Beyond the State: Introduction

Christians have long been struggling with the question of the proper role of government. Old Testament Israel was a unique ecclesiocratic system. In contrast, Jesus seemed disinterested in political questions. The attitude of early believers ranged from indifferent to hostile. Later Christians varied from anarchists to, all too often, tyrants.

The controversy continues today. Is there a Christian position on welfare? Or the balanced budget amendment? How about abortion, school prayer, social spending, foreign aid, and the Gulf War? Some well-intentioned believers think so. After all, God knows everything, so he surely knows the best policy. And it would make our lives a lot easier if he answered the most vexing policy questions, instead of leaving us with the Apostle James' unsatisfying injunction to ask for wisdom, which God "gives generously to all without finding fault" (James 1:5).

But is there a specific Christian public policy? The political realm is part of God's creation and as such is subject to His rule. "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it," wrote David (Psalm 24:1). Christians have several responsibilities toward the state. One is to pray for public officials. Another is obedience, though this obligation is not absolute. However, the Christian's general duty to respect public authority combined with the state's godly role suggests a third responsibility: to use scriptural principles to shape public policy.

Indeed, by doing so Christians help fulfill Jesus' injunction that they act as the "salt of the earth" and "light of the world" (Matthew 5:13, 14). These commands apply no less to one's role in civic life than any other human endeavor. While this seems simple enough, it leaves the most difficult issues still undecided. What should people of faith expect their government to do? What role should Christians ascribe to the state?

It is perhaps easiest to start with what believers should not do--treat the state as either a redemptive or an eternal institution. Moreover, scripture restricts how the state can act. The most important limitation flows from the first commandment given to Moses: "you shall have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3). Although the "other gods" were usually such supposed deities as Baal, some secular rulers, notably the later Roman emperors, also claimed to be gods.

Moreover, the all-powerful state has often acted as a secular god. From the Pharaoh who held the Jews in captivity and ordered the murder of their newborn sons to the twentieth century totalitarians with their personality cults, civil authorities have often usurped God's role. Even the modern welfare state has increasingly turned into what author Herbert Schlossberg calls "the idol state," using "the language of compassion because its intention is a messianic one." Increasingly the state seeks to supplant God by giving life meaning, setting moral standards, meeting personal needs, and otherwise directing human activity.

This is, in fact, the "servile state" of which John Patrick Zmirak writes in his essay. Liberal tyranny, he observes, "runs up bills it cannot afford to pay." Conservative tyranny "confiscates the last remnants of individual autonomy." Neither model would seem appropriate for a Christian, for both point us toward the "Beast" state of Revelation. And that, explains Dean Robert Mounce of Western Kentucky University, "has always been, and will be in a final intensified manifestation, the deification of secular authority."

This abuse of power is evident in America less through the grotesque abuses of the twentieth century death states and more through the welfare state's pervasive absorption of private life. Christ's injunction to be salt and light implies that believers must have at least some autonomy from the state and control of economic resources. While the Soviet Union officially outlawed private activities like charity, western welfare states use subsidies and regulations to control communal life. As Peter Laird warns in his contribution, "Unless the state responsibly limits its action it may inappropriately inhibit individual action as it does directly when it usurps the role most properly left to each individual or group of individuals: clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, curing the sick, etc."

Of course, at times the social ills facing society may seem overwhelming. But the state has not proved itself capable of solving them. Over the last three decades government has spent roughly $5.3 trillion--more than to win World War II, even after adjusting for inflation--on poverty, yet the problem continues to worsen. Moreover, the state is stingy when it comes to what the poor most require: compassion. Only religion can reach people's greatest needs. Which is why Tyler Wagenmaker rightly proclaims that "the state's powers must be limited and the influence of religion in society must increase."

This is true throughout society. There is nothing theoretically wrong, from a biblical standpoint, of government intervening in the economy or creating public schools. But it cannot properly do so in such a way as to inhibit basic Christian principles. Yet consider: events in Washington today can properly be described as the politics of plunder. Influential interest groups use the state to mulct taxpayers and hamstring competitors; the victims are usually the poor and disadvantaged, who possess neither the economic nor the political wherewithal to protect themselves. As David Bosnich warns us: "The American public needs to remember that our greatness as a nation is dependent upon private initiative and personal freedom, not the dictates of a bureaucratic welfare state."

Consider the case of education. What task is more important than teaching the young? Yet the state is failing, disastrously, to fulfill its self-assured role. It no longer teaches inner city students to read and write, yet has usurped parents' authority for their children's moral education. In many cities that government doesn't even provide for students' physical safety. This is outrageous, scandalous--and morally wrong. As Gregory Randolph argues, "Any attempt by any government to frustrate the exercise of [the parents' right to educate their children] is a grave injustice and must be resisted by Christian parents."

Believers will never find it easy to solve political issues. There is no simple biblical agenda, no set of Christian legislative proposals. Rather, the Bible sets boundaries for the proper political debate. Government has an important, but limited role. Too often well-intentioned clerics remember the first but forget the second. Strict limits on public power are absolutely necessary: believers must be able not only to worship God, but also to control enough resources to act as salt and light in the larger world. Moreover, government cannot be so powerful that it violates that very precepts--life and religious liberty, for instance--that it is charged with defending. Many other issues, the results of experience, if nothing else, warn against entrusting substantial coercive power to sinful human beings.

In the end, our involvement in politics is not our most important Christian obligation. Nevertheless, it remains part of our Christian walk and, like our interaction with people in so many other worldly endeavors, requires us to use the wisdom with which God has so graciously offered to endow us. If God's general purpose is clear, "an awkward consequence of the Christian view," writes Richard John Neuhaus, "is that we are frequently unsure what that intent is with respect to specifics at hand." That, however, does not provide us with an excuse for failing to grapple with political issues. We must, in Neuhaus' words, "act in the courage of our uncertainties."

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington D.C. He is a syndicated columnist and author of numerous books.