The Streetcar of Democracy
Political Dualism - Mere Christendom
Written by Douglas Wilson
Monday, July 05, 2010
Christians who argue for a secular public square are caught on the horns of a dilemma. Either Jesus wants this or He doesn't. Or maybe He doesn't care. If He doesn't want it, then why do they? If He does, then are they not advocating a civil arrangement based on the will of the Lord, which would be a theocracy?
When we are talking about a theocracy in the abstract, we are not yet talking about the content of the laws, only that the laws are based on the will of God. Biblical law, rightly understood, would not be draconian, but that needs to be discussed in its place. Right now, the question is whether or not public morality needs to be grounded in the will of God or not.
So let's take this a step further. If the laws are not based on the will of God, but rather on the will of the people, Demos, then what happens when a large majority of the people think that the laws should be based on the will of a god? This is precisely the dilemma that democracy faces in the Middle East. The president of Turkey has said that democracy is like a street car -- you ride it until your stop. Then you get off. What happens when an Islamic state forms as a result of democratic processes? What happens when Hamas actually wins the election in Gaza, and they didn't do it by cheating?
In effect, Demos the capricious god gives way to another god. But on secularist principles, why would Demos not have the right to abdicate like this? Who says that Demos can't abdicate?
When a Christian secularist looks at this kind of scenario, if Demos is the final word, then cannot Demos vote itself out of having the final word? Can it not enthrone Allah? If Allah is not the true God, can it not, at any rate, enthrone the mullahs?
Or what about Jesus? On what basis could a Christian secularist object to an election that voted in Jesus as Lord? He could only do it by saying that Jesus refused to be nominated, and then point to a text that showed us how Jesus required our civil affairs to be arranged, and that He was particularly insistent that we be sure to leave Him out of it. But the whole point for the secularist is that there is no such text which, ironically, opens the door for a democratic Christian republic.
Now of course, I believe that Jesus is a king, not a president, and the Great Commission requires us to proclaim that the coronation has already happened. Jesus is not running for anything, and we do not "make" Him anything. He is the Lord of lords, the King of kings, and the President of presidents, and there is nothing whatever that we can do about it. That is already the case. The world will gradually come to recognize this, and will become Christian, and this is good news indeed. This is the good news.
This is incidentally why I believe that Christian republics and commonwealths are formed by preaching, baptizing, and discipleship, and not by campaigning, legislating, pundit-blogging, and so on. This gospel work will have political results, but it is not politically established. The magistrate is a necessary part of the process, but only as a servant to the gospel. The magistrate must wear Christ's livery, and not the other way around.
So here are the options: 1. Jesus doesn't care whether or not nations are explicitly Christian. 2. Jesus is opposed to nations being explicitly Christian. 3. Jesus wants nations to be explicitly Christian.
And here should be our responses to these possibilities:
Response to #1. Well, if Jesus doesn't care, that means we have the right to care. So let's make this a Christian nation, shall we?
Response to #2 Okay. Let's have a Bible study and find out why "disciple the nations" really means "don't disciple the nations, whatever you do."
Response to #3. Yes, Lord.
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