God is king over all the nations. —Psalm 47:8
Say among the nations, “The Lord is king.” —Psalm 96:10
We have now walked through many parts of the Bible, observing what God expects from governments and authorities. In this final chapter, we will take stock of what we have seen and think about what these texts suggest about the church’s participation in the political process and what kinds of policies God calls it to support. In doing so, I will offer a biblical framework for determining what that participation might look like for us and our church communities.
Protect the People Who Are Vulnerable
We saw that the Mosaic covenant included religious expectations, personal moral demands, and instructions about how to construct economic and legal systems. Most importantly, we saw that it gave special protections to those who are poor and vulnerable. It singled out immigrants as people who must be accorded the same justice that is given to citizens. This covenant required the banking system to give advantages to those who are poor, advantages that included not charging them interest and not keeping their collateral. It was not possible to separate religious life from civil and economic law. The covenant with God encompasses all aspects of life. The image of God as ruler makes it particularly clear that the laws of the covenant are to be the law of the land.
As we think about these laws, they should certainly have an influence on our economic and immigration laws. Were we to make banking laws conform to the standards of the Mosaic covenant, we would immediately outlaw payday lenders. Laws in most states allow them to charge those who are poor far more than any legal interest rate. Rather than protecting poor people, current laws allow greater exploitation of them. But drawing banking regulations closer to what the covenant demands would require much more structural change. As we noted in chapter 2, most banks charge those with lower income and less property higher interest rates. The more you qualify to borrow, the lower the interest rate. Though not as dramatically unfair as payday lending, this system still violates how God tells Israel to set up its economic system.
We cannot plead that such things may have worked for an ancient economy, but not a modern one. We must remember that when Leviticus and other books give a law, they often support it by saying that the character of God is what demands it: “You are to be holy because I am holy.” It is the justice and the mercy of God that demand more just and merciful economic laws. This is not to say that the twenty-first-century legal code should look like that of ancient Israel. But the church should be using its influence to shape policies and legal systems so that they conform to the character of God, just as those ancient laws tried to do.
We learn from the Law that God is concerned about more than religious practices. God is concerned about economic laws, and God expects God’s people to structure such laws so that they reflect the justice and mercy of God. This requires the church to work for laws and systems that privilege those who are poor over maximizing shareholder profits.
Starting with this Mosaic law, the biblical witness calls Christians to help shape economic systems that work for the good of all. What might that look like in your particular context? Perhaps it means lobbying to change predatory lending practices or giving incentives to banks to make loans to those who require immediate help, such as an unexpected healthcare crisis. Perhaps it means providing educational programs to help people set up bank accounts and manage their money. Make yourself aware of the economic inequities in your community and seek just solutions.
Similarly, the Mosaic law also required special treatment for immigrants and other vulnerable members of society (widows and orphans). It demanded that they not be oppressed or deprived of the rights and protections of the citizen and the privileged. As it does for the economic system, this shows that God expects civil law to extend its protections to those who are disadvantaged socially and economically. These laws are also based on who God is and how God has acted to save God’s people from oppression. Having experienced the love and mercy of God who freed Israel from oppression, the Israelites were to extend the same mercy to others who are oppressed. The vulnerability of the immigrant and others without full legal protections was more important than their legal status. This suggests that God’s people today should think of the treatment of immigrants and other vulnerable persons through the same lens of God’s mercy and love. People of faith are called to reach out with mercy to immigrants and vulnerable people, so they can experience the justice, mercy, and goodness of God. Policies that limit help to those fleeing violence in another country violates the spirit of the Mosaic covenant and the character of God.
Churches can do much to shape the laws that govern immigration policy and the treatment of immigrant neighbors. Begin by becoming more familiar with immigration laws and programs. Support those programs that are helping to create just immigration policy. Be aware of those neighbors in your midst who are new to this country and your community. Imagine ways to welcome them and help them participate fully in society. Work with other churches to support legal and economic aid for the people who are most vulnerable among us. We can also urge lawmakers to enact more just immigration laws, and support those who do.
Seek a Just Government
The message we heard from the prophets mirrors, for the most part, what we heard in the Law of Moses. The prophets called on rulers of Israel to create just economic and social systems. The Hebrew prophets were constantly seen talking to kings and others who set social and economic policies. Those in power are to enact and enforce laws that protect those who are poor and vulnerable, but the prophets often accuse those in power when people who are poor are unjustly treated. The message of the prophets is clear: Governments and rulers are expected to enact laws and establish institutions that protect people who have fewer resources and less power.
Since these prophets most often speak to rulers who are members of the Mosaic covenant, some might say that these expectations are only for those in that covenant. But we also saw that these prophets speak to and about other nations. Nations that inflict violence on others or who commit “wickedness” (as in the case of Nineveh) also come under God’s judgment. These indictments show that God expects all nations to make their laws and policies conform to God’s will and character. According to these prophets, the laws of all nations are to express God’s justice and mercy. What God expected of Israel is the pattern for how all nations should develop their governmental policies and laws.
God expects our laws to protect the same kinds of people and to demand justice for all. It is the church’s job to discern for itself and then to help the government discern what the will of God is for all kinds of legislation. The constant orientation of both the Law and the prophets is that social and economic law is to favor people who are poor and vulnerable. Extending more of God’s bounty to them is in line with God’s justice.
When the church takes seriously the example of the Hebrew prophets, it will see that speaking to and trying to influence people in political office is part of its members’ job as the people of God. Separation of church and state does not mean that the church ignores the injustices that our laws allow or prescribe. Churches that take the prophets seriously will allow, even embolden, their leaders to take political stands when the treatment of people who are vulnerable is at issue. They can have leaders write editorials and make other public statements in the name of the church. At the same time, churches can organize letter-writing campaigns, and those who are close enough to seats of government (county seats, state capitals, or Washington, DC) can make sure that the voices of the faithful are heard clearly.
Just Cultural Values
Our look at New Testament texts also indicates that the church should work to help the nation shape its laws to conform to God’s will. We saw the earliest church rejecting the economic and social systems of the Roman world in which they lived. Wealthy church members shared their livelihoods so that the people who were poor among them could be supplied with what they needed. While this change happened only within the church, it is a demonstration of what God wants for the whole world. As Israel was to be a light to the rest of the nations, showing what God wants everywhere, so also the church that rejects the economic values of its culture is a sign to its own nation about how God expects economic and social systems to work.
Churches can organize community forums and discussion groups to examine laws and the structures that favor the rich and disadvantage people who are poor. Churches can press candidates and elected officials to take more account of the needs of those who cannot make campaign contributions. While we may not want churches to endorse candidates, we should want them to speak out when candidates support policies that move further from God’s will rather than toward it. We should clearly state that our cultural individualism has led us to give advantages to those who need it the least. The early church did not simply help only those who could “pull themselves up by their own bootstraps”; they helped all in their community who had need.
Called to Meet the Needs of the Whole Person
Matthew showed us a mission of Jesus and of his disciples that was deeply concerned with the entire lives of people, not just their religious lives. The first mission of the apostles was to care for the physical needs of those who suffered physical pain or mental and spiritual pain caused by demon possession. This mission of the apostles suggests that it is part of the mission of the church to strive to make the world what God wants it to be. God’s mercy and justice are not limited to charitable giving, but seek also the physical and mental well-being of the whole person.
We also found Jesus telling his disciples that being faithful to him will mean coming into conflict with the values and structures of the society that surrounds them. The parable of the Wheat and the Weeds says that the struggle against evil will be constant. The church will always be engaged in trying to grow what is good while it battles evil. The parable of the Last Judgment shows what kinds of expectations God has for people outside the church. The gentiles or “the nations” are judged according to how they treated persecuted church members. Those who are condemned ignored the physical needs of God’s people who are in need. While not mentioned in the parable, we know that responding appropriately to the needs of people in distress includes more than meeting that immediate need. Any full response will include changing the governmental, social, and legal systems that impose or allow that need to arise or remain a constant in the lives of the suffering people.
If any doubt remains about whether the church’s mission includes shaping the economic, social, and political laws and systems of the nations, we can turn to the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus’s teaching about prayer includes the request that God’s will be done on earth just as it is in heaven. This is certainly not a prayer about having God’s will be done only in the church. This is a prayer for God’s will to be what governs all things in the world. While this is a petition addressed to God, there can be no doubt that praying this includes the expectation that God’s people will be working for what God wants for the world. It would be quite hypocritical to ask God to do something that we are not willing to work toward ourselves. Matthew’s Jesus says clearly that the church should want God’s will to govern everything in the world.
For a church in a democracy, that means voting for candidates who support laws and policies that will reflect God’s justice and mercy in shaping those policies and laws. It will mean supporting candidates who work to enact laws that privilege people who are poor and vulnerable. There may be differences of opinion about how such things should be done, but the church can work to discern which policies move us closer to or farther from God’s will being done “on earth as it is in heaven.”
Act as Citizens of the Kingdom
Luke gives even more attention than the other Gospels to people experiencing poverty and to those considered outcasts or second-class citizens. Luke’s Jesus gives attention to those who are disadvantaged and vulnerable, and he places obligations to God above obligations owed the government when he is asked about paying taxes. How believers relate to the government is to be determined first by what God expects of them. It is hard to imagine that this does not include having governments move toward conforming their social and economic policies to God’s will. This becomes the inescapable conclusion when we remember the way the mission of Jesus is described in the Magnificat:
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly:
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty. (Luke 1:52–53)
This kingdom of Jesus is not something just made in heaven—it is what God wants for the way governments are structured in this world. We saw a bit of what that would look like when Jesus told his fellow diners that the people they should invite to their feasts are those who cannot return the invitation. This was more than telling them to help poor people. This was a rejection of the way the patronage system worked. Jesus calls those privileged and wealthy people at the banquet to reject a central part of the economic and social system of the day. That would mean accepting costly financial disadvantages. The mission of Jesus and his church includes seeking more just and merciful economic systems, including establishing policies and laws that expect the wealthy people to contribute more and that give advantages to those who are lower on the social and economic scale.
Jesus did not lobby to change tax laws, but that is no excuse for the church to avoid the work of shaping governmental social and economic policy. For example, Jesus did not work to enact laws that prohibit human trafficking, but most of us would say the church should support laws that do. We have to remember that the political system was not one that allowed people in Jesus’s social class to influence government policy. The political system of the Roman Empire frowned on any dissent from the artisan class. People could not turn to democratic institutions for help. Our political environment is very different. As citizens, we have the right, even the obligation, to influence public policy. If we exercise that right as Christian citizens, we must move the government to create policies that extend the mission of Jesus to stop suffering and end oppression. In Luke, that clearly includes constructing systems and laws that privilege the needs of those who are poor, including when that means sending the rich away empty.
A church that listens to Luke’s message will be countercultural. When the church speaks in favor of laws that require the wealthy to relinquish some of their wealth so that government programs can better meet the needs of people who are struggling, it will face criticism and opposition. We should expect nothing less. Being a faithful witness to God’s will has often brought opposition and even persecution. Luke’s message demands that the church have these conversations within its walls. Perhaps one way to begin is with a practice known as Deliberative Dialogue. This is a process in which people identify the values they see at stake in thinking about particular issues. With this starting point, a church can then think about weighing these values and discerning which values are Christian values and which are more cultural.
Living with the Po...
