July-August 2020 (Vol.65, No.6)

COMMUNITY SENSE

  An Essay on Government and Civil Society from Confessional Lutheran Perspective

By Martin R.Noland

  It wasn’t that long ago that we were hearing from some candidates for U.S. President that we should replace the system of government we have with a socialist one.¹ Following the death of George Floyd, we saw political protests, looting, and riots motivated by his death.² Then we heard that the U.S. government "system" must be changed for dismantled.³ We have heard that police departments all around the country need to be "defunded" or "dismantled," which political pressure against the police may be causing an increase in violence. ⁴ More recently we have seen an ongoing pattern of destruction and defacing of historic public statues, monuments, and buildings, which appears in many cases to be a form of political protest.⁵

  Will the U.S. government and its "system" survive this "stress test"? Will our police departments, sheriff departments, F.B.I., Homeland Security, courts of all types, and our justice system survive these attacks and criticisms? What is the Lutheran view of government and does our country live up to that standard?

  Let me begin my stating that I do not have a political-party or political-candidate agenda in this essay. We need to have two strong political parties—at least two – to keep our governing officials honest and to offer competent candidates when the officials of one party are corrupted or go bad. My intent here is not to support one party or another, but to explore the historical roots of the ideas upon which our government is built, to analyze those roots from a confessional Lutheran perspective, and to apply the derived insights to our current problems.

  The most influential essay that established the ideas of government for the U.S. government "system" was known as Common Sense, published in 1775-1776 by Thomas Paine (1737-1809).⁶ Although John Locke (1632-1704) is rightly considered to be the original source of American political philosophy, Locke was in favor of a "constitutional monarchy." That is, he favored having a king who was limited in power by a constitution. Paine disagreed, arguing that, in Locke’s system, the power is concentrated in the hands of a monarch, who will use that power to avoid any limitations of constitutional law put on him. The American founders agreed with Paine, creating a three-way balance of powers between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

  In the first section of Paine’s treatise, titled "Of the Origin and Design of Government in General, With Concise Remarks on the English Constitution," he made a crucial distinction between civil society and government. This distinction came from the Enlightenment political philosophers who preceded Paine. He argued in that section that government is a "necessary evil." He illustrated that power of society to create and maintain happiness in man through the example of a few isolated people who find it easier to live together rather than apart, thus creating civil society. As civil society continues to grow, a government becomes necessary to prevent the natural evil Paine saw in man.⁷

  Here then is the essential idea of government, according to Thomas Paine and the American founding fathers of our "system": Government is a necessary evil to restrain the evil that is in man by nature. Government is "necessary," because without it there is chaos, robbery, rape, murder, and destruction of property; and eventually civil society is destroyed. Almost all Enlightenment political philosophers,⁸ except for the utopians, agreed on the necessity of government to protect citizens and civil society, due to the evil that is in man by nature.

  How does government restrain the evil that is in man by nature? By electing or appointing: 1) Police, Sheriffs, and their Deputies, to protect citizens from each other; 2) Border guards and defined borders, to protect citizens from unfriendly foreigners; 3) Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen, to protect citizens from unfriendly countries; 4) Courts and Justices, to protect body and property from damage, and to restore damaged goods and assets where possible; and 5) Rules, of various sorts, to make and enact laws to protect persons and properties. Government may do other things, such as regulation of business and education, but if it fails to do its job of "restraining the evil that is in man by nature," then everything else it does is fruitless.

  Where did the idea that there is "evil in man by nature" come from? Almost all ancient,⁹ classical, and pre-modern religions believed in the idea of evil or sin, but only the Bible had a good answer for the question of evil’s origin. Sin entered the world through the Fall of Adam (Romans 5:12-14). Christians have called it "original sin." Confessional Lutherans, i.e., those who adhere to, and teach according to, the 1580 Book of Concord, define "original sin" as "the horrible, dreadful, inherited disease corrupting the entire nature [of men]" and that it "is above all actual sin and indeed is the ‘chief sin.’ It is the root and fountainhead of all actual sins" (FC SD I, 5).¹⁰ Such Lutherans believe that "since the fall of Adam all human beings who are born in the natural way are conceived and born in sin. This means that from birth they are full of evil lusts and inclination" (AC II, 1). ¹¹

  If every man is by nature filled with evil desires, then it would appear that the only way that the evil in human nature can be restrained is by super-natural forces. In the middle ages, the Western church , i.e., Roman Catholic church, eventually came to believe that secular kings, princes, and governments, who were constantly feuding, must be restrained and governed by the popes, who were the only rulers believed to be holy, supernaturally wise, and infallible.¹²

  The Lutherans, in contrast, believed that natural man, despite the evil that is in his nature, has sufficient "civil righteousness" to govern. They stated:

  The human will possesses freedom regarding works and matters that reason can comprehend by itself. It can to some extent produce civil righteousness or righteousness of works. It can talks about God and offer God acts of worship with external works; it can obey rulers and parents. By choosing an external work , it can keep back the hand from murder, adultery, and theft. Because human nature still retains reason and judgement concerning things subject to the sense, it also retains the ability to choose in such matters, as well as the freedom and ability to achieve civil righteousness…[but] even civil righteousness is rare among human beings (Ap XVIII, 4-5).¹³

  Based on this belief about human nature, i.e., that it both contains evil desires and is capable fo civil righteousness, the Lutherans set forth their position on civil government:

  Concerning public order and secular government it is taught [by us] that all political authority, orderly government, laws, and good order in the world are created and instituted by God and that Christians may without sin exercise political authority; be princes and judges; pass sentences and administer justice according to imperial and other laws; punish evildoers with the sword; wage just wars; serve as soldiers; buy and sell; take required oaths; possess property; be married, etc. Condemned here are the Anabaptists who teach that none of the things indicated above is Christian (AC XVI, 1-3).¹⁴

  Who were the Anabaptists and what did they think about government? They were various "radical" groups of Christians in sixteenth century Europe who were rejected and/or condemned by Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican churches.¹⁵ They were usually persecuted or exiled by the civil governments because of their radical political views. They should not be confused with Baptists, who separated from the Anglican church in 1612.

  Chief among the doctrinal erros of the Anabaptists was their rejection of the doctrine of original sin, and thus also their rejection of the idea that there is "evil in man by nature." Therefore, they refused to baptize children and infants until they reached the "age of reason." Their errors in the matter of government were listed by the Lutherans in the Formula of Concord as follows:

  8. That government service is not a God-pleasing walk of life in the New Testament.

  9. That a Christian cannot hold an office in government with a good, clear conscience.

  10. That Christians may not with a clear conscience exercise their governmental office against the wicked in appropriate situations, nor may Christian subjects of the government appeal to its power.

  11. That Christians may not with good conscience swear an oath in court or pay feudal homepage to their prince or lord with an oath.

  12. That governmental authority may not with a clear conscience impose capital punishment upon criminals.

  13. That a Christian may not with a good conscience own or possess privatee property, but rather is bound to surrender all to the community.

  14. That a Christian may not with good conscience be an innkeeper, merchant, or weapons-maker. (FC SD XII, 17-23).¹⁶

  Do you see the connection between the Anabaptist view of human nature and its view of government? It is extremely important for the history of Western thought, both secular and religious. If no man has sin in him by nature, i.e., by birth, then all persons must be originally good and are only corrupted by civil society or by evil rulers. Then government becomes not only an unnecessary evil, but an "evil" imposition on the "good" individual. Government is seen, in the Anabaptist view, as essentially oppressive. Notice also point #13, in which the Anabaptists rejected private property in favor of communal ownership of property.¹⁷ Thus the Christian Anabaptist movement was the historical root of modern utopian political views, including collectivism and communism.

  Another movement –rather a small group actually – of thinkers was also breaking new theological ground simultaneously with the Anabaptists. These were known as "Socinians" or "anti-Trinitarians." The first name was based on their founders and the second name from their most obvious doctrinal error. Arthur C. McGiffert observed that:

  [T]he Socinians rejected the traditional doctrine of original sin, as accepted by both Catholics and Protestants, asserting that man was created mortal, not immortal, and that he lost neither life nor freedom by Adam’s fall. He is still able to obey the commands of God as Adam was; his nature is not corrupt any more than was Adam’s; and he, therefore, does not need to be regenerated and transformed by divine power. The whole Catholic [and Protestant] system of redemption thus became unnecessary, and it is characteristic of the Socinian intellectualism that, finding it to be so, they repudiated it unhesitatingly.¹⁸

  In turn, the Formula of Concord repudiated the Socinian doctrine unhesitatingly (FC SD XII, 36-38).¹⁹ The Socinians have often been ignored in the history of Christian and Western thought, but new studies are increasingly giving them credit for being a source of ideas and inspiration for the Enlightenment.²⁰ Church historians have known for a long time that Socinians were a major source of ideas and inspiration for British and American Unitarianism and, later, Liberal Protestantism. ²¹

  Although the Anabaptists were rejected, condemned, and persecuted from one country to another, their basic ideas and utopian hope did not disappear. The story of modern Western utopian ideas, leaders, and communities is told in a superlative way by Frank and Fritzie Manuel in their book Utopian Thought in the Western World.²² Major utopians covered in that work include: Thomas More (1478-1535), the author of Utopia (1516); Thomas Munzer (1490-1525), who was an Anabaptist; Giordano Bruno (1548-1600); Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778); William Godwin (1756-1836); Claude-Henri Saint-Simon (1760-1825); Charles Fourier (1772-1837); Robert Owen (1771-1858); Karl Marx (1818-1883); Friedrich Engels (1820-1895); and most recently, Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979). ²³

  As everyone knows, these utopian hopes where finally realized on a large-scale in the twentieth century with the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in October 1917. It was extended west to Eastern Europe after the all of the Nazi government in 1945. It was extended east to China with the establishment of communist China in 1949.

  Another version of utopian ideas entered the Christian church with the "Social Gospel," whose most well-known theologian in America was Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918; professor of theology at Rochester Theological Seminary).²⁴ More recent types of utopian theology in America have been espoused by the so-called "Liberation Theologians," among whom the following might be noted: James Luther Adams (1901-1994; professor at Harvard Divinity School),²⁵ Gustavo Gutierrez (1928-; a native of Peru and visiting professor at many universities in North America and Europe),²⁶ Rosemary Radford Ruether (1936-; a professor of theology at several North American divinity schools),²⁷ and James H.Cone (1938-2018; a professor of theology at Union Theological Seminary, New York).²⁸ An insightful discussion of how the "Social Gospel" and "Liberation Theology" has existed within the context of American Liberal Protestanism, and how their ideas have contributed to that wider religious community, may be found in Gary Dorrien’s three-volume history The Making of American Liberal Theology.²⁹

  What does this history mean for our current problems? For one, we need to recognize that many of the mainline Liberal Protestant churches have been influenced by, or even in some cases, become completely captive to the utopian ideas of the "Social Gospel" and/or "Liberation Theology." An example of evidence for this may be found in the memoirs of Carl E. Braaten. Braaten is a theologian in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), who has warned his church about the problems and dangers of "Liberation Theology" in the ELCA and its institutions.³⁰ In my personal estimation, all of the "Seven Sisters of Mainline Protestantism"³¹ have gone this way to various degrees. Many of the American divinity schools and seminaries have become institutions whose goal is to convert both conservative and liberal seminary students into "Liberation Theologians" of various sorts.³²

  Second, those who oppose the present form of the U.S. government should realize that neither the founders, nor the Enlightenment philosophers, nor Christian theologians ever thought that any governmental system was "perfect." Only utopians think that is a possibility. No government can be perfect in the Christian and Enlightenment view because it is administered by imperfect people. The U.S. government system provides many ways for evil, corrupt, and criminal persons to be removed from office after due process. Our government system is self-correcting, in a way that few other government systems are.

  Third, as to the specific point of the recent protests, I don’t understand why police departments are still using the "chokehold" (a.k.a. lateral vascular neck restraint). This method of restraint was banned by the Los Angeles Police Department in 1980; and it was banned nationwide in 1990 after New York City reinforced its ban on chokeholds.³³ In my opinion, its continued use in some cities – not everywhere – is a fault of not just those local police departments, but also a fault of the respective city councils. The city councils are supposed to appoint the directors of those police departments and supervise them. Why are the city councils defunding the police, when the council members themselves are at least to blame for lax oversight? Why are those city councils still approving the chokehold thirty years after it was previously banned nationwide? Protecting citizens – all citizens – is the chief work of city councils.

  Fourth, as I pointed out in our previous Grace Notes newsletter,³⁴ racism continues to be a problem in American society. Our synodical president, the Rev. Dr. Matthew Harrison, ahs issued a very find statement on the immediate concerns that is in keeping with our theology and with previous synodical statements.³⁵ To understand all the issues involved and the path toward solutions, I urge your to read the fine study issued by our LC-MS Commission on Theology and Church Relations in 1994 titled "Racism and the Church: Overcoming the Idolatry."³⁶

  Fifth, and finally, we need to remember Thomas Paine’s distinction between government and civil society. By design of our U.S. system, government cannot bring us "happiness," it can only protect civil society. If people want to "pursue happiness," they need to look to the institutions that provide that in "civil society", i.e., the family, houses of worship, fraternal orders, charitable organizations, clubs, and other forms of association. This is what the founding fathers meant in the Declaration of Independence when they promised us "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." They promised us freedom to associate – with our families, relatives, friends, neighbors, immigrants, persons of different ethnic ancestry, and fellow believers – for the good of all.

  As Christians, we heartily agree with that promise in the Declaration of Independence, since we believe that civil society was a divine creation at the start of human history when Eve was brought to Adam. We believe that the church is also a divine creation. The church was created at the moment in history when God himself visited this planet to save us from the evil that is in man by nature. So, Jesus taught us to pray, "Deliver us from evil." Amen!

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