Church and Government

There are those who feel that the present-day Church has become too preoccupied with matters and processes of government. Others contend that the Church has isolated itself unconscionably from political affairs and must answer the charge of having been a disinterested spectator of mounting confusion and threatening disaster in government. Some would identify the “divine” and the “secular” orders as all but mutually exclusive. Others would stress their interdependence as varying aspects of the activity of the God of the process of history. A false dichotomy, or an equally questionable identification, has been supported by able theological reasoning from the beginning of the Christian era. The rise of pietism as a reaction against Roman Catholic legalism and sacramentarianism fostered a tendency to view the Church as properly aloof from the rough-and-tumble of the political arena. On the other hand, the accentuating of Christian social concern in democratic America, and in conjunction with the rise of a technological society generally, precipitated a massive movement for church participation in securing legislative guarantees of the rights of free men and for demonstration of the “relevance” of Christianity to the social milieu in which the Church must bear its witness and vindicate its commission.

The question we must face is whether the Church’s impact upon society is to be direct or derivative. Will not the Christian Church make its proper contribution to the social situation and to political movements (which the social situation dictates) by fulfilling its original commission, rather than by acquiring new functions not implied by the nature of the Church as explicated in the New Testament? Is there not serious peril for the Church in seeking to exercise public influence at the expense of neglecting the ministry of personal regeneration? Is it not possible that the Church’s feverish preoccupation with social questions may represent a form of escapism from the primary and more difficult obligation of bringing persons into redemptive relationship with God and their fellow men through the word of the Gospel? These are leading questions which I would answer in the affirmative.

The cares of this world and the deceitfulness of ample budgets may mean barrenness for the life of the Church as well as for the life of the individual Christian. The Church that seeks to “save its own life” by procedures running counter to the essential tasks of the Church as the “body of Christ” will lose its life. The law of spiritual survival is penetratingly clear. When the Church abrogates the leadership of its divine Head in favor of the philosophies and plans of men, it chooses a disaster course. The Church exists to serve the Kingdom of God, not the kingdoms of men.

At the beginning of the Book of Acts this issue was settled for the disciples by the risen Christ. Asked if he would, in his resurrection power and prestige, restore the kingdom to Israel (1:6), he sharply rebuked their desire to use him for the fulfillment of their selfish, nationalistic, this-worldly ambitions, and reminded them that it was neither his task nor theirs to restore any kingdom built with human hands. Their task was rather to bear witness to his saving power, to the reality of his Kingdom of righteousness and peace. Their commission was to witness in the power of the Spirit from their own locality to the uttermost parts of the earth, to proclaim the Gospel in nations under every kind of human government and subject to every type of man-made laws.

The ineluctable fact that will not yield to the cleverest of reasoning is that ecclesiastical attempts to reform society will have little effect except in political situations marked by leadership that is, to an influential degree, committed to Christian standards of morality and justice. Christian persuasion moves but little those who do not share its premises. Thus the Church’s primary and unchanging task is to seek the conversion of men to the will of God, so that, in their spheres of influence in national life, they will exercise a moral force that exposes injustice and social evil and creates an atmosphere in which these can and must be challenged by legislative action incorporating Christian principles. It is through the redeemed community, not by high-sounding resolutions passed by church courts, that the conditions of a renewed and reformed society will be met.

Over the main entrance to what we should call the City Hall of Glasgow there appeared for generations the words, “Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the Word.” After the last World War, the building was renovated and the ancient city motto shortened to, “Let Glasgow flourish.” Modern streamlining had eliminated the vital part of the motto. It is by the preaching of the Word that the public conscience is informed; it is by the proclamation of the revealed Word and will of Almighty God that a citizenry is made aware of social and industrial evils to be corrected and is challenged to crusade for conditions honoring the worth of human personality, the principles of human brotherhood, and the inalienable rights of men as those “for whom Christ died.”

Shortly after the close of World War II, four Russian Baptist leaders were permitted to visit the United States for the first time since the Iron Curtain had come down. In Washington these spiritual leaders were the object of much interest, and rightly so. During a press conference, a reporter for a large city paper said to one of the Russian visitors: “As a Christian I am sure you cannot concur in all that the Soviet government believes and practices. How do you oppose these things?” The Russian pastor replied quietly but with telling force, “We preach Christ.” That was all! That was what the first-century Church did in nations under another of the ruthless totalitarian regimes of history. And the two-edged sword of the Word, in hands empowered by the Spirit of him who is King of kings and Lord of lords, gradually forced back paganism until one day the Christian faith was adopted by a Roman emperor and proclaimed the official religion of the empire. I believe that the sacrifice of much which that ancient victory promised may have resulted from the abandonment of the strategy of the primitive Church (as defined so clearly to the “facing-both-ways” disciples by their risen Master) and a shift to reliance upon the techniques and resources of earthly kingdoms.

One thing more must be said. The Church’s waning influence upon the mores of men may in part be accounted for by its inept use of political procedures as a substitute for skillful uses of the resources of the Gospel. There are many secular issues with which the Church is not qualified to deal. As Barker and Preston in their joint volume, Christians in Society, point out, “The Christian Church has suffered, and still does suffer in this country [Britain], from Christians and Church bodies who publish statements and comments on matters which require a certain technical competence which it is only too obvious they do not possess.” In similar terms, the “Report of the Commission for the Interpretation of God’s Will in the Present Crisis as Presented to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland During the War Years” says, “Our religion cannot instruct us as to the technical ways and means by which a just ordering of our social life, a proper distribution of wealth, and an equitable use of our national resources can best be attained. These are matters to which the Christian revelation does not extend, and in regard to which Christians are no wiser than other men.”

Let the Church speak with authority about the Gospel committed to it. Let it denounce evils that the light of revealed truth exposes. Let it cry out for economic justice, racial good will, social order and decency, and a dozen more ends to be desired by the Christian man. But let it refrain from attempting to legislate these issues; from assuming a pose of worldly wisdom in order to dictate terms to which governments must capitulate; from concerning itself so directly with the kingdoms of men that the cause of the Kingdom of God is neglected—or, worse still, deemed irrelevant because of the siren blandishments of short-order procedures. As Charles Malik said in a speech to the United Nations:

We must hope and pray that there will develop in the Western world a mighty spiritual movement which will rediscover and reaffirm its glorious values, and fulfill mankind’s longing for a more just order.… The real issue today is not over communism; it is whether Western society, conceived in the joyous liberties of the Greek city-states, and nurtured on Christian charity, can still recover from the worship of false and alien gods, and return to its authentic sources.

It is this issue that confronts the Christian Church today as in generations past. The Church’s influence will be in direct proportion to its dedication to this task and its success in performing it to the glory of God and for the redemption of men by his power.

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