Church and State as State

Should Christians seek to be the ones who hold the levers of State power? In a previous article, “Christians and Politics: like cheese and crackers or oil and water?” I set out six questions that I believe Christians who are considering seeking political office or who have already gained political power, should address. That article should be read in conjunction with this present article which raises a couple of further related issues.

It needs to be asked of those Christians who are seeking, or have obtained, political office, What would you regard as “success” when it comes to Christians being in political power?

Presumably the answer is quite obvious: success would be (1) getting committed Christians elected into office and (2) committed Christians being part of the government of the day. There would not seem to be much value in running and not getting elected or in getting elected but not being in government. If one is going to be in politics then being the ones who are doing the legislating would seem to be the place to be. (Of course, trying to stop bad legislation from the opposition benches may be considered to be worthwhile as well.)

How many Christians though need to be elected into political office in order for such “success” to be considered to have been achieved?

Having even one openly-professing committed Christian in parliament may seem to be good – or at least a lot better than none at all - but on their own they are very unlikely to be able to steer the ship of state in the direction that Christians may like to see it go.

How many Christians in political office would be enough then? Several? The mutual support would be good for those members’ morale but that number may still have little impact upon passing what is perceived to be good legislation or stopping bad legislation.

It would seem that in order to ensure that desirable legislation is passed and undesirable legislation blocked that a significant majority of members in the government would have to be “genuine” Christians. (Who decides, and how it is decided, who are “genuine” Christians are other important questions that need to be considered.)

If a clear majority of government members are committed Christians, and presuming that they can all agree on a legislative agenda (which may be an overly optimistic presumption), then it would seem that the hopes of many Christians would be fulfilled. Only Biblical/Christian laws would be able to be passed and ungodly laws would always be defeated.

Success! Let’s get cracking then in getting good Christians elected to parliament.

But wait . . . could there possibly be anything problematic with such a goal?

Firstly, given the present state of our society, is such a scenario where committed Christians manage to make up the majority of the government members anything more than a pipe dream? Is it remotely possible that a (functionally) highly secular society (notwithstanding that over 50% of Australians identified as “Christian” in the last census) would vote into office so many openly committed Christians? Certainly it is the case that there is currently very little support at the ballot box for candidates who stand for Christian political parties. Indeed, what should we make of Jesus’s words, “All men will hate you because of me . . .” (Matthew 10:22) in this context?

(Perhaps as a strategy Christian candidates could mask their identity when running for office, only to reveal their Christian convictions should they be successful in being elected. Even if this were effective, such deception would surely run counter to the idea of getting people of real integrity into parliament and thus render the exercise largely futile. You would have to wonder too if they would get voted in a second time.)

For argument’s sake though, let us imagine a scenario where committed Christians manage to make up the majority of members in the Australian government. Would it be reasonable to describe such a situation as a form of theocracy, albeit a democratically elected theocracy?

Theocracies are often defined as political systems where religious clergy rule in the name of God, such as is the case in present-day Iran. In our scenario though the government members wouldn’t be members of the Christian clergy, although some may be, but they would be people who presumably would definitely endeavour to govern with the benefit of divine (Biblical) guidance.

It is one thing for those legislators to then pass laws that they believe are in conformity with God’s/Christian values but the reality is, that once passed, such legislation must necessarily then be enforced. The Christian-majority government would then find itself in the position of having to use the power of the State to try and compel non-Christians to abide by those Christian values.

There are of course many issues over which Christians and non-Christians have no disagreement, e.g. penalising murder and rape. But as we all know there are also controversial issues where there can be strong disagreement between many Christians and many non-Christians, e.g. homosexual practice/marriage, abortion, prostitution, pornography, censorship, euthanasia, etc. (And it must be recognised that often Christians themselves do not speak with one voice on these subjects.)

The question is, does God want Christians to use fines, imprisonment and other coercive measures to try and compel all the members of a pluralistic society to conform to Christian values?

At times in various places Christians have been, and continue to be, subject to harsh government penalties simply for seeking to live as Christians. In a Christian theocracy the shoe however would then be on the other foot. If people refused to comply with the Christian-based law then the heavy hand of the State would have to be used, as forcefully as necessary, to suppress all such illegal behaviour. Does not such a prospect create at least some misgivings?

The notion of getting many committed Christians into Parliament can be very alluring – power is very seductive. But Christians need to think very carefully about what it would mean should they actually achieve their wildest dreams and somehow manage to grasp the reins of power.

It will of course be pointed out that if we do not seek power for ourselves then we will be at risk, in an increasingly secular society, of being crushed by those who do gain power and who may hate us. However, simply because we may not seek power does not mean that we should not seek to be a positive influence on those who are in power.

And if that influence is unsuccessful is it better for us, indeed, is it right for us, to be the ones who have the boot on our throats or to be the ones who put the boot on the throats of others?

Does God want Christians to rule society by means of a form of Christian theocracy?