You're In Seminary Now To Study Church And State, Part 1

Instead of reviewing an article, we will be listening to a seminary lecture on the relationship between the Church and State. We will be listening to Kevin DeYoung (click here for a bio) as he lectures at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, NC.  The class that DeYoung is teaching here is Systematic Theology. Systematic Theology concerns itself with an organized approach to understanding  Christian doctrines.

The audio linked to in this post contains 2 lectures (click here for the lecture covered in this article). The lecture we are concerned with starts around the 1:11:14 mark. The lecture is an introduction to the relationship between the Church and State. It starts with identifying the mission of each one.

In that lecture, DeYoung first cites James Bannerman (click here for bio), a Scottish Reformed Theologian from the 1800s on what the mission of the Church is. Such is an important question when defining its relationship to the state so that we understand when the Church is trying to do too much and when it isn't doing enough in terms of how it relates to the State. Young then gives his own description of the mission of the Church. He states that the mission of the Church is to:

1. Lead people to believe in Christ as their Savior
2. Make disciples--which involves teaching them how to follow Christ
3. Start other churches

And so however the Church is to relate to the State, it must fit into the confines of the Church's mission otherwise the Church is either trying to do either too much or not enough. The mission of the State is to promote the well being of its citizens. And then the question becomes who belongs to the Church and who belongs to the State. Those who believe in Christ as their Savior and submit to the Church's leadership including its discipline belong to the Church. Those who belong to the State, or we could also say to society, includes those who belong  to the Church along with those who don't.

To offer some contrast here, DeYoung then provides the definitions of the Church and State as provided by Stephen Wolf who promotes Christian Nationalism. DeYoung states that Wolf believes that the Church is a 'colony of heaven' while the Christian nation provides a 'complete image of eternal life on earth.' This seems to make the Christian nation more revelatory of how God relates to us than the Church is suppose to.

In response to Wolf, DeYoung describes the Church as an embassy for God's people. This model of thought points out that Christians are in a foreign land and that the Church is there to protect believers in Christ and to promote their interests and welfare while they live in a foreign land

Where does all of this leave us? In terms of the mission of the Church, we need to know what is involved in helping people to become believers in Christ. But the Church is interested in more than just participating in people becoming believers, the Church is there to teach believers how to follow Christ throughout their lives. And that includes sending out believers so that they can start new churches.

But in all of this, there are two contextual questions we need to ask. First, what is involved with helping people become believers in and be disciples of Christ in the 21st century as compared to the 1st century? Second, what are people's place in the State now as compared to the Apostolic times?

The first question deals with both what we need to say to help people believe and how we should live as Christians so that our lives do not interfere with people's desire to listen to the Gospel. And unlike the 1st century when Christian life was more simple, Christians must either stand on the shoulders of or apologize and repent for how past believers have behaved. For we need to realize two truths here: 1) that once we call ourselves Christians, everything that we do or say as well as that which we refrain from doing or saying can effect the reputation of the Gospel; and 2) we all stumble in many ways. And we cannot over emphasize that 2nd part so that truth should scare each of us believers very much. For not only do we have to account for all that we do or say and all that we don't do or don't say, we have to account for the same from our spiritual ancestors.

That part of having to account for what our spiritual ancestors said and did as well as well as did not say or did not do is part of what complicates today's Christian efforts to share the Gospel with people. And just when we could adjust to that, there is another complicating factor: the people's relationship with the State.

In a more authoritarian state, the people's relationship to the State is more simple and clearly defined. But in a democracy, people's relationship with the state can become messy and unclear. That is because in a democracy, we participate in how the State makes decisions from the local level to the national level. And here, again, we must account for the successes and failures of our spiritual predecessors in terms of how they did and did not participate in the State. Their actions and inactions have given the Gospel and the Church a track record to run on, to run away from, or to clean up. And sometimes we must do that in order to get a person to even listen to the Gospel. 

But it isn't just our ancestors who have to worry here. Being in a participatory system like a democracy means that we more of share a measure of responsibility for the actions of the State that they did in Apostolic times.

Yes, in being accountable for the past, we are tempted to over compensate and over correct. That is where we need to remember the mission of the Church. But if we don't try enough to be accountable for the past, we fail by not saying and doing enough in terms of today's issues. Especially today's social justice issues.

We should note one other thing here. Politics and religion will always be deeply intertwined for as long as religion recognizes the importance of morals. Why? That  because much of politics is about morals especially when it is concerned with social justice.