The Political Church

Or, on Two-Fold Ecclesiastical Government

There is much talk of the two swords, kingdoms, and regiments (or administrations) of Christ. Even within this initial two-fold distinction there exists another two-fold distinction. The visible and invisible are distinct realities. The church occupies both according to its particular and universal existence, respectively. The church visible is, obviously, situated within the visible world alongside the civil or temporal sword, kingdom, etc. The mistake made by many Protestants is to identify the church with the invisible, spiritual kingdom solely—as if souls are not embodied and humans not temporal.

Another error follows from the first, viz., to conceive of the church only as to its internal life, neglecting its external life and, by extension, thinking little of its external existence and administration.

Conversely, all polities themselves possess an ecclesiastical character in the sense that public morality and virtue are central and perennial. This falls within the duty and function of the civil authority, lest the church be confused with, rather than married to, that power. In marriage, man and woman are one flesh and share much—just as the husband and wife enjoy “common advantages and responsibilities that are provided and communicated by both spouses,” as Althusius says—but maintain their individuality and distinct roles, duties, and functions. Likewise, church and state.

Calvin, Althusius, and Turretin are particularly good exponents of this dynamic, demonstrating the two-fold ecclesiastical administration. They represent a general consensus and compel us today to aspire, at least notionally, to a more integrated and full political life. Its intuitive appeal—such longings must be unlearned—is owed to its correspondence to the full person, viz., body and soul confined, at present, to the temporal realm, thereby yielding twofold expression of each component of the twofold reality. Too many Evangelicals want to prematurely transcend this reality. Moreover, if you self-identify, to use modern parlance, as “Reformed,” it seems to me that any misgivings you harbor regarding the foregoing model must crumble under the weight of luminaries like Calvin, Althusius, and Turretin. On what basis can you assert superior wisdom and learning?

Calvin

At the outset, it is important to remember that Calvin situated both the visible church in its particular locale and the civil authority within the temporal realm under a two kingdoms paradigm. Each power is part of the two-fold temporal regiment. And every true commonwealth features both powers cooperative and rightly ordered as to their distribution of labor for the benefit of the whole. They are not two sides of the same coin, but rather two members of a marriage (a “two-headed regime”). The maintenance of true religion in the polity is of paramount importance to both.  

“[I]n every well-ordered polity, religion must have pride of place and is to be preserved intact under the supervision of the laws, as even unbelievers confess.” (Hopfl, The Christian Polity of John Calvin) (See also Institutes, 4.20.9). That is the baseline principle. The rationale for it extends further.

Religion, of course, has both internal and external dimensions even in the individual, but so too with the ecclesiastical administration itself. Since the church’s power lacks coercion, public or external ecclesiastical functions require the magistrate.

It is not only the magistrate’s God-given duty to punish vice and reward virtue that drives this. Rather, the division of labor at to the two-fold ecclesiastical administration is intricate to any well-ordered polity. This division is decidedly not between secular and spiritual, but rather “between humanitas and pietas, between teaching and coercing, between moral instruction and legal enforcement, between outward and true righteousness.” (Hopfl).

From Harro Hopfl:

“In consequence… the expulsion or execution of persistent and impenitent heretics, the chastisement of deriders of the ministry and the Word, of contemners of piety and of those of scandalous immorality of life, diplomatic and military activity to relieve hard-pressed brethren abroad and to defend reformation at home, the public mobilization of resources for ecclesiastical and charitable works such as the payment of ministers, teaches and officials, and public institutions for the relief of distress, are all activities which would be either quite frustrated or severely handicapped without the use by the magistracy of its particular sorts of powers. Calvin’s view, like that of most of his evangelical and Romanist contemporaries, was that these were proper, indeed divinely ordained, functions of magistracy and aids to godliness.”

This outward ecclesiastical regiment does not itself produce true righteousness or faith in the heart, but then neither does internal ecclesiastical discipline. Both are an encouragement to righteousness and aids in sanctification. This is not primarily about restriction or repression but edification. Perhaps, most important to notice is that Calvin did not consider the civil magistracy to be a mere necessary evil. Order and stability are prerequisites for any polity, but that includes moral and religious order. Moreover, the church, as a decidedly public institution, one of two heads in the ideal regime, requires the civil magistrate for its external life, its political governance. In this way, “Calvin intended to re-sacralize the magistracy,” and thereby counter Roman errors, the heavy hand of the Papacy.

If you are Protestant, historically speaking, you must accept, embrace, and perpetuate this re-sacralization. There lies the true distinction—the deeper Protestant conception, if you like—between Protestant and Roman. This realization does not quite support semper reformanda enthusiasms, but it is nevertheless true. Transubstantiation, albeit deficient, errant doctrine, does not make you a Romanist; denial of the magistrate’s sacral, religious role does. For without it, universal Papal jurisdiction and inordinate subjugation of the civil, is, at bottom, what awaits you, wherein, as Turretin puts it, the magistrate “ought to draw the sword at the nod of the priest.”  

Consider the geographic relation of Moriah and Zion. Consider who reformed the Old Testament church, viz., David, Hezekiah, and Josiah, etc. Consider who lifted the New Testament church out of oppression in Mosaic fashion, viz., Constantine, Theodosius, and Justinian, etc.

The other ill-advised option—the Third Way—is some form of adjusted Anabaptism, which both Reformed and Roman agreed was decidedly disagreeable and unworkable. The Fourth Way, if you will, is atheistic. That is, to deny the spirituality of public life, of civil power, and, by anthropological extension, the human person.

Althusius

In his Politica, Althusius describes the right of the realm as twofold, pertaining “both to the welfare of the soul and to the care of the body.” Dealing with the first, the welfare of the soul, i.e., “ecclesiastical communion of the realm,” Althusius defines it as the “public organizing and conserving of the kingdom of Christ… to the eternal glory of God and for the welfare of the realm.” He lists the many means by which religion is recognized and preserved both by the magistrate and the clergy—we will not reiterate them here.

What interests us, at present, is how Althusius, like Calvin, bifurcates the ecclesiastical administration (“There is therefore a twofold administration of ecclesiastical matters.”). “Ecclesiastical administration” is self-explanatory. It is the means or process by which ecclesiastical functions are administered.

In this sense, there is an internal and external life to the church.

Some ecclesiastical functions pertain to the magistrate and others to the clergy or elders, “according to the example of Moses and Aaron.” The ecclesiastical administration, on the one hand, is the responsibility of the magistrate (external); on the other hand, it is the responsibility of the clergy (internal). Though, to be clear, “In the administration of ecclesiastical matters the magistrate does nothing without the counsel and consent of the clergy based on the Word of God.”

How do these administrative duties play out?

For the magistrate, it is the “inspection, defense, care, and direction of ecclesiastical matters.” And yet, “the execution and administration of ecclesiastical offices belong to the clergy.” Again, the advice and consent of the clergy is indispensable to the magistrate.

The latter should promote divine worship, of course, as even any pagan ruler does. Said function and spirit is fitting to the office. I cite William Prynne’s Sword of Christian Magistracy often on this point. But recall also Peter Leithart’s description of the conflict between upstart Christians and pagan Romans in his magisterial Defending Constantine. Contra “modern” scholars, Leithart rightly discerns the inherently religious, cosmic warfare of Diocletian’s reign. The Romans were trying to eliminate—ever creative and symbolic, even spiritual, in their torturous executions—those “just ones” who had silenced the prophecy of the oracles. Christians were in combat with demons—literally, from their perspective—stalking the imperial capital. These realities are unavoidable and intricate to political life whatever contemporary detractors insist.  It follows naturally that a good magistrate, whatever his religion, should “expel all atheists, and all impious and profane men who are obstinate and incurable.” That’s what the Romans were doing. That is what the Christian magistrate, according to prudence, should do also.

“Consequently,” writes Althusius, “the magistrate before anything else, and immediately from the beginning of his administration, should plant and nourish the Christian religion as the foundation of his imperium.” Introduce true religion and then conserve it, protect it; these are the duties of the good magistrate. Thereby, “the kingdom of God is raised up and preserved among men in this political society.”

This entails that the magistrate must officially endorse (via “edicts”) the true religion, “legally validate orthodox canons of faith,” organize the national church into local jurisdictions, and guarantee a legitimate and educated ministry, and see to it that they administer word and sacrament appropriately.

Important to recognize here is that the magistrate possess—indeed, must exercise—theological judgment. This will be a hard pill to swallow for many right-liberal Christians.

“[I]t is apparent that the supreme magistrate has a responsibility to judge concerning the knowledge, discernment, direction, definition, and promulgation of the doctrine of faith, that he exercises this responsibility on the basis of sacred scripture, and that he commands bishops in keeping with these scriptures. So Constantine undertook to judge the Arian controversy. Whence it is evident that clergymen have been subjected to the power of kings, except in those matters that are proper to them. These matters are the preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments, in which they are subject to God and to the church.”

In other words, the magistrate does not confiscate the keys of the kingdom, nor the sacramental, apostolic ministry, but he does dominate the external administration of the church within the two-fold administration of the same. And this is necessary not only to all rightly ordered polities but is inherent in the administration of the church itself.

All of this, obviously, pertains to the public presence of the church, to public religion. Per Althusius, within the organic, integrated symbiosis of political society, it is not simply a matter of civil stability at stake here, but rather the longevity of the “kingdom of God” in political society as well. The church is an intricate part of any true polity. Its governance is two-fold, administered through the clergy and the magistrate. Only “modern” Christians who lack an integrated conception of political life and privatize the church will object. And such objections should be expected but disregarded.

You all are by now asking, “What of toleration?” The magistrate can claim control, nor has it in fact, of the conscience. This is rudimentary and unobjectionable. Even Constantine believed that bodily punishment of errant and senseless men was too extreme. Persecution is not good nor effective. Errors may be permitted, as a concession, but wicked practices and rites may not, for they signal the doom of any realm. The longevity of the commonwealth is ever paramount. The foolish error of modern Evangelicals is not in espousing toleration but in extending it beyond reason, beyond a Christian frame, and assuming judgment will not follow. Differing creedal opinions are manageable; diametrically opposes ways of life are not. And even within a mood of toleration, the magistrate must not let the true religion fall into ruin.

Turretin

Like Calvin and Althusius, Turretin covers in his Institutes of Elenctic Theology, as a matter of ecclesiology, the “political government of the church.” As an institution of internal and external existence, as we said, it is inevitable and intended that the church has a political presence lest it remain ethereal as some today would have it.

At this point in the Institutes, Turretin has already covered the (internal) ecclesiastical governance of the church. Now, the (external) political. There are two errors, one of excess and one of defect. The fault of the first is distributing all ecclesiastical power to the magistrate such that the church is subsumed by the civil, external power, to the detriment of its internal governance. The second error is the removal of “all care of ecclesiastical things [from the magistrate] so that he does not care what each one worships and allows free power to anyone of doing and saying whatever he wishes in the cause of religion.” The error of defect includes a passive magistrate who administers no judgment as to religion but merely and totally defers to ecclesiastical judgment of the same.

The orthodox Protestant position is the mean; it avoids both errors. Magistrates must care for religion and the church. He must care for public piety “which is commanded by the first [table], no less than for justice and love, which is commanded by the second table.” Turretin takes all this as a prerequisite for the fulfillment of 1 Timothy 2:2. That is, the magistrate’s religious interest is imbedded in his purpose, viz., providing a quiet and peaceable life. For this reason, magistrates are called gods (Psalm 82:6), pastors (Isaiah 44:28), and fathers (1 Samuel 24:11), and these titles are taken as perennial and normative, as they should be. Not only does the Old Testament affirm the magistrate’s religious interest, but so too do the ancients (e.g., Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, etc.), as do the “pious emperors” (e.g., Constantine, Theodosius, Valentinian, and Justinian). Again, none of this confounds the two powers, the marriage of ecclesiastical and civil. “As it is not lawful for bishops to draw the sword, so neither is it lawful for princes and civilians to handle the thurible… But it does not thence follow that the other functions concerning the [external] government of the church do not belong” to him.

The magistrate cannot construct new doctrine, commandeer church discipline under the authority of the ecclesiastical keys, nor perform essential, formal ministerial duties. But he can, and should, “establish sacred doctrine and pure worship,” conserve the same “even to restore and reform it when declining,” as Althusius also said. This latter duty in particular must be affirmed by Protestants as Protestants. For not only do the examples of Asa, Jehoshaphat, Josiah, Joash, and Hezekiah confirm it, but so too did the Reformation itself depend on it.

Moreover, the magistrate must “cherish and sustain” the church, as the oracle of sacred doctrine and discipline, by warding off and punishing nuisances to the same, viz., “heretics and disturbers of ecclesiastical peace.” He should also encourage and provide for unity in doctrine and practice for the sake of the church. These are external (“extrinsic”) things but no less belong conceptually to ecclesiastical governance, to sacred things. The root of this duty and function is, once again, found in the magistrate’s obligation to both table of the Decalogue. (We cannot but wonder whether the denial of this basic obligation by modern commentators is the fundamental cause of the decline of Protestant political thought.) In any case, and put simply, the civil magistrate, the prince, is concerned and charged with the “external adjuncts” of sacred and spiritual things. That is, he is especially concerned with the “objective,” the time, place, manner, and persons. But these things cannot be easily disentangled from ecclesiastical judgment in doctrine and practice. Hence,

“the Christian magistrate has the right of knowing and judging concerning matters of faith, at least with a discretive and approving judgment, whether he ought to confirm by his authority the judgments of the church and commit them to execution. But according to the Romanists, the church alone judges by a supreme, definitive and infallible judgment, which the magistrate (equally with the private person) is bound simply and with implicit faith to embrace and to put into execution without any preceding judgment of discretion upon the judgment of the church.”

Conclusion

Turretin goes on to note that the title of “head of the church” afforded to the king of England is “not understood of intrinsic, formal, and spiritual ecclesiastical power, but of extrinsic, objective or defensive power about ecclesiastical matters.” All of this, of course, fits well within the circa sacra doctrine. The important thing to notice in Calvin, Althusius, and Turretin, however, is that while the external duties ascribed to the Christian magistrate pertain only indirectly to internal life (“adjuncts”) they are no less properly conceived as pertaining to the two-fold governance of the church. A distinction between church and state is too simplistic. Both powers (the keys and the sword) possess internal and external subdivisions. The church necessarily has external existence that must be established, ordered, and governed. Christ’s kingdom is twofold, but within that broad twofold distinction, there is a further twofold distinction. To deny the aforementioned is to invite not only sickness into society generally, but disorder to the church specifically. Disunity is disordered; and unity does not erase inherent distinctions.

Without the political government of the church, which magistrates must shepherd, wild schisms, errors, and disorder will develop. Does not (true) reason and (recent) experience confirm this? Magistrates, as “guardians of both tables,” “ought to see to it that [true religion] suffers no harm and prudently meet the approaching evil, that the gangrene may spread no further and many not become diffused over the whole body.” If you, reader, recoil from this proposition, in principle, consider whether any basis consistent with the consensus presented here can be supplied for it.

Moreover, the denial of the church’s external existence, which necessarily requires governance, is the denial of the fullness of its visibility. Many Evangelicals effectively perform this denial, even if they will not say it—or, perhaps, they do not realize it. And for all their longing for revival and reform, absent the aid and initiative of the Christian magistrate, no such thing will materialize. Do not history and text demonstrate as much?   

Image Credit: Henry VIII Suppresses the Pope, from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.