by Greg Forster
Reviewed by Hadley Robinson
George P. Wood of Santa Barbara, CA. wrote the following review of Forster's book here. Wood presents some basic foundations for understanding the Church's public role in the world as well as giving good chapter by chapter summaries of Forster's thinking. Please read it before continuing.
Forster is masterful in summing up thousands of years of Christian political thought. However, it is not entirely clear from him what constitutes Christian thought, some which Wood notes in his essay. It seems that Forster does not make a critical distinction if and when other worldviews, such as Natural Law theory, are mixed with the Christian faith. I suggest that Natural Law theory is simply a rebellion against Divine sovereignty over the affairs of men.
It was a pleasure to read Forster's highlights of such intellectual giants as Aquinas, Locke, Burke, de Tocqueville, Lewis, and others concerning Natural Law theory.
But there appears to be some holes.
He speaks of Pietism on page 216: "Pietism is the belief that society, and especially government, are [sic] always under the control of evil." That is about all he has to say about Pietism other than it is generally irresponsible and stonewalls progress. He might have added a note about how Scripture teaches that government is generally under the influence of the Evil One but that God can and does frustrate such plans. No where is this universal truth more demonstrated than in John 19:11 where Jesus rebukes Pilate's claim to absolute power over Him. We see it also in Gen. 50:20 when Joseph attempted to assure his faithless and unrepentant brothers after what they had done to him.
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.
The general paradigm throughout Forster's work seems to be a sort of functional atheism with respect to man's governing of himself. In theological terms, he sounds like a Deist: God wound the clock long ago and stepped away. Now it's up to us to figure everything out. The back cover of the book begins with, "Building on Biblical foundations...." Forster does not exercise particular care in this regard and abandons critical thinking.
How can anyone discuss a Biblical view of government if the repeated assertions from the Prophets concerning the role and function of government are ignored? Forster briefly considers Romans 13 but there is a whole lot more that he does not consider in the broader argument.
He repeatedly asserts that "might does not make right" and that there is an important distinction between what he (and countless others of the post-Reformation period) calls "lawfully constituted government" and "usurpers". The Prophets make no distinction of this kind.
Biblical teaching asserts that might is not necessarily just or good ("right") but it is still "might" - and must be obeyed except in rare circumstances. Those rare circumstances have only to do with the magistrate requiring anyone to commit unlawful acts according to the Word of God as we see in both the books of Daniel and in Acts. Even then, the man of God can only passively resist and must be prepared to take the consequences, as countless faithful have done throughout Scripture - such is the high regard those who name Christ are to have for the magistrate and his divine appointment.
It is the repeated example of the godly persecuted in the Bible, including Jesus' response to the civil authority (John 19:11) and the key passage of Romans 13. Scripture often discusses the conduct of those in civil government and the consequences of such conduct but not its legitimacy. The quintessential example of a murderous usurper having divine authority to rule is the anointing of Hazael by Elijah (1 Kings 19:15ff.) We should be mystified that not even the great Augustine appears to consider this example of "might makes right."
Hazael had a specific task (even though he was unaware of its divine origin) and that was to brutally punish Israel for her terrible sin. Hazael, like most heads of state, was a mere criminal running a gang but he had a divine purpose, nonetheless. If we had considered thwarting his authority in some way, we would have been in the awkward position of fighting against God as did Peter whom Jesus rebuked for resorting to the weapons of this world.
This paradigm is echoed by Gamaliel in Acts 5:38-39 when Peter and some other Apostles appear before the Sanhedrin to answer various charges:Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.
"Fighting against God?"
When has such a question entered discussions of the State and its role during the last century?
According to Scripture, anything beyond passive resistance becomes a serious matter of individual conscience. It should not become some armed and organized rebellion against authority, as characterized by the American rebellion against the British throne.
An example of an extreme circumstance might be if an individual representative of the magistrate acts out of order and tries to commit unlawful violence against an innocent third party and we have the ability to stop it. Again, it is not some organized and armed rebellion against a usurper or his representative but a lawful act on our part. Nonetheless, we may still hang for it. Deism is another gospel and it would not concur with the legitimacy of such a hanging.
If one had been in Jerusalem circa 587 B.C. at the moment the Babylonian field commander had come through the gates and began the slaughter in the city, what would we do? If we had it in our power to resist the Chaldean mayhem, we would have wound up fighting against God.
And this is the point with Forster and countless others: The Bible asserts that usurpers, tyrants, and all of the rest of them may be mass murderers and the like but they are each and every one sent by God at His express command vis-à-vis Habakkuk 1:6-11:
I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own. They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor. Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their cavalry gallops headlong; their horsemen come from afar. They fly like a vulture swooping to devour; they all come bent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand. They deride kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; they build earthen ramps and capture them. Then they sweep past like the wind and go on–guilty men, whose own strength is their god.
Does not Habakkuk describe countless usurpers and tyrants throughout history, including Genghis Khan and Adolf Hitler? It is a legal fiction for Locke to assert that it is "...the abusive rulers, not the people, who are the real rebels..." (p. 192).
But the Reformation spawned a host of legal fictions, including the infamous assertion in the Westminster Confession (chapter XIV) that an adulterer is "as good as dead" and, therefore, can be considered really dead. This error of interpretation opened the door to the flood of adultery that has swept through the Church, especially during the last 125 years.
Why are Forster and others silent on so many passages of Scripture which defy the humanistic foundations of the Reformation?
What of the World Wars that sweep up the nations? Is it because some nations wish to do good or is it some other reason? As Forster repeatedly asserts, social institutions cannot "love" nor are they capable of much good because they all sink into self-promotion and self-preseration.
What is the true Christian to think of all this?
In our own nation, there often is an ungodly mixing of nationalism and the faith, "my country, right or wrong" and our flag prominently displayed in the buildings used by the Church. What does it mean? Do we of the Church concur with the overall conduct of our government? This nation uses its military, political, and economic strength to promote such evils as abortion and homosexuality. What should a Christian from a foreign land think when he sees the American flag draped about in places of godly and true worship when his own country is being forced by the United States to adopt these policies?
Nonetheless, all nations have the greedy, the homosexuals, adulterers, liars, and idolaters but what do they do about it? Do they punish evil or promote it in one way or another? As both Christians and citizens of a nation-state we should be ashamed of ourselves and this stampede into moral chaos and peaceably do what we can to reverse it.
Is there any good news? The usual false teachers are busy upsetting the flock for monetary gain, e.g.,
"Our Christian heritage is being seized and if you don't send money right away, it will be the end of all you hold dear...."
Or something like that.
Meanwhile, these salesmen have little or no concern for the adultery, divorce, and immorality in their midst that is the far greater danger to our survival as a people according to the Bible.
As Forster notes, even de Tocqueville observed in his time that the Church was seen as a fourth branch of government - and many in the Church today still think in these terms but it is not a view endorsed anywhere in Scripture.
As the Founders noted (and Forster agrees), the more immoral a people are, the more control by government they invite (p. 207). The Biblical paradigm, however, is not exactly this one - an immoral people does not only invite more control by their own government but may be subject to violent and oftentimes complete destruction by foreign governments or through a natural disaster. Unlike the brutal destruction of Jerusalem, we have no Prophets during the later times to tell us the details. But we do have page after page, however, in the Scriptures with warnings that often note the the judgments on Israel.
Admittedly, the New Testament does not spend much time discussing civil government other than in Romans 13 and 1 Pet 2:13 ff. And why should it? Jesus was adamant,
"My Kingdom is not of this world."
But such words fall on deaf ears in this age of humanism and egalitarianism. Forster's description of Pietism should have been more than a short paragraph in the history of Christian political thought. Ambitious men who love this world and put their hope in it do not want to hear anything else. Nonetheless, I am not defending some brand of Pietism, something that is not even mentioned in Scripture.
Civil authority is a result of the Fall - and we can be thankful for the magistrate who, even in the most base of governments, keeps some sort of order. It is not some aberration of the Early Church to have had a decidedly aloof attitude toward the civil authorities. They endured whatever it was or fled, if they could.
Jesus submitted completely to the civil rulers of His time, even though he had a poor opinion of them (Lk. 13:32). If He submitted why can't we? Augustine's permitting the Emperor to help root out heresy in the Church was a mistake that gave theological cover in the ensuing centuries for the bloody rampages instigated by the visible church. Is God's Arm too short to clean things out? For most, apparently, that is the case. He is just too busy somewhere else.
Forster, speaking of the future of our nation, writes "All paths now lead to danger." (p. 249). The majority of our citizens have rejected the Ten Commandments and any meaningful presence of the Creator in our affairs. When will the hammer fall?
The Contested Public Square is definitely worth a read, if not for any other reason than it being a refresher course in political thought and history over the ages. His assessment that our nation is at its end is both disappointing and sobering.
What should our response to this be?