Pensée 5.4: Checks and balances are crucial in an ideal government.

Previous posts and prospective posts in this series are linked at the bottom.
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1. In the lead up to the U.S. Constitution, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and a man named John Jay penned the Federalist Papers. The collection is important to get a sense of the thinking that stood behind the Constitution as it stands. 

A key principle in those papers is the separation of powers among the branches of government. Madison put it this way: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." However, since neither of these are the case, "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” [1]

Madison rightly understood human nature. Left without any boundaries, we will plow down others who stand in the way of our selfish ambition. If lying, stealing, killing will advance our own greed or thirst for pleasure, humans will do these things unless some significant boundary stands in the way.

Lord Acton put it this way: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." By "great men," he means those who have the drive, the resources, the intellect, the skill, and the ability to sway the public such that they can gain power. But this drive can easily lead them to overrun, oppress, and eliminate those who stand in their way. History is the story of these men.

2. Madison and others were essentially drawing on the thinking of Montesquieu. As early as 1748 he had written, "When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty… Again, there is no liberty if the judicial power be not separated from the legislative and executive." [3]

This "separation of powers" aims to create checks and balances between the ambitions of differing individuals such that a greater good can emerge that is to everyone's advantage. The executive branch is meant to capture the efficiencies of a monarchy and efficient decision making. The legislative branch brings the collective wisdom of the nation to bear in the creation of laws. This brings in the benefits of an aristocracy.

In modern times, a Congress or Parliament is elected by the people, thus bringing in the advantages of a democracy. If one of the core functions of government is to protect the rights of the individual and aim for the greater good, then a system where the people elects its representatives is optimal because they would ideally vote in their best interests.

Finally, the judicial branch of government is meant to protect the principles of the Constitution. If the Constitution is set up properly, it will encase in fundamental law the rights of the individual as well as checks and balances against any one branch of government.

3. The United States system was the first full scale attempt to fully put Montesquieu's insights into practice in a government. Since then, parliamentary systems have played out these principles in slightly different ways. The executive is chosen from within the legislative branch, and he or she can be removed much more easily. Such leaders do not have a fixed term but can be removed at any time by a vote of no confidence.

Perhaps the biggest advantage of parliamentary systems is that the legislative branch usually requires a coalition of several parties. In the United States, the two party system regularly results in leaders that are no one's first choice. Smaller parties tend to work against the general will by dividing the majority sentiment and allowing a less desired candidate to win.

The Electoral College is an artifact of a time in US history when the will of the people was not trusted and a desire for the elite to be able to pre-empt them was kept in place. In recent decades, however, it has effectively undermined the will of the majority with increasing frequency. In one possible future, one might anticipate a constitutional amendment removing it in the next decade.

4. At present, the ideal checks and balances of the US system are dysfunctional, and it is unclear what the long term result will be. One of the first actions of the current administration was to dismantle internal watch dog elements of government -- checks on its ethics. Inspectors General were dismissed. The long-standing tradition since Watergate of the Department of Justice operating independently of the President has seemingly been abandoned. [4] 

The legislative and judicial branches have largely become rubber stamps of executive will. The legislative branch does nothing when its budgets are (illegally) not distributed as passed. Congress passes legislation it knows goes against the will of the people it represents for fear of primary challenges. The Supreme Court reverses decade and century long precedent and largely enables what many would argue is executive overreach. 

If the system holds, these things will no doubt be righted. However, it is a legitimate question as to whether the system will hold. It is at least possible that the US is in transition to another form of government. We will see.

Meanwhile, the Constitution seems now regularly violated. The Posse Comitatus Act forbids the use of the military against the civilian population. This is now happening at an increasing rate. Rights relating to arrest warrants, habeas corpus, and probable cause are now regularly being violated. An unsupervised and unregulated military force under the control of the executive branch has been given unprecedented funding by Congress. This should be quite alarming.

Ultimately, all of these things can take place because a sizeable enough portion of the American people knowingly or unknowingly supports them -- or at least are willing to look the other way. Similarly, these blocks of support are distributed in ways that facilitate the isolation of opposition.

A rule or law is only as powerful as the ability to enforce it. Similarly, "might makes right" in a fallen world. We can say that God will dispense justice in the afterlife or coming kingdom. But in the meantime, those who have the power to do what they want will do what they want.

[1] Federalist Paper #51.

[2] In a letter to Mandell Creighton in 1887.

[3] The Spirit of the Laws.

[4] Claims that this is no different from previous administrations do not seem to hold up to scrutiny. 
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1.1 We can be epistemologically certain of almost nothing.
1.2 The world outside me exists.
1.3 I exist.
1.4 Logic and math seem absolutely reliable.
1.5 Our situation requires some pragmatism.
1.6 Kant's distinction is useful.
1.7 The scientific method is useful.
1.8 The scientific method has clear limits.
1.9 Assumptions are inevitable in reasoning.
1.10 Reasoning is inevitable in thinking.
1.11 Faith can be reasonable and unreasonable.

2.1 Belief in a creator seems reasonable.

5.1 Anarchy and communism are unworkable forms of governance.
5.2 Monarchies and theocracies are unreliable. 
5.3 There are two core principles of governance.

ET5. God calls us to respect our governments.

This is the fifth post on Christian ethics in my ongoing series, theology in bullet points. The first unit in this series had to do with God and Creation (book here), and the second unit was on Christology and Atonement.

We are now in the third and final unit: The Holy Spirit and the Church. The first set of posts in this final unit was on the Holy Spirit. The second set was on the Church. The third set was on sacraments. This final section is on Christian ethics.
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God calls us to respect our governments.

1. So Christians respect authority over them in honor of God the Father. We mentioned Romans 13 in the previous article: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment" (13:1-2).

Since we know that Paul would not have approved of everything the Roman government did (e.g., put Jesus to death), this is not a rubber stamp on everything a government does. Indeed, the emperor at the time Paul wrote this letter would eventually put him to death (Nero). Paul is not saying that God has predestined every decision a government authority makes.

Similarly, Acts tells us that the earliest Christians did at times disobey those in authority because of a higher command from God. When Peter and John are before the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin, they are told to stop telling the good news about Jesus. Since God has given them a contrary command, their response is, "Whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge" (Acts 4:19). [1]

2. So the principle to obey governmental authorities is a general principle, not an absolute or a divine right of kings. But it is not to be discarded lightly. Most Western governments are far more just and fair than the Roman empire was. Yet 1 Peter can say to "Honor the emperor" (1 Pet. 2:17). Indeed, 1 Peter says much the same as Paul: "For the Lord’s sake accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme, or of governors" (1 Pet. 2:13-14). Again, it is ironic that Nero would put Peter himself to death, just as Paul. [2]

Has your government put you to death? The level of injustice and persecution that the Roman Empire visited on Peter and Paul suggests that we are whiners when we complain about our governments today. Indeed, it makes the protests of the colonists at the time of the Revolutionary War in the United States seem rather paltry.

We must think critically about our governments and those in authority over us, especially in a democracy. But we do so for the common good. We do so out of love of our neighbor. However, it is biblical to show respect to those in authority over us, even when they are unjust or seem incompetent. We keep our thoughts to ourselves and express them with discretion to others.

Or we express them when we are working for change, for the greater good, out of love for our neighbor. It is the great privilege of a democracy to be free to speak our minds in public. But we should do so with respect for authority, for the positions of authority are deserving of our respect even when the people who sit in them are not. We may be free as Westerners to speak, but we are slaves to righteousness as Christians (Rom. 6:18-19). Our identity as slaves to Christ is the higher calling.

3. There are Christians who complain about the level of taxes in the United States. Yet our taxes are nothing in comparison to the taxes of the Roman Empire. Paul says, "Pay to all what is due them—taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due." (Rom. 13:7). So Jesus says about taxes, "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's" (Mark 12:17).

So it would be hard to find a biblical basis in general for not paying taxes. It is not the tenor of Scripture to think, "This is my money that the government is taking from me." Rather, Jesus treated coinage itself as a matter of Caesar. Give back to Caesar what is his, as if money itself was somewhat foreign to the kingdom of God. [3]

4. Both Romans and 1 Peter give the restraint of wrong-doers as the primary function of government in their day. Paul says, "Rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval" (Rom. 13:3) and "Authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer" (13:4). [4] 1 Peter similarly says that governors and emperors are "sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right" (1 Pet. 2:14).

So early Christians saw the primary purpose of government as that of restraining evil and punishing the wicked. This function need not be the only function, since Paul says that the government is "God's servant for your good" (13:4). We cannot limit "good" to what was "good" or what was possible in "that time."

Indeed, we can broaden the ethical principle of love from the individual to the societal level and say that we can evaluate governmental structures by whether they facilitate the principle to love your neighbor as yourself. The ideal government would treat all humans as valuable because all individuals are created in the image of God. Therefore, rules that benefit the many would not overrun the value of any one individual.

Yet true benefit to the many is desirable out of love for our neighbors too. This fact suggests that a structure for society that maximizes benefit for the many is a good structure, as long as it does not overrun the value of the individual.

5. Modern, constitutional democracies are arguably one good expression of these principles. We do not insist that all truly Christian governments will be monarchies just because most of the governments in the Bible were monarchies of a sort. Israel had a tribal structure when the broader culture was tribal. Israel had a monarchy when the broader culture had monarchies. And the early church lived out its beliefs and practices within an empire.

So there is no one, Christian form of government, nor can the Bible be used to endorse tribal or monarchical forms of government. Ultimately, the assumption of the New Testament is that we can be Christians in any land because no land in this world is our true home. We are "strangers and foreigners on the earth" (Heb. 11:13). We desire a better country, a heavenly one (11:16). As Paul says, "Our citizenship is in heaven" (3:20).

6. While we are to imitate Christ as individual Christians, you might argue that the ideal government would imitate God. When it comes to the discipline of wrongdoers, this suggests that the three reasons for God's justice would apply equally to the restraint of evil in society.

First, a loving government would discipline wrongdoers in the sense of rehabilitation. If the wrongdoer can be changed into a good citizen, that would be ideal. Second, a loving government separates wrongdoers from society so that they cannot do harm to others. In the case of a reprobate, someone whose heart is so hardened that they pose a permanent harm, the separation can be permanent.

Finally, there is the question of a structure that promotes the good of society as a whole. For example, the punishment of wrongdoing can be a deterrent from others committing such crimes. The punishment of wrongdoing is not just an individual matter, but the law must consider the effects on society as a whole.

Good laws move beyond the situations of individuals and consider the effects on future lawbreakers. Societal order is a factor beyond individual cases. For this reason, governments sometimes have to emphasize justice over mercy.

7. There is a time to disobey government. This is when a higher value is in play. If God has commanded me to affirm Jesus as my Lord, then I must disobey any worldly authority that commands me to reject or curse Christ. Indeed, we must disobey the government when the government commands us to do something that God has definitively forbidden us to do.

But there are also opportunities in our world to disobey authorities in non-violent ways to work for a greater good, for love of our neighbors. At the time of the New Testament, there was little possibility for societal change. The approach God gave the earliest church was to acquiesce to and accommodate Roman rule. The approach of 1 Peter to its world was one of conformity, not conquest.

There is a time simply to submit to injustice, and 1 Peter models how to live under such a world. There is also a time to fight against injustice, especially when that injustice harms others. [5] While we will consider the question of war in a subsequent article, it is possible in our world to work for societal change through dispassionate disobedience of unjust laws.

Our world has opened up the possibility of non-violent protest. This can be done in love for those for whom we are protesting. Many disobeyed the government in the days of slavery, when the laws of the land were oppressive toward a minority that had been created in the image of God. In the days of the Civil Rights movement, many Christians non-violently protested the government's unjust laws toward the African-American. Many Christians have non-violently protested abortion as the killing of the unborn.

Such disobedience can be done without hate and out of love of one's neighbor. In many cases, such disobedience has led to positive change for the good.

8. God has called us to respect our governments out of respect for him and as we look for a world that values all individuals and demonstrates love to all its people. There are exceptions, but they should be done because a higher command from God is in order or as we are lovingly working for the greater good.

Next Sunday: ET6. God calls us to respect our parents and spouses.

[1] Luke may have worded this statement so that it intentionally echoed the statement of Socrates to the Athenians when he was on trial in 399BC: "I will obey the god rather than you" and "this is to disobey the god and that because of this it is impossible to keep quiet" (Apology 29D, 37E). The fact that there are exceptions to this rule shows that not all Christian principles are absolute. Most have exceptions.

[2] Imagine the power these words had for Christians reading it who knew that Nero eventually put Peter to death!

[3] We have to remember that the ancient world was not, by and large, a monetary economy. It was an agrarian world more comfortable with bartering and trading than the exchange of coinage.

[4] Since capital punishment was such a common form of punishment in the Roman Empire, we must consider Paul implicitly to endorse it as a form of punishment.

[5] There is a difference between fighting to protect others and fighting because others are "breaking rules." The first can have the Spirit of Christ. The second has more the spirit of the Pharisee.

Processing Jesus on Taxes and Government Assistance

... 1 John 3:17 may sum it up the best: “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?”

1 John is obviously talking about individual giving. To what extent should churches give? What role should the government play in giving? These are questions that generate strong feelings on all sides.

There are clear instances of Christians coming together to pool their resources to help others in the New Testament. The most significant is the collection Paul took up for the Jerusalem church from the churches he had planted around the Mediterranean (e.g., 2 Cor. 8-9). This may have been in response to Peter and James’ instructions to Paul to remember the poor (of Jerusalem) as he founded churches around the Roman world (cf. Gal. 2:10). Here again, we see the principle that the broader church has a responsibility to take care of other parts of the church that are in need.

What about governments? There is a strong sentiment among many Christians today that the government should not be in the business of helping the needy, that God and the Bible assign this duty to individual Christians and the church. How does this sentiment actually line up against the Bible?

In general, this argument has much more to do with the debates of our world than it does the biblical world. With regard to the New Testament, it is largely an argument from silence. The early Christians were in no position to be instructing the Romans to take care of the needy, so it is no surprise they don’t say much along these lines. Paul does say in Romans 13 that Christians should pay taxes (13:6-7) and that governments are meant to do things for our good (13:4). Nothing here prohibits a government from helping the needy with those taxes.

Whether we believe today that the government should help with the needy is thus an argument we will need to have on the merits of whether we think government will tend to help or hurt those to whom it gives assistance. You will certainly not find any prohibition of the government helping. Indeed, Psalm 72:12-13 honors the king who delivers the needy and pities the weak. We might debate whether the government actually does good, but the Bible simply does not in any way forbid a government from doing good with taxes. If any biblical writer thought a government was truly helping those in need in a reasonable way, it would praise it.

I write this chapter in the wake of Hurricane Sandy which ravaged the coast of New York and New Jersey. Since the government was highly criticized after Hurricane Katrina several years ago in New Orleans—and since America was in the last days of a presidential election—the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) moved in swiftly to help. Churches and other aid organizations like the Red Cross also sprang into action.

No doubt the assistance has not been perfect. Over a week has gone by and there are still individuals without power in the cold. But the question arises—could churches and non-profit organizations have helped those in need nearly as well and as speedily as the federal government? It’s hard to see how the answer could be yes. The help that individual Christians, churches, and non-profit organizations can give in the wake of earthquakes in Haiti or tsunamis in Indonesia is a drop in the bucket next to what a government like that of the United States can do speedily and extensively.

It is hard to imagine any scenario in which Jesus would not be pleased to find that a government had helped in this way, in addition to the assistance that individual churches and Christian organizations give. In fact, of all the things that taxes might go for, surely Jesus and Paul would be most pleased about this one. Jesus and Paul are solidly on the record behind Christians paying their taxes and this despite the fact that massive amounts of money in the Roman tax system simply lined the pockets of greedy individuals. Our system is far more just than theirs was...

Government and the Poor 7

... continued from yesterday
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... Christians can only justify capitalism if they think it is an economic system that can help the most people while not oppressing the rest.

Another question that is sometimes brought up today is whether it is the task of the church or the government to help those in need. Certainly it is our task.  That is to say, "to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin" (James 4:17). We have seen that the New Testament unanimously expects those who are able to help those who are in need.

Should the church help those in need?  It seems common sense.  If we can organize our individual efforts as believers to help others, why wouldn't we?  Certainly the churches of the New Testament did.  Acts 6 tells of an incident when a certain segment of the church was being neglected in the daily distribution of food.  These were widows within the Greek-speaking Jewish immigrant community in Jerusalem. The incident tells us that there was a daily distribution, and that it was a Christian value to reach everyone in need within the community.

When Paul met with James and Peter for their first real sit down, their main request of Paul was that he remember the poor (Gal. 2:10). Accordingly, Paul expended great efforts some years later collecting an offering from the churches he founded to take back to Jerusalem (2 Cor. 8-9).  Paul himself primarily worked so that he would not get entangled with the strings of patronage--taking the support of a church like Corinth would have indebted himself to them in his mind. The giving of the Philippian church was more about them doing what they should do rather than about his need (Phil. 4:17).

1 Timothy 5 would later speak of a well developed system of taking care of widows within the churches of Ephesus. It was thus a Christian value of the early church to take care not only of those within each Christian community but within other Christian communities as well.  Acts 2 pictures an early church that even sold its excess property to give to those who had need (Acts 2:45). While most of this good was done within Christian communities, Paul says, "as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers" (Gal. 6:10). Doing good is not limited to the church.

But what of governments?  Is it the business of government to help the poor? Here again we get into arguments about economics and political theory, with some arguing that government involvement is counterproductive. Some would argue that governments do not help others well but instead make matters worse. Many of these arguments involve expertise in areas beyond the scope of this book.

What we can do in this book is describe the overall Christian values. The first is that there is nothing in Scripture that opposes human authorities helping those in need. Indeed, the Old Testament considers it to be a virtue of the king to take care of the poor.  Psalm 72 implores the king to "take pity on the weak and needy and save the needy from death" (72:13). Romans 13 describes the Roman state as a potential agent for the good of the citizens of Rome (13:4) and does not set limits on what good the state might do.

The question is thus one of whether in fact a particular system of doing good for those in need truly helps them in the long run or not.  Christians will no doubt disagree on how effective governments are at such things.  But if a government could effectively help those in need without bringing other harm in the process, Christian values would say that it was a good thing. And certainly no individual or church is normally in a position to help as many people as a well organized government. [1] The Bible indicates it is a Christian value to try to help. If the powers that be could help as well, nothing in Scripture prohibits it in theory.

[1] If we take the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean or the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, no individual or church was equipped to bring help to the area with the speed or effectiveness that the United States government did.  In fact, most help organizations in the United States would have difficulty surviving without financial assistance from the government.

Bible, Christians, Government

Here's the third and maybe second to last post about the conference I attended last week at Wheaton called "Government, Foreign Assistance, and the Mission of God in the World." Previous posts include:

Basic Thrust
Why Government should aid...

The first presentation of the conference was on the biblical basis for governmental assistance. The presentation focused on Psalm 72 and Romans 13. I imagine that I wasn't the only one that found this line a little shaky. One professor from Denver Seminary used the word "tricky."

It's always tricky in my mind to apply the civil dimensions of the Old Testament to today. Governments are usually a given rather than something we can apply the Bible to. What is different about the US is that it is a democracy. Within the limits of the Constitution, we can as a people "bend the power of the United States" in certain directions, as long as they we do not violate the establishment of religion clause.

I've never found Romans 13 very helpful on these issues either. Statements in the Bible usually give a snapshot of the truth that is particularly relevant to a place and time. Romans 13 is nothing like an absolute philosophical statement on the timeless purpose of government. Governments punish wrongdoers. Yep.

But they can do much, much, more and they often do less. In fact, this was the same government that put Paul to death, reflecting the simple fact that governments more often than not fail at one of their fundamental purposes. Indeed, we cannot be completely sure that there is not an element of rhetoric in Romans 11--that Paul is giving a more idealistic picture of Rome than he himself believed, suggesting what Rome should be like rather than how it is.

Interestingly, the most helpful part of the conference for me on this score came in the last 20 minutes of the conference in a comment from Cheryl Sanders of Howard University. She mentioned the Joseph story of Genesis. When someone questioned this example, wondering if Pharaoh was really a model for government, her response was, to me, very insightful. It amounted to "Exactly." In so many words, Pharaoh embodies all the ambiguities of the people of God engaging with worldly powers.

So I propose the following model of Christian-state relationship. First and foremost, the people of God should never confuse themselves with worldly powers. Even when we are in government, even if Billy Graham were to become President of the United States, we must always distinguish the people of God, the Church, from the powers of this world.

If we take all the kings of Israel and Judah, far more were not kings after God's own heart than were. And the period of the judges was far from an operational theocracy. In short, this distinction applies even to ancient Israel, which is usually used as the model for those groups that most wish to identify church and state.

What we find in the story of Joseph and Pharaoh or Daniel and Nebuchanezzar or Nehemiah with Persia or Esther with Artaxerxes or Paul with Rome is that there is always a "dancing with the devil" dimension to any relationship between the people of God and government. God can and does use government to forward His will. God uses specific individuals at specific times and places to move governments in the right direction.

But it's often like playing with a snake. It can bite you. The relationship between people of God and worldly powers is ambiguous. It can be good. I can be bad. It is not a simple formula. It is not always Christ versus culture. It is not always Christ within culture. And this side of eternity it will never be finally transformed any more than our flesh is ever permanently removed from play. The relationship is dynamic.

I am not advocating a two kingdoms model because I am not suggesting that Christians can give up their Christian identity in their involvement with worldly powers. I am not advocating a Christ versus culture model where one withdraws from political engagement. I am advocating the attempt to intersect the kingdom of God with the kingdom of this world as much as possible to "bend" it.

Although I would not make too much of the supposed Christian foundations of America, there is a great deal of commonality between fundamental Christian values and fundamental American principles. More than most other nations in history, we have the opportunity to "bend the power of the United States" in Christian directions. As was also pointed out at the conference, here we are the government, in a sense.

But make no mistake, the US government operates on the basis of a social contract between everyone living here, which includes many non-Christians. No law or policy that is specifically Christian--and not generally beneficial--will stand the test of time. This is why the entire Christian lobby against gay marriage will eventually fail and probably is, in my suspicion, a waste of energy, an exercise in futility.

But it will also often be possible to argue for Christian goals within the language of the US Constitution. For example, it is in the best interest of the US government to alleviate poverty in those parts of the world that grow terrorists. The current problems around the world with terrorism stem more than anything else to the impoverishment of peoples. So Christians are motivated to eliminate poverty because we are following the mandates of Christ. But we can "bend the power of the United States" using an argument that achieves a similar end but using the language of national self-interest.

In the end, my mind was drawn to the Parable of the Unjust Steward in Luke 16. This parable seems filled with all the ambiguity of the relationship between the people of God and worldly power. As in all of Luke, money is viewed as something outside the kingdom of God. It is morally dubious at best. This strange parable seems to say, Be very, very sharp when dealing with the world. You are handling a dangerous thing, like a snake. Be very shrewd. Be wise as a serpent, but harmless as a dove.