put up my right hand and sworn into military service but I am the only one in a VERY long line that hasn’t. My family has had the majority of its men — and all of its ‘first sons’ — serve over the last 300+ years. There is something in our DNA that makes us well suited for that profession (the other two main professions in my family line seem to be ministry and crime. Some of my relatives have managed to have all three professions at various points in their lives).
I understand what Paul meant when he said this: “Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs–he wants to please his commanding officer.” The religious right and the religious left both ignore this principle; a principle laid down by Paul when he was staring death in the face.
The religious right would like to create a theocracy where God’s laws are also man’s laws. They forget that God does not want to win us over by coercion and might but by love and grace. They believe that God is honored by a system where religious and secular laws are the same thing, even though God walked away from that system when He nailed the Old Law to the cross (see the whole book of Galatians).
The religious left wants us to mandate social justice through law and taxation, placing burdens on our neighbors and their children and grandchildren because there is something we want changed in our nation. That is immoral for it, too, uses coercion and force. Both the religious left and the religious right are two sides of the same coin, however much they howl when we notice that.
I do not believe that God will be especially honored by a Constitutional amendment against abortion or for limiting marriage to one man and one woman. In fact, I believe that questions about such things are the wrong questions to ask. In regards to marriage, I would ask those who say that gay marriage will destroy the institution of marriage how gays could do any more damage to it than heterosexuals have over the last fifty years. Besides, marriage really isn’t the point: partner benefits are the point and that goes right back to binding on others the cost of our healthcare, etc.
I think the right question is: why did we give the government anything to say about marriage in the first place? In scripture, marriage is between individuals, families, and tribes. It is not something that needed a license from the government and it didn’t come with a whole new set of tax laws, deductions, and other behavioral modification thru taxation rules. When we let the government get between us, we lost control of the argument. The government already has permission to do what it wants to with marriage. We gave them that permission when we let them regulate it. Instead of worrying about gay marriage, we need to love homosexuals and get to the point where we can sit down with them and an open Bible to find the will of God for their — and our — lives.
When it comes to abortion, we’ve written about that here before. I will simply say that it isn’t our job to make a new law for the nation. It is our job to graciously and with great kindness approach our culture in such a way as to turn its heart away from abortion. We don’t need new laws; we need new hearts. Laws will always be broken by those who want to break them whether they be laws about abortion or laws about speed limits. It is the heart we must change and that is much, much harder work than convincing five out of nine Supreme Court justices to vote our way on abortion.
As a little “l” libertarian (religiously as well as politically), I want to be consistent in this: we use no coercion or force unless absolutely necessary to save a life, and we never use coercion or force to bring someone to religious viewpoint. In the Old Testament, there were many times that God sent the Israelites in with swords, blood, and thunder to effect His will. In the New Testament, we are to known by our love.
I love my neighbors too much to bind new laws on them. Both the right and the left need to understand what Jesus meant when he said “Jesus said to them, “The kings of the pagans have power over their people, and the rulers claim the title “Friends of the People.’ But this is not the way it is with you; rather, the greatest one among you must be like the youngest, and the leader must be like the servant.” (Luke 22:25,26)
How can we be the servants of our neighbors when we are binding them to work for years to pay off new programs and taxes we demanded OR when we bind and limit them according to the precepts of our — not their — religion?
July 8th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Patrick, I very much agree with your comments on marriage. Can you imagine if we let Congress decide when a baptism is valid? I’m not sure when the concept of the marriage license began, but I know that it came into existence long after Bible times.
As for the larger concept, I’m becoming increasingly aware of our status as strangers and aliens… I fear that Christians spend way too much time focused on “civilian affairs” and not enough time thinking about kingdom business!
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
July 8th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
I appreciate your thoughts, Patrick. They make sense.
July 8th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Good post, Patrick. Your blog is a source of great encouragement for my wife and I–we especially have enjoyed the posts on church-minister relationships.
I agree that the church must not concern itself with enforcing “Christian laws” whether they be explicitly based on Scripture or appeals to a ‘natural law’ or a supposed common morality that all people share. But I’m not sure libertarianism is the most fertile soil for that argument.
The question asked at the end of the post seems to get at the heart of the issue: “How can we be the servants of our neighbors when we are binding them to work for years to pay off new programs and taxes we demanded OR when we bind and limit them according to the precepts of our — not their — religion?”
How can Christians bind their neighbors with Christian laws? Because they’ve been practicing at it for almost 2000 years. The answer to this question from the perspective of a Constantinian Christian vision is that Christian service to neighbors and coercion of neighbors are one and the same thing. Neighbor love requires us to legislate Christian principles for all. We can indeed be Christian servants of our neighbors precisely by binding them to Christian laws. If we care about providing our neighbor with a “just” world, if we are going to be responsible, we must force Christian principles into state policy and enforce them.
Tim’s question is significant on getting to the history behind this Constantinian vision: “Can you imagine if we let Congress decide when a baptism is valid?”
It would not be the first time! The entire history of Christianity in the West is a history dominated by the theme of the church getting its mission accomplished through state power. The acceptance of state power and the use of coercion to make Christianity happen in society started w/the rise of Constantine and several other decisions in the third and fourth centuries. Such decisions included the use of coercion used against the Donatists (labeled a heretical sect and put down w/sword by Augustine’s influence); enforcement of infant baptism for all people; and enforcement of adherence to orthodoxy by Emperor Theodosius 1). Shortly after the second century, Christianity, with the exception of mostly Anabaptists (who also claim the Franciscans and Waldensians as forerunners), has seen state power as the tool of the church–in fact it is seen as the responsibility of the church in the world to use such power. Thus, the “people of God”, for all of society, becomes something that you are forced into, rather than called into.
John Howard Yoder writes about this shift in-depth in several places: “The Constantinian Sources of Western Social Ethics” in his book Priestly Kingdom (Notre Dame Press); the second or third chapter in his Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace (Brazos Press); and for another treatment of this shift in Christian thinking see Franklin Littell’s Anabaptist Vision of the Church, especially his chapter on “the Fall of the Church”.
Sorry for the long comment!
Matt
July 8th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
For once I’ll have to disagree with you, brother. But I’ll do it as humbly as I know how.
First, some agreement, though. I’m more and more a little “l” libertarian every year.
Perhaps government really shouldn’t be involved in marriage, but that’s a holdover from the European nations that provided the background for our laws. It’s clear that the government is involved in marriage, through the tax laws if nothing else. And it is in government’s interest to promote strong families. Perhaps that is why there is such a backlash against homosexual marriage. Although I agree that heterosexuals have made a mockery of marriage vows.
I take exception at the idea that the religious right want to create a theocracy. I know a lot of folks who think of themselves as part of the religious right, and that is not their goal. Nor is it the stated goal of any organization I know of. I think it is more accurate to say that the religious right wants to return to an understanding of morality that used to be enshrined in law. The goal is not a theocracy, but a nation that is friendlier to faith.
As far as abortion, I see one of government’s main functions as being the protection of the weak. Abortion is merely one facet of preying on the weak. I fight abortion because it is clearly murder to me. There is no reason I can see to distinguish between the life of an unborn child and an infant. Murder is wrong, and that is law pretty much everywhere.
As for the passage in 2 Timothy, Paul did not live in a representative democracy. We do, thank God. I don’t think you would have us refrain from voting because of that passage, would you? Why, then, would we stay out of the debate?
We are aliens and strangers, and always will be. Certainly we cannot expect government to meet our spiritual or even our physical needs. But we can and perhaps should participate in a representative government. After all, it’s supposed to represent us, too.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
“I think it is more accurate to say that the religious right wants to return to an understanding of morality that used to be enshrined in law.” I think this means that they would like to force the public to do something THEY believe is moral. I don’t think this is something we need to do as a group. Just because the government has expanded it’s role in our lives, we don’t need to play the game and get ours. We need to have the government do less I think and work for that cause. Freedom is the basis of this country. Freedom for everyone: religious, political, socially, etc. We can’t ask for freedom as a religion and not give freedom for someone to gamble, eat whatever, drink whatever, say whatever, do whatever as long as it doesn’t interfere with our own freedom. We should allow people to make their own choices and be there for people who recognize and want to change from the wrong ones. I understand the abortion comment. Our government is there to protect our individual right to live…that’s it. Period. Nothing else.
July 9th, 2009 at 2:10 am
Tim, you may think what you please, but that is not what I said, and that is not what it means. It means that we used to acknowledge that our laws were based in a Judeo-Christian ethic.
Remember that all laws are a way of enforcing someone’s idea of morality. Christians simply do not want to be marginalized in that process. Hard to find fault with that.
Danny, we are friends and so please take this as honest — I really don’t see what Tim got wrong. When I read your first comment I see tons of coercion; with the best motives, of course, but coercion nonetheless. Consider this — Jesus, Paul, Peter, et al never asked for a new law or for the removal of an existing one. They never protested their government. Yes, they didn’t live in a representative democracy, but other writers spoke out against the powers that be (i.e. Socrates). They didn’t. They went to work on individual hearts and decried those who would make rules and say it was for the benefit of the ruled.
When I say “religious right” I refer to the extremes, not to those who are religious and conservative. There is a huge difference between Pat Robertson and the average Christian conservative.
July 9th, 2009 at 2:30 am
The abortion comment reminded me of a phone call I got from then-Speaker Hastert’s fund raising arm back when I lived in the Detroit area (around 2000, before “no-call” lists). The lady asked if I’d donate $100 to help fight abortion. I said sure, on one condition. She asked the condtion, and I said that not one penny was spent on political lobbying, but that all of it was spent in the junior high schools teaching kids that they are people with self-worth and not animals in a “rut” period (deer hunters will get that reference), and that we focus our efforts on teaching people where their worth really comes from. I told her that the judicial fight was what caused all the animosity in the first place, so let’s concede that battle and win the war by removing the demand for the procedure.
Completely flustered, she ended the call and I never heard from that office again. And I humbly still think I’m right…doesn’t matter whether or not something’s legal if folks don’t want to do it. Put Jesus in people’s hearts, put a little empathy in ours, and we can put the protesters outside Planned Parenthood to better use.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Patrick, I’ll agree with you that there is a huge difference between Pat Robertson and the average Christian conservative. There’s a huge difference between Pat Robertson and . . . well, I’ll just leave that lying there.
As a Christian, I believe it is my duty to do good and fight evil at all levels and in all arenas. Of course, the biggest battle with evil is in my own life. It’s at this point in a face-to-face discussion that I’d be likely to say, “Let’s take this offline.” I don’t want to step on your blog, Patrick, with an extended online argument. So I’ll just bow out and tend to my own battles.
July 9th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
I think since our tax dollars are tied to the public trust we as Christians need to be active in the political system because many of us can’t afford to opt out. The example I would use is the public schools, certainly if gay marriage is acceptable in our society then all the repercussions that come from it will be played out in the public schools/ public arena. Teaching sex education will involve homosexuality (it might already), straight and openly gay teachers teaching our children that there’s nothing wrong with homosexuality, I just find this unacceptable when we don’t have a choice (or tax credit/voucher) to send our children to a school of choice.
I also believe that gay marriage leads basically to a government endorsement that homosexuality is okay. And with that endorsement children that haven’t grown into their sexuality will most certainly explore more avenues of their sexuality and fall prey to the sin of homosexuality when under the influence of public acceptance. I’m not of the belief that homosexuality is something that you’re born with; I believe it’s a learned behavior.
Anyway, there so much more to be said but I don’t have the time, I just believe we’re seeing the results of what the gay lobbyist have set out to do from the start. We’re also seeing it creep into the Church with some mainstream denominations now accepting gay marriage, Bishops, etc. as normal function of Godliness because of pressure from the followers and public acceptance. IMO, I think the move to gay marriage as a nation is just another step away from God and a can of worms that we have yet to know all the problems it will cause.
July 9th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
I agree.
Thanks for all the input.
July 9th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Good discussion … I agree with you, Patrick.
July 11th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Pat, your last paragraph sums up what is going on with the homosexual agenda in this country. The goal is to make the activity mainstream, normal and accepted. Thanks.
July 12th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Jesus, Peter, Paul, and the first century Christians did not have the opportunity or even the ability to change the political landscape of their times without much bloodshed. Jesus did speak out strongly about the religious landscape of the Jewish people (where he did have an opportunity for change), so I wonder if He wouldn’t have had a lot to say about abortion and gay marriage, along with many other political views, if He were walking the world in the flesh today. He did not shrink from correcting “civilian” policy when it came to its interaction with religion when he was here physically (see the moneychangers story and his response to the question about paying taxes), so I really can’t see Him remaining quiet about abortion or gay marriage if He had any opportunity to change the politics of the day. To him that knows to do good and doesn’t do it, it is sin. Jesus was no sinner. He spoke against those who would offend the least of His little ones, and what else are we doing to our children if we remain quiet?
July 13th, 2009 at 10:02 am
I really cannot understand how one can say that Govco should be involved in marriage at all.
July 19th, 2009 at 6:54 am
[...] be perfectly clear, this post is not intended to be about politics. Patrick Mead wrote a great article on his Tentpegs blog about Christians involvement in politics a couple of weeks ago that is [...]