VII Conclusion: A Christian View of Government

1. Review: government needed, taxes owed, submission required, resistance rare

This essay began with the question: how should an American Christian view government? This question very quickly morphed into the better question: how should a Christian view government? In no way was this question answered exhaustively; however, I hope the question was at least satisfactorily answered in regard to the four timely concerns I sought to address. These concerns were about the nature of government, taxation, the proper attitude towards civil authorities, and grounds for disobedience or revolt. As Christians, we may be thankful that each of these tricky issues are so well addressed in God’s Word. It has been my intent to redirect my fellow Christians, especially those who would, like myself, regard themselves as politically conservative, to those portions and themes of Scripture that handle these issues. Where appropriate, I addressed peculiar aspects of the American perspective on these issues, but only in such a way as to make specific application of the general rules that we may derive from the Bible.  In short, the best way for an American Christian to view government is through a thoroughly Christian lens. 

The first issue to be addressed was the nature of government. Over against the libertarian view that at best government is but a necessary evil, we saw from the Noahic Covenant that civil government was a good thing that God instituted to curb our evil inclinations. However, government was not meant to be a cure-all for our ills; it is not to be our savior. Instead, it is meant to be a restraint to evil, so that the stage of redemption is preserved in order that our Savior may accomplish His mission to save. Oftentimes, the evil that government is designed to repress is saliently expressed in government itself. When this is the case, it is easy to imagine that it would be better if government did not exist at all, but we must trust that God’s design was not flawed. We know from many other cases that the evil actions of men may work concurrently with God’s good Will to accomplish God’s good purpose. The Cross is the chiefest example of this. Despite the evil we find in governments, we must not locate this evil in the institution itself, but in the persons who act upon its behalf. If the institution were to disappear, the evil would not. Indeed, it would increase. Even in spite of the evil persons who often work within government, it still accomplishes God’s purpose for it: to prevent evil from becoming unbounded. 

The second issue addressed was taxation. Biblically speaking, this was the easiest to address since the Bible is crystal clear: we are to pay our taxes. None other than Christ Himself says this. This in itself should be sufficient to convince Christians to pay their taxes. However, a couple sticking points were dealt with for the sake of completeness. First, it was shown that taxation is not a violation of the right to private property since we owe our taxes, i.e. it is not our property to keep. Second, it is not our responsibility to ensure that the government does not use the tax revenue for evil since our responsibility is not tied to other’s responsibilities. 

The third issue was more nuanced. It was the issue of our attitude towards government and whether the political virtue required of us as American citizens conflicted with the virtue of submissiveness required of us as citizens of our heavenly country. Ultimately, this conflict was resolved by distinguishing between the actions required by one virtue, and the attitude required by the other virtue. Our political virtue requires us to act in defense of our liberties, but our Christian virtue requires us to be submissive in our attitudes. Both of these things are possible, but we must be on our guard to prevent our hearts from following their natural course of rebellion.

The fourth issue was about the grounds for revolt or disobedience. This subject was far from exhausted, but biblical examples were given to show how mere injustice in the ruling authorities did not justify by itself revolt or disobedience. Instead, when it came to full scale revolt, three marks had to be present for a revolt to be just: general public acquiescence via some legal body, an appeal to higher authority, and where every available avenue of redress had been exhausted. When it came to personal civil disobedience, the same marks applied except the first. 

2. Diagnosing wrong views of government and exhortation to search Scripture

As this essay comes to a close, the question that begs itself is this: why do I believe other Bible believing conservatives like myself have fallen for ideas that I have argued are unbiblical? That is, why is there a biblical blindspot here?  We Bible believing Christians, now and in the past, all have blindspots — more than we could imagine. So far, I have simply tried to point out the blindspot in some detail, but now I wish to examine the cause of this blindspot being there in the first place. Perhaps the investigation will be helpful in finding blindspots in general. 

In this case, and it seems plausible for other cases of blindspots too, the blindspot originates in a subtle two step process. The first step involves agreeing with a good and true argument and then misapplying it in various cases. This is a case of logical confusion. In confusing times, confusions like these are easy to make. The second step involves reinforcing these misapplied arguments because they suit some inclination or support some interest of ours. This brings in a moral element that explains why the logical confusion can be so hard to correct. 

What then is the good and true argument that has been accepted and then misapplied? It is this: if you follow Christ, then you will often have to believe and speak things that are counter-cultural. If the culture that we live in devalues the sanctity of life and redefines sexual morality, we are right to conclude that we must not go along with this and must speak out lovingly against it. The confusion arises when we make a slight modification to the consequent of this argument (in arguments of the if/then form, the if statement is called the antecedent and the then statement is called the consequent). The argument now becomes, if you follow Christ, then you will always have to believe and speak things that are counter-cultural. That is, being counter-cultural is identified with following Christ and thus a mark of it. The fallacy committed is that of equivocating on the consequent. We’ve identified a good argument, A implies B, and then we have subtly redefined B and believe the argument still holds. 

However, the argument does not still hold. Cultures change, but Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. If we identify following Christ with being counter-cultural, then what it means to follow Christ will change as the culture changes. What was counter-cultural in the past is often what is cultural in the present. Therefore, we cannot call what is counter-cultural Christian, unless we are willing to say that Christianity is relative. Yet, we know from Scripture that Christianity is absolute because Jesus said He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. 

For those who have accepted the modified argument that identifies faithfulness to Christ with being counter-cultural, and especially those who try to take it to its logical conclusion, naturally settle into a generally nonconformist worldview. When it comes to political thought, radical libertarianism, which embodies all four ideas that were opposed in this essay, is best suited to such a worldview. Therefore, it is no surprise that such political thought is so popular in conservative Christian circles. Additionally, as the culture around us becomes increasingly anti-christian, we can expect that this political thought will become more appealing than ever. However, as I hope I have shown, such political thought, i.e. radical libertarianism, is not compatible with a biblical worldview. At last, we come to the ironic predicament where those who are trying to be most radically biblical in their thoughts have accepted a patently unbiblical ideology. 

However, is confusion alone sufficient to explain the existence of this blindspot? Perhaps in certain individual cases it is, but by and large something more is required. This is where a personal interest or inclination comes into the picture. Nothing is more attractive to our natural inclinations than the freedom to do precisely as we please. The whole human race was sold under sin in the hopes of securing total autonomy, that is, self-rule, for what was the selling point of Satan’s lie to Eve but that we should be “like God” (Gen. 3:5)? Now we have a perfect recipe for a blindspot: on the one hand, there is the conviction that we are doing what is right, while on the other hand, we are able to do what we always wanted to do, even if it is wrong. As Christians, it is hard enough to guard against sins that we know to be sins, yet through weakness we still commit, but it is even harder to guard against sins that we have convinced ourselves are virtues. Nevertheless, by the grace of God, we may even guard against sins like this by the careful and humble reading of the Word of God. 

This essay has been a call, especially to politically conservative Christians, to ground their view of government wholly in Scripture and in Scripture as a whole. We must not simply identify one unbiblical way, the theologically and politically liberal way, and go with what ever appears to be the opposite, but we must seek out the one true way. We must recognize that although there is only one true way, it does not follow that there is only one false way. There are many ways that may be false, some liberal, some moderate, some conservative. We must take each issue on its own terms and take it to the light of Scripture to discern what is right or wrong.