The Separation of Kingdom and State: A Working Theory
Proffered for Comment and Consideration:
Immediately after the 2004 national elections, many pundits loudly touted or scorned poll results that suggested that the foremost issue for consideration among voters were “value questions.” Although this result arose from a poll that listed only certain issues and although no one actually discards “values” generally, the prevailing notion was that voters who cared about values, or valued morality, voted overwhelmingly Republican. The necessary corollary being that voters in the Democratic minority eschewed morals and chose their candidate based on something other than “values.”
With the recent passing of a Catholic pope and the election of another, the characterization of each has been remarkably contrary. Either John Paul II was a cold-warrior in defense of liberal Western democracy, or he was an arch-conservative, bent on ignoring the reality of modern life and culture. Benedict XVI was praised as a stabilizing force for the “little boat of Christendom,” while Cardinal Ratzinger was vilified as the High Inquisitor rooting out any threat of heresy.
The contemporary conversation presents a problem of semantics that exposes a problem in reality. The semantic problem arises from over- and mis-use of the terms “liberal” and “conservative.” These terms leave us woefully ill-prepared and out of sorts as we engage in the narrative of our world and the gospel. Is Christiane Amanpour liberal when she asks an American bishop on CNN whether the new Pope will honor the teaching of John Paul II or whether he will respond to “modern society”? Are we in the Church of Christ liberal if we even consider fellowship and worship with the very Catholics that are so conservative that they reject the ordination of women? Are Catholics themselves conservative because they march against abortion, or are they liberal because they march against capital punishment?
Barak Obama helpfully framed the issue when Alan Keyes challenged him to debate in the 2004 race to represent Illinois in the Senate. Keyes, the Republican, challenged Obama, the Democrat, on issues of “morality,” abortion and gay rights. Obama responded effectively, that he would happily debate Keyes on those issues of “private morality” if Keyes would agree to debate Obama on issues of “public morality,” spiraling crime, racial disparities, poverty and education. The distinction between an emphasis on “public morality” and “private morality” is much more helpful to define the contemporary interplay of politics and religion.
Assuming for the sake of this discussion that such a distinction exists, let us define the terms loosely, acknowledging that many ragged edges will blur specific lines. Public morality should include traditional “social justice” issues: economic and demographic policy questions that address economics, race, gender, civil rights and the like. Private morality should include issues that affect primarily individuals and their relationships; in the current parlance this almost always refers to something related to sex.
A critical schism exists now in the ship of Christendom between those churches and denominations who primarily are interested in public or private morality. In general terms, high-church liturgical denominations seem to emphasize issues of public morality and social justice, while allowing for much more personal liberty in issues of private morality. Low church evangelicals place a much greater emphasis on individual morality and behavior and tend to give second- or third-shrift to issues of poverty and racial justice. The former snub the latter as conservative and fundamentalist. The latter condemn the former as liberal, or even libertine.
The prevailing voices now defining the politics of faith have succeeded in simplifying complexity, describing believers in party terms that alienate the church into factions. The Church thus is manipulated into an artificial conversation that thwarts the work of the Kingdom.
Jesus’ gospel message to the masses and His disciples was a declaration that the Kingdom of God had arrived, was present and demanded a reaction, an effect. God broke into the world to consummate His creative work, by the grace of Christ, to reconcile the world to Himself. All the law and the prophets hung on two commands, to love the Lord with all our hearts, minds, souls and strengths and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. We are His ambassadors, sharing in His ministry of reconciliation, declaring His Kingdom for His glory and inviting all to join, in love, humility, mercy and justice.
If the work of the Kingdom is reconciling the world to its Maker, through Jesus, then how can the Church ignore either public or private morality? We are driven to that distinction, and respective emphasis and criticism, for fear that we will appear either conservative or liberal, depending on our persuasion. We are deceived that the Church should emphasize one over the other, to the loss of both. The Church must rise above the characterization of our mission by contemporary political nomenclature. We are called to minister to the widows and orphans, the poor whom we will always with us, the downtrodden and abused, and we must promote obedience to His will for our lives and relationships, as reflected in the Word for those who would follow Him.
Accepting these truths, which should not be controversial, we arrive at the rub of our transcendence. How may the Kingdom best achieve its ends of public and private morality. Presently in America, the Kingdom is marginalized by the Church’s own self deception that the State is a viable means to promote God’s mission. Most clearly, the so-called “Christian Right” has gained a mighty foothold in politics and government, yet this is more the result of savvy conservatives co-opting the language of religion to sway naturally conservative populations to attached their faith to self-interested politics. (A note: Politics in a capitalist, republican democracy is necessarily self-interested, so the criticism is not whether American citizens should vote with self-interest but whether this is consistent with Kingdom life.) Many low-church, evangelical Protestants look now primarily to the state to promote the sort of society that the Kingdom should resemble; that is, a nation of people who act morally.
Conversely, many high-church, liturgical Christians rely on the state as a primary tool for social justice. Demanding that the government enforce mercy and justice on the private sector to overcome the rich, influential and self-interested. These political forces now are in decline against the conservative majority which now enjoys its reward in ascendancy.
In this environment, the Church must ask whether it is promoting the Kingdom, to God’s glory, or selling itself sort as it engages the State for its ends. Historically, without perceivable exception, nation-states and governments act in self-interest. Has magnanimous state ever existed? At best a state may do the right thing but rarely, if ever, for the right reasons. This inherent selfish ambition is not consistent with the Kingdom described in the Word, yet the Word still does not demand the Church to disengage from the State. Jesus acknowledged Caesar on the coin, and Romans 13 suggests that God may raise even criminal regimes for His own righteous ends. Even so, we must challenge the assumption that engaging the State is a good idea, or even practically realistic, to achieve the ends of the Kingdom.
In what instance has the American state ever been successful in creating a moral people? It has not. At best, the State can enforce moral behavior in its citizens, but it cannot create individual morality. The State may create institutional morality within itself by judicious and fair policies, but even social justice eludes the State. An example, the State has eradicated legal slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation and expressly discriminatory policies, but the State has not eliminated racism. It cannot, because racism is a disease of the heart, and only One has the power to affect that realm.
In another roaring failure, a wave of religiously motivated and politically successful morality prompted an effort in the early 20th century to end the consumption of alcoholic beverages among the people, surely a seed of social discord, sin and destructive behavior, by the ultimate American tool of Constitutional Amendment. Prohibition crashed and failed entirely, even as individuals may have acted more “morally,” but the State’s effort backfired and created more immoral people, as sneaks became bootleggers, bootleggers became gangsters and little grandmothers broke the law for home remedies. Temperance bullied the State into a dismal experiment that tendered no more morality than when it first began.
At what cost does the Church entrust the State to do the work of the Kingdom? Is the State even up to the task? Some might respond that the Church should employ every available tool, including political power within the State, to get folks to act right. The State, however, is a miserable failure in such regards. When the Church entrusts the State to promote morality, the Church has a tendency to become lazy, to believe that it has done what it can do, to abdicate its further responsibility to serve and shine. Another example, many conservatives criticize our “welfare state,” and our conservative President currently is seeking to overhaul Social Security and other social program that are not profitable for the State. As the State has assumed the responsibility of caring for the poor and needy, the orphaned and crippled, the Church largely has forgotten its calling to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit the imprisoned. Why should the Church expend its resources where the State is already taxing us for that very purpose? Should our FICA deductions not reduce our tithe if the Church is out of the welfare business?
The State is a failure for Kingdom work, and the Church should look elsewhere. In our republican democracy, the Church must look to itself and its pure calling as the most effective tool for the Kingdom. At this moment in history, the Church seems much more interested in battling to create (or re-create) a Christian Nation. If the Nation includes a religious motto on its currency, if the Nation acknowledges symbols of religious heritage, if the Nation has laws that look righteous, if the Nation promotes religion and the religious, then the Church appeases itself with the notion that it has reclaimed the Nation for God, even if people are starving and lonely, even if single mothers are shamed and terrified into abortion, even if Christian churches still practice apartheid, even if teenagers seek redemption first in prescription drugs.
The Church must change its idea of success. The Church must seek a nation of Christians, not a Christian Nation. If the nation were filled by citizens of the Kingdom, people of faith who loved God, loved their neighbors, sought the truth in compassion and mercy, who desired justice for the weak and who emptied themselves in service, then the State would reflect their spirit. If politicians sought election from a population of devout believers who longed for the Kingdom and its Lord, would the politicians not respond accordingly? If the power of a government derives from the consent of the governed, how effective would a government grow in the Kingdom, if the governed were people of prayer and devotion to the Creator God?
How may the Church promote a nation of Christians? Only through the hard, messy work of grace. Jesus and His apostles did not set out to reform the laws of the land, did not seek to overcome Rome, did not seek to depose Herod for a Christian king. The early Christians turned the world upside down with the power of their message, the gospel, that the Kingdom is here in Christ our Lord, Who loves you abundantly. The Church cannot legislate conversion, even with a Republican majority. The Church must seek the Kingdom in the hearts of our neighbors. Only when hearts meet hearts and good deeds bear witness to the Father in Heaven are lives changed and souls saved through the Spirit.
Should the Church disengage from the civic process? No, but it must recognize the limitations of temporal government and politics. We will have no victory for the Kingdom in the ballot box. We are called to be salt and light, stars shining in the universe who change the world when our very presence gives glory to God. The Church does not fail to avail itself of a tool when it forgoes the government; rather, the Church hamstrings itself when it attempts to circumvent humiliating and inconvenient service by achieving political triumph. God has so much more in mind for us. He wills us to transcend ourselves and our institutions to witness Him reconciling the world to Himself in the miraculous and mysterious means of grace. Were the Church doing its job properly, the Kingdom would be clearly evident among us. The poor, the afflicted, the mistreated and maligned would not have need of a State to stand up for them, because the Church would be their shelter.
May God lift up the heads of those the Church has forgotten.
Immediately after the 2004 national elections, many pundits loudly touted or scorned poll results that suggested that the foremost issue for consideration among voters were “value questions.” Although this result arose from a poll that listed only certain issues and although no one actually discards “values” generally, the prevailing notion was that voters who cared about values, or valued morality, voted overwhelmingly Republican. The necessary corollary being that voters in the Democratic minority eschewed morals and chose their candidate based on something other than “values.”
With the recent passing of a Catholic pope and the election of another, the characterization of each has been remarkably contrary. Either John Paul II was a cold-warrior in defense of liberal Western democracy, or he was an arch-conservative, bent on ignoring the reality of modern life and culture. Benedict XVI was praised as a stabilizing force for the “little boat of Christendom,” while Cardinal Ratzinger was vilified as the High Inquisitor rooting out any threat of heresy.
The contemporary conversation presents a problem of semantics that exposes a problem in reality. The semantic problem arises from over- and mis-use of the terms “liberal” and “conservative.” These terms leave us woefully ill-prepared and out of sorts as we engage in the narrative of our world and the gospel. Is Christiane Amanpour liberal when she asks an American bishop on CNN whether the new Pope will honor the teaching of John Paul II or whether he will respond to “modern society”? Are we in the Church of Christ liberal if we even consider fellowship and worship with the very Catholics that are so conservative that they reject the ordination of women? Are Catholics themselves conservative because they march against abortion, or are they liberal because they march against capital punishment?
Barak Obama helpfully framed the issue when Alan Keyes challenged him to debate in the 2004 race to represent Illinois in the Senate. Keyes, the Republican, challenged Obama, the Democrat, on issues of “morality,” abortion and gay rights. Obama responded effectively, that he would happily debate Keyes on those issues of “private morality” if Keyes would agree to debate Obama on issues of “public morality,” spiraling crime, racial disparities, poverty and education. The distinction between an emphasis on “public morality” and “private morality” is much more helpful to define the contemporary interplay of politics and religion.
Assuming for the sake of this discussion that such a distinction exists, let us define the terms loosely, acknowledging that many ragged edges will blur specific lines. Public morality should include traditional “social justice” issues: economic and demographic policy questions that address economics, race, gender, civil rights and the like. Private morality should include issues that affect primarily individuals and their relationships; in the current parlance this almost always refers to something related to sex.
A critical schism exists now in the ship of Christendom between those churches and denominations who primarily are interested in public or private morality. In general terms, high-church liturgical denominations seem to emphasize issues of public morality and social justice, while allowing for much more personal liberty in issues of private morality. Low church evangelicals place a much greater emphasis on individual morality and behavior and tend to give second- or third-shrift to issues of poverty and racial justice. The former snub the latter as conservative and fundamentalist. The latter condemn the former as liberal, or even libertine.
The prevailing voices now defining the politics of faith have succeeded in simplifying complexity, describing believers in party terms that alienate the church into factions. The Church thus is manipulated into an artificial conversation that thwarts the work of the Kingdom.
Jesus’ gospel message to the masses and His disciples was a declaration that the Kingdom of God had arrived, was present and demanded a reaction, an effect. God broke into the world to consummate His creative work, by the grace of Christ, to reconcile the world to Himself. All the law and the prophets hung on two commands, to love the Lord with all our hearts, minds, souls and strengths and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. We are His ambassadors, sharing in His ministry of reconciliation, declaring His Kingdom for His glory and inviting all to join, in love, humility, mercy and justice.
If the work of the Kingdom is reconciling the world to its Maker, through Jesus, then how can the Church ignore either public or private morality? We are driven to that distinction, and respective emphasis and criticism, for fear that we will appear either conservative or liberal, depending on our persuasion. We are deceived that the Church should emphasize one over the other, to the loss of both. The Church must rise above the characterization of our mission by contemporary political nomenclature. We are called to minister to the widows and orphans, the poor whom we will always with us, the downtrodden and abused, and we must promote obedience to His will for our lives and relationships, as reflected in the Word for those who would follow Him.
Accepting these truths, which should not be controversial, we arrive at the rub of our transcendence. How may the Kingdom best achieve its ends of public and private morality. Presently in America, the Kingdom is marginalized by the Church’s own self deception that the State is a viable means to promote God’s mission. Most clearly, the so-called “Christian Right” has gained a mighty foothold in politics and government, yet this is more the result of savvy conservatives co-opting the language of religion to sway naturally conservative populations to attached their faith to self-interested politics. (A note: Politics in a capitalist, republican democracy is necessarily self-interested, so the criticism is not whether American citizens should vote with self-interest but whether this is consistent with Kingdom life.) Many low-church, evangelical Protestants look now primarily to the state to promote the sort of society that the Kingdom should resemble; that is, a nation of people who act morally.
Conversely, many high-church, liturgical Christians rely on the state as a primary tool for social justice. Demanding that the government enforce mercy and justice on the private sector to overcome the rich, influential and self-interested. These political forces now are in decline against the conservative majority which now enjoys its reward in ascendancy.
In this environment, the Church must ask whether it is promoting the Kingdom, to God’s glory, or selling itself sort as it engages the State for its ends. Historically, without perceivable exception, nation-states and governments act in self-interest. Has magnanimous state ever existed? At best a state may do the right thing but rarely, if ever, for the right reasons. This inherent selfish ambition is not consistent with the Kingdom described in the Word, yet the Word still does not demand the Church to disengage from the State. Jesus acknowledged Caesar on the coin, and Romans 13 suggests that God may raise even criminal regimes for His own righteous ends. Even so, we must challenge the assumption that engaging the State is a good idea, or even practically realistic, to achieve the ends of the Kingdom.
In what instance has the American state ever been successful in creating a moral people? It has not. At best, the State can enforce moral behavior in its citizens, but it cannot create individual morality. The State may create institutional morality within itself by judicious and fair policies, but even social justice eludes the State. An example, the State has eradicated legal slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation and expressly discriminatory policies, but the State has not eliminated racism. It cannot, because racism is a disease of the heart, and only One has the power to affect that realm.
In another roaring failure, a wave of religiously motivated and politically successful morality prompted an effort in the early 20th century to end the consumption of alcoholic beverages among the people, surely a seed of social discord, sin and destructive behavior, by the ultimate American tool of Constitutional Amendment. Prohibition crashed and failed entirely, even as individuals may have acted more “morally,” but the State’s effort backfired and created more immoral people, as sneaks became bootleggers, bootleggers became gangsters and little grandmothers broke the law for home remedies. Temperance bullied the State into a dismal experiment that tendered no more morality than when it first began.
At what cost does the Church entrust the State to do the work of the Kingdom? Is the State even up to the task? Some might respond that the Church should employ every available tool, including political power within the State, to get folks to act right. The State, however, is a miserable failure in such regards. When the Church entrusts the State to promote morality, the Church has a tendency to become lazy, to believe that it has done what it can do, to abdicate its further responsibility to serve and shine. Another example, many conservatives criticize our “welfare state,” and our conservative President currently is seeking to overhaul Social Security and other social program that are not profitable for the State. As the State has assumed the responsibility of caring for the poor and needy, the orphaned and crippled, the Church largely has forgotten its calling to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit the imprisoned. Why should the Church expend its resources where the State is already taxing us for that very purpose? Should our FICA deductions not reduce our tithe if the Church is out of the welfare business?
The State is a failure for Kingdom work, and the Church should look elsewhere. In our republican democracy, the Church must look to itself and its pure calling as the most effective tool for the Kingdom. At this moment in history, the Church seems much more interested in battling to create (or re-create) a Christian Nation. If the Nation includes a religious motto on its currency, if the Nation acknowledges symbols of religious heritage, if the Nation has laws that look righteous, if the Nation promotes religion and the religious, then the Church appeases itself with the notion that it has reclaimed the Nation for God, even if people are starving and lonely, even if single mothers are shamed and terrified into abortion, even if Christian churches still practice apartheid, even if teenagers seek redemption first in prescription drugs.
The Church must change its idea of success. The Church must seek a nation of Christians, not a Christian Nation. If the nation were filled by citizens of the Kingdom, people of faith who loved God, loved their neighbors, sought the truth in compassion and mercy, who desired justice for the weak and who emptied themselves in service, then the State would reflect their spirit. If politicians sought election from a population of devout believers who longed for the Kingdom and its Lord, would the politicians not respond accordingly? If the power of a government derives from the consent of the governed, how effective would a government grow in the Kingdom, if the governed were people of prayer and devotion to the Creator God?
How may the Church promote a nation of Christians? Only through the hard, messy work of grace. Jesus and His apostles did not set out to reform the laws of the land, did not seek to overcome Rome, did not seek to depose Herod for a Christian king. The early Christians turned the world upside down with the power of their message, the gospel, that the Kingdom is here in Christ our Lord, Who loves you abundantly. The Church cannot legislate conversion, even with a Republican majority. The Church must seek the Kingdom in the hearts of our neighbors. Only when hearts meet hearts and good deeds bear witness to the Father in Heaven are lives changed and souls saved through the Spirit.
Should the Church disengage from the civic process? No, but it must recognize the limitations of temporal government and politics. We will have no victory for the Kingdom in the ballot box. We are called to be salt and light, stars shining in the universe who change the world when our very presence gives glory to God. The Church does not fail to avail itself of a tool when it forgoes the government; rather, the Church hamstrings itself when it attempts to circumvent humiliating and inconvenient service by achieving political triumph. God has so much more in mind for us. He wills us to transcend ourselves and our institutions to witness Him reconciling the world to Himself in the miraculous and mysterious means of grace. Were the Church doing its job properly, the Kingdom would be clearly evident among us. The poor, the afflicted, the mistreated and maligned would not have need of a State to stand up for them, because the Church would be their shelter.
May God lift up the heads of those the Church has forgotten.
posted by JRB at 11:54 PM
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