Here is an interview Peter Leithart did with the Society for the Advancement of Eccelsial Theology. I have not heard of this particular group before. However, the interview is very helpful. Dr. Leithart makes the simple point that the entire Christian life is political because we serve a King and live in a Kingdom that is not of this world. I especially enjoyed the phrase "Christians never have limited political capital." I have reprinted the interview in full below. It can be difficult in places, but I think you can get the main point.
1. For those who are not familiar with
your work, can you describe your contribution to the question of how the
individual Christian and the Church relates to the State?
PL: I have addressed church-state
questions in many of my books, though obliquely rather than directly. I
have explored those themes in various books – The Kingdom and the Power,
Against Christianity, and more recently my historical study, Defending
Constantine, where I address church-state relations more directly.
But I am convinced that political concerns are
inherent in theology. Political theology is not some specialized branch
of theology, but a dimension of all theology. Politics is not simply
about passing this legislation or electing that candidate. Politics
addresses questions about the distribution of power, and more broadly questions
about the shape and future of a group. Theology cannot help but address
those questions, and do it all the time. The Bible certainly deals with
political questions like this.
So, even when I am not doing political
theology, I am doing political theology. Let me given a couple of
examples of what I mean. Ecclesiology has been a major focus of my work,
and, as I see it, that bumps directly up against political questions. The
intimate connection between ecclesiology and politics has been obscured in
modernity because the church has been marginalized and has allowed itself to be
transformed into a sociologically invisible and politically innocuous religious
group. Scripture, by contrast, treats the church as a political entity in
itself, each individual congregation as an outpost of the heavenly empire of a
heavenly Emperor. That means that the church and its claims about
Jesus, sin, and salvation are political claims, necessarily. I’ve also
written a lot on sacramental theology, and I have had the same concerns in
view. Sacraments ritualize and represent the kind of community that the
church is and aspires to be, and that again means that the sacraments
inevitably have a political dimension. I think in fact that the eclipse
of sacramental consciousness and sacramental theology is one of the great
political tragedies of the past several centuries of church history. The
Eucharist has been privatized and individualized, and that means it lacks the
political edge – as the table of the kurios, the Lord – that it has in
the New Testament. How many wars among Christian nations would have been
avoided if our sense of community had been shaped by being table fellows with
one another?
2. Richard Mouw and Carl F. H.
Henry have suggested that the Church’s role is not coterminous with the
responsibility possessed by individual believers. Do you agree or
disagree?
PL: Yes, I think that is fairly
obvious. An individual believer might be a judge who sentences someone to
prison or to death; the church as an institution can never do that. As always,
though, the devil is in the details. I don’t take that distinction to
imply that the church as an institution has only an “indirect” political role,
that it can never intervene in political affairs as the church. Over the
centuries, the church as an institution, or representatives of the church, have
addressed political issues directly, without overstepping the bounds of
churchly authority. Ambrose rebukes Theodosius and denies him communion
because of a rash and bloody military episode. During the middle ages, the
church disciplined nobles who defied the truce and peace of God. I think it’s
entirely proper for the church to speak as church to political injustices.
PL: Negative first. When I
address political or social questions, I am nearly always responding to the
various forms of secularism to which the church has succumbed in the modern
era. That can take all kinds of forms – in Presbyterianism, it’s the “spirituality
of the church”; in Lutheran and some Reformed circles it takes the form of
law/gospel schemes; in Catholic theology, and it seems increasingly in
Protestantism, it takes the form of natural law theory. Each of these
ends up treating the political sphere as to some degree an autonomous sphere, a
religion-free zone that the church is not allowed to address. Or, if the
church or Christians address issues in this secular political sphere, we have
to translate into generic terms and categories. Biblical political claims
like “Jesus is Lord” and biblical political demands like “Kiss the Son”
(addressed to rebellious rulers in Psalm 2) are ruled out.
Positively, I am an advocate of
Christendom. That doesn’t mean that I believe that Western Christian civilization
was perfect. It wasn’t even close to perfect. A lot of evil was
done in the name of Jesus. But I advocate Christendom as a principle,
goal, and program. Jesus is Lord of lords and King of kings. That’s
what the church is supposed to tell rulers, as it calls them to submit to the
Lord Jesus, both in their personal lives and in their political conduct.
Whether or not we believe that they’ll listen, we have to call them to “kiss
the Son,” or we are being unfaithful to the gospel. The good news is the
good news of God’s reign – of God’s reign, the good news that Jesus is
at the right hand of the Father, and that He, not Caesar or Stalin or Jupiter,
rules the earth. If we are calling rulers to trust and obey Jesus, then
we are in principle advocating Christendom – the rule of Christ over the
nations.
4. How would you summarize the political
responsibilities of the average American in the pew—that is, someone with
voting rights, but little political capital, and little or no economic capital
for political action?
PL: The first thing I’d want to
emphasize is that Christians are engaged in political action just by being part
of the church. Worship is the leading political activity of
Christians. In worship, we sing Psalms that call on God to judge the
wicked and defend the oppressed, and God hears our Psalms; we pray for rulers
to rule in righteousness; we hear the word of God that lays out our alternative
way of life, and we sit at the table where we who are many are formed into one
body, an alternative Christian polis, by sharing in the one loaf. The
problem is that in many churches those things don’t happen. Churches
don’t sing Psalms, and especially don’t sing the hard Psalms that call on God
to judge the wicked. More churches are having weekly Eucharist, but in
evangelicalism that is still more the exception than the rule. The first
political agenda for American Christians is to get worship more into line with
Scriptural requirements.
In saying this, I’m questioning the premise of
the question: Christians never have limited political capital. We worship
the King; we can appeal to Him; He hears us and acts on our behalf. We
have more political capital than anybody, but we often don’t act as if we
believed that.
The second thing I’d emphasize is that America
has a limited place in God’s plan. Everyone agrees with that in
principle, I suppose, but the notion that America is a “redeemer nation” dies
hard. The US is a great place to live, and has achieved a great deal of
good. But we need to have a more modest idea of America. We need to
make sure that we are not in any way confusing Americanism or patriotism with
the gospel.
The third thing I’d emphasize is that, beyond
voting and staying informed about political issues, politics is a calling.
Not every Christian is called into political activism, and certainly not every
Christian is called to hold political office. Some are, and they need
prayer and support and encouragement from other believers, because our
political system is corrupt and corrupting.
The modern world has made an idol of politics
and power, and Christians who throw themselves into activism are sometimes
unwittingly buying into that idolatry. We cannot act as if political
action can “save America,” which the rhetoric of the religious right has often
suggested. We need to find ways to cut the roots of statist idolatry,
rather than nibbling at its fruit.
5. How does Romans 13 help us
understand the limits placed on the church and/or the individual believer in
our engagement with political matters?
[[ed. note: see above.]]
6. How do biblical books such
as Deuteronomy and Proverbs help us to understand God’s perspective on
politics? Does the fact that they share political and ethical
insights with other Ancient Near Eastern cultures (or that they offer critiques
of those cultures and their political systems) influence your view of their
relevance?
PL: All Scripture is breathed of God,
and is useful for training the man of God for every good work. Thus far
Paul (paraphrased). If political action is a good work, and it is, then
all Scripture is relevant. Deuteronomy and Proverbs are two of the most
relevant, I think. We can make the point Christologically too: All
Scripture is about Christ; we are in Christ; therefore, all Scripture is about
our responsibilities as the body of Christ.
Proverbs largely consists of Solomon’s
instruction to his son, the prince. It is political theology through and
through, a biblical “mirror of magistrates.” Deuteronomy, like the other
books of the Pentateuch, also has a lot to tell us about political
ethics. I recently wrote an essay on the strategy of bombing civilian
targets, which has been used by the US since World War II. Deuteronomy
20, I think, addresses that strategy quite directly when it prohibits Israel
from waging war against fruit trees. Scripture does not permit total
war. Even hot topics like the Pentateuch’s treatment of slavery provide
political wisdom for us. In ancient Israel, enslavement of fellow Israelites
served a dual purpose in crimes against property: restitution and
rehabilitation. An Israelite who could not, for instance, pay back what
he stole would become a slave of his victim for six years. During that
time, he would be working off the value of what he stole, but if his master was
conscientious, he would also be learning skills that would perhaps help him
live a productive life in the future. If someone is caught embezzling,
why not make him work without pay for the victim, or with low pay, for a designated
period, so that he can both pay back what he owes and also get back on his
feet? That would be far preferable to imprisonment.
Obviously, in interpreting any part of
Scripture, we need to take the historical and, more importantly, the
redemptive-historical context into account. Deuteronomy instructs Israel
to have no pity on Canaanites as they take the land; it gives instruction on
herem warfare. That is not a prescription for modern states to engage in
genocide. So, Deuteronomy has to be taken in the light of the whole
Bible, and especially in the light of what Jesus did. But, we need to do
the work, think through the implications, figure out how to apply all of
Scripture to our political situation.
7. Some political theologians
note that Daniel simultaneously models service, critique, and a message of
divine judgment. Are all three of these to be implemented by
believers? Are they postures we should always exhibit, or are they
more appropriate at some times than others?
PL: I do think that the mix of these
three postures varies depending on the political circumstances, and depending
on the person involved. And Scripture indicates that men and women
can work faithfully even under the worst of rulers – think of Obadiah during
the days of Ahab. In thinking through this, my thoughts again gravitate
to ecclesiological issues. Daniel was able to serve, but also maintain a
critical distance, because he was a member of another community, of
Israel. It seems that Christians today have difficulty maintaining that
complex stance, or doing that complicated dance, because we don’t have an
alternative home. When Christians enter political life deeply conscious
of the fact that they are members of the church, Christians first and foremost,
that gives them a place to stand when they critique and when they serve.
8. If a young church planter
says to you, “In my social and cultural context, I need to avoid political
topics. This enables me to address the gospel without any baggage
and has helped our church create a community of diverse perspectives centered
on Christ and his work. But am I doing the right
thing? Should I be bolder?” How would you
respond? Which passages would you use as a resource for guiding his
or her thinking?
PL: As I’ve said, I don’t think
political questions are avoidable. Since the Bible addresses political
concerns so frequently, we can’t avoid politics without avoiding the
Bible. Since the church is a polis, we cannot avoid being political
without avoiding Christian faith itself.
I imagine that the question is more particular,
though: Should a pastor preach against Obamacare? Should he address the
budget deficit in a sermon? Here, as the scholastics said, distinguo:
Some issues are so blatantly unjust and unbiblical that a pastor shouldn’t
sidestep them. I’m thinking of abortion for instance; this is a massive,
global, organized, well-funded movement to slaughter the most defenseless
members of the human race. It’s hard to imagine something more hideous,
and a pastor who turns a blind eye is not being faithful. Sodomy is
another example. Sodomy is sinful, but in itself, it is no more a
cutting-edge issue than adultery. But of course in our time sodomy has
been pushed to the forefront by homosexual activist groups. Both abortion
and the widespread acceptance and promotion of sodomy are symptoms of deep
moral and spiritual decay in our culture, and I find no reasons for avoiding
them. I can imagine situations when a pastor should take a stand against
a particular ruler – as Bonhoeffer did – or oppose particular governmental
actions – the prosecution of an unjust war, for example. And I can also
imagine times when it would be appropriate for an entire denomination to
declare its opposition to some policy or program. But those have to be
chosen with care. Preaching is not punditry.
On a host of other issues, pastors can and
should preach more generally. Instead of addressing specific budget
proposals, a pastor can point to biblical patterns of prudence, modest of
desires and wants, avoidance of debt, etc. Instead of addressing the
specifics of Obamacare (which few understand, even those who voted for it!), a
pastor should address more general questions about the proper role of
government, the place of individual or family responsibility, the role of the
church in providing care for its members, etc.
9. What is the best article or
essay a young pastor could read on politics, political interpretation of
Scripture, or political theology? The best book?
PL: The best essay is an old essay by
John Milbank, “An Essay Against Secular Order.” One of William
Cavanaugh’s essays on the post-Reformation “religious” wars would also be on my
short list.
On political theology directly, I’ve not read a
better book ever than Oliver O’Donovan’s Desire of Nations. [Ed.
note: See our interview with O'Donovan.] He attempts to
reconstruct political categories from Scripture, from the ground up. He
rethinks the basic concepts of political theory from Scripture, in very
illuminating ways. I also believe that the reconstructionsts, especially
R.J. Rushdoony, have some profoundly important things to say about politics,
especially in Politics of Guilt and Pity and Foundations of Social
Order. But I’d also encourage a young pastor to recognize that all
of theology is infused with political concerns, and to think about the
political import of theology as a whole, and the political import of pastoral
labors – marriage counseling, preaching, vocational guidance, pastoral
oversight. Those are all significant political activities, provided we
recognize that politics is much bigger than we typically think
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