Today’s saint from our homily was John Keble, whose sermon on the relationship between the church and the state in 1833 is honored to this day by the Church of England. Here is a link to an online version of that sermon. The lessons and the saint are not strongly related today so we will deal with them separately.
The sermon by Keble needs to be put in historical context, denominational and doctrinal context and redemptive historical context. First, the year 1833 is important from the perspective of the relationship between the monarchy and parliament as well as the Church of England and government. This was very much a transition period in English government with a further loss of power of the monarchy to Parliament causing a concomitant loss of influence of the Church. In fact, there was a good deal of secular and even atheistic backlash against the Church. Second, this is the Church of England which is a Sacerdotal model, believing that priests act as mediators between God and the laity, so that some of the categories for consideration are different. Whether or not a true two kingdom doctrine existed in early nineteenth century England is beyond my ability to check. If the current evidence is to be believed, the answer is no, but that is not fair given the doctrinal erosion of the last 60 years. Finally, this is pre-1948 by a century. The Holocaust and the post-War establishment of a Jewish state were not even dreamed of being possible considerations by the most premillennial theologian of that day. Therefore, the specific arguments that are made concerning the treatment of the Old Testament, while interesting, may not reflect current tensions, nor truly reformed categories.
Having said that, after bemoaning the decay not only of the civic moral standard, but also of the doctrinal sophistication of the laity, Keble poses two questions. First, he asks if a theocracy is necessarily desirable. This is an interesting question considering all of the historical issues and the title of the sermon. But a question that bears a look. Using reformed categories, this is a very simple discussion. In a two kingdom model with Christians being members in both kingdoms, it is clear that government, being in the Present Age, the Kingdom of this world, is not subject to the Laws of God, but rather to the laws of man. This in no way lessens the Christian’s obligation to participate in this realm, bringing to bear any and all principles he holds dear, including Christian ethics, such as they are. It is important, though, to have both a clear Law and Gospel distinction and a two kingdom model with its categories before determining how to impose Law in civic decision making. Still, as an institution, there is no particular interest of the church in the affairs of state, except in specific issues in which the Law is clearly at question. There is a great danger for the church being draw into pietistic missions that can run contrary to the Great Commission, which is the true mission of the church. The Oxford movement seems to have been grounded in this distinction, whether or not the reformed categories existed within the movement.
Secondly, he asks how an individual placed in a position of civic responsibility who is also a Christian should behave in issues where civic interest are in conflict with Law. Again, this seems to be a discussion greatly helped by the reformed categories and the two kingdom model. The number of potential conflicts is greatly reduced after sifting through much of the pietistic baggage and reevaluating in light of Law and Gospel distinction, Christian liberty and the reformed categories of justification and sanctification. In issues that still seem to present a dilemma to the Christian, Keble encourages Englishmen to stick to their principles, regardless of the odds. I would maintain that no issue of this present age in terms of civic righteousness is sufficient to sacrifice a belief based on the knowledge of Jesus’ redemptive work on the Cross as revealed by scripture.
The relationship between the Episcopal Church USA and the federal government is well documented. However, it has been a great violation of two kingdom thinking that allowed this to persevere. The mission of the church has nothing to do with the national government of any nation, including Israel. The theocracy known as Israel was destroyed utterly in 70 A.D. The current state of Israel is a geopolitical entity created by man, not by an edict of God, and is not in any Covenant relationship with God. The juxtaposition of the US flag and the cross in many Episcopal churches is a clear intrusion of this present age in the one place where the Age to Come is supposed to be most visibly intruding into this present Age. This is man intruding into God’s space, God’s sovereign ground. Whether symbolically, or in terms of actual corporate influence, this situation should be remedied and viewed as anathema.
Totally switching gears, the messages for today are listed on this website for your perusal. It is an interesting group of readings. This is clearly one of those lists that we get because it is almost always Lent for this feast. All of the passages are Law passages. Surprisingly, it is the Psalter that gives the best glimpse of redemptive history of the lot. The Matthew passage stops too soon and Romans 12 without Romans 1-11 is similarly Law without being anchored by the indicatives. I’ve railed on about his Law-Gospel distinction plenty of times, so I will let it go for tonight.
--Ogre--
No comments:
Post a Comment