God Over All

The Limits of Earthly Power

Those who have jurisdiction on earth and preside over others for any reason, are beneficiaries and vassals of God and are bound to receive and acknowledge investiture from Him. In short, God is the only proprietor and the only lord: all men, of whatever rank they may ultimately be, are in every respect His tenants, bailiffs, officers, and vassals. The more ample the proceeds they receive, the larger the dues they owe; the greater the authority they attain, the more strictly are they bound to render an account; the more distinguished the honor they gain, the heavier the burdens for which they are liable. - Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos

Politics is power. 

More specifically, politics is the medium by which power is dispersed. Because the well-being of one’s church, family, neighbor, and livelihood is determined by how power is dispersed, Christians should therefore be very interested in politics.

Some Christians resent politics on the grounds that surely proximity to so much power renders it an unspiritual, or even dangerous, occupation. But here we need to remember that “doing politics” is no less spiritual an endeavor than eating a soft-boiled egg. Our pastor spoke recently on the importance of recovering a sacramental view of the world – that is, having skill to see the magnitude of meaning beneath seemingly ordinary occupations.

Now, it’s certainly easier to go wrong with politics than with an egg, but the point here is that both can just as easily be done (or not done) for God as for the devil. The fact that some disciplines require more careful thought than others doesn’t exempt us from “rendering them unto the Lord.” 

Others have determined that the prevalence of corruption in politics has rendered it past redemption. But it is precisely because of Christian’s political abandonment that politics now resembles the dumpster fire it has become. This shouldn't surprise us. Where Christians aren’t present to season any social sphere with the preserving salt of gracious words, it doesn’t simply maintain a neutral course ad infinitum. Remember that the world — and its systems — are in bondage to decay; things don’t tend upwards but down. Salt pork without any salt doesn’t remain perpetually edible, but eventually devolves into mold and maggots, a.k.a. the current state of Canadian politics. 

Not only has the church’s abandonment all things politics expedited national corruption, it has left many Christians without even a basic framework with which to address the subject. This lack of framework doesn’t mean Christians won’t be political; it just means we’ll do politics badly. 

For example, churches that insisted on total masking in congregational settings weren’t being apolitical but hyper-political. When suspect demands from suspect authorities were given preeminence over the legitimacy of conscience-based exemptions – “because the government said so,” — a series of political decisions have already been made. Because pastors and teachers refused to even acknowledge the need for addressing the exercise of power, many of them unwittingly became the arm of its machinations. 

This is what happens when Christians deem certain areas of life exempt from Jesus’ authority and Word. Gradually, the extent of His dominion shrinks smaller and smaller until its totality can fit into a 6 x 9 business envelope. When Christians become shaped by a “miniaturized theology” they are sadly poised to do little earthly, or heavenly, good. 

As Christians, as pastors, as leaders, we have failed to equip others to live obediently and courageously in every area of life. Not that every Christian will be equally active, or have equal influence, in every sphere of life — that is impossible. But every Christian should feel confident that Scripture brings all the wisdom and direction we need to every issue we face. We must recover a comprehensive Christian worldview — “seeing every subject as the Lord’s and studying in order to be more faithful image-bearers and worshipers of Him.”

The Limits of Power

We cannot enter the subject of power without first affirming the wellspring from which all power flows: God alone. From here, the words of Charles Hodge logically follow, “That all human power is delegated and ministerial.” This means that no medium of power — whether parental, spousal, clerical, or civil — is free to determine the extent and object of its own power. Employees don’t just invent their own job descriptions or arbitrarily decide who they will be in charge over; any authority they have is specified and conferred.

And so when God made man, he said:

Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Genesis 1:26

From here we see that mankind’s right to “dominion” over creation (which is not the same thing as domination) is rooted in God’s decision to elect us as stewards in the first place. Farmers, pharmacologists, and fabricators, whether they acknowledge it or not, are actually laboring under divine auspice.

Notice also the extent of our dominion: the animal kingdom. This means that neither me, nor you, nor any human institution has the authority to exercise this kind of total dominion over his fellow man (i.e. slavery, abuse, oppression). This is because men and women occupy a unique and noble rung among the cosmos — we are not simply complex animals.

Extending the principle of defined authority outwards, children aren’t instructed to obey all parents everywhere, but “their parents” (Eph. 6:1). Pastors aren’t shepherds of every sheep loitering in the wilderness, but “the flock that is among you” (1 Pet. 5:2). Members aren’t to submit to every leader everywhere, but “[their] leaders” (Heb. 13:7). Wives aren’t to submit to every man or every husband, but “their own husbands” (Eph. 5:22). Christians, likewise, don’t honor God with their neighbor’s bodies but “[their] own bodies” (1 Cor. 6:20).

So power isn’t a take-home prize that goes to the angry guy with the biggest gun. There are divinely-defined spheres of responsibility within which power is to operate.

Applying this to the state, we see its boundaries set out in Romans 13. You heard me right. Contrary to what you may have heard, Romans 13 is not a chapter endorsing the Christian’s absolute passivity to government; as we’ve already seen, no power is absolute, therefore no submission is absolute — except to God.

We read in V.4 that the governor’s mandate (or more accurately, the office of governor) is as “An avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.” So the power and wrath of government is executed appropriately only when it falls on wrongdoers. We’re also told to “pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing(V.6).” This tells us that yet another appropriate function of government is the maintenance of the civil infrastructure in which citizens work and pay.

In other words, the iron-spiked gauntlets of the state are suited to bash heads and lay concrete. Period. When it decides to trade in those gauntlets for a pair of latex surgery gloves we should all be worried. Why? Because nature teaches that guys with gauntlets don’t do well in the nursery, lectern, pulpit, or heart surgery operation room.

And their victims fair even worse.  

The Slow Death of Quick Fixes

Difficulties arise, however, where breakdown occurs within these respective spheres. Glen Sunshine notes:

Although each of these spheres [family, church, etc.] should govern its own affairs, sometimes on a wide scale they do not: family structure collapses, schools fail to teach effectively, businesses act unethically, labor organizations become corrupt. When this happens, the temptation is for another sphere, almost inevitably the government, to step in to fix the problem rather than to work to revitalize the failing sphere(s). 

Unfortunately, the government is ill-equipped to solve these problems--its tools and competence lie in its areas of responsibility, not in those of other spheres. As a result, its attempts to step in and regulate the workings of another sphere are likely to be clumsy at best and often will make the problems worse. It is not alarmist to say, more ominously, that whenever a government overstep its sphere in this way, it usurps power that properly belongs to another institution.

In other words, it will always be tempting for more powerful parties to intervene in dysfunctional situations in order to “sort things out.” The problem is that dysfunction is almost never corrected by the presence of more dysfunction. We’ve seen this equation play out in the steady erosion of institutions that chose to go public (i.e. charity, education, health).

The solution is to stay in your lane so that your own sphere won’t fall apart while you’re busy “helping” with someone else’s. It has been apparent for some time that when the state decides to take over management of dill and cumin distribution (mask mandates, etc.), the weightier matters of justice and well-being are quickly neglected. Ergo, Ontario’s backlog of court trials now extends to the tens of thousands and a recent report card assessing Canadian public infrastructure concludes that “a significant amount . . . is in poor condition.” And let’s not get started on delayed surgeries.

To give an analogy for all this, picture the body. It wouldn’t benefit the body if the heart decided to “help” a diseased liver by trying to do the work of a liver. Instead, the heart should focus on maintaining the flow blood to the other organs so that the liver has the best chance of recovery. And so instead of government attempting to unilaterally “fix” the disarray of the nuclear family for example, maximum freedom and resources should be afforded to it’s sister spheres (schools and churches) in order to give it the best chance at health.

The Christian Response

18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

I hope you’re starting to see that no human authority or institution can claim total power for itself. They may try — many have — but it doesn’t follow that Christians must affirm their delusions of grandeur.

When the authorities attempted to stonewall the ministry of Peter or John (Acts 4), their duty was clear, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” The apostles knew the bounds of their jurisdiction even if the magistrates did not. Since Jesus alone is Lord, he alone can claim total allegiance; earthly authorities can either permit Him the right of rule or reap the whirlwind.

I hope the implications of this framework are also clear. Christian, gladly pay your taxes; gladly obey traffic laws; gladly turn in criminals. But if the state tries to tell you how to parent your kids, how to love your wife, how to fix your body, or how to worship — you gently, but firmly, tell them to hit the road. 

Before we can give themselves to rebuilding the dystopian clown-show we find ourselves in, we need to understand where spheres of power begin and end. We need to know our responsibilities so we can own our responsibilities. We need to stop blaming the failures of illegitimate power that we opened the doors to in the first place. Most of all, we need to remember Habakkuk 2:20:

The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth [and its powers] be silent before him.