In chapter 3, we said that loving your neighbor on a societal level would involve at least three components: 1) working for the greatest good for the greatest number (chapter 3), 2) ... without hurting the rest (chapter 4), and 3) restraining those forces that work against both. In this chapter, we want to explore what it might mean to say that at least in some cases, Jesus would "vote" to restrain the forces of evil.
What Would Jesus Do? (WWJD)
1. From the very beginning, I noted that Jesus came to a specific time and place in history. I argued that some of his teaching reflected that context. For example, he didn't tell his followers to vote in the next Roman election because, well, there weren't any elections.
Jesus took a "Christ against culture" stance because it was not appropriate at that time either to give in to the world ("Christ in culture") or to try to take over the world ("Christ over culture"). [1] His disciples, I would argue, wanted to take over the world (Acts 1:6). By contrast, he and the other New Testament authors advocated living separately from the culture as exiles and strangers -- foreign immigrants in the empire. They lived as part of another kingdom: the kingdom of God. They were in the world but not of the world.
Accordingly, when we ask, "WWJD?" there are times when we are asking something that does not relate directly to our world. Jesus might give slightly different instructions to us today in our context. The principles would be the same, but the precise way those principles play out might be a little different.
For example, Jesus submitted to injustice. He had Peter put his sword away in the Garden of Gethsemane (John 18:11). Depending on your interpretation of Matthew 5:38-42, Jesus either advocated submission to oppressors or passive resistance. [2] What is clear is that he did not instruct his disciples to fight.
The Gospels do seem to indicate a significant conflict between the forces of God and evil on the Day of the Lord. For example, the book of Revelation, there is a final battle between the forces of God and the forces of the world at the battle of Armageddon (16:14). It is not a long battle.
However, it is difficult to find any place in the New Testament where believers are encouraged or expected to fight. Some metaphorical imagery is used -- fight the good fight (1 Tim. 6:12), put on the armor of God (Eph. 6:10-18). At one point Jesus does tell his disciples to go buy a sword (Luke 22:36). But he is not likely being literal here. When they say they already have two swords, he says, "It's enough" (22:38).
In fact, in the parallel passage in Matthew 26:52, he tells the one who cut the ear of the servant off to put his sword away. "He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword." The bottom line is that we nowhere find Jesus promoting or expecting his followers to fight. It is quite the opposite. In Luke 22:36, is likely that Jesus is warning them about upcoming conflict and persecution, not literally telling them to fight.
I do not personally think that this is full pacifism. Why then would his disciples have any swords at all? They likely had them to defend themselves in case someone tried to rob or hurt them. My sense is that Jesus had a strong bias toward peace, even a bias to suffer personally rather than to strive for personal justice. That's what he modeled and what his words emphasize. Indeed, the burden of proof is on me to show that Jesus sometimes thought fighting could be appropriate. Nevertheless, I doubt that Jesus was an absolutist on his advocacy for personal pacifism.
What Would God Do? (WWGD)
2. The New Testament seems to have a different view of government. Unlike the individual, to whom Jesus advocates a bias toward suffering over fighting, the New Testament expects government to restrain evil, including the use of force. We should note that the New Testament assumes the government is not Christian.
The clearest example of this assumption is Romans 13. Here is the key verse in this regard:
Textbox: "For it is a servant of God for your good, and be afraid if you should do evil, for it does not bear the sword in vain. It is a servant of God for wrath toward the one doing evil" (13:4).
This text not only assumes that the state will use force to enact justice -- it seems to assume capital punishment as one of the options! We will return to that question later in the book.
We have already argued that Paul is idealizing the Roman government here. He knows it frequently does not turn out like the ideal. We know that governments are not always just in their decisions -- even in Paul's own case. He is instructing the Roman church to be ideal citizens and perhaps also giving them a brief in their favor if they get in trouble with the Romans again.
Nevertheless, what I would argue is that, if we were to form an earthly government, the more fitting biblical model to follow is God the Father. Jesus was a model for us as individual believers, especially in a context hostile to us and where we are oppressed or isolated in society. For governance, the more fitting model in Scripture is that of God the Father. In other words, we should ask "What would God do?" (WWGD) more than "What would Jesus do?" (WWJD).
Textbox: Jesus is a model for us as individual believers (WWJD). However, God the Father is the more likely model for biblical governance (WWGD).
3. Once again, one's sense of God comes massively into play. In the previous chapter, we presented a contrast between how Calvinist approaches to God and how Arminian theology tends to see his governance. Deterministic approaches to God tend to have a "take over governance" approach while Arminian theology tends to have a "let them go" approach.
In the previous chapter, we suggested that the US Constitution overlaps considerably with the Arminian model. God gives us the freedom to disobey him just as the US Constitution allows people of multiple faiths to freely practice their faith as long as they do not hurt anyone. We argued that the US Constitution uses the concept of a social contract to enact laws for the common good. These "common good laws" justify prohibitions on murder, stealing, and so forth without resorting to specifically religious assumptions.
Interestingly, the biblical expectation for governmental justice is actually more restrictive than the way God governs the world much of the time. God allows people to murder all the time -- often without immediate consequence. God allows people to steal and do all manner of evil all the time. God frequently does not restrain evil at this moment, although we believe there will be a judgment eventually. And sometimes God does intervene in judgment now in history.
We will talk about God and justice in the next section. For the moment, what does the Bible expect governments to do in regard to civil justice?
4. While much of specific Old Testament Law related to an Ancient Near Eastern context, the basic categories of enforcement are largely timeless. [3] For millennia, the specific commandments of the Jewish Law have been categorized in relation to the Ten Commandments. [4] There are thus laws in relation to violence toward others. There are laws relating to sexual behavior. There are laws relating to property. There are laws relating to the justice process itself.
Given the parameters of the social contract in the Constitution, only common good laws can be applied to US law, not religiously-specific law. Again, we have argued this fits with an Arminian sense of how God governs the world. When we apply this lens, laws relating to the sole worship of Yahweh, not working on the Sabbath, and sexual ethics (as long as harm is not brought to another) seem to fall under the category of "religiously-specific law."
Of course, the US in the past has had laws that applied such laws to its general populace. Blue laws prohibited certain activities on Sunday, which of course is not the Old Testament Sabbath. Laws against adultery and homosexuality used to be on the books and, in some cases, still are, although generally they are not enforced. You could argue that the Constitution -- when practiced strictly -- should not allow for laws that are solely based on a Christian perspective.
On the other hand, laws against murder, rape, assault, and theft seem to fall in the category of "common good" or "social contract" law. The commandment not to bear false witness seems to have related to the equivalent of ancient court. Laws thus that set up and maintain justice are thus both biblical and fit under the category of "common law."
5. In these broad ways, therefore, both the biblical and American approach to governance anticipate that the state will play a role in the restraining of evil. The case of ancient Israel was different from that of America, because the leaders of Israel were expected not only to guard against common injustice but also to lead the people of Israel to keep Yahweh's specific covenant with them. This covenant did include everything from Sabbath observance to the exclusive worship of Yahweh.
Yet this is not the situation in America and there obviously is no biblical basis for considering America to be a new Israel. America is not mentioned in the Bible. [5] Even if some group believed it was Christian to try to take over America, the objective position of the United States Constitution would consider any attempt to enforce religiously-specific law as contrary to America's founding principles -- as "unAmerican."
The common ground is that the United States government will restrain "common good" evil. That is to say, it will restrain violence toward others, the damaging and theft of the property of others, and other harms or impingements on the "rights" of others. It will maintain a system of justice to make sure the social contract is implemented.
The state thus has a justice system and a police force to maintain the social contract. Romans 13 assumes that these will be state-administered. Does the state run these things perfectly? Of course not. Is it a "socialism" that needs to be undone? Certainly not. It does not always work, and it certainly has not always worked in the past. However, when you look back through history, it is an amazing privilege. We work to perfect it. We dare not try to dismantle it.
[1] Once again, I'm using the categories of H. Richard Niebuhr in Christ and Culture (Harper & Brothers, 1951).
[2] Walter Wink has argued that all of the responses Jesus gives in these verses would have brought shame to the oppressor. They would thus be non-violent resistance. See Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Fortress, 1992).
[3] R. J. Rushdoony's "theonomic" approach fails to read those laws not only in their biblical context but in their historical-cultural context. He tries to apply the concrete specifics of Old Testament Law to today in The Institutes of Biblical Law (Chalcedon, 1973).
[4] See my own attempt to do so in Christian Ethics: Wesleyan-Arminian Reflections (2023).
[5] In context, Old Testament references to the "islands of the sea" were not about America (Isa. 42:4).
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Here is the series so far:
2.1 (He would vote) As a Kingdom Citizen
2.2 We're citizens in two kingdoms
3.1 (He would vote) for love of neighbor and enemy
3.2 (He would vote) for the greater good
Test Case: Health Care (under revision)
4.1 (For the greater good) ... Without Hurting the Rest
4.2 The Separation of Church and State
Test Case: Education
1 comment:
Another good one.
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