For most of my life, I’ve been aware of a particular conflict (there are many, of course) between liberal and conservative Christians. I’m going to try to shed some light on this particular difference of opinion.
Which means, of course, that I’ll just make people mad. But I persist.
The disagreement, I think, springs from a misunderstanding of the Golden Rule.
Liberal Christians (I believe) tend to think the Golden Rule says something it doesn’t actually say. They think it says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you—and they will treat you the same way.”
But the text doesn’t actually say that. What it says (I’m quoting the NIV here, despite my recent criticism of that translation, because we’re kind of chained to it on this site, through our associated Bible Search app) is, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12)
You’ll note that nothing is said there about outcome. If you pay attention to Christ’s teaching as a whole (all the business about taking up crosses, dying, etc.), you’ll realize that there is very little talk of temporal (that means “having to do with this present world”) benefits. The assumption in Christ’s teaching generally is that we’re supposed to do what’s right, and chances are good we’ll see no benefit from it at all. In fact, we’re likely to be killed for it. But we’ll have our reward in Heaven.
This, I think, is where liberal Christians go wrong when they try to apply the Golden Rule to civil law and international relations. Due to their essential misunderstanding of the (nonexistent) promise of good consequences, they think application of the Golden Rule is the best way to ensure peace and good order. It is not.
Scripture makes it very clear that the king (civil authority) is meant to bear the sword for the protection of the populace. “For he [the authority] is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” (Romans 13:4)
In other words, the civil authority is meant to be the hero, the strong man who protects the weak. By violence, when necessary.
It’s possible to attempt to carry out that hero function through rigorous application of the Golden Rule, letting bad guys off and setting them free to do further injury. The liberal Christian (misunderstanding, as I said, the Golden Rule as promising positive temporal consequences) thinks that such a policy will cause the criminals to have a change of heart and become nice. I maintain, as I said above, that the Golden Rule implies no promise of temporal results. So the civil authority that tries this experiment is declaring itself willing to accept injury to, and murder of, the people it’s sworn to protect.
I can see no biblical mandate for the civil authority taking that kind of chance with the people’s lives. Grace is not the king’s job. I’m not saying it’s always ruled out, but it must be dispensed with great care.
There’s a lot of personal satisfaction in being able to see yourself as kind and merciful. But it’s not worth getting innocent people killed. Beyond that, it’s dereliction of duty.
I agree that you are correct in saying “they think application of the Golden Rule is the best way to ensure peace and good order. It is not.”
We have to live in the world of filthy humanity, just like Jesus did. If we lived in a La La Land idyllic world instead, the Golden Rule strategy could work. Unfortunately that has never been the case, and the civil authority is usually just as pusillanimous as everyone else.
You should be sure to post this at Mere Comments.
This is the theme of a play I would like to have written. (I would not like to write it, so if anyone wants to use my idea, he or she should go right ahead.) This might be based on historical fact — I forget. I think it could be based on something in Vladimir Solovyov’s life. (He was a youthful disciple of Dostoevsky.) After all that buildup, the idea is simple. During the 19th century, an assassin throws a bomb and kills one of the tsars. The assassin is captured and bound to be executed. A fervent religious layman who has been prominent in a revival movement of some sort obtains an audience with the new tsar, son of the dead man. He beseeches him. He says that the tsar is the anointed monarch in Holy Russia. He is the father of the people. Oh, the people will be greatly moved, your majesty, if you will forgive this wretch. The world will glorify God Who has inspired such a stunning gesture of Christian compassion. Just because of this man’s guilt and the wickedness of his crime, your action, which only you can do, will awe the world and will prompt a great renewal of respect, even among the disaffected upper classes, for the faith of our Savior.
And the tsar is much moved. He ponders deeply. If it were up to him as a private person, he would not require the man’s life.
But he is the supreme magistrate of the nation. It would be very wrong for him to mitigate the punishment due the killer. And so he refuses. And that was the right thing to do.
Dale, I like your play idea, but I think needs something to spice it up. I think the new tsar should be in love with the assassin’s daughter.
And she owns a talking monkey. Yeah.
I’ve been reading through the Selected Writings of Martin Luther, just about finished with the second volume. In his treatise on Temporal Authority and numerous other writings, he makes a big deal of the distinction between role and responsibilities of temporal government versus the role and responsibilities of spiritual government.
As Lars noted above, temporal government uses the sword to maintain order in society. Done rightly, this also limits the ability of evil men to carry out evil. On the other hand, those in God’s spiritual kingdom do not need external force to bring about conformity to the law. Their hearts have been transformed by the Gospel, so they follow the law naturally. Rather than law and the sword, they are ruled by grace.
Luther notes that attempting to rule either kingdom with the government meant for the other is a grave mistake. Law and the sword cannot bring about faith, which exist in the heart. Law can only bring external conformity. It cannot save. In the same way, it is naive to assume that anyone will obey the law if there is no sword to back it up. Attempting to run temporal government by grace will only allow evil to run unchecked, producing chaos.
My fear in the recent electoral turnover is that we have replaced a liberal agenda bent on temporal government by grace with a conservative agenda bent on producing faith by force of law. Neither one will succeed.
Well spoken.
The question, for me, is how far Christian governance can go to defend itself. Is invading a foreign nation and imposing a genocidal dictator (as in Guatemala and half a dozen other Cold War buffer states) ever allowable in terms of just governance? What about dancing around a treaty (i.e. covenant) made with other nations about our torture practices?
In any case, I think you’re absolutely right that these must be made in terms of justice–and the compassion that causes authorities to punish those who do evil against others–rather than grace and mercy. Particularly since mercy often equates to forgiving only those who look like you, and not one’s true enemies.
What worries me is that Christ didn’t tell us to follow the Golden Rule whenever we thought it would secure us peace, convenience, and orderly governance. He seemed to me to suggest pretty strongly that we should practice it even at very great cost. But I couldn’t agree more about the disastrous political consequences of applying it foolishly. I hope Christ meant to include the possibility of doing violence to people if necessary to stop them from doing something we’d rather be subjected to violence for, than be guilty of doing ourselves, but it’s a stretch. I suspect I’ll have a lot to answer for. At best, I practice the Golden Rule only with people I’m close to, or people who are behaving reasonably well already. Everyone else is lucky if I’m merely fair with them.