Government – Page 2 – Good Question

Does the principle of healing the “land” in 2 Chronicles now apply to our sphere of influence?

Q. Does the principle of “healing their land” in 2 Chronicles now apply to our sphere of influence rather than to a plot of ground? Since Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, can we still say it applies to all Christians who humble themselves, pray, seek Him, and turn from their wicked ways?

Sometimes when that passage in 2 Chronicles is quoted these days, “my people, who are called by my name” are equated with contemporary Christians, and “their land” is equated with the nation-state that a particular group of Christians is living in at a given time. I think we need to be careful about that. The passage actually expresses God’s reply to Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple about something very specific.

Solomon prayed: “When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, and when they pray toward this place and give praise to your name and turn from their sin because you have afflicted them, then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel. Teach them the right way to live, and send rain on the land you gave your people for an inheritance.” Solomon then prayed the same thing about “famine or plague, blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers.”

God appeared to him after the temple dedication ceremonies and promised in reply: “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

So this promise has to do with giving the land, the literal “plot of ground” on which the people of ancient Israel were living, relief from what we today would consider “natural disasters.” In the theocracy period, these were to be taken as prompts for the Israelites to examine themselves for any disloyalty or disobedience to their covenant God.

So I don’t think we can make a direct application of the promise to ourselves today. However, I think there is an important indirect application, along the lines you suggest. I think there are many indications in the Bible that the people of God, even in the current phase of redemptive history when they are the multinational community of believers in Jesus, can and should have a positive and preserving influence on the society around them.

We see this, for example, in Jesus’ parables about the mustard seed and leaven. While I think these have a legitimate application to the work of God within an individual’s heart and life, I believe they also describe the effects of the presence of the “kingdom of God” on its surroundings. (I understand the kingdom of God to be that community of people within which God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven, that is, without resistance.) I think these effects actually extend to the physical environment, but that is not the only or even the primary place where they are felt. Primarily, the presence of the kingdom of God influences human relationships, making them more wholesome, healthy, and harmonious.

I think other Scriptures point to this same thing. For example, there’s a statement in Psalm 84 that those “in whose heart are the highways to Zion” pass through the dry valley and turn it into a place of springs. (I’m interpreting this symbolically, but I don’t think the psalm itself is making a literal statement in any event.)

I would include the passage in 2 Chronicles together with these others and conclude that there is an indirect promise in the Bible that repentant, obedient believers will have a positive impact, individually and especially corporately, on their “sphere of influence.” (To use your well-chosen phrase—I think that’s the right thing to envision.)

Something to which we can all aspire in this new year!

"When those in whose hearts are the highway to Zion pass through the desert, they turn it into a place of springs." (Photo credit: Digital Aesthetica, Flikr_0413) — “When those in whose hearts are the highway to Zion pass through the desert, they turn it into a place of springs.” (Photo credit: Digital Aesthetica, Flikr_0413)

Should Christians try to impose a moral code legally on people who don’t believe?

Q. This is a sort of church and state question that is more theoretical than anything. What I’m wondering is if Christianity is true, and God made the universe according to his nature such that there are objective moral absolutes and so on, should Christians try in any way to impose a Christian moral code on people who don’t believe? In other words, if the best thing for human flourishing is to live in alignment with our God-ordained natures, to what degree should Christians try to make laws that outwardly compel people to live according to more or less Christian values (for their own good)?

For starters, let me say that I believe there’s a practical problem with the approach you’re asking about. Passing a law forbidding something doesn’t effectively prevent it, and passing a law requiring something doesn’t effectively make it happen. That’s because people typically don’t obey a law if they really don’t want to do what it says, or if they want to do what it says not to do. Fear of punishment is only a partial deterrent.

The classic example of this in the American experience is Prohibition. It did not compel Americans to become teetotalers. No one knows the actual effect it had on alcohol production and consumption, because it made those things very difficult to measure. But the general understanding is that consumption went down at first because supplies were limited, but as soon as illegal supplies came on line, consumption increased steadily. On the other hand, there was a significant and measurable decrease in alcohol consumption in the years before Prohibition, through social influences rather than legal force. I think that’s instructive. The most effective measures were persuasive, not compulsory. In our own day, organizations such as M.A.D.D. are having a renewed effectiveness through such persuasion. So this is something of a parable that Christians everywhere, and particularly in America, should bear in mind, as a reminder of the limits of legal force and the power of social forces.

In fact, I think your question leads directly to another one: For any given behavior we want to discourage, are we really better off passing a law against it? Or are we risking driving people who want to continue that behavior into the hands of criminals, strengthening their enterprises? Some things we simply must forbid, and enforce those sanctions as fully as possible, for the sake of social order and the protection of life and safety. I’m not advocating anarchy here. But we do have to consider that it may be better to allow certain things to remain legal and work to address their causes, rather than try to pass laws against them. In fact, even for things that unquestionably should be illegal, the laws against them are only a preliminary step. Those activities won’t go away, either, until their causes are addressed.

The Bible itself teaches us the capabilities and limits of the law. In arguing that Gentiles shouldn’t be expected to follow the Law of Moses, Paul writes in his letters that it did serve the functions of teaching and restraint. It illustrated for people how they should live, and it restrained, with strict penalties, the worst cases of personal injury and social disorder. But Paul also says pointedly that the Law was not capable of giving people the ability or desire to live in the way it specified. That depended instead on the transforming effects of life in a community that was living in covenant relationship with God, and ultimately on the gift of the Holy Spirit to that community and its members.

In our own day, societies can use all aspects of their “law,” from criminal penalties to features of their tax codes, to discourage some behaviors and incentivize others. In the process, they will teach, because this provides a picture of how they believe people should live. Allowing a tax deduction for charitable donations shows that the society encourages generosity to those in need. Creating and enforcing speed limits and other traffic regulations shows that the society does not want its members to endanger themselves or others by driving heedlessly. Societies also use laws to restrain. Having much more serious penalties for things like murder and robbery shows that such activities are dangerous and antisocial above all.

But this isn’t actually compelling people to live in a certain way. People will continue to do whatever they believe they can get away with until the causes of behavior are addressed, and that takes a lot more than passing a law. So the bottom line is that I don’t think we can “outwardly compel” people to live in a certain way through laws, though they can be an important first step.

But here’s the other side of the coin. In a democracy, people get the laws they work for. Otherwise, they get laws they haven’t worked for. So if Christians really do believe that, by God’s very design, certain activities are harmful and destructive, while others are beneficial and life-giving, then they need to be out there in the public-policy mix, at the very least trying to get positive things incentivized and negative things discouraged.

But I need to state some further qualifiers:

• I’m not talking about creating a theocracy, in which Christians take power and enforce the law of God (as they understand it) as the law of the land. For one thing, every time this has been attempted in church history, it has been a disaster. But in more theological terms, I believe that as redemptive history unfolded, the days of theocracy ended when Jesus introduced the new covenant and the people of God became a multinational community. Followers of Jesus now have a primary loyalty to the kingdom of God that is breaking into our world, but an important and continuing secondary loyalty to their own nations, to help them live up to their own highest ideals, consistently with the values of the kingdom of God. As an American, for example, I believe that I should support the ideals of democracy and civil liberties, while at the same time critiquing American culture’s extreme individualism, which (as social observers have been documenting) has caused narcissism to flourish and undermined our social fabric.

• What I am advocating is being in the mix. Pick your battles. Work for what matters most. To reach particular goals, form strategic alliances with people and organizations who might not agree with you about everything. In fact, they might agree with you about only one thing. But if that’s the thing you’re working for, you’ve got the potential to create a limited partnership with them.

• If what you’re really after is what you believe is best for people—human flourishing—then take care that your campaign, through its tone and tactics, doesn’t have destructive side effects. That would be tragically counterproductive.

I don’t believe it’s realistic to expect to be able to pass a comprehensive set of laws that will compel everyone, at least outwardly, to live as Christians believe people should. But if you are a citizen of a democracy, you have an obligation to support and work for legislation, and promote social measures, that will encourage people to live by the most transferable values of the kingdom of God. Probably the best place to start is with practical contemporary expressions of, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Plenty to work for there.

Thanks for your thoughtful question! I hope these reflections give you further food for thought.

This poster from the 1920s illustrates the dilemma of Prohibition: once the law was passed, campaigns needed to continue for its enforcement, because people were simply disobeying it.

Does the Bible support the Christian Right?

Q. It troubles me a great deal that in American culture some Christians have labeled themselves as the “Christian Right” and aligned themselves with certain political groups. We all know now why Christ was crucified, but at the time he was persecuted because he didn’t overturn the government as the populace expected him too. I am not trying to be judgmental about these groups, but doesn’t their well publicized agenda turn non-Christians off about being open to becoming followers of Jesus if they don’t agree with their politics? I don’t see the Bible supporting one political opinion over another. Our job seems to be clear: to love our Lord our God with all of our being and love our neighbor as ourself. Am I missing something?

This question gets into a vast subject that has complex and interrelated political, sociological, historical, and theological dimensions, which I can’t even begin to address here. For the purposes of this blog, however, let me share a few reflections on what I think are the biblical dimensions of this question.

One thing we discover in the Bible is that government and politics are included in the comprehensive range of cultural endeavors that God wants faithful people to become involved in. Biblical figures such as Joseph, Daniel, Esther, and Nehemiah provide models for us by the way they exerted a godly influence from the important government positions they held. Paul writes in Romans that the governing authorities have been “established by God” and that rulers are “God’s servants.” So the Bible does not support the view that followers of Jesus should stay away from government and politics as if these things were inherently worldly and contaminating–although those who do participate must always be careful to maintain complete honesty and integrity.

On the other hand, we also discover from the Bible that no one political position or agenda fully expresses God’s wishes for a given culture. One of the best illustrations of this is the way Jesus chose his twelve disciples from across the full political spectrum of his day. Matthew was a tax collector who had collaborated with the Romans occupation of Judea; Simon the Zealot belong to a party that advocated violent resistance to Rome. Jesus called both of them, and everyone in between, to join him in a kingdom that was “not of this world,” but which was nevertheless destined to transform the world so that it would once again conform to God’s original intentions in creation.

The outworking of the kingdom of God in a specific culture can take place along many different paths. The Bible itself illustrates how various answers can legitimately be given, in keeping with godly principles, to cultural questions. Could Jews intermarry with non-Jews? Some biblical books say definitely not, others suggest that in certain cases the answer might be yes. Could Jewish followers of Jesus eat with Gentile followers? The New Testament records that some early church leaders sincerely felt they shouldn’t, while others felt they could. How should Jesus’ followers relate to Rome? As noted above, Paul explained that the Roman authorities were “God’s servants.” But at other cultural moments captured in the New Testament, Rome was an enemy to all believers, portrayed as riding on the beast from the Abyss and “drunk with the blood of God’s holy people.”

So in our own day, we should be careful not to identify a single political movement or agenda with God’s purposes for our nation. There are at least some things in every party or movement’s agenda that do reflect the ideals of the kingdom of God, and other things that don’t. All followers of Jesus should be “fully convinced in their own minds” about what political principles to endorse and support, but at the same time they should be gracious and generous towards other followers of Jesus who are involved in politics but who are coming from a different perspective. Each should give the other credit for having good motives and for having thought through the biblical basis of their beliefs. Ideally Jesus’ followers should be able to model how to work together for the common good across ideological differences–something that is badly needed in our society today!

I believe it is true that the media publicity afforded to some figures on the “Christian Right” has created the impression in some minds that to be a follower of Jesus (or at least to be accepted as one), a person must hold certain political views. I hope all believers will make every effort to correct this false impression. (This can probably be done most effectively by those who agree politically with the Christian Right. Blow the minds of your Christian friends who are political liberals by affirming their genuine faith and thanking them for their sincere desire to make a difference in our world according to their understanding of the implications of biblical principles!)

To conclude, I agree that our mandate from Jesus is to love the Lord our God with all of our being and to love our neighbors as ourselves. How that works out politically will be complicated and it will require lots of good will and cooperation among followers of Jesus who see things differently, but who are all equally sincere and equally committed to the coming of the kingdom of God.