Cultural Commentary

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The Christian and Civil Government

CapitolThe Clear-Thinking Christian is back!  After two years off to complete my Master’s Degree at Biola University, I’m “back on the blog” and ready to answer more challenges and questions…this time, with credentials (as if that mattered…).

Having just come through another election season and with another already generating momentum, the Christian’s role in government is a frequent question.  As with most topics, views vary — some suggest that Christians are commanded to participate in civil government, others move in quite the opposite direction, claiming that government is evil and Christians should not participate.  As with most blogs, this one has its genesis in a challenge I recently received, this one from another Christian and classmate, ER.

ER and I were discussing the unique case of Kent Hovind, a Christian creationist known as “Dr. Dino” who has been quite popular among the young-earth creationist crowd over the past several decades.  A little background here:  As one of the primary founders of Creation Science Evangelism (now known as Creation Today) and the driving force behind Dinosaur Adventureland and the Creation Museum, Kent Hovind generated quite a following in the Christian community.  Regardless of how you feel about his theology (not the point of the post, though my views on the topic are likely clear from my blogs), the relevant matter is that Kent Hovind has spent the last 8 years in federal prison for multiple charges involving his tax dealings with Dinosaur Adventureland and the Creation Museum (all the details are available from Forbes Magazine here).  In short, he and his wife were not filing 1040s, and were keeping large amounts of cash for most transactions, which masked them from the IRS, and he treated his theme parks as tax-exempt organizations, though they had not received that designation from the IRS.  That’s the background…so what’s the point?

My friend ER said he was not a fan of Kent Hovind “until the tax thing…then I developed a great amount of respect for him.”  ER’s respect for Hovind was based on his ability to evade — personally and professionally — paying taxes.  When I challenged ER on this point, he further articulated that he believed the state to be “the great Satan” and that we are Biblically commanded to resist the state, which he followed with assurance to me that Jesus would support everything Hovind was doing.  Resisting an inherently evil entity (the state) is not only advocated by Christ, but also Biblically commanded.  He referenced 1 Samuel 8:4 – 18 as support for this view.

That’s the situation…now it’s time for some clear thinking.  As with all things, we will seek first to be Biblical.  What does the Bible say about participation in, and submission to, civil government?  It is far from silent on this topic, providing abundant guidance on on how and in what circumstances Christians should engage with government, setting clear bounds for both obedience and dissent.  Following Scripture, several points seem clear:

1.  Civil Government was not part of God’s original design.  After the fall, mankind succumbed to the temptations of sin and the devil, and while he maintains his special place in creation, the presence of sin no longer allows him to live with complete and unrestricted freedom.  The resulting “society of fallen beings”[1] develops very quickly after the fall, with violent crime (murder) present by the fourth chapter of Genesis, followed closely by urban development, industry, philosophy, and art evident by the end of that chapter.  This society of sinners further degenerates into crime, guilt, corruption, and condemnation, mandating the establishment of some sort of civil order, detailed in chapters six through nine. This civil government cannot provide social perfection and therefore rules with force rather than love, but nevertheless it provides a structure of law, obedience, prosecution, and punishment that creates a flawed but adequate social order in which mankind can fulfill his Biblical mandate.  This was not God’s original plan. The world is wholly the creation of a transcendent, self-existent God, and was created perfectly good.  The entire world, including man and all his social connections, belongs to the divine Creator, but in following Satan’s temptation mankind fell and took the world with him into a state of brokenness. This condition of sin and evil is a perversion of the original good, and has polluted the whole natural order.  However, the Christian can rest assured that no matter how powerful the state becomes, it owns nothing it governs — all of creation, including mankind and his institutions, were redeemed by Christ.  This is the “beginning condition” of the world, in which we then move to establish civil government.

2.  Civil Government is a result of the fall, but is established by God.  God’s attributes of creativity and sovereignty extend into providence – that is, the very same One who created the Earth and all it contains also preserves it and governs it. This means that God established all governments present on the Earth, and their continuation or dissolution is simply a matter of God’s providence.  The first appearance of civil government is in a covenant between God and the survivors of the flood, detailed in Genesis 8 and 9.  This covenant with Noah had four provisions.  First, civil government is for the protection and improvement of human life (Genesis 9:7-11), reinforcing God’s desire to see humans prosper and succeed. Second, the ultimate source of all government is the sovereign Lord Himself, it is not the result of a social contract or natural culmination of human effort (Genesis 9:13, 16, 17). Third and fourth, government has a moral basis, founded on man’s creation in God’s image.  Indeed the very concept of justice is a religious concept, rooted in the perfectly good nature of God, extending to every civil right and all authority on earth.  This divine establishment of all government is mandated by the fact that man is sinful, capable of incredible evil, and can only be curbed by the restrictive power of the Holy Spirit upon man’s heart and of the government upon society.  The fact that all government is fundamentally religious also means that justice – up to and including the death penalty – is actually divine vengeance, God’s vindication as governor of the universe.  This Noahic Covenant is echoed in Jeremiah, Isaiah, Psalms, and Daniel, with many of the books of prophecy and poetry reinforcing the concept that it is God who directs the rise and fall of nations, and that He establishes the criteria for kings and rulers and judges (see Daniel 1:2, 4:17, 5:21, 6:26, 7:27, and essentially all of chapter 2; in Isaiah, see especially 44:28 and 45:13; also Jeremiah 22:13 – 17).

3.  The Example of Jesus Christ is One of Submission and Obedience.  While the majority of Biblical proscriptions for civil government are found in the Old Testament, the New Testament gives us guidance as well, not least in the conduct of Jesus and the disciples when dealing with civil government. From His youngest years, Jesus obeyed both His parents and the local authorities.  Although at times He clearly thought the administration (both religious and civil) was corrupt and unjust, He obeyed nonetheless.  Jesus taught, and taught His disciples to teach, to “Submit yourself to every ordinance of man” (1 Peter 2:13 – 14, 17), to even do the bidding of the Pharisees whom He despised and consistently refuted (Matthew 23:2 – 4, 13 – 29).  He obeyed the laws of the civil authorities as well, whether Herod Antipas or Pontius Pilate, though He never gave them more than they requested.  He never encouraged disobedience, or rebellion against a pagan, idolatrous, and unjust civil government (contrary to the charges brought against Him and for which He was crucified).  Even His famous “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” (Matthew 22:20 – 22) stands as a timeless synonym for obedience to both civil government and the sovereign God of the universe.

Jesus not only set the example for obedience to civil government in His actions, he taught clearly on the topic as well.  In Matthew 17, Jesus is pressed about paying the legally-required temple tax.  This could have been a difficult issue, since the tax supported both the Jewish religious authorities and the construction of a temple for pagan worship.  Jesus wisely sidesteps the central issues, and details that the tax must be paid if for no other reason than to avoid offending the governing authorities.  The second passage, briefly mentioned above, is Jesus’ command to “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”  Various Jewish sects, with varying levels of attachment to the Roman authorities and degrees of compliance with Jewish law, were uniting against Jesus, trying to trick Him into blasphemy or into trouble with the Roman authorities.  When challenged by what could be a true dilemma, Jesus’ artful answer not only resolves the implied conflict but also addresses the fundamental issue underlying the question.  Jesus saw no explicit contradiction between politics and religion, nor did He think submission to one excludes the other.   This answer, in the spirit of love and fairness, is perhaps the greatest Biblical text on the entire topic of civil government.

Paul also teaches on the topic of obedience to civil government, in fact giving more insight than we receive from Christ during His ministry.  Five key passages are relevant here – the first in 1 Corinthians 2, where Paul indicates that pagan rulers of human government are all part of God’s providential plan, though they are unaware of it.  Following closely is 1 Corinthians 6, which discourages a litigious spirit in Christians under the assumption that the civil rulers have less knowledge, and less divine authority, than the apostles.  By far the most significant of the five passages is Romans 13, clearly instructing Christians to submit to the power of ruling authorities, all of which are put in place by God.   Simply put, resistance to constituted government is resistance to God’s ordinance.  Paul’s final two admonitions, in 1 Peter 2 and Ephesians 6, round out his consistent admonition to honor God by submitting to governing authorities.

So, what does this all mean?  With great respect to my Christian brother ER, his view is squarely at odds with the teachings of the Old and New Testament, the living example of Christ, and the teachings of both Christ and the Apostles.  Hovind’s tax practices were both illegal and unBiblical.  No doubt, there are limits, and these are evident from time to time in Scripture as well — if man gives a command that violates God’s command, there may be Biblical liberty to resist or disobey (perhaps that will be the subject of a future post).  There will always be exceptions (I’m sure someone will bring up Hitler) — but the nearly unanimous testimony of Scripture, from Genesis through Revelation, is one of obedience to civil government as a divinely-instituted mechanism for God to conduct His affairs among men.

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[1]. Robert Culver, Civil Government: A Biblical View, (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2000), 18.  His entire book is worth reading on this topic, and is the foundation of much of this post.

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“Biblical” Marriage

20120811-231930.jpgFollowing up from my prior blog on the Chick Fil-A issue, I received a question from Bill in Alexandria the other day. I’ve also received several emails, and had a number of posts on my Facebook site. It’s not directly related to Dan Cathy’s comments or the same-sex marriage debate, but I’ll answer it as best I can.

The question revolves around Facebook posts and a YouTube video that has been making the rounds lately (you can watch it here, but I don’t recommend it…it’s a waste of your time). It’s very, very difficult to respond to a video like this, simply because she’s all over the map and has absolutely no idea how to read the Bible or interpret Scripture.

All of these things — the YouTube video, the emails, the Facebook posts — revolve around the same basic contention. That is, that “Biblical or traditional marriage” is not defined as a man and woman, includes the requirement to marry my brother’s wife if he gets killed, requires me to stone my wife if I can’t prove she’s a virgin at marriage, permits multiple wives and concubines like Solomon and others, you’ve probably seen the list. Let’s try some clear thinking.

1. The Biblical definition of marriage. This starts at the very beginning — Genesis. In the story from Genesis 2, shortly after God creates man, he realizes that “it is not good for man to be alone,” and he creates a companion for him. That companion established the first “marriage,” from a Biblical perspective — one man, one woman, with a relationship described in Genesis 2:24, which outlines a very special spiritual, emotional, and physical union. This is reinforced throughout Scripture, especially in the New Testament. This includes instructions for men to love their wives in Ephesians 5:22-33, and the definition of a godly man being the husband of one wife in 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus 1, and elsewhere. Most Biblically-literate Christians are also very well aware of the New Testament’s constant comparisons between marriage and Christ’s relationship with the church, which further defines what marriage is and how it behaves.

All combined, we understand that marriage, Biblically defined, is a lifelong relationship between a man and a woman, characterized by love, sacrifice, Christ-centeredness, and meeting each other’s physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. Divorce, adultery, and fornication are all violations of this Biblical ideal. Are there other examples of marriage in the Bible? Sure, especially in the Old Testament. But to equate these examples with the Biblical “definition” is to make a critical error is hermeneutics (the science of the study of Scripture) — that is, to equate the descriptive with the prescriptive. This simply means that there are many things in the Bible that are describe various situations, but do not require us to emulate the behavior. In fact, many times the Bible describes behaviors that we are NOT to emulate. Paul supervising the stoning of Stephen, for example (Acts 7:54 – 8:1), is obviously descriptive — the Bible does not condone or endorse this behavior. Examples abound, from David’s adultery with Bathsheba (2 Sam 12:24) to a hundred other examples — including Solomon and David taking multiple wives.

Throughout Scripture, we see many cases of Godly men taking multiple wives — and then see the consequences of that sinful behavior. Nowhere in Scripture is this behavior prescribed. In fact, every prescriptive passage with regard to marriage always identifies it as a wife and husband. Jesus quotes Genesis 2 when talking about a man leaving his father and mother and being joined to a wife (Matthew 19). This passage is directly followed by one that makes it clear that once joined, the union is permanent (except for unfaithfulness). Fast forward to 1 Corinthians 7, and the story is the same. And note the language in these passages — the language of “should,” “do not,” and similar phrases make it clear that these are prescriptive passages. Every prescriptive passage, from Matthew 19 to 1 Cor 7 and elsewhere, detail a long-term, monogamous, heterosexual union.

2. Old Testament Mosaic and Levitical laws. Now, on to this issue or stoning those who aren’t virgins, marrying my brothers wife if he dies, and other concerns. I have already blogged about the fact that we are no longer under the confines of the Mosaic/Levitical law, and that definitely applies here. The New Testament is perfectly clear that we are no longer under the law, and that Christ has fulfilled the law. It is still useful to us as a historical and teaching tool (1 Tim 3:16-17), but we are no longer subject to the law or justified by it. We have a new law now, the law of Christ. You can read more in 1 Corinthians 9, Galatians 3 & 6, Romans 8, or Hebrews 8. Joel C. Rosenberg also has a great blog on the topic — no need to restate his great exposé here. Biblical marriage, under the law of Christ, is loving, caring, and uplifting, much like Christ Himself.

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The Chick Fil-A Uncrisis Nonscandal

20120801-195438.jpgWow! In the short time I’ve been doing this blog, I don’t think an issue has cried out for some clear thinking more loudly than this one. In case you’ve been living in a bubble or doing postgraduate research in Siberia (hey, it could happen), I’ll give you the basics…

Just about anyone who has tried to eat at Chick Fil-A on Sunday knows they’re closed that day — and most know why. Since it was founded in 1946 by S. Truett Cathy, their company has sought to promote and live out Biblical values, including being closed on Sundays to allow employees a day of rest and worship. Now led by Truett Cathy’s son Dan, the company maintains that credo, and for the most part this has been uncontroversial. However, recently Dan Cathy has been in the media — and squarely in the sights of some very harsh critics — for stating in an interview with Baptist Press that he supports “traditional marriage.” When asked about the company’s support to various marriage ministries and donations (through its charitable giving arm, WinShape) to Christian organizations, Cathy said,

“Well, guilty as charged…we are very much supportive of the family — the Biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that. We operate as a family business … our restaurants are typically led by families; some are single. We want to do anything we possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much committed to that.”

Uncontroversial? Hardly. The result of these donations and comments has been a backlash of personal attacks, boycotts, and worse. Why? Because, according to CNN, “the comments of company President Dan Cathy about gay marriage to Baptist Press on Monday have ignited a social media wildfire.” Not just social media, but now we have entire cities taking the unprecendented (and unConstitutional, by the way) step of trying to ban Chick Fil-A, along with universities and other supporters.

Okay, with that background and context, put on your clear-thinking brains. I see at least two major problems here.

1. First I hope you see the biggest problem quite obviously — Cathy actually never mentioned gay marriage. At all. He voiced his support for the traditional family, and that’s all. Does that mean he is against same-sex marriage? Possibly, but he never stated an opinion on the issue. To be fair, I think we can reasonably assume that Mr. Cathy believes homosexual behavior is sinful — thus his affirmation of traditional marriage. But “traditional marriage” also covers other unrelated topics, such as fornication, adultery, and unjustified divorce. “Traditional marriage,” then, generally means a long-term, monogamous, heterosexual relationship. It does not mean — or even imply — hatred or bigotry toward any person or group. Affirming traditional marriage is no more “anti-gay” than it is “anti-divorce” or “anti-adultery”.

2. While Mr. Cathy was talking about his company at the time, it was clear to me from both the article and his prior interviews with Ken Coleman that he was expressing a personal opinion, not corporate policy. News flash — I feel like I should be whispering — sinners work at Chick Fil-A. In fact, I have zero doubt that Chick Fil-A employs adulterers and fornicators. And yes, I have little doubt that Chick Fil-A employs homosexuals. Their hiring practices are not based on Dan Cathy’s personal opinions on traditional marriage, as he clarified in a recent statement. Worst case, we have a private citizen (who is also a CEO) expressing a personal opinion about a social issue. Sure, his opinion is not “en vogue” right now — but that doesn’t make him a bigot, intolerant, or a “hater”. Others who disagree may choose not to patronize his business, which is fine. I still don’t see a crisis or a scandal.

As if this weren’t enough, I have great concern about Cathy’s freedom of speech and freedom to hold and express his religious beliefs — but I’ll leave that out of this blog. I also won’t go into the details of the Biblical position on marriage or homosexuality on this blog (perhaps later), that’s not the point. Please, friends, let’s think clearly about this — read the comments, then look at the response. Is this reasonable?

I did, however, try to eat at Chick Fil-A tonight — the drive-through line was backed up just over a mile, and a line was coming out the door. I settled for Five Guys, but man…Chick Fil-A sounds good right now.