Interpreting the Bible in regard to government: Five key understandings

Although the Bible provides general principles and guidelines for how a Christian relates to the government, I’ve never found a Christian Citizens For Dummies section packed inside my Bible. Given that reality, it’s not surprising that Christians come to different conclusions on this issue. These groups and their perspectives parallel the five approaches I discuss in the “Living Out Christ’s Calling in Different Ways” section earlier in this chapter:

Road Runners: This separatist approach says that Christians should stay away from the government and politics altogether, because if they didn’t, they’d only get their hands dirty. Supporters of this view believe that although God installed government out of necessity to keep order (because government is better than anarchy), he didn’t endorse it or give it his seal of approval. Therefore, the Christian response is to accept powerlessness, avoid interaction with government, and disobey it as one’s conscience requires (although accepting the consequences of such disobedience).

World Huggers: This approach claims that the government’s purpose is to improve the lives of its citizens. Therefore, proponents take an activist view, often emphasizing social justice issues, and look to Christ as a model for their advocacy because he was a supporter of the down-and-out and saved his hard words for the established “powers-that-be.”

Brothers in Arms: This approach says that government was not only created to keep order, but also to improve people’s lives. People in power are true public servants, committed to the needs of others and leading society to virtue. These Christians believe that they should respect the government’s laws, but if a law goes counter to God’s Word, then it’s no longer a law, but a perversion – and they don’t follow it.

Tightrope Walkers: Although this “balancing act” perspective doesn’t forbid being involved in politics or government, it does see politics more pessimistically than the other approaches do (except the Road Runners). Advocates of this view don’t expect much from the government, other than to preserve order so people can live their lives. As a result, they don’t see social reform as a major priority, and they see the ideals put forth in the Bible as largely irrelevant to how a secular society works.

Transformers: This view has a more positive, activist view of government, charging that the government should do more than just keep order, bringing Christian virtues into how it rules. Christians have acted out several examples of this transformer model within the past two hundred years. First, Christians spearheaded the anti-slavery movements in Britain and the United States. William Wilberforce (see Chapter 18), for example, was a strong evangelical Christian who worked for decades in British parliament in the 19^th century to abolish slavery on moral grounds. Second, African American church leaders led the civil rights movements in the United States during the 1950 and 1960s. Third, a large part of the unsung credit of the fall of the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe goes to Orthodox and Catholic pastors who headed nonviolent disobedience efforts during the late 1980s. In each of these examples, Christians responded with the belief that they were called by God to transform the unjust system that was before them.

Table 14-1 shows a summary of each of these perspectives on various issues of political involvement.

Was the Apostle Paul pro-slavery?

Similar to 19^th century America’s version, slavery was a widespread evil in the Roman Empire during the first century. As a result, part of the audience for Paul’s letters included both slaves and slave owners. Some people have charged the Apostle Paul as being pro-slavery because he never condemns the institution of slavery in his writings. However, it’s important to remember two realities. First, unlike the democracies that are prevalent today, Christians in Paul’s day had no political power to change the system. Therefore, inspiring churches to political action or rebellion would be pointless in such a context and would only serve to weaken the Church’s priorities of spreading the gospel through the region. Second, although Paul didn’t speak out for or against the institution of slavery, one can’t necessarily conclude that he didn’t care about his society’s evils. Instead, his actions simply make it clear that he was more concerned about the salvation of the individual slaves and slave owners than he was about changing the temporary sinful systems on earth.