At this moment in my American context, I think it is wise for Christians not to prematurely separate from each other based on different political theologies. The reason is that the orcs are not just at the gates; they are infiltrating the city as citizens and magistrates. While a sexual revolution is rapidly transforming our culture, I don’t think fellow Christians should divide right now over the hypothetical scenario—which might occur decades in the future—of how to govern a nation if the vast majority of its citizens are Christians. There are more pressing matters to band together to address—evils such as abortion and wokeness and LGBT ideology and socialism.^[69] The strategy for faithful Christians right now involves basics that we should be able to agree on—such as be a good egg, love your wife, stay in fellowship, worship every week, teach your kids, work patiently, and keep politics in perspective.^[70]

Christians have increasingly discussed political theology over the past several years—at least in my conservative evangelical circles. A lot of Christians are both interested and confused. They are fascinated by the topic, but they are having trouble thinking clearly about it because it is so complicated. This article is my attempt to add some clarity by framing a debated topic. I proceed in three parts: (1) I start by briefly defining religion, politics, and political theology; (2) then I propose seven views on religion and government; (3) and I conclude with seven reflections.^[1]

Part 1. Starting with Definitions: Religion, Politics, and Political Theology

Let’s start by defining three basic terms: religion, politics, and political theology.

• Religion is “an organized system of beliefs that answers ultimate questions and commends certain actions or behaviors based on the answers to those questions.”^[2] Those questions concern ultimate reality (i.e., God), the nature of the universe, the nature of mankind, what happens to a man at death, and how we know right and wrong.^[3] As a Christian, I believe that the religious institution God has ordained is Christ’s church.
• Politics is the science and art of governing men (to paraphrase Aristotle).^[4] In this article I’m referring specifically to politics at the civil level of the government or the governing authorities or the state.^[5]
• Political theology is a theology of politics—particularly how religion and politics should relate. So a particular view of political theology is a philosophy or system of ideas that attempts to explain how religion and politics should relate.^[6]

Throughout this article I typically refer to the broader categories of religion and government instead of the narrower categories of church and state.

• I use the label religion instead of church because religion is broader than the Christian church. Religion encompasses organized institutions like Islam. In a sense, religion also includes less formal belief systems like secularism (i.e., the view that the state must be separate from religious institutions), but secularism is not an organized religion.
• I use the label government instead of state because government can be broader than state. For many people the word state refers to a modern nation-state, but the term government broadly encompasses all sorts of civic rule.^[7]

It is challenging to use terms for political theology that apply equally well in all historical settings. In the ancient world, religion and politics are fitting terms. In the Middle Ages and magisterial Protestantism (which includes Christendom), ecclesiastical government and civil government are fitting terms. In early modern political thought, church and state (and the separation of church of state) are fitting terms.

Part 2. Seven Views on Religion and Government

In this article I propose a taxonomy of seven views on religion and government. In other words, people have held at least seven distinct major views on political theology. (I am including both Christians and non-Christians for breadth.) I am proposing a taxonomy in the form of a spectrum that moves from views that separate religion from the government to views that combine religion and the government. I concisely describe each view and then conclude with some reflections.^[9]

Introductory Qualification

My concluding reflections include some qualifications, but I should mention one upfront: The people and groups I list to illustrate a view—both historic examples and modern examples—do not necessarily share the exact same political theology. There is a spectrum of views within each view, and those I list within a particular view may be different in significant ways. But they share some similarities given the criteria I lay out. This article is simply my attempt to sketch a spectrum of views on political theology—both historically and currently—in order to gain clarity on a complicated topic so that we better understand before we evaluate.

View 1. Secular Suppression: The secular government suppresses religion.

• Position: The government and religion should be totally separate in the sense that the government should be secular because God does not exist. The government should not merely separate from religion but should suppress religion. (A militantly atheist government does not consider its belief system to be a religion.)
• Historic example: Karl Marx^[10]
• Modern examples: the former Soviet Union (Marxist-Leninist atheism), North Korea (officially an atheist government); secular progressivism

For view 1, the government affirms secularism in a way that I would call religious, but I contrast secularism with religion in the heading because secularism is not an organized religion in the same sense as Christianity or Judaism or Islam.^[11] In the headings for views 1–7, the term religion refers to organized religion.

For view 1, the government protects itself from being contaminated by religion. For view 2, religion protects itself from being contaminated by the government.

View 2. Religious Separation: Religion must radically separate from the government.

• Position: The government and religion should be totally separate in the sense that they are distinct spheres that must not overlap because the government is worldly. Consequently, individual Christians must separate from the government by not wielding the sword as combatants or as magistrates because to do so would be to cooperate with a sinful institution.
• Historic example: Anabaptists^[12]
• Modern examples: traditional Mennonites,^[13] Stanley Hauerwas,^[14] Greg Boyd^[15]

Views 1 and 2 see hostility between the government and religion. View 3 envisions neutrality with no intermingling.

View 3. Religious Neutrality: The government must be religiously neutral.

• Position: The government and religion should be separate in the sense that the government should be religiously neutral and particular religions should not influence the government. The government may be religiously neutral in one of two ways: (1) by promoting no religion—that is, a pluralistic secularism that does not necessarily deny God’s existence but wants to keep the peace between opposing religions—or (2) by promoting a civil religion, which is “a set of practices, symbols and beliefs distinct from traditional religion, yet providing a universal values paradigm around which the citizenry can unite.”^[16] Either way, the public square should be religiously neutral; religious people should publicly argue based on natural law and not their particular religion.
• Historic examples: classical liberalism (John Locke, John Stuart Mill, etc.; emphasis on a free market; to some degree America had a Protestant civil religion until the 1950s),^[17] libertarianism (emphasis on individual autonomy),^[18] progressive liberalism (emphasis on the welfare state and freedom from traditional sexual ethics)^[19]
• Modern examples: John Rawls, who emphasizes religious neutrality in the government;^[20] Darryl Hart, who emphasizes political neutrality in the church^[21]

For view 4 (in contrast to view 3), the public square should not be religiously neutral.

View 4. Religious Influence: The government should not promote only one particular religion, yet religion may influence the government within limited parameters.

• Position: The government and the church are separate in the sense that they have distinct God-authorized jurisdictions. God authorizes the government to wield the sword (which a government may justly do against an individual Christian who has broken the law), and God authorizes the church to exercise the keys (which a church may rightly do by refusing to affirm that an individual person with governmental authority is a Christian). The government should not exclusively promote a particular religion (e.g., the government recognizes religious freedom and does not institute a state church or spread doctrine that is explicitly Christian), and the government should not restrict the spread of false religious beliefs (e.g., the government should not refuse to allow a Mosque to be built in the town square).^[22] But religion may influence the government. An individual governmental authority (like a United States senator) may argue for a political position based on religion, and the government may adopt that position—but not on the basis of religion. The public square cannot be religiously neutral; it is a religious battleground. For Christians, the church’s mission is to make disciples; individual Christians should significantly influence the government; and the government should not institutionalize Christianity (e.g., the government should not put the Apostle’s Creed in the constitution).
• Historic examples: most Baptists^[23]—e.g., the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689),^[24] Isaac Backus;^[25] English non-conformists/Separatists such as Congregationalists and Quakers
• Modern examples: Wayne Grudem,^[26] Jonathan Leeman,^[27] John Piper,^[28] Andrew Walker,^[29] Scott Aniol,^[30] David VanDrunen,^[31] Robert George^[32]

For view 5, religion should not merely influence the government. The government should identify as a Christian government.

View 5. Christian Government: The government and religion overlap.

By labeling view 5 as “Christian government,” I am using the specific adjective Christian instead of the more general adjective religious because this view is peculiar to Protestant Christianity.

• Position: The government and the Christian church are two God-ordained institutions that have distinct and overlapping God-authorized jurisdictions, and they should work together under God’s ultimate authority. For Christians, the church’s mission is to make disciples of all nations; individual Christians should significantly influence the government; and the government may institutionalize Christianity to some degree (e.g., by putting God in the constitution and by having a religious test for office). The government should identify as a Christian government in the sense that the laws and customs it promotes derive from the ultimate authority of God. The governing authorities should know that they are accountable to God for how they rule (cf. Daniel 4:26), and it is fitting for the government to exhort citizens to fear the living God (cf. Daniel 6:26). The government should pursue justice by promoting the natural law (which the Ten Commandments summarize) as much as prudently possible. The government should (along with the church and society) help create cultural conditions conducive for conversion and for the common good.^[33] While the government should promote and to some degree enforce a just social order based on a right understanding of God and man (e.g., the government should promote marriage and the family and demote no-fault divorce, adultery, homosexuality, transgenderism, and pornography), the government should not force citizens to follow Christianity since only the Spirit’s regeneration produces a heart change; the church’s weapon is not the sword but instead the word, water, bread, and wine. This model is not feasible long-term if many of the citizens are not genuine Christians.
• Historic examples: magisterial Reformers (e.g., Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, John Knox, Richard Hooker, Johannes Althusius),^[34] the Reformed scholastics, the church of England,^[35] John Gill,^[36] American Puritans (e.g., John Winthrop, William Bradford, John Cotton, Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards), the basic approach in various colonies and states at the time of America’s founding^[37]
• Modern examples: Brad Littlejohn,^[38] Doug Wilson,^[39] Joe Rigney,^[40] Daniel Strand,^[41] some versions of “Christian nationalism” (though many who hold this position do not prefer that label)^[42]

For view 5, the government enforces a particular ethic that is tied to a religion. For view 6, religion controls the government to such a degree that the government enforces the religion itself.

View 6. Religion over Government: Religion governs the government and directs the government to enforce religion.

• Position: A particular religion governs the government and directs the government to enforce that religion. Some call this view the doctrine of the two swords in which the sword of religion trumps the sword of the government. (For medieval Roman Catholics, both swords belong to the Pope, and the Pope directly wields the spiritual sword and indirectly wields the temporal sword by commanding government authorities.) God ordains the government to ensure peace in society, which includes to some extent governing church assemblies, ensuring that the church maintains orthodoxy, and punishing people who refuse to comply. The magistrate might say, “The Pope is telling me that John Doe is a heretic, so the government must punish him.”
• Historic example: the two-swords view of medieval Roman Catholicism^[43]
• Modern example: I’m not sure what to suggest as a good modern example. Some might classify Rousas J. Rushdoony in this view, but Andrew Sandlin, a former colleague of Rushdoony, disagrees in his Christ Over All interview. Sandlin argues that Rushdoony, the basic architect of Christian reconstructionism (i.e., reconstruct America as a Christian republic by rebuilding it on the foundation of the Mosaic law’s moral and civil aspects), does not include governmental coercion of Christian religion in his political theology. Rather, Rushdoony advocates a principled application of the Mosaic law—something closer to what I propose as view 5 above. ^[44]

Read More