Dr Greg Bahnsen - Political Ethics: Seperation of Church and State Part 1 (Part 17)

Our Lord, we pray that you would be with us through this class period this morning, that you would enable us to make effective use of our time and this time would be spent in a way that is glorifying to you. We ask that you'd give us insight into the political issues of our day and enable us to be faithful to your word so we might present an accurate witness to the nations. And we pray that in all these things our King Jesus Christ would be uplifted and that you would hasten the day in which the kingdoms of this.

World will be the kingdom of our.

Lord and of his Christ. For it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. At the end of yesterday's session, I was discussing the last option, as I see it, on the textual approach to Christian politics. We had looked at thematic approaches represented by doyouvaert and Mao, and then I started looking at textual approaches, dispensationalism, and then the Puritan ideal of a theocracy. And I summarized my book Theonomy and Christian Ethics and a few of the critics, what they had to say about that as well, and gave a response to them. And that was the end of our time. Before I go on, I should give you opportunity, if you'd like, to ask questions about the lectures at the end of yesterday's sessions. Everything clear enough from them? Well, the point has been, I trust you can see the point has been to try to delineate a principle from which Christians can operate in making decisions in terms of their political involvement, the position they take in politics. We began this course with an introductory series of lectures on the absolute necessity of a transformational approach to Christian politics, and tried to summarize the three major issues and schools of thought on the three major issues in Christian political theory. What is the proper function of the state? What is the place of the state in the ordering of creation? And then how do you discern God's will? Or where is Christ politically working? After that introduction, we step back to look at, if you will, the apologetical and philosophical side of the issues confronting us, and studied the eight different theories presented by Abbott in his book dealing with the question of political authority. What right has the state to compel our obedience? Why should anybody obey the state? And I concluded that only a Christian has a viable answer to that question, because only a Christian can answer the question, why should we obey any moral standard at all? So having the introduction to these questions and establish that we have to have a Christian approach to the state, since the other philosophies of state are found wanting. Then I explored, in particular from your reading assignments, the Christian approaches to the state, which are of interest to us, the thematic and textual ones that I just summarized for you. And then today, what I'd like to do is from the standpoint of a theonomic approach to Christian politics, I'd like to take up specific problems in political ethics. And the first specific problem we'll consider today is that of the separation of church and state. Now, when we speak of the separation of church and state, the ideal that we will be seeking, I believe the ideal which is presented to us in the word of God is the ideal of a free church in a free state. A free church and a free state, where freedom is properly defined by both the Church and the state. Of course, one of the issues before us is how are we to understand this freedom? But anyway, the ideal, formally speaking, the ideal is a free church and a free state. Now, before there can be any intelligent discussion of the separation of church and state today among ourselves, or especially with those who are further afield from our convictions, we need to separate three different questions from each other, all of which at one time or another have come under and continue to come under the rubric of church state issues. Often enough when people talk about the separation of church and state, they are not talking about the same issue at all. And because they don't distinguish three, perhaps more separate questions, questions as to how the Church should be separate from the state and what that word separation means, since they don't draw those distinctions, they'll often argue on the basis of one legitimate distinction between church and state, and conclude on a different question altogether. That is, there is ambiguity and equivocation in the method of argumentation. And in a lot of people's reasoning, there is this equivocation just because they don't see that there are really three different questions here. So let me try to separate out for you the three logically distinct questions that come under the rubric of church state issues. The first is what I call a question of papalism versus Erastianism. Papalism versus Erastinism. Papalism is the view that the Church should dominate the state, obviously named after the Roman Pope, and the view of the medieval Roman Church that it should not only govern the religious affairs of men, but that the Pope should have the right to dominate the sword of the state as well. So, yeah, papalism on the one hand, says you should have church over state. Erasm, on the other hand, is the view that the state should dominate the Church, that the State is the one that gives the church its license. The state is the one that gives the church permission to do what it does, calls it to order, corrects abuses in the church and that sort of thing. So you have on the one hand the papal option, on the other hand the Erastian option, depending on which you think should have the supremacy, state or church. Now to that issue somebody might respond. I'm not a papalist and I'm not an Erastian. I believe in the separation of church and state. Okay, over against those who do not hold to the separation of church and state. I don't believe one or the other should dominate, but rather I want a free church and a free state. And so this is an institutional question of preeminence. The first question, papalism versus Erasing, is an institutional one. Which institution should have the preeminence? And those who hold to quote the slogan separation of church and state mean by that they don't prefer any of the options offered here that there shouldn't be preeminence given to either institution. Okay, now let's distinguish from that question a completely different question. And that is whether we should have an establishmentarian system church support, or whether we should have a voluntarist system of church support. A second issue, completely different from the first one, has to do with establishmentarianism and voluntarism. Establishmentarianism holds that churches should be given financial support and approval by the state, and therefore you have an established denomination as the church state or as the state church. Excuse me. So that in Germany, for instance, the Lutheran church is the state church, and in England the Anglican church is the state church. That is an establishmentarian principle where tax revenues are used to pay the clergymen in these denominations, the state itself establishes the church. So that's the establishmentarianism principle. And over against it is the voluntarist principle that churches should be recognized and supported only by individuals giving their free will offerings. And so that's the voluntary principle. So that if you're going to have a Baptist church or a Presbyterian church or a Methodist church, that all depends if you have enough individuals to support you. And if you do, that's fine, but you don't go to the state and say, well, you know, we don't have quite enough in the office plate this week, would you please recognize us and pay us out of tax money. No, the state has nothing to do with the establishment of a church. And so as you can discern, this is a question of favoritism among denominations, favoritism among Denominations. Do we make the Presbyterian Church the established church of the United States, or do we make the Methodist church the established church or the Baptist church? If the state establishes a particular denomination, then obviously showing favor to one over the others. Now, those who believe in the separation of church and state might then be, on this question, considered voluntarist. They do not believe in the establishment of religion. And so there should be no law passed to establish one religious group, one Christian group, over another. And that would be the principle of voluntarism. Okay? Anti establishmentarianism. Of course. Then there's that big word that you all remember from grade school. Anti disestablishmentarianism. Which is to say that you're in favor of establishment religion and you're against those who are trying to disestablish those who are trying to go to a voluntary system. So you have anti disestablishmentarianism. Anyway, those who believe in separation of church and state are voluntarist. They don't believe the church should be established by the state, supported by the state, recognized by the state. Given any favoritism by the state, they believe that the church should be freely and independently supported. So our first question is institutional. Which institution should be preeminent, church or state? And the answer, if you hold to the slogan separation of church and state, the answer is neither. Because we don't believe that church should dominate the state and the state should dominate the church. We believe we should have a free church and a free state. A second question that also comes under the rubric of separation of church and state is that of establishmentarianism over against volunteerism. That's a question of favoritism among denominations. There. The slogan means that I don't believe in the establishment principle that I want churches voluntarily support it, if at all. And then thirdly, especially in our own century and recently in our own century, another question has arisen that has come under the alleged slogan of separation of church and state. And that is the question of theocracy versus pluralism. Theocracy versus pluralism. The theocratic ideal, as you know, is that the state's moral obligation is through the law of God. The state has a moral obligation to enforce the law of God. The pluralist, on the other hand, holds that the state's direction is to be purely by popular opinion, apart from an objective moral duty, as understood in some religion. The pluralist says, no, you don't have some particular religion laying down its ethical system as being the one which the state must function within and be directed by, but rather everybody, pluralistically, all the plurality of people and religions in the world must get together and they vote. And so you have a common morality rather than a specifically Christian morality or Buddhist morality or a Hindu morality for the state. So this is the question of theocracy versus pluralism. It's a question of moral responsibility. What moral responsibility does the state have? Is the state morally obliged to keep the law of God, or is the state obliged rather to honor the diverse opinions of its population? And here, those who believe in the separation of church and state usually mean they don't hold to the theocratic ideal that they are pluralist, meaning that there shouldn't be any particular moral system that guides the state and is the context of its decisions. Okay, three separate questions. Now you begin to. I hope this helps you see why there's so much confusion when people talk about separation of church and state. By separation of church and state, somebody might mean, I don't believe one should dominate the other as an institution. Or by separation of church and state, somebody could mean, I don't believe that the state should establish one church over the others and support them with tax money. Or by separation of church and state, somebody could mean, I don't believe the state is bound to Christian morality. It's just bound to the popular morality of the plurality of people in the state itself. So these are separate questions. They must be kept separate, logically taken care of on their own and on their separate merits, and not confused. An example of how people confuse these things is that somebody will believe that churches should be voluntarily supported and not established by the state. So they'll say, I believe in the separation of church and state, all well and good. And then when it's proposed that we have laws making homosexual behavior criminal, then these people are told, well, you can't support that because you said you believe in the separation of church and state. And the person will say, oh, that's right. If the church is supposed to be separate from the state, I guess we can't tell the state what moral options or obligations it has. There you see the person thinking about the third question, theocracy versus pluralism, which is not logically implied one way or another. An answer to that third question is not logically implied, obviously, way from your position on the second. So you could have a person who was a voluntarist who believed that nevertheless the state was obliged to Christian morality, even though the state ought not to favor one denomination over the others. In fact, that is my own position, and so I know that that's logically possible, how credible it is will have to be, you know, weighed on biblical and other grounds of adequacy. But nevertheless, I hold that the state, not to support any particular denomination, that we have a free church and a free state and a free church is voluntarily supported. Nevertheless, I think that the free state, although it doesn't take direction from the institutional church, must be directed by the word of God and therefore the state is under obligation to the law of God. That's a theocratic ideal. I'm not a pluralist, but I am a voluntarist. So make sure you have these terms in mind when you ready to debate these issues or if nothing else, to take your exams in this course. Papalism, erasm, establishmentarianism, volunteerism, theocracy and pluralism. These all in one way or another come under the rubric of Church state relations and the question of separation. Well, having done this, logical home worklets look historically at the separation of Church and state and the development of this notion. And then finally I want to look at the question biblically to see what the Bible says about it. So we've considered it logically historically and biblically. Historically, the hostility between the Church and the Roman Empire with its own state religion ended with the Edict of Milan under the rule of Constantine in 313. The hostility that had existed between the Roman Empire, the state religion of the Roman Empire especially, and the Church ended when Constantine put in the Edict of Milan, making the Church subject to the Roman State. There was toleration for the Church but at a high price. The Church was subject to the Roman state. It gained its protection under the Roman state and its recognition and toleration, but it also came under servitude to the Roman state. Now when Augustine wrote, he drew a division between the City of Man and the City of God and taught that both the Church and the State were ordained by God but with separate jurisdictions. The state has a civil jurisdiction, whereas the Church has is a spiritual jurisdiction. So you have the City of Man dealing primarily with the State and the City of God. The separation of Church and State being a separation of jurisdiction, then for Augustine and we move up a little bit further in history. I'm just trying to highlight key stages and changes in the development of the notion of separation. We come up in to the year 494 when Pope Gelasius I wrote to the Byzantine Emperor Anastasius I that there were two swords. According to the Pope Gelasius I wrote to the Byzantine Emperor Anastasius I And he held there were two swords, a temporal sword and a spiritual sword. And he said to the spiritual sword had higher importance because it gives account for kings before God. Okay, so here's the Pope saying there are two swords, but the spiritual sword must have the preeminence. Papal supremacy is symbolically evident in the year 800 AD with the crowning of Charlemagne over the Holy Roman Empire by Pope Leo iii. And when Charlemagne was crowned, according to legend, all the people shouted, crowned of God. Crowned of God. That God had made his choice of an emperor through means of the pope. Well, clearly that would put the Church over the state then, because the pope is the one who is singling out who was supposed to rule. So there you see papal suppression, supremacy. When Pope Gregory VII sent out his dictatus papae, declaring, well, he sent out these dictates, these papal dictates, and in so doing, he declared that absolute world supremacy belongs to God's representative on earth. And who is that? The Pope. Absolute world supremacy belongs to God's representative on earth, the pope, who thus has the power to have princes kiss his feet and the power to depose emperors. And after Gregory VII deposed Henry IV and excommunicated him and forbade anyone to serve him as king, then there's this famous story in Church history, how the king stood barefoot in penitent's garb in the snow, pleading for mercy in the year 1077. There you have the king in utter subjection to the pope, standing barefoot in the snow in penitent's garb, asking to be restored. So you see the development. First, you have the edict of Milan, the Roman Empire over the Church. Now, through the development of papal power, by the year 1077, it's completely reversed. The pope has absolute power over the emperor. Now, this papal power was symbolically broken, however, in the struggles between Boniface VIII and Philip IV of France in the years 1301 to 1303. Boniface VIII and Philip IV of France. Philip tried a papal legate. That is, he took one of the representatives of the pope and put him on trial for some crime. Philip tried the papal legate, and Boniface asserted his own supremacy and summoned Philip to Rome instead. However, Philip broke communications with Rome and tried to bring Boniface to trial. Therefore, Boniface prepared a bull of excommunication, but Philip took care of that. He sent his men to put the pope in prison.

And so.

Three days later, Italian troops released the pope from prison, but he died a month after that. So in that little skirmish between Philip IV of France and Boniface viii. The power of the Pope was symbolically broken. You see, there was the Pope again trying to gain the upper hand over a king. And the king said, I'll have nothing.

To do with it.

And the King had the Pope imprisoned. Now, the Italian troops got the Pope out of prison three days later. But since he died a month after that, he didn't have any time to recover his, you know, his loss, his embarrassment over the situation, to, if you will, gain the upper hand again. We must remember that a month's time is plenty of time to make political maneuvers in our day and age, with mass transit or with rapid transit and with TV and world communications. But a month's time then wouldn't have been sufficient to do anything between Italy and France to show that the Pope was still in control. So symbolically, papal power was broken. Now, papalism has been symbolized through history by the Triregum, or that traditional name is called the triple crown. Triple crown is also used with respect to horse racing, but not related. Here, the triple crown is worn by popes at ceremonial events, indicating that the Pope has spiritual supremacy, temporal dominion and sovereign right over earthly monarchs, that he has this threefold rule, spiritual supremacy, temporal dominion and sovereign right over earthly monarchs. And so the Pope has three crowns that he wears. Now, for obvious reasons, the Reformation inaugurated a whole new era in the church.

State question when we come to the.

Reformation, things begin to change a great deal. Luther's position is found in his 1530 Augsburg Confession, where he states, the ecclesiastical power deals with things eternal and is exercised only by the ministry of the Word. Thus it does not interfere with the administration of civil affairs. The ecclesiastical and civil powers are not to be confounded. And so in the augsburg confession of 1530, it's rather clear that you have the separation of Church and state. Ecclesiastical power deals with eternal things. Exercise only by the Word does not interfere with civil affairs. You know, matters of the sort, and you're not to confound ecclesiastical and civil powers. And yet, for all of that, Lutheranism in history has drifted into a state church in Germany. Despite this commendable statement in the augsburg confession of 1530, Germany has come to favor a state church under the monarchy in France and the Romanov dynasty in Russia, the Church came under the power of the monarchy. And that union between the monarch and the Church in both France and Russia.

Came under attack in revolutions that eventually.

Wreaked havoc in those two countries, the French Revolution and the Communist Revolution in different centuries, but in due time, because.

The monarch was affiliated with the Church. When social revolutionists wanted to attack the.

State, they had to attack the church simultaneously. Now let's look at Calvin's Geneva. Calvin's Geneva, despite popular misconceptions, was quite different from the errors of Germany, France and Russia. As we've seen Germany working into a state church, France and Russia both having a union between the monarchy and the power of the Church. Calvin's Geneva did not partake in those errors. Calvin's views through Puritan influence coming to America have been the views that are the background to our own present day approach to church state relationships. In his Institutes Book 4, Chapter 11, Section 1, Calvin said that the spiritual.

Polity of the Church of God is.

Entirely distinct from civil polity. The spiritual polity of the Church is entirely distinct from the civil polity of the state. And Calvin wrote in 1553 to the ministers of Zurich, the consistory has no civil jurisdiction, but only the right to reprove according to the word of God. Vera's punishment is excommunication. So Calvin resisted the city council's attempt to approve of elders and to govern excommunications. He said use the council had nothing to say about the rule of the Church, its elders and who it excommunicates. Calvin resisted that intrusion of the state into the Church. On the other hand, he held that the state is responsible to observe God's law in civil affairs. He said each institution is to operate in its God given sphere, but both under the authority of God who ordained them. And so Calvinists is very close to the view that is portrayed in my book Theonomy and Christian Ethics, where you have two separate institutions, both God ordained, both ruled by God via his Word, but ruled by different individuals who are not answerable to each other. Now Queen Mary attempted to impose Romanism on Scotland after this refusing to ratify the Scots confession of faith which had come from the Scottish Parliament. Queen Mary accused John Knox of teaching the people to receive another religion than their princes allow. And he replied as right religion took neither origin nor authority from worldly princes, but from the eternal God alone. So are not subjects bound to frame their religion according to the appetites of their princes. Famous quote in the history of church state relationships. Knox called the Roman Church the harlot, not the true and immaculate spouse of Jesus Christ. And so Knox and Mary fought bitterly thereafter. And when her Secretary of State Maitland instructed Knox that the general assembly of the Church could not make meet without the Queen's approval, Knox replied, take from us the liberty of assemblies and take from us The Gospel, as Knox saw that is the key issue of his day, that if the Church would not be separate from the state, to meet at its own discretion and not at the discretion of the Queen, that was as good as taking the Gospel away from the Church. So the freedom of assembly became essential to the life of the Church and to the civilization liberties of the country. You might want to keep that in mind when people talk about freedom of assembly in our own country. We owe that as a debt to the. To the Church. Knox insisting that the Church could assemble when it saw fit. Andrew Melville was a Scottish clergyman who confronted King James VI with these words I'm quoting now. Andrew Melville. There are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland. There is King James, the Lord of this commonwealth, and there is Christ Jesus, the King of the Church, whose subject James VI is and of whose kingdom he is not a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a member.

Here you get a rather clear expression.

And very dramatically put that the King has his proper domain, but under the kingship of Jesus Christ, he is nothing but a member of the Church. He has nothing to say in the Church, no direction to offer. And the second book of discipline in the Scottish Church, written 1578, maintain, first of all, diligence should be taken that only ecclesiastical things be handled in the assemblies and that there be no meddling with anything pertaining to the civil jurisdiction. So there's clearly a declaration that Church authority is used only for church matters and assemblies and does not pertain to civil jurisdiction. However, the Book of Discipline also said the spiritual rulers should require the Christian magistrate to minister justice and punish vice. The ministers exercise not jurisdiction, but teach the magistrate how to should be exercised according to the word. Magistrates are to make laws and constitutions agreeable to God's word without usurping anything that pertains not to the civil sword. Again, you see, there's the separation of Church and state. Without any hesitation to say that kings have to be instructed by the ministers in the Church. The kings must minister their office, must execute their office according to the word of God. So the theocratic ideal is maintained, even though the separation of church and state is being maintained as well.

We move up a little bit further in history.

We come to the Westminster assembly, where we see that Erastians at the Westminster assembly maintain that the state has supreme authority in ecclesiastical affairs because the state was a cruelty, excuse me, the Church itself is a creature of the state. Erastians say that the state must have supreme authority over the Church because the Church is a creature of the state. Now, the Erastian appeal here was opposed, and quite successfully opposed, by the Scottish minister George Gillespie, who destroyed the arguments of the Erastian John Selden in one speech, a speech in which he established the divine right, as he said of Christ, to rule his Church through his ministers alone. The divine right, the jus divinum, the divine right of Christ to rule his.

Church and to rule his Church through.

His own ministers and through his ministers alone. Now, the Westminster assembly adopted the proposition.

That freedom of assembly became essential to.

The life of the Church and to.

The civil liberties of the country.

You might want to keep that in.

Mind when people talk about freedom of assembly in our own country. We owe that as a debt to the Church. Knox insisting that the Church could assemble when it saw fit. Andrew Melville was a Scottish clergyman who confronted King James VI with these words. Quoting now Andrew Melville, There are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland. There is King James, the Lord of this commonwealth, and there is Christ Jesus, the King of the Church, whose subject James VI is, and of whose kingdom.

He is not a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a member.

Here you get a rather close, clear expression and very dramatically put that the King has his proper domain, but under the kingship of Jesus Christ he is nothing but a member of the Church. He has nothing to say in the Church, no direction to offer. And the second book of discipline in the Scottish Church, written 1578, maintain, first of all, diligence should be taken that only ecclesiastical things be hand in the assemblies and that there be no meddling with anything pertaining to the civil jurisdiction. So there's clearly a declaration that Church authority is used only for church matters and assemblies and does not pertain to civil jurisdiction. However, the Book of Discipline also said the spiritual rulers should require the Christian magistrate to minister justice and punish vice. The ministers exercise not the civil jurisdiction, but teach the magistrate how it should be exercised according to the word. Magistrates are to make laws and constitutions agreeable word, without usurping anything that pertains not to the civil sword. Again, you see, there's the separation of Church and state without any hesitation to say that kings have to be instructed by the ministers in the Church. The kings must minister their office, must execute their office according to the word of God. So the theocratic ideal is maintained, even though the separation of church and state is being maintained as well. We move up a little bit further in history.

We come to the Westminster assembly, where.

We see the Erastians at the Westminster assembly maintain that the state has supreme authority in Ecclesiastical affairs because the state was a creature.

Excuse me.

The Church itself is a creature of the state. The Erastians say that the state must have supreme authority over the church because the Church is a creature of the state. Now, the Erastian appeal here was opposed, and quite successfully opposed, by the Scottish minister George Gillespie, who destroyed the arguments of the Erastian John Seldon in one speech, a speech in which he established.

The divine right, as he said of.

Christ, to rule his Church through his ministers alone. The divine right, the jus divinum, the divine right of Christ to rule his church and to rule his church through his own ministers, that through his ministers alone. Now, the Westminster assembly adopted the proposition that Jesus Christ as king and head of his church, has appointed an ecclesiastical government in his church in the hand of church officers, distinct from the civil government, teaching that the civil magistrate is responsible to God's word. The Westminster Confession nevertheless states senates and councils are to handle or conclude nothing but that which is ecclesiastical are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth, unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary or by way of advice for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate. Now, in New England about the same time, John Cotton was teaching that a theocracy was the best form of government for men to affirm. You see this in his discourse about civil government, which was written in 1663. And Cotton defined a theocracy as where the Lord God is our governor and where the laws by which men rule are the laws of God. The best form was theocracy, which for Cotton meant separate but parallel civil and ecclesiastical organizations framed on the evidence of Scriptures. Church and state, he believed, were of the same genus order, with the same author, God, and the same end, God's glory. On the level of species, however, the two diverged. Here the end of the church was salvation of souls, while that of the state was the preservation of society in justice. And I've quoted there from Larser Zipf's book the Career of John Cotton, pages 97 and 98. Here is somebody who is not close to our own convictions, but recognizes that the position of the Puritans that came came to New England, position of John Cotton was theocratic. However, there was a separation at the level of specie between the institutional church and the institutional state, even though both had to have order and both had to serve God's ends. We would note also Cotton's work entitled Moses his Judicials, Moses his Judicials, which was perhaps the earliest codification of Civil law in this country. And the title itself tells you the content is the Mosaic Judicial law, those laws that surround the decalogue and give character and definition to the general or summary statements of the Ten Commandments. The judicial laws of Moses were enacted then as the laws of the land in New England in most of the colonies. And the history of legislation in this country and legal reform is the history of how people have responded to the Mosaic law. Now, in 1648 in this country, the Senate of Massachusetts, the Senate of the Massachusetts churches adopted what was called the Cambridge platform. 1648 the Cambridge platform in it. Well, it was stated in it that church government was not to meddle with civil government, that magistrates were not to meddle with the work of church officers, and that civil authority should maintain both tables of the decalogue. So you begin to see from the Reformation on there's a rather clear development of the idea of a theocracy, but with a separate institutions. Cambridge Platform 1648. Church government is not to meddle with civil government members are not to meddle with the work of church officers, but the civil authorities must maintain both tables of the decalogue. At the time of American independence, the Presbytery of Hanover petitioned the Virginia House of Burgesses to allow, quote, the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of our consciences. This is the Presbytery of Hanover petitioning the Virginia House of Burgesses for the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, both of them Anglicans with a background in a state established church. Jefferson and Madison drafted and supported the bill for establishing religious freedom. This was drafted in 1777 and it was enacted in Virginia in 1785. And according to this bill, well, the bill was drafted to support voluntarism over against the establishment of the state supported church of the Church of England. That's a very significant step. We're talking about 1770, the year after the Declaration of Independence. This is the bill for establishing religious freedom. And the point was, religious freedom meant that there would be no state supported church in Virginia. There would be no state supported church. Not that the state would be free from religion, but simply that the church would not be established established by the state. And so it's with this long background.

All the way from the Edict of.

Milan in 313 of Constantine down to the bill for establishing religious freedom, 1777. It's with that illustrious background that we come to and now can contextually historically understand the separation of church and state. In the United States Constitution. The United States Constitution. Constitution states, no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. And it also states, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. That's the first amendment to the Constitution.

The first Bill of Rights.

First entry in the Bill of Rights. No religious test required for qualification for office. And Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion and prohibiting the free exercise thereof. I think we can understand what the establishment of religion must have meant then in that day. The first Amendment to our Constitution provides a legal separation between the church and the state. It is not a moral nor a spiritual separation. The first Amendment provides a legal separation between church and state, not a moral separation. It provides simply that Congress cannot establish one denomination as the favored religion, nor can it prohibit any denomination nation from establishing itself on American soil. And so the wall of separation is legal. It is not moral. There is no reason under the Constitution of the United States why the principles of Christianity cannot pervade the laws and institutions of the United States of America. The Constitution does not forbid that. If you read it historically and therefore accurately, the Constitution simply holds that the federal government may not establish a national denomination that will be imposed on every state. Interestingly enough, the United States Constitution does not even forbid the states to have their own state denomination. For instance, the state of Louisiana could recognize that Roman Catholic Church, whereas the state of Pennsylvania could recognize the Presbyterian Church. And the Constitution would not forbid that. The Constitution simply says the federal government may not establish a religion. So the entire United States of America are all going to be Catholic or Presbyterian or Baptist or what have you. So the Constitution does not forbid the establishment of religion. Although I'm against the establishment of religion personally, it's important to note the Constitution's not Constitution is not against the establishment of religion. It's against the federal establishment of religion. And by establishment of religion, that simply means the favoring of one church group, one denomination over another. And please understand that the Constitution is speaking about the establishment of one Christian, Christian denomination over another. That the separation of church and state and the freedom of religion clause of the Constitution had to do with the Christian religion. There's no question about granting freedom to pagans and infidels and to Buddhists and Hindus and the like. It was a question of the Christian religion. And the second somebody says, well, that's not written in the Constitution. That's because that's one of those issues that just wasn't faced. It Was the Christian religion or no religion of these people. And therefore the establishment of one group, one religious group over another, meant necessarily the establishment of one Christian denomination or sect over against another. And so we've drifted a great deal obviously from the point of the original separation of church and state in the Constitution. And we now live under a humanistic order that reinterprets those words according to its own pleasure. So logically, we've separated three different questions pertaining to church and state. Historically, we've traced in very broad strokes the development of separation of church and state from the Edict of Milan down to the US Constitution. We clarified what the Constitution means. Now let's go to the Bible and see how the Bible teaches the separation of church and state. And I want to make four points here this morning before we take a break. The first one is that the separation of church and state was recognized in the Old Testament. Separation of church and state was recognized in the Old Testament. This is something that's not often granted by people. A common conception. Not sure exactly how it got so common, but it's certainly distorted. Common conception is that the Old Testament was a church state. A church and state were identical in the Old Testament. However, this is not the case at all. If you just look at the official functions of statesmen and religious leaders, you see that there was a recognized distinction between Moses and Aaron, Moses being the civil leader and Aaron being the priest. There's also a recognized distinction between Nehemiah and Ezra when Jerusalem is being rebuilt. So clearly the Old Testament could distinguish between leaders of church leaders of the civil affairs, the nation, and leaders of the ecclesiastical or religious or cultic affairs of the nation. In the Old Testament we can see a distinction drawn between tribal heads and princes, family heads, elders, judges, kings, all of which had judicial or executive duties. A distinction between all of those and the priest on the other hand hand who alone had cultic duties. Now sometimes the question is asked, what about the Levites? Where do they fit into this pattern if there's a distinction between civil administration and cultic leadership? Well, the Levites were a non priestly group. You must remember the Aaronic family was.

The family that had the priesthood.

The Levites were all in involved with the cult in one way or another.

Or with the law of God.

And thus they were involved with the administration of justice. So the Levites could be found helping out in temple service and they could also be found in the court as court recorders and interpreters of the law, helping the judges make decisions. Israel in the Old Testament was As a matter of fact, unique in ancient Canaanite in the ancient Canaanite context, where the other cultures round about Israel had a priest that was the executive leader of the state had a priest king. Israel alone separated her priests and her kings. And so for that day and age, Israel all the more separated church and.

State, rather than merging them, as we think today.

And my book, Theonomy and Christian Ethics, the chapter on separation of church and state deals with differences, clear differences between church and state officials, church and state duties, church and state regulations, church and state requirements, the manner of succession in church and in state, the location of these leaders for church and state, the servants of these leaders in church and state, the tributes that were paid to church and state to state, the penalties that could be imposed, and the personnel that were involved. Just think about that. We can find differences between Old Testament church and Old Testament state, Old Testament civil and cultic leadership with respect to officials, duties, regulations, requirements, succession, location, servants, tributes, penalties, and personnel. What more could you ask? That's quite a separation of church and state in the Old Testament. Uzziah, of course, is the outstanding example of what happens when somebody in the Old Testament presumed to merge church and state as though the king could go in and perform the work of the priest. Uzziah was struck with leprosy judgment by God for daring to break down the separation of church and state in Israel. Now, while there was this separation of church and state in Israel, both church, church and state were unified in another sense. They were unified in the sense that both worked under the authority of God, both were under his law, both were subject to his prophets. So there was a separation of church and state, but there was a unified church and state under the authority of God. The separation of church and state, therefore, can be said to be, in the Old Testament, a functional matter. The functions of church and the functions of state were separate, and I think.

The best illustration of that is found.

In Second Chronicles 19:11.

In Second Chronicles 19:11 we see that the.

The leader in the house of Judah is set over the affairs of the king, whereas the Levites are set over the affairs of the Lord. You have a definite division between the work, the labor of these two groups, one occultic work and the other a civil work. So there is a separation, a functional separation in the Old Testament. Nevertheless, there is a unification of church and state in the Old Testament. Let me add one aside here before I come to the New Testament. It has recently been claimed by some critics of theonomy that in the Old Testament There was no separation of church and state because to be a member of the state you had to be circumcised and Passover was enforced. You had to have the sacramental sign, you had to be circumcised to be a citizen of the state of Israel. And all citizens were required to go up to the feast, the Passover that was enforceable. And consequently you couldn't be a citizen without being a member of the church. To use our modern designations, the church and state therefore were co extensive. However, we must remember that even if they were co extensive, and I don't believe they were, but even if they were co extensive, that would not show that they did not have an institutional separation, that the leaders were separate, had a separate domain, a separate function, and were not answerable to each other, but answerable directly to God. And so this confuses the question. Separation of church and state doesn't mean.

Well, let me put it this way.

If it should so happen. We had a widespread revival in this country and every citizen of the United States happened to join a church. That would not break down the separation, separation of church and state, would it? The fact that the membership is co extensive in the two does not prove there's no separation in the legal sense. And so it's just confused to argue on that basis. But even more, it's false to argue on that basis because in the Old Testament there were certainly those who enjoyed the privileges of political protection and had the obligations of political responsibility, so civil responsibility, and they are the people called the sojourners in the land. There were some people who, the ger of the land, as the Old Testament calls them in Hebrew, who came to Israel and lived there, were permanent residents of Israel, but nevertheless were not considered members of Israel, always considered sojourners until such time as the they would become circumcised and then they could take the Passover. The interesting thing to me is until such time as they took Passover and were circumcised, they nevertheless had to keep the law of God and they enjoyed the privileges of citizenship in Israel. Okay, there is no word for citizenship in the Old Testament that I'm aware of, but nevertheless, functionally what we would call citizenship protections and responsibilities belong to the gera. And the only difference between the citizens sojourner and the native born in Israel was circumcision and Passover. Well, that's just the point, isn't it? That until this person was religiously converted, the sojourner was a citizen in Israel, but he was Not a member of the church. He did not have the covenant signed, did not enjoy the redemptive meal until he became part of the Covenant Order of Israel. And so there was a separation very much like the separation we have today. Everybody is born a citizen in this country. If you permanently reside here, you can be a naturalized citizen. You have to obey the laws of the land. You're protected by the laws of the land. But if you want to take the Lord's Supper, you must first be baptized. You must come under God's redemptive covenant. And so the Old Testament situation doesn't strike me as so radically different from ours today. And I would maintain, continue to maintain the separation, the functional separation, the legal separation of church and state in the Old Testament. Now, I believe that this separation of church and state is paralleled in the New Testament as well. We'll get very little argument about separation of church and state in the New Testament. My point is that this is a parallel to what we have in the Old Testament already. According to the New Testament Testament, God still ordains ministers, and he ordains ministers in the church. It's very clear that men put into the church. God calls people to serve him in the church. But Romans 13 says God ordains ministers his ministers in the state as well. So there again you have the idea of the supremacy of God over both church and state, separate legal, functioning orders, but nevertheless the supremacy of God over both. And when we come back after our break, we'll continue with the New Testament and discuss the place of theocracy and the separation of church according to Scripture.