American Theocracy?

On Civil Enforcement of the First Table of the Decalogue

Protestant ethics has historically been articulated through an exposition of the 10 Commandments. John Calvin provides a representative treatment in his Institutes. The confessional standards—usually in the form of authoritative catechisms—of Lutherans (The Larger Catechism), Reformed (Heidelberg Catechism, Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms), and Reformed Baptists (Keach’s Catechism) have all set forth basic Christian ethics in this way as well.

In the Reformation era, although Protestants were always clear that the civil magistrate’s authority did not extend to the internal governance of the church, they nonetheless argued that the governing authorities in the state should in some way enforce all 10 Commandments by law. This is troubling to most Americans today, because they have grown used to the idea that “spiritual” matters should not, indeed cannot, be addressed by the state in any way whatsoever. Only those things that have to do with interpersonal relations are thought to be matters subject to the jurisdiction of the magistrate.

In the midst of preparing to teach on the 10 Commandments in a class on ethics, I thought it would be interesting to look into how, or even whether, commandments 1–4 (the first table of the law) had ever been enforced by the magistrate in America. The first table was certainly enforced in colonial America, even if it was not always done so quite as stringently as in the Reformation-era Europe. Did things change radically after the American Revolution? It turns out the answer is no, at least in terms of the basic approach.

It is certainly the case that commandments 3–4 have been enforced throughout most of America’s post-Revolutionary history. “Blue laws” requiring certain businesses to close on Sunday are still on the books in many states, though usually only with reference to the sale of alcohol. Even in the latter half of the twentieth century such laws existed in most states regarding a much larger number of types of businesses. For example, North Dakota had Sunday business closure laws from its founding as a state in 1889. The law was twice “challenged in the state’s Supreme Court, and twice . . . upheld. In 1985 groceries were allowed to open on Sunday, but not until noon. A few years later most businesses could open on the Sabbath, again not before noon.” North Dakota’s law was in force until the 21^st century. Virginia only struck down its blue law in 1988.

Laws punishing public blasphemy (against God understood in a basically Christian sense) likewise were enforced well into the twentieth century. America’s courts routinely upheld such laws for most of our history. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the 1897 decision Robertson v. Baldwin, insisted that the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights “does not permit the publication of libels, blasphemous or indecent articles, or other publications injurious to public morals or private reputation.” The same men who drafted the earliest American statutes on religious freedom (on the federal and state level) likewise saw no conflict between America’s Constitution and laws banning blasphemous speech in public, as noted by Ryan Gale:

Laws banning blasphemy, specifically related to Christianity, were prevalent throughout the states around the time of America’s founding, even though most states had their own free speech and religious freedom protections in their state constitutions. For example, in the 1780s and 1790s, Massachusetts, New Hampshire (pp. 721-22), and New Jersey all passed blasphemy laws even though part 1, article II, part 1, article 5, and article 18 of their respective constitutions had religious freedom protections.

Anti-blasphemy laws are still on the books in at least five states, though they have not been enforced for several decades.

Presbyterian stalwart Charles Hodge, a firm devotee of American republicanism, is representative of the way most American Christians thought about laws enforcing business closures on Sunday and prohibiting blasphemous speech, arguing with respect to the third commandment that “[i]f a man may not blaspheme, a publishing firm may not print and disseminate a blasphemous book” (Systematic Theology, Volume 3, p. 342 [1872]), and regarding the fourth commandment that the “civil Sabbath, this cessation from worldly business, is what the civil government in Christian countries is called upon to enforce” (p. 347). The Dutch Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck noted this aspect of life both in England and America over a decade after Hodge wrote those words: “As in England, so in America, there is strict Sunday observance; the state still strongly upholds Sunday rest” (Reformed Ethics, Volume 2, p. 245 [c. 1884–85]). Hodge went so far as to argue that enforcement of the Sabbath was vital because if “the Sabbath . . . be abolished, the foundation of life for the people will be sealed” (p. 347). Hodge recognized the societal effects of sin left unchecked, as the apostle Paul had nineteen hundred years earlier: when men not only sin, but tolerate and give public approval to sin (Rom 1:32), it leavens an entire society (a case in point: the “social contagion of transgender delusions).

What about the first and second commandments? The second is easier to quantify in that one either has or has not made an image. Although colonial New England would have enforced the second commandment by law, the states in post-Revolutionary America did not (to my knowledge) enact laws banning the creation of what (from a Protestant perspective) would be considered idols (Roman Catholic icons and statues, for example). The first commandment is inherently more difficult to enforce in that whether one “has another god” in place of the one true God is a matter of belief, which is an internal state. This is not, however, to say that the state cannot do things that would be broadly supportive of true religion. It is undeniable that in post-Revolutionary America the state has never been granted as much authority in this regard as in Reformational Europe. But it is equally undeniable that for most of America’s history, church and state were seen as harmonious, though distinct, realms of authority.

Discussion of any sort of state enforcement of the first table of the law laws today often evokes images of stonings and hangings in Islamic countries, or perhaps the ghost of Michael Servetus in Calvin’s Geneva. In a post-Revolutionary American context enforcement of anti-blasphemy and Sunday work closure laws was much milder than it was in Reformational Europe, with punishment usually restricted to short jail times or relatively small fines. One may still find fault with such laws. Such a person could even argue that it is only after the triumph of absolutist secularism in the latter half of the twentieth century that our courts have finally gotten the relationship between the first table of the law and our constitution correct, but even just the brief historical glimpse in this article is sufficient to show how far away this stance would be from the mainstream of traditional American culture, laws, and jurisprudence.

In this article, I obviously haven’t proven that the first table of the law should be enforced by the civil magistrate today. If one wanted to make that argument, one would have to make it on the basis of Scripture, natural law, reason, and prudence (or some combination). But I have shown how dominant the position of church-state harmony has been throughout our history, a position that led routinely to laws enforcing the third and fourth commandments of the Decalogue, while at least providing a framework conducive to the first commandment. And it should be noted that these laws were not enacted on theonomic grounds (i.e., as a mandatory enforcement of the civil sanctions of Old Testament law by the state today), although they were explicitly crafted in order to be supportive of Christian churches (broadly defined). All of this is exactly what the American revision of the Westminster Confession of Faith (1788) commands the civil magistrate to do (23.2, 3), “to maintain piety, justice, and peace, according to the wholesome laws of each commonwealth” and “as nursing fathers . . . to protect the church of our common Lord, without giving the preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest . . . .”

---

Image Credit: Unsplash

Share This