Week Five – How should a Christian relate to, and participate in, politics, governance, and the law?

I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?"

Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

There was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators."' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent--and often even vocal--sanction of things as they are.

- Martin Luther King Jr., Letter From Birmingham Jail

Because of the rights and freedoms we have in the United States, Christians have the opportunity to participate in the process of governance and of developing and enforcing laws. How we exercise those rights and freedoms, however, is the source of many vigorous debates among Christians. Each side of those debates can cite many examples – both positive and negative – of churches’ involvement in politics and the law. How instructive are those examples? How, in principle, should Christians relate to politics, governance, and the law? How does it work in practice?

Possible readings:

N.T. Wright, God in Public? Reflections on Faith and Society.

David Skeel and William J. Stuntz, Christianity and the (Modest) Rule of Law.

William Temple, CHRISTIANITY AND SOCIAL ORDER.

C.S. Lewis, THE WEIGHT OF GLORY, Why I Am Not a Pacifist.

Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson, BLINDED BY MIGHT.