In the providence of God, John Knox was a nation builder. But he was emphatically not what we would call a political operative. He was no coalition builder, no maker or shaper of consensus. He knew nothing of polls, but if he had, he would have despised them. He probably never took a personality test to gauge his fitness for the ministry. He simply thundered the word in the hope that God would gather faithful men to Himself. And this, for many reasons, God was pleased to do.
John Knox carried himself with a wisdom that is greatly needed today. He knew that the presence of a purified and reformed church in any nation would have considerable cultural ramifications. At the same time, he was utterly uninterested in achieving those results through political manipulation. In this he provides an antidote for two common and very modern errors. The first is the error of the man who insists we should “just preach the gospel,” but who also believes intensely that the gospel can permeate an unbelieving society without throwing that society into cultural upheaval. In order to get the desired calm result, the gospel preached has to be ethereal, otherworldly, impotent.
The second error is the idea that since the gospel will have political effects, this must mean that politics can have a gospel effect. In the grip of this error, Christians pile into the political process in order to “make a difference.” This second error is very common among us today. One of the rules of political schmoozing is that one must go along to get along. A man is elected or appointed to some office, and he begins to tell himself that he must be realistic. He begins to “grow in office,” which is to say, he begins to be seduced by all the perks. He does all so that he might eventually get promoted to a place where he might “do some good,” but of course, by the time he gets there he has forgotten what good is.
Occasionally, a faithful man will rise to high office through the route required by Scripture — which brooks no compromise on essentials. Joseph did not find himself ruling Egypt because he graduated from the right law school. Daniel did not find himself a great man in Babylon through some shrewd Mesopotamian logrolling. They got where they did because they had a backbone that would not bend in certain directions. And this is why John Knox has left us such a tremendous legacy — he was willing to not have one. He was willing to die an obscure martyr, and almost did on a number of occasions.
But a modern political operative identifies which of the various parties is most to his liking, and then labors for the success of whatever party he is attached to. But John Knox was willing to attack hypocrisy and evil and wherever and whenever he found it. This is not a policy calculated to please those upon whom your future career depends. After the martyrdom of George Wishart, the man responsible for it, Cardinal Beaton, was assassinated. The assassins then holed up in the castle at St. Andrews. John Knox was a wanted man in Scotland at the time, and so he finally took refuge in the Castle. He had had no part in the assassination — although he heartily approved of it. This last datum is problematic for many modern Christians, but only because we do not really understand the situation of the time. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a courageous Lutheran pastor, is rightly lauded by many as a martyr — he was executed because of the role he had in an assassination attempt on Hitler’s life. But we feel this way because we know the wickedness of Hitler. We know nothing of the wickedness of Beaton, but assume that the assassination had only to do with “words, and names, and their own law.” Knox knew better than this and knew that what had happened was the hand of God.
Now most men would have determined that their lot was cast, and they would have settled right in with their new friends. Their allegiance to their “party” would have been set. But not John Knox. He was called to the ministry of the gospel within the Castle, but in his teaching there, he denounced the wickedness of some of the men who had given him refuge. He was sure that God would not prosper their cause for the simple reason that they were unwilling to honor Him in their lives. It would have been terribly easy to see the ethical antithesis as set by the castle wall. The bad people are outside, and the good people are inside. This is our group and that is theirs. But this would have been grievous unfaithfulness. Sin is defined by the word of God, and not by the sides we have decided to pick. And to make the point perfectly plain, conservative does not mean righteous. Republican does not mean holy. Traditional values are not the same thing as the beauty of holiness.
When a prophet is raised up, many assorted types will gather around him for motives of their own, which is of course their own business. Some are attracted by the excitement, some by the prospect of jobs, some by a desire to bask in reflected glory. This is the consistent pattern, but a true prophet sees through all of it. In this, John Knox sets before us a pattern for our times.