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J. Gresham Machen the founder of Westminster Seminary did not believe the state should run the church nor did he believe that the church should run the state. Machen, one of the greatest biblical scholars of the 20th century gave us some of the most scintillating thoughts on the role of the church within the state.
I found this gem posted by Darryl Hart over at Old Life:In 1933, the years the Philadelphia Eagles football club started (thank you Dan Borvan), the state of Pennsylvania considered reforming its laws prohibiting commercial activity on Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, so that football players and coaches could play in the afternoon. (How would the NFL make it without violating the fourth and eighth commandments?) J. Gresham Machen, then a resident of Philadelphia, wrote a letter to Gifford Pinchot, the governor of Pennsylvania and requested the retention of the Blue Laws as they were then written.
Machen’s reasoning in this letter is instructive for what it says about a recognition and acceptance of religious diversity, a commitment to religious freedom, and the tensions within a democracy between majority rule and minority protection. Perhaps most important for two-kingdom purposes is the place of an appeal to Scripture in public debate. In this case, Machen argues not for the magistrate to enforce divine law, but for the advantages that come to everyone when the law protects the practices of some citizens.
Not to be missed is what this letter says about the fourth commandment, and that keeping the whole day holy with two services is an occasion of Christian liberty. If only the Bible speaks to all of life crowd would take up the cause of the sanctity of the Lord’s Day. (Do we see a pattern here? Two kingdoms, two services?)
Dr. Hart then includes the letter by Dr. Machen which reads in part:
Of course it is perfectly clear that in a democracy the majority should rule in this matter as in other matters. I should be the last to advocate any attempt to make people religious or even to make people ordinarily moral or decent against their will by mere legislative enactment. I should also be the last to advocate any tyrannical imposition of the convictions of a minority upon the majority. But how shall the majority will be exercised? I think that it ought to be exercised through the ordinary processes of representative government. To allow commercialized sport on Sunday in Pennsylvania will be a radical change in the whole life of our people. It is a wise provision of representative government that such radical changes should not be hastily accomplished, as might be the case by the referendum vote, but that they should be accomplished only when it is quite clear that the majority of the people really and seriously and permanently desires the change. . . .
As to the merits of the question, I could hardly find words strong enough to express what my feeling is. It does seem to me that the profoundest dangers to our entire civilization are found in the constant rush of noise and jazz and feverish activity which is one of the great faults of the American people and which is a great barrier to true efficiency as well as to the cultivation of the deeper things.
Of course, my own cultivation of a quiet Sunday is based on considerations much more fundamental than these. I am a Christian, and it is quite clear that a commercialized Sunday is inimical to the Christian religion. There are many other Christians in Pennsylvania, and because they are Christians they do not cease to be citizens. They have a right to be considered by their fellow-citizens and by the civil authorities. But the reason why they can with a good conscience be enthusiastic advocates of the Christian practice in the matter of Sunday is that they regard it as right, and as for the highest well-being of the entire State.
Read the whole thing HERE.
Does Jesus' command to his followers to "turn the other cheek" mean that the state cannot legitimately bear the sword? David VanDrunen has written an excellent article for Themelios on the difference between the church's responsibilities and that of the state.
Among the many biblical passages that provoke controversial questions about Christian non-violence and cooperation with the sword-bearing state, perhaps none presses the issue as sharply as Matt 5:38–42. When Jesus prescribes turning the other cheek, giving up the garment, and going the second mile as an alternative to the lex talionis—the eye-for-eye principle of strict, proportionate justice—he addresses a key element of justice not only in the Mosaic law (Exod 21:22–25; Lev 24:18–21; Deut 19:21) but also in the Noahic covenant of Gen 9 and in countless human legal systems, such as the Law of Hammurabi and the Roman Law.2 Applied literally and universally, Jesus’ words leave little room for Christian participation in the coercive enforcement of justice in civil society. Yet NT texts such as Rom 13:1–7 continue to speak positively about civil government and its justice and about Christian submission under its regime. Interpreting Matt 5:38–42 in light of the broader biblical witness, therefore, has proven to be an arduous and controversial endeavor.
In recent years a number of eloquent writers have defended a rather literal reading of Matt 5:38–42 and surrounding verses. This often entails a non-violent or pacifist position that avoids cooperation with the civil state, though ordinarily its advocates seek not to withdraw from society but to develop a radical, peaceful, counter-intuitive strategy for effecting social transformation.3 Into the present day, however, most Christian theologians have held that Christians may be faithful to the Sermon on the Mount even while circumspectly supporting the coercive enforcement of justice. They often defend this view through highlighting the hyperbolic character of verses such as 5:38–42, which Jesus did not necessarily intend to be performed literally.4
My sympathies are clearly with the latter line of thought, though I defend the compatibility of the Sermon on the Mount with the continuing legitimacy of civil authority in a distinctive way. In this article I argue both for a strong—even literal—reading of Matt 5:38–42 and for the ongoing legitimate role for the sword-bearing state and Christian cooperation with it. Recognizing the lex talionis as the principle of strict retributive justice is crucial for my argument. Jesus truly decreed that the coercive application of the lex talionis was not to be pursued. Yet in doing so he did not intend to undermine civil authority or to prohibit Christians from supporting the work of the state. In Matt 5:38–42, Jesus announces that the pursuit of retributive justice has no place in the kingdom of heaven. Though the kingdom of heaven is ultimately an eschatological realm, to be fully revealed in the age to come, in Matthew Jesus points to the church as the particular community that embodies the kingdom’s way of life here and now. Many recent scholars argue against interpretations that limit the application of the Sermon on the Mount to the church.5 Christians, indeed, are citizens of the kingdom in all that they do and should always seek opportunities to express the Sermon’s ethic of forgiveness and reconciliation. Nevertheless, I argue that in Matt 5:38–42 Jesus defines the unique character of his church and does not redefine (or eliminate) the state or his disciples’ basic responsibilities toward it. The state is to continue its work of coercively enforcing justice in civil society, with Christians’ support. But the church is a community that shuns the application of the lex talionis. In anticipation of the eschatological kingdom, the church is not only a non-violent community but also, even more importantly, a community defined by an ethic of forgiveness and mercy rather than by retributive justice.
I also claim that a two-kingdoms doctrine as commonly expressed in historic Reformed theology provides an effective theological framework for appreciating these exegetical conclusions. Though most people today do not readily associate Reformed Christianity with a two-kingdoms doctrine, the early Reformed tradition did develop two-kingdoms categories similar to, though also distinct from, the Lutheran tradition. I argue that this Reformed two-kingdoms doctrine better captures Jesus’ teaching in Matt 5:38–42 than does either a Lutheran two-kingdoms doctrine or the neo-Calvinist paradigm popular in contemporary Reformed thought.
Read the entire article HERE.
