State Power, Church Power - American Reformer

On Strange Objections to Classical Protestant Politics

Recent discussions, debates, and Twitter banter have revealed persistent misunderstandings about classic Protestant views of the relationship between the civil magistrate and the church. It is hard to figure out the cause for this confusion, because the classic sources are well known and hardly unclear (it’s all there in Chapter 20 of Book 4 of Calvin’s Institutes, for example). Are these misunderstandings caused by ideological blindness, willful misrepresentation, inability to understand the sources, fear of, or revulsion toward, that which is unfamiliar, or something else? I don’t know, but I have seen two commonly repeated errors. The first is that the classic Protestant understanding of the civil magistrate implies a merging of church and state. The second is that it places far too high an expectation on what the civil magistrate can accomplish.

Regarding the relationship between the magistrate and the church, Calvin is clear that the state must not take to itself the divinely ordained vocation of the church, just as the church must not do with regard to the state. The church, in its focus on that which is spiritual, “has reference to the life of the soul,” while the state has reference “to matters of the present life, not only to food and clothing, but to the enacting of laws which require a man to live among his fellows purely honorably, and modestly” (Institutes 3.19.15). The church has a spiritual task “by which the conscience is trained to piety and divine worship” (Institutes 3.19.15), whereas civil magistrates “are ordained protectors and vindicators of public innocence, modesty, decency, and tranquility, and that their sole endeavor should be to provide for the common safety and peace of all” (Institutes 4.20.9). There is no merging of church and state, though Calvin does believe the state should be supportive of the church in certain ways that do not require it to usurp the church’s vocation (more on this in a moment). The distinct, though complementary, roles of the magistrate and the church are clear. Calvin is by no means an outlier on this.

The second objection to modern appropriations of classical Protestant political thought I’ve seen recently is the claim that they place too much hope in the power of the state to transform society. This is a strange objection. No Protestant political thinker has ever argued that the state can regenerate human hearts. This, of course, is no failure on the part of the human governments, since that is not why God ordained that such governments would exist. He has, however, decreed that the state exist in order to “punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good” (2 Pet 2:14). The result of states doing so is good order. The failure of states to do so is anarchy and violence. “When the righteous triumph, there is great glory, but when the wicked rise, people hide themselves” (Proverbs 28:12). Is it expecting too much to insist that the state conform to God’s explicitly stated intention? The purpose of laws is to prevent crime and make nations safe so their people can flourish. Is it an unrealistic expectation that they would actually do so? No one believes that even the best civil magistrates and the best human laws can usher in utopia. But does that mean that they therefore do not fulfil a vital purpose? Claiming that the state, because it cannot usher in the kingdom of God, also cannot maintain basic civic righteousness is unbiblical and indeed a denial of law and order at all.

I think the one aspect of classical Protestant politics that is most distressing today, and is probably behind the other strange objections that are voiced, is the idea that the church has any sort of positive function with regard to true religion. Even here, however, there is much confusion. The positive function can be described like this: the state should do certain things according to its unique vocation to facilitate the unique vocation of the church.

Calvin, for example, believed

civil government . . . prevents idolatry, sacrilege against God’s name, blasphemies against his truth, and other public offenses against religion from arising and spreading among the people. (Institutes 4.20.3)

The key phrase in this quote is “public offenses.” This seems to be one of the most overlooked dimensions of the classical Protestant view of the state. The state is not given carte blanche to interfere in the governance of the church. It can only act on religious matters that rise to the level of public offenses. In short, some religious matters become state matters because they harm the body politic. America has always had a more limited understanding of the application of this principle, but it has not been lacking entirely until very recently (public blasphemy laws, etc.).

As a matter of basic understanding, if people are going to critique the older Protestant view, they should at least understand it and accurately articulate it. Even with the expansive view of older thinkers like Calvin, there was never a merging of the vocation of the magistrate and the church. The magistrate was only allowed to act with regard to religion in ways that facilitated the church in its own unique work. In essence, the magistrate was tasked with ensuring that the church carried out its spiritual functions, but could not carry out those spiritual functions itself. The magistrate could call synods, for example, but could not interfere in their internal deliberations. The magistrate could punish obstinate heretics (especially those whose actions damaged civil society), but could not attempt to force the faith on a person (only the persuasive power of the gospel, attended to by the Holy Spirit can bring one to faith).

The original form of the Westminster Confession of Faith adhered to the older Protestant understanding of the roles of magistrate and church. The American Presbyterian church adapted the Westminster Confession by toning down the responsibility of the magistrate with regard to supporting true religion. But it did not entirely abandon the notion that the magistrate had a specific responsibility to be broadly supportive of Christian churches. In Chapter 23, Section 3, the Confession calls the magistrate a “nursing father” with the duty “to protect the church of our common Lord.” This was to be done, it is true,

without giving the preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest, in such a manner that all ecclesiastical persons whatever shall enjoy the full, free, and unquestioned liberty of discharging every part of their sacred functions, without violence or danger.

All true Christian denominations, that is to say, were to be protected by the state so that their “ecclesiastical assemblies” could “be held without molestation or disturbance.” This protection only applies, however, to “the voluntary members of any denomination of Christians.” One can make an argument for modern pluralism, but such a sentiment is wholly absent even from the American version of the Westminster Confession. The American revisions are not really different in principle from the older Protestant view on this point. Both agree that the state has a responsibility with regard to protecting, and thus furthering, the work of the church in society. The older Westminster Confession is simply more expansive in its understanding of what should be done in this regard.

In the end, one may desire to critique any version of older Protestant political thought. In America as it is today, it doesn’t seem prudent to me even to attempt to legislate the totality of the older Protestant view of the state’s responsibility regarding true religion, though I don’t believe the older view is illegitimate in principle. But anyone who would dispute the theological arguments behind the older view has a moral responsibility at least to understand what the older views actually taught and to critique those views. It may seem more advantageous to simply scare people away with flamboyant rhetoric, but this will likely turn out to be counter-productive. It doesn’t take a whole lot of reading to see what the older theologians taught. Bizarre misrepresentations will become clear quite quickly. Much better is to engage in vigorous, but honest, intellectual combat on the real issues.

Image Credit: Unsplash