You're In Seminary Now To Study Church And State, Part 2

This article is a continuation of last Friday's article. It is a reaction to a seminary lecture by Kevin DeYoung on the relationship between Church and State. A link to DeYoung's personal description was given in the previous article (click here for the link to the lecture covered by today's article).

It is worthwhile for one to listen to the lecture. I will give a brief summary here and then react. That means that I will probably omit mentioning  some interesting details in the lecture.

DeYoung's lecture revolves around the views of James Bannerman, an 19th century Scottish Presbyterian. He first describes, using Bannerman's model,  4 different relationships that can exist between between the Church and the State, only here he will be referring to it as the relationship between Christianity and politics. DeYoung himself likes to combine insights from each of the 4 relationships described in his view of the relationship between the two. Those relationships consist of:

1. Christianity against politics
2. Christianity above politics
3. Christianity as politics
4. Christianity under politics

Christianity against politics is the view that a Christian should not be involved in politics because any such involvement is idolatrous. One weakness of that approach is that it promotes and ignorance of important issues of the day.

Christianity above politics is the view that Christians can read about politics but they must be careful not to conflate any particular ism or ideology with Christianity. DeYoung notes that the weakness with this approach is that one is tempted to see equal value and the same level of contributions to the world from all isms and ideology. DeYoung used capitalism and Marxism as his examples in noting the weakness of this approach.

Christian as politics is the view that there is a conflation between  Christianity and country or Christianity and an ideology or ism. Examples of this view come from both the Left and the Right, according to DeYoung. The problem is that there is no room left for one's judgment on the different views that are identified as Christian.

Christianity under politics says that Christianity is the or part of the base for Western Civilization or the founding of America as a nation. The problem here lies in making Christianity the servant of promoting Western Civilization or the founding of America so that Christianity can only say what promotes the interests of Western Civilization or America.

After this, DeYoung goes into what Bannerman says are the distinctions between the Church and State while not cutting the cord between the two. It was well understood that Christianity used to provide public truth in how things were generally perceived. And how the State should maintain that public truth without favoring a particular denomination.

DeYoung states that our nation's Founding Fathers had that view of America. The view that says that Christianity provided the public truth of how to perceive things.  And that they also believed that the Republic could not survive unless the people were a religious people of the right religion without favoring any denomination.

And so though Church and State are different and independent, there are still ties between them which started from the founding of the nation. DeYoung describes the Establishment Principle and how Bannerman saw that playing out. The Establishment Principle states that the State must recognize that Christ is the head of all things and must promote Christianity. It can do so in various ways without violating the First Amendment, in the view of Bannerman and others.

All of that puts the Church in a crisis today because of the drastic change in public truth. In general, the public does not view Christianity as providing an explanation for the general state of things. And the question becomes how should the Church respond.

For the Christian, the answer to that question depends on the similarities and differences one sees between the Church and state along with the ties between them.

Now the following response does not require all of the details of the lecture to be listed. What should be noted here is that only a theological view of both the State and Church are seen as providing the grounds for any view regarding how the Church and State should relate. Here, no definition of democracy, since we regard our nation as a democratic republic, is considered in determining how the State and Church should relate.

Here I would like to include a quote from Jeff Halper on the difference between a democracy and what he considers to be an ethnocracy (see pg 74 from Halper's book, An Israeli In Palestine:Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel):

An ethnocracy is the opposite of a democracy, although it might incorporate some elements of democracy such as universal citizenship and elections. It arises when one particular group—the Jews in Israel, the Russians in Russia, the Protestants in pre-1972 Northern Ireland,  the whites in apartheid South Africa,  the Shi’ite Muslims of Iran, the Malay of Malaysia and, if they had their way, the white Christian fundamentalist in the US—seizes control of the government and the armed forces in order to enforce a regime of exclusive privilege over other groups in what is in fact a multi-ethic or multi-religious society. Ethnocracy, or ethno-nationalism, privileges ethnos over demos. whereby one’s ethnic affiliation, be it defined by race, descent, religion, language or national origin, takes precedence over citizenship in determining to whom a country actually “belongs.” Israel is referred to explicitly by its political leaders as a “Jewish Democracy.”

I would even use a looser definition of an ethnocracy than Halper does with the main point focusing on a given religion's degree of privilege in the nation. The point being is that when Bannerman, or DeYoung, or anyone else ascribes to any religion some level of privilege or degree of supremacy, the essential part of Democracy, which is equality, is lost. And so apologists and promoters for a special place for any religion have made themselves enemies of Democracy. 

The change in America's public truth has changed the status of Christianity and the Church in America. And except for those who belong to Christianity against politics group, this change in public truth has caused a crisis. And we don't know how to respond to the change. 

But there is another change that DeYoung seems not to have recognized. That with Christianity losing its place as providing the public truth for the nation, we have been switching from being an ethnocracy to some degree more towards being a Democracy. So we have to consider how will the Church be perceived if we seek to undo that change.

DeYoung spends quite a bit of time describing how Christianity served as a basis for the founding of America. That all of the Founding Fathers, according to DeYoung, believed that religion was a vital part of keeping the republic. That is because a republic requires a virtuous people and, according to some, being virtuous requires being religious, especially being religious in terms of the true religion: Christianity.

But in so doing, DeYoung overlooks the lack of virtue in an America that could be considered to be more Christian than it is today. In other words, DeYoung is glossing over a lot of history in talking about America's past. 

Just take his comments on the Founding Fathers and the founding of the nation for example. DeYoung doesn't mention why the Founding Fathers gathered to write The Constitution. The Founding Fathers gathered to write that document in response to Shays Rebellion and the widespread dissent over the economy at that time. 

Evidence pointing to that claim can be seen in Henry Knox's letter to George Washington which refers to the widespread dissent. In his letter, Knox speaks pejoratively about those who were rebelling while never mentioning that many of those who were rebelling were veterans of the Revolutionary War. In addition, the references to the Militia in The Constitution makes it clear that the Founding Fathers were looking to create a stronger central government than what the Articles of Confederation provided. After all, one of the purposes of the Militia was to put down insurrections.

Challenges to America's virtue from the past when Christianity provided the public truth for the nation rely on the various levels of white supremacy. Evidence for the reliance on white supremacy can be seen in the enslavement of Blacks and the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans. And for almost the first 80 years of America's existence as a nation, only whites could become American citizens. After a brief respite from the oppression of Blacks provided by the aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction came the Jim Crow era. Native Americans were still being ethnically cleansed and, btw, women were subjugated during this whole time.

Even after the Civil Rights Movement, we still see quite a bit of evidence of systemic racism. And until recently, those in the LGBT community could be incarcerated for their practices.  So now the Church has to deal with the question of equality for that community without compromising Biblical standards of morality. So far, the Church has not handle that problem well. For here is the next place where the Church can be seen as an opponent to equality and, thus, Democracy.

In short, what DeYoung has not accounted for in the Church's place in America is what has turned off others to Christianity and unnecessarily created enemies of the Church and scars on the credibility of the Gospel: disillusionment. With so many injustices to account for while Christianity was seen as providing the public truth, is it any wonder that the public truth has changed vendors?

More could be said here. For example, how does the existence of corporate sins affect the relationship between the Church and State? With the existence of corporate sins practiced by the State and in society, doesn't the Church have a responsibility to, out of evangelism, call on the State and public to repent of such sins, while challenging its members not to participate in such sins?

What has been said in the questioning of DeYoung's approach shows the weakness of the approaches of many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians to the relationship between the Church and State. That weakness? It is myopic approach to the subject and not just by DeYoung in his lecture, but in many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians. The insularity of DeYoung's approach shows that perhaps the conservative Church is not yet ready to listen to those to whom the Church wants to preach and by whom the Church wants to be heard. Perhaps here, when talking about the relationship between Church and State, before seeking to restore Christianity's past role of providing the public truth, it should first practice the Golden Rule.