Christians and Civil Government: A Biblical, Historical, and Analytical Introduction

By J. Peter Hill

Civil government is what we often call the state, which shares characteristics with other institutions.

But unlike any other institution, the state can encourage or compel people to do certain things.

It sometimes has the legitimate authority to deprive us of life, liberty, and property. The Bible tells us that it and our human governors are ordained by God.

The key question this book asks is, “What has God taught us about the state?”

The author also explores other questions, such as:

Have we uncritically accepted ideas about civil government from our culture?

Is our political identity adequately characterized as “conservative” or “progressive”—or should there be something more?

What does the Old Testament teach us about civil government?

What can we learn from Jesus’s relationship with the political powers of his day?

This book also highlights the apostles’ interaction with local and Roman authorities and how the doctrinal statements of thoughtful Christians of the past should inform our views of civil government.

Challenge political assumptions and ground your thinking in ways to honor God with the wisdom in Christians and Civil Government.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664237506

J. Peter Hill

J. Peter Hill, J.D., is a lawyer, professor, arbitrator, retired Army officer, and ruling elder in a Presbyterian church. A visiting professor of political science at Covenant College, and an adjunct instructor of National Security Law at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law, he has studied the nature of governments within a framework of God’s revelation. A graduate of Covenant College, he holds a Master of Arts in history from Duquesne University, a Master of Arts in political science from the University of Louisville, and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Pittsburgh. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Basic and Advanced Courses, and the Command and General Staff College.

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CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I: How We Approach the Subject of Civil Government

Chapter 1     Perspectives

Chapter 2     Paradigms

Part II: The Bible

Chapter 3     The Old Testament: The Indicative and the Normative; God; Man; Evolution of Society and Government; Covenants

Chapter 4     The Old Testament: Justice, Righteousness, and Peace; Security and the Good Life; Judgment on Israel and on the Nations; The Law; Crime and Sin; Rights

Chapter 5     The New Testament: The Gospels

Chapter 6     The New Testament: The Acts and Writings of the Apostles

Part III: Christian Thinkers

Chapter 7     St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, John of Salisbury, and Martin Luther

Chapter 8     John Calvin

Chapter 9     Mature Reformation Thought: Lutherans, Reformed, Creeds, and Puritans

Part IV: Some Analytical Models and Frameworks

Chapter 10   Christians as Political Groups, and a Christian America

Chapter 11   Theonomy and Principled Pluralism

Chapter 12   Anabaptist Thought, Mediating Institutions, Subsidiarity, and Sphere Sovereignty

Concluding Thoughts

Appendix on Reformation Creeds

Appendix on God’s Judgment of the Nations and of Israel

Appendix on Desirable Characteristics of Civil Magistrates

References

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my mother, Patricia Bryant Hill, who taught me that some things are worth arguing about, and to my wife, Cheryl Van Stelle Hill, who teaches me that not all things are worth arguing about.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A book is the result of many shaping processes. I have been shaped by church, academic, personal, and professional influences. Some of those influences have been rather direct on this book.

Accordingly, I want to thank my students at Covenant College, and adult Sunday School classes at Grace Church – Elizabethtown (KY), for letting me try out some ideas, and getting invaluable criticism in return.

A special thank you to Thomas Hammett for reviewing an early draft and pointing out both stylistic, and more importantly, substantive errors and inconsistencies. I used many of his suggestions. Perhaps I should have adopted all of them. The book still has many errors, no doubt, but far fewer than if he had not commented on it.

My daughter, Kate Hill Faber, provided me with photographs of the tribute penny, and helped design the cover.

Riley Baird improved and reformatted my diagrams.

All Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version, Crossway Publishing, unless otherwise noted. Longer passages are adopted from biblegateway.com, biblehub.com, and biblestudytools.com

All hymn excerpts are in the public domain. I found all of them in the 1976 edition of the Psalter Hymnal of the Christian Reformed Church.

INTRODUCTION

This book is intended to help Christians think about government generally. It is not about politics or about particular public policy choices a government might make. There are different kinds of government. This book is not about self-government, or how the family ought to be structured or governed, or what a church government should accomplish or look like, but about civil government.

Civil government is what we often call the state. The state shares many characteristics with other institutions. Unlike any other institution, however, it can encourage or compel people into doing or refraining from doing certain things that it thinks are good or bad policy outcomes, and this compulsion is lifelong. It always has the power, and sometimes has the legitimate authority, to deprive us of life, liberty, and property. The Bible tells us that it and our human governors are ordained by God (Romans 13:1ff).

This book is organized into twelve chapters, and is intended for individual or group reading. You might be reading this as part of a Sunday School or church study. I include a list of references at the end for those who want to read more. The key question is, What has God taught us about the state? God teaches us most clearly in the normative statements in his special revelation to us, the Bible. He has also taught us, less clearly, in the created order, which some might call natural law or God’s general revelation or the book of nature. God’s teaching is just as reliable and true whether he teaches us in special or in general revelation, but our perception or comprehension of that teaching is not as reliable. He also teaches us through what other Christians have said on the subject. Of course, the farther we get from a clear statement in the Bible, the less reliable is our understanding of God’s teaching. That does not mean that nothing is true that is not found in the Bible, however. There are plenty of true things that God reveals outside special revelation. God teaches the farmer how and when to plow, sow, and harvest without any special revelation (Isaiah 28: 23-29). He teaches the engineer how to design and build a bridge that is both functional and attractive. We do not find the answer to 2 + 2 in the Bible, or discern in special revelation what two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen combine to form. Nonetheless, God teaches us those things as well.

Part I is an introduction to the subject and our study. Chapters 1 and 2, Perspectives and Paradigms, begin by identifying and evaluating what we already think about government. We all come to the topic with preconceived ideas. Some of those may be good, meaning they are derived from or consistent with God’s revealed will in the Bible or in creation, even if we learn or understand them from other people, such as preachers or economists or engineers. Some of them may be faulty or bad, meaning they are derived from sources other than God’s truth. For example, we may simply have adopted uncritically our culture’s ideas about government. Some of these ideas we have merely inherited from our parents, peers, school, or our favorite internet sites. Before we get into the meat of this little book, it is useful to identify our own starting point. If we don’t know where we are starting from, we will usually not arrive at a desirable destination except by accident. As a lawyer, soldier, and teacher, God’s special and general revelation have taught me that relying on accidents is not a good plan.

If we do not identify our presuppositions – our existing framework of ideas - at the beginning, they may continue to color our perspective throughout our thought (or reading) process. If, e.g., we are politically conservative or progressive but do not examine those conservative or progressive presuppositions, that will tend to influence how we read scripture, or analyze some very important thinkers who had a good deal to say about such things. And we will never know it. If, however, we can identify our conservative or progressive starting points, it will be easier for us to adjust them as necessary when they are inconsistent with what God has taught us.

Part II, in four chapters, summarizes some of the main biblical teachings about government. Chapters 3 and 4 discuss Old Testament norms, aspirations, and themes. It examines such topics as the nature of God, specific concerns of government in the Old Testament, the reasons why God judged his own people or other nations in the Old Testament (thereby illustrating acts and attitudes we should, as a people and government, avoid) and Old Testament law. God’s moral law remains unchanged, and even the equitable principles of the civil law for God’s people – Old Testament Israel – remain applicable today. Accordingly, the Old Testament has much to teach us.

Chapters 5 and 6 discuss New Testament teachings about government. It examines the teachings of Jesus, Paul, and others on the nature of God’s Kingdom here and now, the appropriate role of government, when government must be disobeyed, the Christian’s relationship to the state, and other matters.

Part III studies what some thoughtful Christians have taught about government from late antiquity through the mature Reformation period. Chapter 7 examines the teachings of the two greatest theologians from late antiquity and the medieval period in Augustine and Aquinas, and concludes with Martin Luther. Chapter 8 continues that examination into Reformation thought by studying what John Calvin thought about the nature of civil government. Chapter 9 studies what the mature heirs of the Reformation considered lawful or unlawful, appropriate or inappropriate, for the state to do, including an analysis of what the Reformed Creeds say about government.

Part IV moves from specific teaching about government, to an examination of various organizing principles or models or paradigms of government some groups of Christians have formulated to help provide a framework for thinking about civil government. Chapter 10 first examines how members of different denominations in America have a political personality of their own, largely according to how orthodox their Christianity is, and what color they are. It helps us place ourselves in context. It continues with our first paradigm – a Christian America. Chapter 11 examines theonomy or Christian Reconstructionism, which seeks to restructure government and society according to the principles of God’s law as revealed in the Old Testament, and principled pluralism, which seeks to permit believers and unbelievers to live peaceably in the same society. Chapter 12 investigates the related ideas of subsidiarity, mediating institutions, and sphere sovereignty, which its proponents promote as honoring and obeying God by recognizing God as sovereign in every social sphere, including the sphere of civil government.

In an introductory book this short, readers can recognize the book’s limitations and my own perspective – the spectacles or lens through which I perceive and reflect on matters pertaining to civil government. I have stayed within my own Christian tradition, broadly speaking. But my acceptance of this tradition was not done uncritically. I think it represents the best Christian thinking on the subject. My own tradition is that of a biblically oriented Christian who seeks to ground his thought and actions in biblical ideas and principles, but is respectful of and receptive to the other ways God teaches and reveals truth. The Reformed tradition within evangelical Christianity does this the best. The Bible is full of different literary genres, from parables to excited and exciting songs, from historical narrative to ancient letters, from poetry to accounts of miracles. All of it is reliably accurate and true. My own social, intellectual, and economic environment is that of a middle-class, white American who has lived for extended periods in Scotland, Germany, and China.

I include some indices and appendices which a student might find useful, such as a general index, and a more specific scriptural index for those scriptures which give reasons for God’s judgment on nations.

I was beginning to write about Martin Luther in Chapter 7 when a coronavirus, and responses to it, changed the United States and much of the world. In some ways, this event provided a laboratory in which to examine the themes of this book. What are the proper tasks for government, and what are the proper limits on government? Under what circumstances should Christians submit to or decline to conform to a government’s use of coercive tools for restraining the virus? What if the government forbids corporate worship? What if the government interferes with other spheres of social activity such as families, businesses, and schools? In one short month government engaged in all sorts of activities, and restrained or outlawed other activities, in ways that were new to believers, at least in the West where governmental action has been constrained by custom, law, and culture. This book is not about public policy. But it might help provide a God-honoring analytical framework with which to approach these issues.

PART I

How We Approach the Subject

of Civil Government

I n Chapters 1 and 2, Perspectives and Paradigms, we begin to identify and evaluate what we already think about government. What do we think government should do? Is government dangerous? How big should government be? Where do I fit on a contemporary political orientation spectrum? What are some frameworks or paradigms that already shape my views of civil government, and what are some basic biblical ideas that might confirm or challenge those frameworks? This is our starting point. In Part II we begin to examine what the Bible tells us about government.

Part I, Chapter 1, addresses such topics as what values we hold which have implications for our thinking about civil government, what are our perspectives, what is justice, what general lessons the Bible has for us, what is the nature of the Law of God, God’s sovereignty, and a reminder that society encompasses much more than mere civil government.

Chapter 2 offers some paradigms which might be helpful in conducting our self-reflection. I mention some paradigms which are useful, and two concepts (liberalism and democracy) which will not be used in this book. It also introduces one key way to approach God’s work and our work on earth, including our work on behalf of or under civil government: the framework of Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration and Renewal, and Consummation.

1

Perspectives

Thy love divine has led us in the past;

In this free land by Thee our lot is cast;

Be Thou our Ruler, Guardian, Guide and Stay;

Thy Word our law, Thy paths our chosen way.

DANIEL C. ROBERTS, 1876;

CRC PSALTER HYMNAL, (1976) 476

The first two chapters have the most questions and the fewest answers. They are not intended to give many answers, but to require us to examine how and why we think about government. Many answers – given in the Bible, by thoughtful individual Christians, and in developed schools of thought by groups of Christians – are recounted beginning in Part II.

Values

What are your five most important values? Before moving on, mentally consider several and select five.

Your answer might include such values as equality, security, love, liberty, integrity, duty, mercy, generosity, fidelity, loyalty, opportunity, diversity, respect, perseverance, excellence, purity, dignity, balance, and so on.

Next, which values are political values you expect government to demonstrate, protect, or nurture? Mentally list several of the most important. You may have considerable overlap with your first list.

If you are of a progressive bent of mind, you likely listed such things as equality, liberty, diversity, security, respect, and tolerance. Equality might be your strongest value. If you are of a conservative bent of mind, you likely listed such things as liberty, opportunity, security, independence, responsibility, and so on. Liberty might be your strongest value. Justice, like liberty, probably makes it onto both lists. We probably do not list security near the top of the list unless we lack security or fear its loss – personal security, national security, health security, or economic security. Most of us live in secure environments relative to the rest of the country or the world. We are like fish, not realizing we live in an environment of water. These categories will be discussed later in this chapter.

Now let’s move beyond our own experience to that of other Christians. Suppose that you are a member of a minority tribe in East Africa in a land torn by armed disputes between religious and ethnic groups. What would be your most important values, and which values ought government to protect or promote? What if you were a peasant farmer in South America, working another’s land for a low income? What would be your most important values, and which values ought government to try to protect? What if you were a young person of color in an American metro area with missing family members, little job or education prospects, common physical threats to your well-being, and no one stepping in to help? What would be your most important values, and which ones ought government to try to protect or preserve? What if you were a middle-class worker in America with a small house and large bills? What would be your most important values, and which ones ought government to try to protect or preserve?

Each one would give different answers. Each would have different values. Each would desire different things from government. If all of these different people were Christians, should their view of government be the same? Ought there to be a common core of Christian perspective? Or are we necessarily dependent on our age, our cultural milieu, our century, our circumstances, so that Christians in different times and different lands can read the same Bible but come to fundamentally different conclusions about government?

There are other values that may not have been listed either as personal or as political values, such as righteousness or obedience. Are these only personal values for the believer, or are they also political values to be honored in the public square? And of the personal and political values we thought of, which are values we derive from the Bible, and which are derived from our culture? The intent of this book, of course, is to orient us toward biblical and godly thinking with respect to our political values, identifying and then discarding what is merely shallow and worldly and culturally derived.

Perspectives

On a recent ramble with my dog I came to a long pile of logs a few feet high. There was another animal (I think) on the other side. My dog alerted and stood still, facing toward the unseen potential foe, quarry, or friend while she determined what it might be from the scent. After observing my dog, I also alerted and stood still, peering over the logs and trying to visually locate whatever might be on the other side. My dog thought in terms of threat or friend, led with her nose, and was limited by her height. I thought in terms more of curiosity than of threat or friend, led with my eyes, and was limited by my dismal sense of smell.

Our perspectives and our paradigms affected both how we observed and what we concluded. They were our shortcuts to perceiving and understanding, and are both strengths and weaknesses, whether we are in the woods, reading an article, doing a task at work, or thinking about government. This chapter is devoted to understanding these perceptions and the paradigms with which we understand and through which we perceive our world. We might also call them our presuppositions or conceptual schemes or organizing principles. They are how we organize what we think is reality. Those with good perceptions and good paradigms are closer to reality. Life tends to be easier for such people and those whom they influence. Those with poor perceptions and weak paradigms are farther from reality. Life tends to be harder and unpleasant for such people and those whom they influence. But this is not a matter of mere intelligence. Very bright people may have perspectives and paradigms that are far from the way things really are. On the other hand, people not registering very high on the intelligence scale may have excellent perspectives. They may be very wise, indeed. At the end of 12 chapters, the desired end state for the reader is that his or her paradigms and perspectives are more closely aligned with reality – how God has structured the world (general revelation) and what he has revealed (special revelation) about civil government.

The first step in purposefully going anywhere, however, is to know where we are. What perspectives and paradigms ought we to be aware of when thinking about government?

Justice

It’s not fair!

Surely this is one of the first phrases learned by any child, shortly after No! and Mine! All three exclamations have important implications for government. They are among the first expressions to be learned and given articulation, and are among the last expressions we relinquish before we die. But It’s not fair is especially pregnant with meaning.

What we mean by this phrase, and in what contexts we use it, indicate to a large degree our expectations for life and for government. It reflects our ideas about justice.

It’s not fair when my company relocates to another province or country and I must choose between leaving the company or leaving everything else.

It’s not fair when crippling health care costs threaten to wipe out my accumulated wealth and bankrupt me.

It’s not fair when a thief steals my idea, my goods, or my identity.

It’s not fair when government takes half of every paycheck I get.

It’s not fair when I’ve paid an insurance company or merchant good money and gotten shoddy or no goods and services in return.

It’s not fair when the government enforces the law against me, but not against others because they are a different color, have more money, are connected by status or family, or simply because officials dislike me or mine.

It’s not fair when the government has paid for my school lunch for the past five years but now I am not getting a free lunch.

All of these may offend our sense of justice. Of them, which ones should be remedied by governmental action? Which of them ought to be remedied by someone or something else – an individual, family, business, church, or private organization? Which of them ought not to be remedied at all? How we answer these questions indicates our perspective on government and justice. We see that even if we perceive something as unfair or unjust, we may rely on different agents to remedy the injustice. Government is an agent of justice. But government is not the only agent of justice.

Note also that the questions so far have been What ought government to do? and When ought government to act? That is, they have been normative questions. We perceive an ideal of government to which we want our government to conform. We are not discussing what government does (a mere descriptive or indicative task) but the more difficult ought questions.

Even with the relatively simple examples given above we may disagree on when government ought to intervene and what government ought to do. But take one step back and ask, Regardless of whether government or some other societal agent ought to remedy this injustice, what makes it unjust? What is our standard for deciding what is just?

As adults, we recognize that disciplining a child and training him or her in right behavior and attitudes is necessary and appropriate. The child, of course, has an entirely different perspective and thinks much of the correction imposed is unfair and unjust. Is there a good standard according to which the child should be trained, or is the correction imposed merely as a matter of superior brute force or highly artificial societal or family expectations? Professing Christians, of course, have a ready answer in such places as Deut. 6:4-9, Prov. 22:6, and Heb. 12:4-13. This latter passage reminds us that even discipline on adults is unpleasant, but useful and good nonetheless.

What of other perceived injustices? Don’t they occur when a right has been violated? That is, I have a right not to be mugged and robbed, and when I am, my rights have been violated and I have been unjustly treated. The injustice should lead to a remedy such as punishment and restitution. Is that correct? What if we rephrased it as No one has the right to mug and rob me, and when I am my rights have been violated and I have been unjustly treated. The injustice should lead to a remedy such as punishment and restitution. In both cases the injustice arises out of a right, but the right is different. In one the right is stated positively – I have the right to be treated in a certain way and in the other the right is stated negatively – No one has the right to treat me in a certain way." Are both expressions of biblical ideas? Is one better than the other?

Consider one biblical example. Do we have the right to good health? Is it better to say, I have the right to good health? Or to say, No one has the right to deprive me of good health. Can we assert this right against God and his providence, or only against human agents? What did Job say in Job 1:20-22, 2:10?

We also need to remember that nearly everyone says they want justice. But no one wants to be judged. Even the scoffing secularist has memorized Judge not, that you be not judged. But how can there be any justice without judgment? No one wants to have a finger pointed at them and be subjected to a pronouncement of Tekel – You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting, (Daniel 5:27). But we do not mind so much if it happens to someone else and is richly deserved.

Finally, consider how justice has been used historically and among believers. Hunter Baker, a lawyer and political thinker, lists several possible approaches. Justice is giving everyone their proper role and place. Justice is treating equals equally and unequals unequally. Justice is removing artificial barriers to advancement or achievement. Criminal justice is observing due process protections for an accused. That is, justice is about procedures. Criminal justice is also about achieving fair outcomes. Justice is treating people the same. Justice is giving people what they deserve. Justice makes equal the conditions of life. Justice makes equal the outcomes of life (Baker, 69-71).

Two additional points to make about justice. First, we define justice differently according to the circumstances. All parents recognize that their children are different. Treating them justly does not mean treating them equally. They differ according to physical capability, mental ability, temperament, adaptability, strength, patience, verbal articulation, etc. Teachers recognize the same thing. Each exam is graded according to the same, equal criteria, but it would be unjust to give all students an equal grade. In China my university classes would be happy to get the same grade if we decided the matter democratically by a vote. But 25% of my class would claim that would be unjust, because they are brighter or work harder than their peers and want to get a different and better grade. On the other hand, we would think it unjust if a teacher started out grading papers by automatically giving one student five points more before having read the paper.

Second, Christians often think of justice in terms of what people deserve because that is what the Bible teaches about sin and grace. All people earn or deserve death because of what they have done (Rom. 6:23). It is just for God to punish lawbreakers. The taunting, scornful, violent, materialistic, proud, and willfully autonomous who push back against God and his law (i.e., all of us) deserve punishment. The wonder of the gospel is that we do not earn our salvation, but it is given to us as a matter of grace. The only thing we earn, the only thing we deserve, the only thing that is just, is our condemnation. And this tends to be a perspective that focuses on the individual. For example, notwithstanding Paul’s teaching that we – a plural group of believers – are the temple of God in I Cor. 3:16, we more generally think of ourselves as individual members constituting the temple of God (I Cor. 6:19) or as individual members of the body of Christ (I Cor. 12:12). God’s grace is to me, not to others associated with me. With the exception of our inheritance from or relationship to the First Adam and the Second Adam, this gets us into the habit of thinking