Last Sunday, my Pastor gave a message based on the line in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come.” That got me thinking about how unamerican Jesus is. We tend to think that the best form of government is democracy, but here Jesus is telling us to pray for the imposition of a kingdom.
The Christian Right is sort of famous for claiming that the United States was founded by Christians on the basis of Christian principles. But is the democratic ideal a Christian ideal? The Declaration of Independence says, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” and “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends (preserving certain unalienable rights), it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.” Compare that to this statement: “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves” (Romans 13:1-2). In this same passage, the essential purpose of government is a restraint on bad behavior rather than a defender of personal rights.
There’s a basic contradiction here. From a biblical view, it seems more accurate to say that the American government was indeed established by God, but that he did so by means that were anything but Christian.
2 Comments:
Asking if the democratic ideal is a Christian ideal is a great question. I suppose the Christian ideal looks more like a very wise, kind, and goodly king, to put it in strictly temporal terms.
But, do you not suppose that when Paul uses the word "authority" he is thinking of an authority that is legitimate? Is authority that is taken for oneself necessarily an authority "established by God" as Paul is conveying the idea here? I wonder. I completely agree that the purpose of government is a restraint on - or outright force against - bad behavior. But if the "government" under a cruel and murderous dictator ceases to protect those who are governed, indeed, causes its people to live in abject terror (a far cry from carrying out its Heavenly mandate) it could be that even the Apostle himself would concede that a revolution is in order, is at least permissible, because the dictator's authority is really no authority at all.
I feel your pain, though. Surely the Framers never intended, indeed, could scarcely have imagined our modern-day love affair with "rights".
I don't see too much of a contradiction between the language of the Declaration you have set out here and Paul's words. I think if we read Paul's words the way I suggest, the line "whenever any Form of Govenment becomes destructive of these ends . . . it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it" can be adopted without too much stretching. If I am right, Paul is concerned about believers not submitting to legitimate authorities. The Framers concerned themselves with granting authority without vesting it in any one group of people, let alone one person. The authority they gave us is a very simple document called the US Constitution; a simple document which, in my view, contains an amendment which has been very wrongly interpreted and applied.
Good post! I am surprised you haven't had more hits on this topic.
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Anonymous, at
11:38 PM
Thanks for the comments, Todd. I wonder if you would be so kind as to post them at the new location of my blog, takingupspace.wordpress.com
I busy thinking up a reply which I will post there.
There were at one time 'more hits on this topic.' One of the reasons I decided to try wordpress is that somehow the comments on this site got lost over time.
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ds, at
12:18 PM
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