It is for Freedom that Christ has Set You Free

I made a pledge when I began this blog to remain steadfastly apartisan, meaning I would endeavour, to the best of my ability, to favor neither Democrats nor Republicans in my post. I chose my wording carefully, because I did not see a way to remain wholly apolitical. These days, both matters of faith and higher education are highly politicized, and to avoid them when they naturally arise would be irresponsible. Christ was very political in His ministry, but He skewered all parties in His delivery of the truth of the Gospel. I will confess readily that I do not in any way have Christ’s perfect objectivity in the matter, so I know my true perspectives peek out from time to time.

I offer this explanation because from time to time David Theroux of the Independent Institute asks me to cover work of the institute here. If I feel it meets the above criteria, I say yes and do it. If not, then I don’t. Over Spring Break he emailed me about a short video by I.I. Research Fellow Anthony Gregory.

A Future to Cherish

Let the Lord in His Temple rise

His greatness flow down from within

Succor to the suffering

Entreaty to the proud

Why do we long for heaven?

Why does the beauty of this earth cry for release?

Rejoice for that longing rests in the promise

We will have the contentment of sated appetite

And remaining capacity for neverending wonder

The mystery of the Almighty delights

His infinitude draws us onward on

Faster, never tiring

Exertion feeding strength, not draining

Always familiar, always wondrously new

Drink deep

Breathe deep

Rest deep

Run long

Laugh long

Exult longer still

Labor without toil

Care without pain

Rejoice without weariness

All our tomorrows exist in the everlasting today

SDG

Clothing Optional

“And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.” Genesis 2:25

“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands…” Revelation 7:9

“’Let us rejoice and exult and give Him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His Bride, has made herself ready; it was granted her to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure’—for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.” Revelation 19:7

“Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.” Revelation 22:14

The above parallel never occurred to me before tonight. We often talk about heaven being Eden restored—a new heaven and a new earth and all of that. Genesis makes a big deal about our nakedness being a symbol of our innocence and freedom from shame, yet strangely, Revelation doesn’t mention a restoration to innocent nakedness, and makes several references to our being clothed in robes. Ponder this for a minute.

There are several significant things to unpack here.

Consistency

We humans are remarkable creatures in many ways, not all of them good. In particular, we have an amazing capacity to rationalize our morality, seeing others' shortcomings and ignoring our own. It is difficult to “judge rightly,” as the Bible calls it. (John 7:24)

Well targeted was Christ’s command to pull the log out of our own eyes so that we can see clearly the speck in our brother’s. We even judge each other on judging. We quote, “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” but fail to remember the rest of the quote that says we will be judged by the standard we use to judge others.

The Importance of the Practice of Thanksgiving

Continuing this week’s theme of thanksgiving, I am beginning to realize why it is so important. According to this article, thanksgiving has an awful lot of papyrus spent on it in the Bible. God thinks it is important.

Yesterday, I said that thanksgiving was a kind of gateway to being able to know and praise God. This is true, but it is more than that.

We humans are created in God’s image. That’s pretty special. We are the ‘teacher’s pet’ of Creation. That easily can and does lead to us thinking rather more highly of ourselves than we ought, much like many teachers’ pets tend to do. This pride was born in Genesis 3, and like a spoiled brat, has made life miserable for the entire family.

The New Kosher

Back in our Lord’s day, Israel was under the Law, which included strict dietary laws handed down by the Designer of the human digestive system. Then the Designer Himself came down to correct how folks were interpreting those laws and their importance. He made a point of saying that “it isn’t what goes into a mouth that causes real problems, it is the state of the person’s heart and what that causes folks to spew out of their mouths.” (paraphrase) Matthew shares the event in full in chapter 15:

Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

“‘These people honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.

They worship me in vain;

their teachings are merely human rules.’”

Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”

Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”

He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.”

“Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

Fast forward about 1750 years. Some wise men sat around arguing over the laws of a new nation, and decided that giving everyone the right to verbally express their ignorance or intelligence without governmental reprisal was a good thing. Given that the “what you should eat” thing had largely been a settled issue for going on two millennia, they overlooked that part.

Ten Years

It is right and appropriate to jump on the bandwagon of everyone remembering 9/11. It has fundamentally shaped how we have interacted with the rest of the world, almost as much as WWII. Yes, I still maintain that WWII has so far had a greater impact that 9/11, but it had a 60 year head start. Given time, 9/11 may well surpass it, though both world wars set the stage for 9/11 in how the Middle East was carved up by the fading colonial powers. We did very little to alleviate those problems and thus have inherited them.

It has shaped my life directly as well. While I don’t know anyone personally that was lost that day, one very close friend lost a friend in the towers. Another acquaintance lost a brother I think in the Pentagon. Friends from grad school were on the observation deck the Saturday 3 days before. Mike remarked to me in an email shortly afterwards, “I remember standing on the roof and thinking how solid it was.”

The Things We Can't Talk About

“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

I Corinthians 13:12

Have you ever thought about how, even though we live in a free country, there are many things that we just can’t talk about?

I’m not just talking about “religion and politics” or politically correct speech, though those are certainly a large part of it. There are many things that we cannot or should not reveal about ourselves or discuss with others.

Some health ailments, we are taught, have taboos associated with them, so don’t discuss them, even if you are concerned about the health of someone who obviously has one. Are you considering looking for a new job? Better keep quiet or be very careful. Family history should be “kept in the family.” Trade secrets are just that, secret. And so on.

Large Nobility

On my mother’s desk is the following quote by Abraham Lincoln, “We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.”

Today's post comes from observing how a major incident costing many people their jobs escalated from an unwise but relatively minor comment made in a meeting. How many troubles would be avoided if we would ignore offensive things said by others and sought to minimize the opportunities for others to take offense at our words. In today’s culture, the burden for avoiding conflict lies almost exclusively with the speaker and the hearers are rarely expected to let things slide by. In fact, much of the “politically correct” mentality seeks to hunt for any potential opportunity to infer offense in someone’s words. Author intent and gracious forgiveness are not options. To me, what is even more diabolical is when a hearer is offended on behalf of some hypothetical person not even present who might be offended had they heard the comment.

Holiness versus Legalism

If you’ve been reading TSR for very long at all, one of the themes I often come to is that of God’s holiness, goodness, and righteousness, and how they are surprisingly dynamic, unpredictable and even in some ways, wild. I also explored the idea that God interacts with humanity as a single organism, growing to maturity as a race, not just with individuals. Under this paradigm, the Old Testament, with its Mosaic Law, is essentially God’s version of “don’t play in the street,” “don’t stick things in the electrical socket,” “clean your room,” “don’t color on the walls,” “eat your vegetables,” “mind your manners, please, thank you,” and so on.

I proposed that Christ’s incarnation and the birth of the church was in some ways, our bar mitzvah, or ‘coming of age.’ The rules are lessened and independence increased. This has lead to a wide range of approaches by Christians, from those that largely ignore the Old Testament and the Law to those who largely follow its dictates, well, ok, religiously.

I am currently following a reading plan that will allow me to read the entire Bible in a year. (I’ve done this sort of thing several times over the years, and this is the second year in a row in recent history.) It is good for me because I do get to read the whole thing, and it helps me be disciplined to do so daily. Currently, I am in Leviticus, the third book of the Mosaic Law, and where most of the minutiae are given. So it has been interesting to read it in light of the above perspectives.

Much of the Law we now know is for their protection—the dietary restrictions, the health and safety rules about various diseases and unhealthy situations, and so on. It led to the Jews being healthier, safer, and therefore easier to prosper. Other laws are moral, but even there, most are meant as protection from threats that would not be obvious to people back then. Then there are the ceremonial laws on how to do sacrifices, what the priests’ tasks were, and so on. I know that many of them functioned to keep them aware of their sin nature and the need for a redeemer. As such, they point to Christ’s coming and Redemption (one of the other major TSR themes). Fine.

But there are still some doozies. I know many of those are given with reasons along the lines of ‘because I am a holy God,’ so I conclude that they created a hyper awareness in some way that as God’s people, the Jews were to be different than the other nations, to be separate, called to something higher, even if they didn’t make much sense. There are other laws that I simply don’t get. Why is it that a woman is unclean for a week after giving birth to a boy, but two weeks after a girl?

The idea of uncleanness after birth makes some amount of sense—it gives the woman a chance to heal up before her husband has sex with her again—being told that he’ll be ceremonially unclean if he does, when you live in a deeply religious society like that, and that you’ll have to sacrifice the finest in your flock to atone for it, can be a good motivator to keep the hormones in check for a few days. I also suspect there is something deeper than merely giving the mother a break during a stressful and busy time, but I haven’t studied what that might be.

However, why the gender difference? Given that there are so many GOOD reasons for most of the other laws, leads me to conclude there must be one here too. I just don’t get it. Similarly, most sacrifices must be a male, but some are specified to be a female. Why? The males I interpret to point to Christ, so what about the females? Again, I am fully confident that it is far from arbitrary, and I look forward to learning someday. (Maybe you know and can educate us all—leave a comment!)

So, what? As Christians, we have been given freedom to live in a relationship with God in and through Christ. He calls us friends, and His bride. Yet, that is not done in a vacuum, but in the very context of the Law that Christ fulfilled on the cross. The purpose of the Law was to train us in God’s character, just as our parents raised us in a certain way as children, so that when we have the freedom to act, we do so within the context of our upbringing. If we individually are not taught those ways, then it is difficult to live in a manner consistent with God’s character.

Thus, learning and studying and understanding the Law is a healthy thing for those free from it by the blood of Christ. On the other hand, hopefully we have moved past the stage where we need to be reminded not to write on the walls or clean up our room, and we have the maturity and collective wisdom to apply those principles in a more sophisticated way to other problems and issues that arise in our new-found freedom.

But we cannot apply knowledge and wisdom we do not have.

SDG

A Fowl Issue

Pardon the pun, but those that know me, know I can’t resist. Pray for me.

Seriously, do pray for me. Today’s post will probably get people on both sides of this one mad at me.

You may notice that on the right, part way down the page is a list of several news stories that Google selects as being relevant to this blog. Today, one is a NY Times article about a homosexual group upset with the restaurant chain Chick-Fil-A because one restaurant donated food to a pro-marriage Christian conference. To give full disclosure, the article does extensively cover the private corporation’s strong pro-Christian corporate philosophy and support of pro-family and Christian groups, which has raised previous controversies. But the flashpoint this time is a food donation by a single restaurant.

My point today has nothing to do with the morality of homosexuality or heterosexuality. I’m looking at the bigger picture here of freedom. As a business, just like a citizen, Chick-Fil-A has the right to support the causes they want or care about. Whether it is privately or publicly run is irrelevant. Non-governmental entities {should} have the freedom to support who and what they want with their treasure.

Likewise, consumers have the complete freedom to support or reject corporate choices with where they spend their dollars. They have the freedom to attempt to civilly persuade others regarding such issues, as do the companies. That is what makes the marketplace of ideas so dynamic—it is a marketplace of good and ideas, and it is absolutely fascinating to watch the complex interplay among them.

Therefore, if you don’t like Chick-Fil-A’s policies and where they donate their money, then don’t buy their goods. If you like their goods, you have two choices—decide which motivation is stronger (ideas or goods) and live with it, or start/support a competing business that champions your values. It’s pretty simple, and not worth a lawsuit.

For those Christians reading this (most of the audience probably) who are upset with the attacks on Chick-Fil-A, take it easy. Christians have been mobilized for well over two decades to boycott, petition and otherwise complain when other businesses have supported events and groups with whom we disagree. We can’t rally against a business we don’t like and then complain when someone rallies against one we do like. That’s hypocrisy. We vote with our dollars just as anyone can. That is again the beauty of the marketplace.

Whatever your cause, persuade and convince, in grace and humility, and with conviction, and do your best to live at peace with all. That is the true spirit of tolerance.

SDG

Freedom 3: Freedom and Security

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”                                 - Benjamin Franklin

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”                                                                                                                                                - John Adams

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.”
                                                                           -William Shedd (theologian, historian)

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”                                                                                                                                        - St. Paul, Galatians 5:1

“…make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.”
                                                                           -St. Paul, I Thess 4:10-11

You may have guessed that the whole TSA hullabaloo is the impetus for these posts on freedom. It truly is a thorny issue. On the one hand, it is folly to willfully fail to take proper security measures. On the other hand, it is possible to go too far and be too arbitrary, and to pursue the appearance of extreme security, rather than dealing with a real problem in a realistic way.  I realize I’m tipping my hand here, yet I’m hard pressed not to. Nonetheless, I will try to avoid polemics and stick to principles.

When there is a society of moral agents exercising their ability to influence their environments, conflict will arise as I’ve said previously. Thus, someone’s freedom will always suffer infringement in the course of having a just and peaceful society. Of course, someone’s freedom will always suffer infringement in an unjust and conflict-ridden society. This is exactly my point, in fact. When society exists, someone’s freedom will be curtailed. The question then becomes, who’s freedom and by how much? Naturally, we tend to want our freedom protected, even at the expense of someone else’s. We want our way to prevail.

Thus, the rule of law is established to set up a balance of freedom and order, and in general, the spectrum runs from anarchy to robotic determinism. One thing that has made Western Civilization so successful is that democratic republics have found a way to have an ordered society with an amazing amount of individual freedom that is pretty unique in human history. The Adams quote above reveals the secret ingredient—individuals who are willing and able to police themselves.

Yet, when someone (or some group/entity) is bent on forcing their will on others and to their hurt, OR, people who have confused freedom with license, the balance is upset, and society can lose its equilibrium. Government must maintain order—that is its function. The more disordered the society, the more power the government must exert in order to fulfill its function.

Ideally, as order is restored, an altruistic government relaxes the power it exerts, allowing its citizens to resume their normal levels of freedom and self-policing. There are two (three) parts to this equation.

First, the government must be altruistic. If it is not, then it is more prone to maintaining higher levels of interference in personal liberty. This occurs for at least two reasons—1) ease and 2) power. 1) Once you have established control of a situation, it is easy to maintain the system that achieved that control. Similarly, there is a momentum that large systems achieve that results in the development of bureaucracy. 2) Letting go risks losing the control, and having to re-establish it. Also, government can become addicted to power, even if it was altruistic to begin with, and thus desire to shape society in such a way that its power is maintained, because it now sees itself as a self-aware entity rather than a guardian of its citizens and their liberties.

Second, the citizens must desire liberty. It seems that God created us for interdependence. That is one of the lessons of Genesis 2. “It is not good for the man to be alone. Let us create a helper fit for him.” The problem with interdependence in a fallen world is that it can be easy to slip into independence (ye olde rugged individualism that has been a hallmark of the American psyche, especially in the western US) or go the other extreme into dependence/codependence. When long term crises arise, and we are forced to depend on someone else more than we are accustomed, it can become a habit, and we lose the desire and eventually the ability to get back on our own feet. It is the responsibility of an altruistic helper to wean the helped off of the help if they are unwilling to do it themselves, and thus get back to healthy interdependence. When the helper fails to do this, problems multiply. Paul even said as much in 2 Thessalonians 3:10-13: “For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat. We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat. And as for you, brothers and sisters, never tire of doing what is good.” It is apparent that doing good for the helped is to get back on their own, and doing good for the helper is to make sure the helped does so. Interdependence is like a flexor/extensor pair of muscles that can atrophy or become overdeveloped if not exercised properly.

(The third part to the equation is the citizens must be willing and able to police themselves. When they are not (or there are external entities seeking to disrupt things) then even an altruistic government must be more proactive.)

When all parts of the equation get out of balance, a negative feedback loop can be established, causing the whole society to spin out of control. I believe that is what we are seeing happen here. We have folks (terrorists) who are seeking to destroy our society. We have a government that believes it is capable of solving all of our problems, and therefore should. We have a citizenry that has had 100 years of stress, starting with the Great Depression, then the Cold War, and now the War on Terror and the Great Recession, and have learned to turn to government to solve those problems and have become accustomed to that, rather than seeking to solve the problems themselves or as groups of citizens. Interestingly, the great prosperity that arose between the economic crises has contributed to the problem by providing easy comfortable lives, such that our problems have been more with lifestyle than with life, leaving us unprepared for hardship. Momentum is building, so that those who desire to be free to self-determine are viewed as weird, and very likely dangerous.

I’d like to argue that the Biblical concept of freedom seeks to restore interdependence on each other as human beings and God, rather than on programs and government agencies. Even Paul’s admonishment to lead quiet lives contains this idea—that we are to be active and proactive agents in the living of our lives. His comment in Galatians about freedom and slavery are in the context of being slaves to the Mosaic Law. He is arguing that we are to live in Christ and the freedom of a relationship of respect and love rather than rules—thus, we are to be self-policing. In Romans, he spends a lot of time discussing how sin and the Law feed on each other, and it sounds remarkably and eerily like the negative feedback loop I see in our current society.

God made us robust. We can certainly live in palaces and lead lives of luxury. Yet, like the ships in Shedd’s harbor, staying there denies us the freedom of the seas, the freedom to live with some risk and watch God’s grace and faithfulness abound. When we exercise, we tear muscle fiber, and it is in the healing that they become stronger. May I argue that culturally, we are in danger of being societal couch potatoes, and it is time to force ourselves to be more responsible for our own lives, and encourage others to do the same? Yes, it is more risky, and we each may be more likely to be faced with discomfort, sacrifice, or even death. But what are we living for? This life alone? If so, then we are to be pitied, or even spewed out from this land of liberty and safety.

SDG

Freedom 2: The Bible and Freedom

Yesterday, I gave some brief thoughts on the nature of freedom and its parameters. Next, it is helpful to see what the Bible says about freedom, to see the contexts where it is discussed and what the implications are for us as Christians.

The idea of freedom is first explicitly mentioned in Genesis 2:16-17: “And the LORD God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;  but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.’” However, the concept, as I defined it yesterday of having influence over one’s environment occurs even earlier, in Genesis 1:28:  “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’” That command definitely contains the idea of having great freedom in Eden, and even beyond through to today, for God’s command was not conditional upon our innocence, though it can be argued theologically that some of our stewardship role was abdicated to Satan in the Fall, but I don’t want to get too distracted by this, other than to say we became slaves to a sin nature, so we did lose our freedom when we were deceived and rebelled.

Then let’s jump ahead to the giving of the Law through Moses. There are a number of passages that talk about the treatment of slaves and indentured servants, particularly when and how they must be freed. Slavery was legal in certain contexts, but it was meant to be temporary in many cases. The context for freeing slaves was often given in the context of God’s freeing the Jews from Egypt during the Exodus—God freed them from slavery, so they are to treat their slaves with the remembrance of being slaves themselves and to free them when appropriate. Thus, freedom of individual self determination is a cherished Biblical value. (See verses:  Exodus 6:6, Ex 21, Leviticus 19:20, Deut 15, and others)

Then in the Psalms, we often see freedom longed for or rejoiced in, and here, it is a different kind of freedom. Previously we saw the desire to be free of human masters. Here we typically see freedom from sin, care, worry, the burdens of this life, and that freedom is found in following God righteously, in addition to numerous calls for deliverance from human enemies. What is interesting here is that this type of freedom is achieved by self-limiting our personal sovereignty to the limits set by God. Psalm 119 in particular has the theme throughout it that human freedom is best expressed when living within God’s boundaries. Yet, here is the aspect of freedom that is a key—willingly choosing to be self limiting, rather than being externally forced to. (Some Psalms that address this issue are: 25, 31, 37, 54, 73, 81, 105, 112, 116, 119, 129, 136, 142, 146) Two novels discuss this issue, Frank Peretti’s Piercing the Darkness and Madeliene L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.

Another aspect of freedom is revealed as major themes in the prophets, particularly Isaiah and Jeremiah. The context is God’s people in captivity to Assyria and Babylon due to their rebellion towards God, and God in return is proclaiming that His people will be freed again and what is more, be freed in some sort of permanent way, and we see with growing clarity God’s plan for the redemption of ALL people, not just the Jews, that He will deal with the ultimate issue of sin and free people from both His condemnation due to sin, and from the bondage to sin itself. Whereas the Psalms dealt mostly with individuals, the prophets are talking about nations, cultures, and the human race as a whole being freed.

Fast forward some more. Jesus Himself was passionate about freedom of many kinds, declaring people He touched free from disease, infirmity, demonic forces, and sin. (Mk 5:29, 34; Lk 4:18, 13:16, Jn 8:36) He sums it all up in John 8:32, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free,” talking about the truth of Himself and the Gospel.

Paul was obsessed with the freedom from sin that Christ procured for us, and almost as an afterthought suggested slaves seek out freedom if it comes their way, but he was more concerned that people follow Christ in their spiritual freedom regardless of their terrestrial situations. (There are just too many versus in Romans, the Corinthians, Galatians, and his other letters (Philemon). It is a worthwhile topical study.) Similarly, the theme of freedom runs through the letters of James and Peter, and the Hebrews.

So what? God gave us a great deal of freedom in the beginning, which we threw away/lost, and the whole story of history is the process of fighting to get it back. That’s not insignificant. It is revolutionary. So much so, that it fired the Revolutionary spirit of the founders of this country. Reading the Federalist papers and the letters and speeches of the founders reveal the Biblical roots for the concept of creating a nation of freeborn citizens.

We could do an entire symposium on the Biblical justifications or lack thereof for rebelling against British rule, but I don’t want to go there right now. Neither am I about to launch salvos in the debate of whether we were ever a Christian nation or not. I’m getting to something more fundamental.

Freedom to choose one’s path in life, to build communities of like-minded citizens and build a nation of federated states was the main goal of most of the founders. Indeed, some of the biggest disputes centered around how strong the central government should be. Ultimately, the Bill of Rights was included precisely to counteract what some founders felt was too strong of a central government as described in the main body of the Constitution.

One of the challenges of having a Biblically based discussion on the American philosophy of freedom is because there was no government like it during the times that any of the books of the Bible were written. The Roman Republic had already become the Roman Empire during the Intertestamental Period of the Bible. Thus, you see everything from anarchy to theocracy to monarchy to empires, but no republics, which is what the founders created. Thus, we have to look at principles rather than commands. Peter said we are to “honor the Emperor,” (1 Peter 2:17) because the rulers were put in place by God (Romans 13:4), and Paul also agreed with his accusers in Acts about the Biblical injunction against speaking ill of one’s ruler. (Acts 23:5)

When a nation has self-determination and can choose their ruler, this is somewhat new ground. Does this mean that God has not set our leaders over us? Since we are, in a sense, the boss of our elected officials, are we free to badmouth them? (as admittedly, nearly all of us LOVE to do! How many political cartoons, emails, or jokes have you laughed at or forwarded??) What is the role of a Christian as a citizen in a Republic?

This is not an easy question to answer. I’m already on the third page of this post, so cannot hope to do it justice here. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve come to any solid conclusions, except that we are called to have an active role. How do I know this? 1) We are human beings created in God’s image with the power and authority to act as moral agents, 2) are tasked by God to be stewards of the Creation, which includes societies created by humans, 3) as redeemed people, the Holy Spirit of God Himself dwells within us, guiding us into all righteousness, thus we should be passionate about justice, equality, fairness and righteousness in our government, and 4) the country we live in has a Constitution that specifically empowers its citizens to be active in the governing of this country. Therefore, we have an obligation to be active in the public discourse.

So far, we have not explicitly looked at anything that dictates whether we ought to be Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative, Socialist or Libertarian, and as I promised, I will not go there. There are Biblical Christians in every one of those groups, and that is because every one of those groups do have things to contribute to the dynamic functioning of a large complex society. The questions that arise typically fall into the category of who’s responsible for what aspects of society—the government, the people, the churches, business, and so on.

Homework: I want to hear from you through comments your answers to the question: What is the role of a Christian as a citizen in a Republic?

SDG