Introduction:
In a world gone mad, sanity is always thought to be some form of extremism. When people are wound tight in their scruples, the preaching of free grace is thought to be antinomian license (Rom. 6:1ff). When the early Christians refused to acknowledge the pantheon of gods, they were not accused of monotheism, but rather of atheism. In the same way, because we are living in the era dominated by the gargantuan state, any assertion that we must return to biblical norms will be thought to be anarchy. It is not anarchy, for reasons to be explained shortly, but for the modern statist, it might as well be. Try to think of it as theocratic libertarianism.
The Text:
“Honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee” (Deut. 5:16).
Summary of the Text:
When you honor your father and mother as you ought to do, you are honoring your immediate parents, those who establish what we call the nuclear family. But the honor due to our parents is not something that lasts for eighteen years and then poof, it is gone. Dependent children are told to render honor to their parents through obedience (Eph. 6:1-2). But when the children are grown up, and simple obedience is no longer required, the honor is still required, but now in the form of financial support (Mark 7:10-13). And it does not stop there. The principle is that this particular kind of honor grows, develops, and changes over centuries. The duty to honor does not evaporate. The movement is from “my father,” to “our father,” to “our fathers.”
Politics Is Personal:
As we read Scripture carefully, we see how what we call political power grows up from the family. There is an organic connection between the nuclear family, the extended family, the clan, the tribe, the tribes, and the nation. When Saul is established as the king over Israel, an important institutional development has occurred, but it did not arrive de novo. Solomon restructured things, moving from tribes to administrative districts, but even there it was an organic move from what had come before.
Atoms and Molecules:
The central difficulty with atheistic libertarianism and anarchism is that they challenge the right foe, the state, but are attacking an Abrams tank with a peashooter. The individual is an atomistic challenger to corporate man, and corporate man will always prevail. This is why pot-smoking libertarianism is such a joke. The lotus-eaters have never stormed any castle successfully. This is why the overgrown state is careful to cultivate a certain kind of libertarianism.
In order to resist the artificial swollenness of the modern state, the answer must be the true answer of molecular connectedness—the family and the church. But as soon as you have the family, and people worshiping together in the same language, you have the beginnings of nationhood. As long as Christians are honoring their fathers and mothers (Ex. 20:12), and honoring their leaders in the church (Heb. 13:7,17), you cannot keep a larger culture from forming.
In the Meantime:
The Roman Empire was a hot mess. But even so, Christians were commanded—as far as conscience allowed—to render honor to the agents of it (Rom. 13:7). They absolutely refused to worship the emperor, but this refusal was all the more striking because they were commanded to honor the emperor (1 Pet. 2:17). This is the approach we must take even when the state is a disordered one, needing to be raised from its mat, like Aeneas was. Honoring rulers in a diseased state is not compromise; it is obedience to God. “I think myself happy, king Agrippa . . .” (Acts 26:2). Paul walked back what he said about Ananias (Acts 23:5). And Jesus said to “render to Caesar” that which belongs to him (Mark 12:17), which means that something does belong to him.
But at different times, in different ways, the political order is not disordered.
“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: But when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn” (Prov. 29:2).
“Now these be the last words of David. David the son of Jesse said, And the man who was raised up on high, The anointed of the God of Jacob, And the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, And his word was in my tongue. The God of Israel said, The Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; As the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain” (2 Samuel 23:1–4).
“It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness: For the throne is established by righteousness” (Prov. 16:12).
“Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness” (Prov. 25:5).
Whatever era you live in, whatever political economy has been established—a republic, or a monarchy, whatever—righteousness at the top matters.
Looking Forward:
Now remember that history begins as a garden and ends as a garden city. That city is, in effect, the Christian church, the New Jerusalem, the mother of us all. The kings of the earth do not lose their glory and honor, but rather their glory and honor are placed in true perspective.
“Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame”” (Is. 49:23, ESV).
“And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it” (Rev. 21:24).
Church and Kingdom:
In a rightly ordered society, the church is the cathedral at the center of town. It is the Ministry of Word and Sacrament. All families come to worship the Lord there, but they do not live their lives there. In Christ, through Christ, all the families of the earth shall be blessed (Gen. 12:3), but they live their lives out in the parish, out in the kingdom. They are the Ministry of Health, Education, and Welfare. As they cluster in towns, they have to organize their practical affairs in some kind of order, and that would be the cause of the civil order—the mayor, the governor, the king, the president, the fathers. This is the Ministry of Justice.
Though the point may remain the same, I think Mark 12:17 is a bad way to make it. Jesus is NOT saying, at least not in that passage, that there are things which belong to Caesar. That would require the ridiculous assumption, according to the logic of the argument, that those things don’t belong to God. Jesus pointed out the blasphemous image on the coin and the blasphemous inscription to make a point – they were already compromising themselves with the world. His ironic statement is meant to highlight God’s authority, not limit it. Your interpretation appears to me to… Read more »
Serious question. Do blasphemous things belong to God also? Is there a difference between being under the authority of God and belonging to God?
I’m challenging this statement specifically:
“That would require the ridiculous assumption, according to the logic of the argument, that those things don’t belong to God.”
This is a bit of sovereignty that I haven’t explored yet. Thanks.
I think all things belong to God. Even our worst sins, we are called to give up to Him, because He is the only One who knows what to do with them.
That’s all real nice, Doug. Real flowery and spiritual, sure to make all the ladies’ heart go pitter-patter. Meanwhile, back in the real world… Everyone used to laugh when I said that in the next 20 years or so, essentially all Christian denominations and colleges and non-profits will cave in on gay marriage to preserve their tax exemptions and avoid social opprobrium. Some are still laughing, but not nearly as many, and not nearly as loudly. Well, here’s another powerful monetary incentive for these groups to cave in: companies are going to stop hiring their grads. How many Christian colleges… Read more »
This specific issue is already being litigated in British Columbia. A small Christian university requires incoming students to promise in writing to refrain from homosexual conduct. As you probably know, gay marriage has been legal in Canada for over ten years, and is considered a settled question. Some years ago, the university, Trinity Western, decided to establish a law school. The Law Society of British Columbia, acting on a vote by its members (i.e. all the practicing lawyers in the province), said it will not consider this school’s future graduates for admission to the bar. I think there have been… Read more »
I have wondered about my own situation. I’m not too worried about it personally, because I’m already past retirement age, and if they take away my ability to practice law, I’ll be fine. The ABA will eventually institute such a rule for new lawyers, and by eventually, I mean it will probably happen within 5 years. Or at least, some state bars (like NY and CA) will impose the rule within 5 years, but not long after that it will be nationwide. I think those of us who are already admitted to practice law will be OK as long as… Read more »
I was just looking it up. Apparently the whole no-sex-clause (which applied to straight fornication as well) was challenged fifteen years ago. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favor of the college. I can’t see how they could have ruled any other way. No Catholic university, back in the day, was on board with fornication or extramarital sex of any kind. They didn’t make you sign agreements, but you knew it wasn’t a good idea to get caught in the boys’ dorm after midnight. But nobody had a problem with hiring graduates from Catholic colleges. The Court also okayed… Read more »
I am often unclear what is meant by Christian college. My daughter spent two semesters at an insanely expensive and well regarded,college that identified as Christian. There was no conduct code that prevented any kind of voluntary sexual activity. But members of the denomination got a 10% discount on tuition.
Well, try “colleges that prohibit same-sex dating and marriage.”
Or, you can just consult the list of 102 hate colleges recently put out by a gay rights group. Except for two BYU campuses, they are all evangelical or Catholic.
https://www.campuspride.org/ShameList/
The three Catholic colleges I saw on a quick scan are considered ultra-traditionalist and cater to Catholic home-schoolers. They may be very fine schools, but they are very different from Georgetown or Notre Dame. Whenever I am tempted to raise a critical eyebrow at them, I think about a statement on a Trad-Cath website that tends to silence me:
“We are what you once were.
We believe what you once believed.
We worship as you once worshipped.
If you were right then, we are right now.
If we are wrong now, you were wrong then,”
Great statement. Just as true with race as religion.
Which race did you used to adhere to?
Which race did you used to adhere to?
Say what you want, but, unlike you, I’m not a niggler.
I’m a public school teacher (Christian college grad, BTW) entering my 16th year in a liberal urban area (Seattle metro). I had my first out and proud transgender student last year. We were all informed by district legal office that if she was not called a “he” then that could be actionable discrimination. I don’t think I can make it too much longer without being fired. I’ve long seen my primary motivation for being in the schools as that of a missionary, but I’m going to have to jump ship here soon I think. It’s amazing how quickly this all… Read more »
That is very difficult for you. I was a public school teacher for many years, and even if I were willing to watch everything I said, I would probably have made innocent slip ups. Did you manage to avoid using pronouns with your student?
For the most part yes. Without thinking, I referred to her as “lady” once, as in “focus please ladies” while her and a friend were off task. They both stared at me as if to say, “What did you just say?!?!” I just kind of said, “You know what I mean” and moved on. Her and I had a good rapport so it never came to anything, but I’m expecting soon to either have a student who wants to make it into something or to have district personnel require that I use dishonest pronouns in order to affirm a transitioning… Read more »
I will pray. I remember this from my home province a couple of years ago: “The Vancouver School Board has decided that students may ask teachers and staff to address them by the pronoun of their choice, to accommodate transgender students for whom “he” and “she” do not fit. Offered as possible replacements by the board: The newly coined pronouns xe, xem, xyr, which are pronounced to rhyme with the genderless plurals, they, them, and their, only starting with the “z” sound. “It does require one to be quite mindful,” said Lisa Pedrini, VSB’s manager of social responsibility and diversity,… Read more »
But when the children are grown up, and simple obedience is no longer required, the honor is still required, but now in the form of financial support (Mark 7:10-13). And it does not stop there. The principle is that this particular kind of honor grows, develops, and changes over centuries. The duty to honor does not evaporate. The movement is from “my father,” to “our father,” to “our fathers.” And you think you think you’re “honoring” them by constantly referring to them as vile, irrational, hate-filled bigots? And by saying that people today who share their beliefs are guilty of… Read more »
Would it be okay to say they were dear, good people who were tragically mistaken in their ideas?
Actually, I think that was how they were referred to immediately after we switched our allegiance from Jesus Christ to Martin Luther King of Kings. Good people who were well-intentioned, but wrong.
But nowadays, that won’t suffice. Anyone who would say such a nice thing about the despicable monsters that were our ancestors clearly doesn’t have a clue as to how unspeakably evil racism is. In fact, anyone who would say it that way is probably an evil racist himself.
If the libertarians give up when they get their legal drugs they were easily bought.
I was trying to picture librarians awaiting their delivery of crystal meth. Time to slow down the speed reading and pay attention.
Perhaps the librarians are buying it to improve their speed reading.
:)
On a serious note, does New Zealand have racial reconciliation issues with its indigenous people? Canada is still dealing with land claims and reparations for residential boarding schools for First Nations.
Yes. We had a treaty which helped things until the liberals in the 1970s decided it was a foundational document and now a living document. There were some serious violations of the treaty (search Parihaka) but it has become ridiculous. The government has been quite generous and many Maori leaders are doing well though as a group Maori are lower socioeconomic. Of course it depends a little on who identifies as who. I am part Maori and in the top bracket but don’t identify as such. Things were probably improving but the move towards victim politics has not helped. And… Read more »
I hear you. Canadian patience is running thin, and heaven knows that as a nation we would all feed our fingers into wood chippers rather than appear intolerant. The land claims money never seems to reach the people who need it. The residential schools issue is tricky. They were set up by the government with the stated agenda of “taking the Indian out of the man.” Because they were given to the various Christian churches to administer, the government did not always exercise adequate supervision. The schools were typically underfunded. Children died in various epidemics, and in some cases they… Read more »
Maori didn’t stay on reserves (unlike Aboriginals in Australia). They adapted well and adopted Christianity in large numbers. They attended state schools. They were strapped for speaking Maori not English (at school), but then my grandmother was for her spelling mistakes!
Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they marveled at him.
They were trying to trick Jesus and he confounded them, and at the same time he made one of the most subversive claims (from the perspective of the state) ever. To think of the downstream effects of that one comment over 2000 years….
Yup
The church has a role in education as well. After all, shepherding the flock included more than just liturgia. How to think about life, current events, etc. is included in her duties. As we live in the world we do so as church members, our churchness not limited to sunday mornings or other parts of the week. And the church should especially be involved in passing on how to view the world to young people. Forming of souls and minds is their job, along with the families, and not the states.
I like what you are doing here. It could have been posted at http://www.socialmatter.net/ and it would resonate.
Good work; thank you Pastor.