Welcome to part four of this series looking at a Biblical theology of government and certain applications to our current cultural moment. For links to the other installments, see the list below.
- Principle #1 – Civil Governments have a Legitimate Authority
- Principle #2 – Civil Governments have a Limited Authority
- Principle #3 – Theocracy is Inescapable
- Principles Applied
Principles Applied
As we consider the principles from the three previous instalments and examine our current situation regarding the role of government, I want to make several applications.
1. The Omni-Competent State
Firstly, we are governed by an atheistic theocracy where Demos is God. And this false god demands sovereignty over everything. Since we have failed to reckon with the religious nature of our government, we have failed to see their absolutist view of their own authority. Where God limits their authority to punishing crimes in accordance with his law, they have assumed to be sovereign over every sphere of life including other God-ordained governments.
As mentioned earlier, the governments of church and family do not owe their existence to the state, nor do they receive their internal system of law from the state, therefore, it is entirely inappropriate for the state to interfere with these independent governments and seek to rewrite their God-given norms and structures. The same can be said regarding other spheres of life established by God through creation. Areas like science, art, education, business, and economics all exist by virtue of creation, not by decree of the state. All these areas also owe their structures and norms to God and not to the state. Therefore, as an obedient servant, the state should stay out of regulating the form and function of these spheres of life, except for when it is preventing criminal behaviour in them.
Christians must recognise that our government is not restrained in these God-honouring ways. Rather, our government functions from radical atheistic assumptions. Since they have no God above them, there is no limiting principle. Because of this we suffer under state absolutism.
When a secular government seeks to cast off all Biblical restraint, and control the levers of power over every sphere of life, we get New Zealand 2021.
When the civil government extends its reach into education, we get radical secularism, the promotion of LGBTQ+ ideology, Unteach Racism (the radically racist propaganda promoted by the Teaching Council), and the banning of Christian teaching through bills like the “Conversion Practices Bill”.
When the civil government interferes with the institution of the family, we get the redefinition of marriage, the banning of parental discipline (Anti-Smacking Bill), and the seizure of children.
When the state takes on the role of welfare, we get radical dependence on state welfare, society destroying redistributionism, socialism, and progressive taxation. All this along with the collapse of real charity.
When you bring the state into media, you get state funded broadcasting, a monopoly on the narrative, and an attack on the free press.
When the magistrates get involved in medicine, you get tax-funded abortion, euthanasia, sex change surgeries, denial of conscience, and mass lockdowns in the name of public health.
All this and much more is happening now in New Zealand. We live in statist times!
Statism
Noun: the principle or policy of concentrating extensive economic, political, and related controls in the state at the cost of individual liberty.[1]
The reason why God limits the role of the state to punishing evil is because the state is not equipped to govern every sphere of life. Be that as it may, many today have a view of the state as “omni-competent”.
Over time we have relinquished areas of responsibility to the state where biblically it clearly has no jurisdiction. Our civil government now seeks to govern norms and structures established by God. The omni-competent state seeks to usurp the authority of God over every sphere of life, from art, to entertainment, all the way up to church and family.
To whatever degree Christians support this action, they are supporting the idolatry of the state!
2. Don’t Idolise the State
If the civil government gets its authority, legitimacy, and jurisdiction from God, then we must honour the boundaries placed on our magistrates. In the West today, we have a massive problem with the idolatry of the state. Many Christians empower and support the state in its usurping of greater and greater authority. Christians today see no problem with redistributive taxes, or state education and welfare. In fact, many Christians champion these causes. This is nothing more that shameless idolatry of Caesar.
Whatever we turn to when all else fails, that is most likely our God.
How often do we hear these kinds of arguments from Christians, “if the government didn’t provide schools then children would grow up without an education”, or “God wants us to be generous with our money, but unless the government redistributes wealth, the needy won’t be cared for”?
This kind of pragmatism is rank idolatry. In essence, these Christians are saying that the government should use its coercive power and its sanctions to steal wealth from its citizens to pay for the children of other citizens to get an education. The government should wield the sword to intimidate its citizens into giving up their wealth in order to provide welfare for others. This theft is performed in the name of generosity and those who object to this imposition are labelled greedy.
I have a few questions for these statist Christians; What is a just penalty for someone who refuses to pay for the education of another family’s children? What is a righteous penalty for a man who refuses to hand over his money to a state welfare program? How do you determine that the penalty is neither too brutal nor too lenient? I don’t see how these questions can be answered consistently.
I want to maintain that Christians are obliged to call the state to recognise its role as a minister of God. A minister with a limited role. There are some things that are outside the scope of the government’s jurisdiction. As Christians we must not empower the state to flout the limits their office. We must not adopt the secular perspective of the omni-competent state. This idolatrous state has wrought immeasurable destruction in the West over the past 60 years. We must resist their usurping of God’s position on the throne.
Some have responded to these ideas by asserting that the gospel is the solution, and we should just call our leaders to faith and repentance. We need to trouble ourselves with all the specifics of policies and jurisdictions. While this is true on the surface, this is usually a cop-out used by those who have no idea what repentance really looks like. I would say that part of the call to repentance means that we need to help them to see their sin and call them to turn to Christ. This means that as civil rulers they need to know what their sins are in regard to their office and not just their personal sins. This is a part of discipling the nations and commanding them to obey everything God has commanded them. In the same way that a father and husband must be taught to fulfil those roles in a Christian way, the civil rulers must also be taught to honour God in their office.
This is only accomplished through the gospel changing hearts, however, it must be the true gospel and not the truncated and dualistic gospel that most are familiar with.
3. State Idolatry and Government Response to COVID
In light of everything discussed thus far I would like to make some observations about the Labour government’s response to COVID and the inadequate and shameful complicity of the Christian church.
For a long time now, Christians in the West have enjoyed relative comfort and liberty and as a result we have grown complacent and all but lost any meaningful theology of government. When the 2020 pandemic rolled round and the church was forced to close its doors, most leaders were caught flat-footed. Without a solid and robust theology of government and sphere sovereignty, pastors had to do the hard work of wading through a complex theological issue on the fly.
If you have never thought through whether or not Christians can lawfully use physical violence to defend themselves, then the worst time to start thinking through the theology of the issue is when you hear someone breaking into your home at 3am.
Unfortunately, I suspect that this is what has happened in 2020-2021. When you have to work through a complex issue while being in the middle of a high stress situation, it is difficult to be impartial to the situation and examine the Bible in an objective manner.
Here is the lay of the land as I see it; for decades, the state has usurped authority to itself and grown ever larger in its reach, entirely rejecting any Biblical limits and restraints. In turn, the state has wrought immeasurable sin and wickedness in almost every sphere of life, and most of this was done right under the nose of the Christian church without so much as a peep. Mainly because the church didn’t know what the state was meant to be doing to begin with.
In 2020, the civil government thought that it would respond to the COVID problem by assuming to have the power to strip people of their livelihoods and force them to quarantine at home. While the Bible gives the state the right to quarantine the sick, our rulers flipped God’s law on its head and sought to quarantine the healthy. They sent the entire population into their homes and stripped fathers of the ability to work and provide for their families, thus preventing men from fulfilling their God-given roles. In order to justify this unprecedented overreach, they also committed to taking upwards of 90 billion dollars from our children and grandchildren to pay for this house arrest.
To our shame, most of the church supported this as an act of “love for neighbour”. Nothing could be further from the truth. As Christians, we can not adopt the Marxist ethic that says, “the ends justify the means”. Yet this is often the argument put forward by Christians. Countless times across the past year and a half I have heard Christians justifying these actions by saying that on the balance of things, more people are saved by the lockdown measures than would otherwise be if the country never locked down. What these Christians fail to reckon with is whether or not the governing authorities have the jurisdiction to take such actions. Biblically speaking the answer is a resounding no!
The only reason we are unable to see the rebellious overreach of civil government is because we have had decades of practice not seeing.
Now some might ask, “What should the government have done then?” My response is simple. Repent, and beg God for mercy, obey God’s law and do what you can within your sphere of authority. Now maybe this would mean more people die of COVID, however, at least in this situation, the death is a pandemic wrought upon us by the sovereign hand of God. With our decades of rebellion, the Lord knows we are owed far more than a COVID pandemic. If this pandemic is the judgment of God against our nation for our wretched rebellion, the worst thing we could do is double down on our idols and sacrifice more on the altar of the state.
When someone is spiraling toward the darkness, the light doesn’t get any better as he goes. This is happening to them because they can’t see. This is what a judicial stupor is.[2]
The idolatry of the state cannot solve our problems. Yet, like all idols, they make grand promises while demanding more and more of us. 41 billion more dollars, more of your freedoms, more of your liberties, give me your kids, promise their wealth to me and I’ll make it all better.
Every false god is a cruel tyrant who seeks our enslavement. Civil government is no different. Like all false gods, its promises are empty. Only Yahweh can give freely from his abundance because he alone owns the cattle on a thousand hills. The government produces no wealth, all they can do is take. While promising to give us security and safety, they will take everything. In speaking about idols, the Psalmist says this:
8 Those who make them become like them;
so do all who trust in them.
9 O Israel, trust in the Lord!
He is their help and their shield.
(Psalm 115:8-9)
If we want security and safety, we must recognise that all idols are equally impotent. If you think the idolatry of state is a wise way to love your neighbours, you may as well go and scatter some chicken bones while dancing around a fire.
My final observation here has to do with the civil government determining that churches need to cease gathering. Of all the examples of civil rulers going well beyond their jurisdiction, I thought this one would be the most obvious. In 2020 and again in 2021, the state decided that the church of God was obliged to cease meeting. Under God’s law and in accordance with their ministry as God’s servants, the civil magistrates had no right to do this. The church is not a social gathering, on par with the movie cinemas or sporting events. The church is an independent government established by God himself, and subservient to his law and ordinances.
To put a halt to the organisation of the church and prevent this government from functioning is on par with breaking up the family unit and destroying that institution. The civil authorities have no right to prevent the gathered worship of God if the attendees have no presenting contagion or sickness. They have no jurisdiction to prevent the administration of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper.
Since the state has no jurisdiction whatsoever to mandate these tyrannical restrictions, Christians are under no obligation whatsoever to obey them. The lockdown of the church is an entirely illegitimate command from a rebellious servant. Moreover, it is a command that requires Christians to disobey God by failing to meet for church and participate in the sacraments and gathered worship.
29 But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men. (Acts 5:29)
It is high time that Christians ignore the immoral and unjust dictates of the state and return to the gathered worship of the church. Let us call our civil government to repentance and declare to them the Lordship of Christ.
[1] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/statism
[2] Wilson, Douglas. Rules for Reformers (p. 126). Canon Press.