Tough Love
Roland R. Hegstad September/October 1999 Today a wide spectrum of Christian activists--from Christian Right to Catholic Left--seeks morality through civil laws. Over the past two decades some of their names have become household words. Their quest is not new: as far back Constantine's Sunday law of A.D. 321 churches have sought to cure the evils of mankind through alliance with the state. The National Reform Association of the 1800s sought "to secure such an amendment to the Constitution of the United States as will declare the nation's allegiance to Jesus Christ and its acceptance of the moral laws of the Christian religion" (Dateline Sunday U.S.A., p. 70)--a quest continued by the Lord's Day Alliance of our day. In Seattle, a Christian spokeswoman for the Lord's Political Action Committee recently outlined her party's approach to achieving "Christian" objectives. They would do it, she said, by "kicking butt."Her expression lacks elegance and artifice. It is direct. It is crudely honest. It is to the point: "Kicking butt" is a metaphor for power politics, for helping the Lord along in establishing His kingdom of love and righteousness. Let's listen to a few voices from Catholic and Protestant ranks.
In the 1961 encyclical Mater et Magistra (Mother and Teacher), Pope John XXIII called upon "public authorities, employers, and workers" to observe the "sanctity of Sunday." Said the pope: "This presupposes a change of mind in society and the intervention for the glory of God, we are mindful that the observance of the Sabbath Day is the command of God." Church members are urged to "give encouragement to the enactment of such legislation as will protect the Lord's Day from commercialism."
I once debated the head of the Lord's Day Alliance on a popular evening talk show. When he denied wanting to force the Alliance's views through civil legislation, I read his words from the Lord's Day Leader: "There is a small number of ministers and other Christian leaders who . . . feel that we do not have the right to impose our day of worship upon another. They state that the observance of worship is a matter of conscience and should be left to our conscience. This group within the church, even though it is small, gives real cause for alarm."
It is my conviction, to the contrary, that whatever the organization supporting religious legislation, whatever the purity of its motives, whatever the religious affiliation of its members, it is supporters of religious legislation who are cause for alarm. There is a sorry record of persecution written by clerics attempting to conscript citizens for the kingdom of heaven. This approach to morality reveals gross ignorance of the basic principles of the kingdom of God.
Perceptive Voices
A number of evangelical Christian leaders would agree. Says Stan Moonyhan, a respected Evangelical leader: "I sense the mood of my fellow evangelicals and it scares the daylights out of me. . . . Power, even with anointed beginnings, has an unfortunate way of turning in upon and magnifying itself. . . . Worldly power in religious hands--Islamic or Christian--has hardened into more than one inquisition. That God has delivered us from the hands of zealous but misguided saints is all that has saved us at times."
In a frequently delivered speech, college president and author Tony Campolo has said: "Evangelical Christianity right now has got me scared, because Evangelical Christianity suddenly has discovered power. And they have a simple solution to the ethical problems of our time. It is this: Elect our boys to congress. Elect our people to the senate. Elect our people to the presidency, and when we've got power, we'll be able to force America into our mold of righteousness. Give us power and we'll straighten out America. We'll clean up those sex shops. We'll put the screws on those homosexuals. . . .
"As I deal with the evangelical community, I find that they have almost no sense of history. Oh, if only we could recover what they had in the New Testament church! And the New Testament church was doing great for three hundred years, and then something happened. . . . They got a "born again" emperor. His name was Constantine. Suddenly Christianity was no longer a persecuted minority. . . . Christian morality was the law of the land. . . . Suddenly the church was a powerful majority exercising power. And the historians will tell you that the church has never recovered."
Constantine's contribution was twofold: A Sunday law and a motive that would fit well in today's politically charged ecumenical climate. The law: "On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be close" [March 7, A.D. 321] (Bible Students' Source Book,
p. 999). The motive: "Constantine labored at this time untiringly to unite the worshipers of the old and the new faith in one religion. All his laws and contrivances are aimed at promoting this amalgamation of religions. He would by all lawful and peaceable means melt together a purified heathenism and a moderated Christianity. . . . His injunction that the "Day of the Sun" should be a general rest day was characteristic of his standpoint" (H. G. Heggtveit, Illustreret Kirkehistorie, p. 202, [Ibid., p. 1000]).
The Guidebook
Before seeking civil laws in support of Christian doctrines and standards, those who are truly mindful that "the Creator of Life has so directed our ways for the best interests of man and for the glory of God" must research not only church history but also the Scripture people of faith cite as their Guidebook. It reveals, first, that:
We find in the Bible the quite startling view that the Creator made His creatures just as free to disobey His precepts as to obey them. We were not created robots, our minds an electronic circuit wired to respond to ciphers in a computer code. We were given a will free to exercise to obey or disobey. If we, by civil law, deny our fellow humans the choice of disobeying God's will--or what they think God's will to be--we deny them what our forefathers recognized to be an "unalienable" right; a right God Himself has given to His creatures.
No, that doesn't mean we can kill each other (though we can hate), slander each other (though we may lie), steal from each other (though we may, with impunity, covet), and so forth. The first four commandments, which refer to our relationship with God alone, are not concerns of civil government; but the principles of morality in the last six are. They espouse norms of civility without which society could not function. Even Communist governments incorporated their principles in civil law as a "social contract."
Assuming civil government does seek to legislate conformity to God's will, will God accept the obedience it coerces? Emphatically, No! The religious zealot can "get on" a person, dig in legal spurs, and ride him or her to the altar, but when the zealot gets there, he will find that God will accept neither of them. For both fail to bring to the altar that which is indispensable to God: loving obedience that comes only from free choice. As Jesus told a Samaritan woman: "True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks" (John 4:23)*.To encourage this quality of worship, Scripture traces the history of our rebellion, its consequences, God's loving response to events on His one rebel world, and ultimately, the contrasting rewards for obedience and disobedience.
The God of love did not create us with a wind-up key in our back that results in "I love You, I love You, I love You, I love You". .until we run down. We were created free and thus able to also say "I hate You, I hate You, I hate You!" God will accept only that allegiance that springs from love. And love can be appreciated only when the capacity to be unloving exists. The capacity both to love and to hate, to obey and to disobey, is itself a strong argument that the nature of God precludes acceptance of forced allegiance.
Further support for this conclusion is found in the scriptural account of Adam and the Fall. Our first parents were told that they could eat of every tree but one in the Edenic garden. No electric fence kept them from it; no prefabricated mental block inhibited their appetite. Rather, the tree stood as a test of their voluntary, and thus loving, obedience. And so long as their love of God produced loving obedience, their worship was acceptable. Forced allegiance, wherever, whenever, is unacceptable to God.
The futility of forced obedience is demonstrated also by the nature of the law of God. This law, a transcript of God's character, witnesses that outward conformity is worthless, for the law, as Christ made plain, regulates not only our acts but also our motives, which civil laws cannot do. Explaining the penetrating dimensions of the law, Christ said to those giving lip service to its letter: "You have heard that it was said to the people of long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment" (Matthew 5:21, 22).
Christ was equally clear on the true nature of chastity. "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (verses 5:27, 28).
The scribes and Pharisees were noted for outward piety unmatched by inward charity. Onlookers saw their pious looks and fine dress. Christ looked into their blighted interiors and pronounced them "whitewashed tombs, . . . full of dead men's bones" (Matthew 23:27). "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law [i.e., has an inward dimension], you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:20).
But what else can state-enforced morality produce but outward conformity? (Review your reaction upon seeing a police car with its radar focused on your driving.) It cannot change hearts; all it can do is coerce obedience; and it is heart worship only that is acceptable to God.
After having created us free to make our own choices, has God ceded to any human authority, state or church, the right to take away that freedom? He invites us all to show our respect for His creative right by loving obedience. If we decline His invitation, does He then authorize any authority of heaven or earth to compel our worship--a worship that Scripture describes as "sounding brass, or a tinkling symbol" (1 Corinthians 13:1, KJV)? The nature of the law of God, with its demand for conformity of inward motive as well as outward act, testifies to the futility of forced allegiance.
Further evidence against God's acceptance of legislated religion is found at Calvary, the testing ground of the universe. There the charges against God--that His laws are unjust and He is a dictator--were framed as a hypothesis and submitted to experimentation. Until Calvary some in God's creation were confused by the allegations of evildoers and haters of God. Lucifer had sought to undermine the principles of God's government and its universal constitution. Law, he argued, was a restriction on liberty and must be abolished. But at Calvary the destructive power of even an atom of sin--"lawlessness" (1 John 3:4)--was demonstrated. There it was shown that eternal happiness depends on eternal obedience to His eternal law. And there "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:19).
Having compared the consequences of sin with the consequences of obedience, the claims of God and the claims of Lucifer, having seen demonstrated at Calvary the magnitude of God's love in contrast to the malignancy of Lucifer's hate, millions have given, and yet give, the product of informed wills freely exercised--that loving allegiance that alone can delight the heart of God.
The cross is a scribe in the hand of the Holy Spirit, tracing the principles of God's law upon the conscience and producing obedience that is the consequence of internal principles. Without this inward scribing, efforts to keep the law are useless. No human legislation can produce it; it is the product only of an enlightened conscience freely exercised.
To use civil law to coerce obedience to God's law is, then, to rob Calvary of its beauty, of its meaning, and of its power. Of its beauty: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son" (John 3:16); of its meaning: "Whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (Ibid.); of its power: "But I, when I am lifted up from the earth [as at Calvary, suspended between the heaven He left and the earth He loved], will draw all men to myself" (John 12:32). Those who seek civil legislation to coerce worship on Sunday or any other day; who seek to coerce conscience and commitment to any Christian doctrine, tear down the cross, symbol of God justice and mercy, and erect in its place the gallows of carnal legalism, bigotry, and intolerance.
Final arguments against legislated religion can be found in the ministry and teachings of Christ. Most significant is His theology on the respective spheres of church and state. Seeking to entrap Him, the Pharisees had asked whether it was right to pay taxes to Caesar. Jesus, in response, made His point from the portrait and inscription on a Roman coin: "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's" (see Matthew 22:18-22). God's spiritual kingdom has a sphere; civil government has a sphere. "The authorities that exist have been established by God" (Romans 13:1), and are to be obeyed in their sphere; that is, when their legislation is confined to the legitimate concerns of civil government. Should their legislation contravene the commands of God, then "we must obey God rather than men!" (Acts 5:29).
Christ taught that all humanity are sons and daughters of one Father, and therefore equal before the law--equal in civil rights. Rulers are servants of their fellow citizens, chosen under God to protect their fellow beings in the enjoyment of what our American forefathers called their "unalienable rights." Under our system of government, the majority rules in the political process--but not in matters of conscience. Were it empowered to do so, minority rights would be meaningless. Whom we worship, how we worship, when we worship are not for the state to decide. Further, it is our right to disobey the law of God should we desire and, ultimately, to answer to God for transgressing His law. Human governments may compel citizens who will not be righteous to be at least civil, so that society may be characterized by peace and equity.
The church, on the other hand, through its mission, has the challenge of changing wicked humanity into righteous witnesses who reflect the character of Christ. The state compels us to refrain from crime--stealing, murder, perjury, adultery--for only when laws against such are obeyed can we live together in peace and harmony. Citizens who defy these laws are, in civilized societies, called before a court to answer for their defiance. The church, by the "sword of the Spirit," the "compulsion" of love, impels us to refrain from sin. The faithful pastor seeks to bring his parish into harmony with the very spirit of God's law--"Thou shalt not covet" (which precedes murder), "Thou shalt not look upon a woman lustfully" (which precedes rape or adultery)--in essence, enable them, ennoble them, to love their neighbors as themselves (see Mark 12:33).
The freedom Christ brings is not freedom from His law, but from its penalty; not license to transgress it, but freedom to keep it. True freedom is to live in harmony with God's will as expressed in His law. Fittingly, that law is called a law of liberty, for obeying it frees us from the physical, mental, and spiritual penalties of disobedience. The psalmist could sing: "I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts" (Psalm 119:45). The church's mission is to make mankind free in a sense the state cannot.
The Two Tables
Nowhere does Christ teach that the state is given responsibility for regulating our relationship to God. The state shares with the church the responsibility of regulating a person's relationship to their fellow citizens. The Ten Commandments themselves, as Roger Williams pointed out, are divided into two tables, as if to emphasize the demarcation: the first four regulate our relationship to our Creator (you shall not worship other gods, blaspheme, make graven images, break the Sabbath); the last six regulate our relationship to our fellow citizens (honor your father and mother, don't kill, steal, lie). Williams, among others, recognized this distinction between the two tables and urged it as reason for separation of church and state. It was his contemporaries who, lacking his insight, wrote civil laws concerning Sabbathbreaking, blasphemy, and other "sins," some of which are still retained on civil statute books.
Christ taught that the tares (the wicked) are to grow with the wheat (the righteous) until the harvest (the judgment). Then God will send His angels to gather out the tares and burn them. The work of separation is not entrusted to us or to the state. The reason for denying us this work is evident: we cannot see the heart, and by arbitrary, uninformed judgment would uproot the wheat also.
In particular, Christ taught that His kingdom could not be advanced by force. When Peter sought to defend his Master by the sword, Jesus referred to His Father as the Christian's only source of power. "Put your sword back in its place," Jesus told a disciple. And He told Pilate "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, My followers would fight for Me" (see John 18:36). His disciples were not to use force.
The Christian Arsenal
Of course, some churches appear not to have gotten the message. "The question has been raised," says the Catholic Encyclopedia, "whether it be lawful for the Church, not merely to sentence a delinquent to physical penalties, but itself to inflict these penalties. As to this, it is sufficient to note that the right of the Church to invoke the aid of the civil power to execute her sentences was expressly asserted by Boniface VIII in the Bull 'Unam Sanctam.'"
In denying the church recourse to force, Jesus, in effect, denied it the weapons civil governments use to enforce their laws. As Paul said: "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God" (2 Corinthians 10:4, 5). If churches are still institutions of Christianity and if Christians are still following Christ, then surely it is past time for the church to review her arsenal and discard a few unauthorized weapons picked up off the wrong stockpile sometime during the centuries. . . .
Why didn't God seek the use of civil power to enforce His law? The answer is plain: For the same reason He did not force obedience to His law by creating us incapable of transgression. Forced obedience is worse than worthless to Him; it's humiliating when wielded by His alleged "disciples," in whatever religious garb. Only voluntary discipleship is acceptable to the God of love. What He would not permit in heaven, He will not permit on earth.
When rebuffed in a Samaritan village (Luke 9), James and John asked Jesus: "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?" (verse 54). Instead, He rebuked His disciples. God had not come down to walk among us, as one of us, to destroy us. He came to save us.
A Night of a Thousand Years
Since God gave us the freedom to choose whether to disobey His precepts or to keep them; since the law of God cannot be satisfied by outward conformity, and since outward conformity is all civil legislation can produce, I believe Christians can best advance the kingdom of God by seeking to write its principles on hearts rather than in the legal code of the state. To legislate religion is to denigrate the character of God, reduce His law to the dimension of the letter, rob Calvary of its beauty, meaning, and power as the symbol of voluntary love, and contravene the clear and explicit teaching of Scripture.
The early church, strong only in the power of God triumphed grandly through preaching that "turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6, KJV). Strongholds of false religions upheld by mighty empires could not stop its spread. Only when the church allied itself with the state, seeking its aid and its adulation, did it deny the Lord, lose its power, and darken the world into a night of a thousand years.
*Unless otherwise noted, Scripture references are from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Box
The Power Game
"Whatever the position adopted by the Church, every time she becomes involved in politics, on every occasion the result has been unfaithfulness to herself and the abandonment of the truths of the gospel. . . . Every time