Church and State

 Eighteenth Wednesday after Pentecost

This is theology day on the blog. As we move deep into this election season, it seems appropriate for me to give some more Biblical and historical perspective on the issue of church and state. And yes, this is a theological issue.

 

Two things we should remember from the outset:

1. The idea of the separation of church and state is a modern idea, first put into practice in the United States.

2. There are no elections and no democracy in the Bible.

 

There is not any one single viewpoint that covers the entire Bible. Both the historical circumstances and the theological understandings are different in the OT from what they are in the NT.  During Israel's early history rule was by tribal patriarchs. With the uniting of Israel into a monarchy under King Saul, rule belonged to the king. Power lay in the hands of the king and the military. Priests were under the jurisdiction of the king. They have no power other than what the king allows them, which is not much.

After the Babylonian conquest of 586 BC, the Jews would be ruled by a succession of empires. Rule belonged to the king or emperor of that ruling empire. The Jews would have no king. To whatever extent the ruling king or emperor allowed Jews a measure of self-rule, that self-rule belonged to the priests. Other than a brief 78 year period of self-rule (141-63 BC) by a succession of priest-kings, the Jews remained under the rule of others until 1948, when the modern democracy of Israel was established.

Christianity came into being during the early years of the Roman Empire. The vast majority of early Christians were not Roman citizens. It was a religion largely of the powerless: women, slaves, the poor, although there were some Christians who had a measure of wealth. 

Christians in the Roman Empire were never violent, never revolutionaries. They were essentially pacifists. Christians respected Roman rule and authority (Romans 13:1-7, 1 Peter 3:16). Christian values were radically different from Roman values. The chief Roman values were strength and power. Roman military occupied a vast empire of subject peoples. Wealth was concentrated into the hands of a very few. The poor were held in contempt, as were the physically weak and disabled. Slaves, who comprised 60% of the population of the empire, were beneath contempt. 

Christian values were the direct opposite of most Roman values. This made the Romans see Christians as a dangerous threat. The response to this perceived threat was persecution. What began as small and sporadic local persecutions or pogroms grew in intensity to eventually being empire wide persecutions with the purpose of genocide, under the emperors Decius in 249-251 and Diocletian in 301-303. 

We will be examining the origin of Roman persecution of Christians in our study of Acts. With a few exceptions (the Book of Revelation being the most important) Christians took a basically positive stand toward the empire. Christian writers, whom we now know as the Apologists (that's a good word in this context) wrote to convince Romans that Christians posed no threat and could be good subjects of the Roman Empire.

Despite persecution Christians grew steadily in number over the first three centuries until they comprised about 10% of the Roman Empire population on the eve of the Diocletian persecution. That's about five and half million Christians. That growth under those circumstances is utterly spectacular. No other religion in the Roman Empire experienced any growth like it. Most, in fact, declined in number. 

At the beginning of the fourth century the Roman Empire was still under the authority of one man, the Emperor. In the matter of a decade the situation of the Christians would radically change, for what would seem to be the better. Christian non-violence would ultimately triumph over the most powerful and militant empire the world had ever known.

 

I find it all inexplicable except for the work of God. Over the next few weeks, I hope to show some specific examples of Christians who effected this grand historical change.

Faithfully,

Christian