Second in a Series on the Church in Politics
If we could ask a Christian of the fourth century what he thought of the problem of church and state, he would likely reply, “What problem? There used to be one, but there just isn’t any more, and there never will be one again!”
At last the years of anxiety, persecution, and suffering were over: the emperor himself had become a Christian! God had heard the prayers of the martyrs, and now the hand of God could be seen clearly. Surely the raising up of the Emperor Constantine, and all his military and political successes, pointed to a new era of divine blessing.
Indeed, the emperor thought so himself, and he set about to be an active, thankful instrument of God’s providence. He began to return the church property that had been confiscated during the persecutions.
In Africa, however, problems arose immediately. Here there were two competing churches: the rigorous Donatists, whose refusal to compromise with the pagan state in the past had entitled them, they were certain, to regard themselves as the only true Christians; and the more relaxed “Catholics,” who believed in ignoring the records of Christians in the old days of persecution as much as possible. When the state gave the property to the “Catholics,” the Donatists protested. When a church council ruled against them, they petitioned the emperor for another one. And when the outcome was the same, they appealed directly to the emperor, asking the state to overrule the church! Again they lost, this time before the imperial supreme court. Still the Donatists refused to yield and be reconciled to the rest of the church.
Unfortunately, now that the status of his court had been ignored, Constantine thought it necessary to use force in carrying out the court’s decision. He confiscated Donatist places of worship and then used troops to put down the riots that ensued. Constantine was sure that God wanted all men to worship together in brotherly concord, and he believed that, when necessary, the state should further that aim.
The Donatists, on the other hand, took the Bible mechanically and were certain that the church was in the world to suffer at the hands of the state. Not only did past persecution prove that they were the true church; the obvious facts of everyday life continued to prove it also. These “only true Christians” were Berber peasants who were forced to pay confiscatory taxes to absentee or indifferent Latin landlords, in this way suffering at least financial martyrdom for Christ’s sake. The Donatists were also confirmed in this view by the status of the other church. Almost all the “Catholic” laymen were owners of vast estates, and the church itself was a great land-owner. Even worse, the “Catholic” clergy not only were excused completely from the very taxes that ground down the peasants but also received state subsidies. If the true church was made up of sufferers, then obviously the subsidized church couldn’t be Christian at all.
Constantine had given a privileged economic and political status to the church because he was convinced that her intercession with the God of heaven was vital to the prosperity of the empire; he saw no difficulty whatever in identifying the church with the upper classes. But the Donatists certainly did, and it is not at all surprising that they responded in kind by organizing guerrilla bands in monks’ clothing. These guerrillas brained over-zealous debt-collectors with clubs, because Scripture forbade the carrying of the sword. If the imperial church was identified with the status quo, the peasant church was identified with revolution, even to the point of establishing an independent state. The political-economic pressures tried on the Donatists could now be turned against the Catholics.
The revolution could not long resist the empire, however. Not only was the army used to crush political enemies of the state; it was also turned against the church that had fostered the rebellion. The Catholic bishop Augustine reluctantly concluded that coercion was the final answer, for at least it appeared to work. If the intention is correct, force may be employed: “Love God and do as you will”—that is, crush the Donatists! Although they disagreed on everything else, the two churches came to agree on the role of the church in politics. The state—either the established state or the revolutionary one—could be used as much as possible for religious ends. Indeed, the force of the state could be called upon to establish either church as the true one.
The key to recognizing the true church—either as “persecuted” or as “unified”—is of more than purely practical value, for it involves a judgment as to which is the primary motif in Scripture’s own description. Is the true church the “persecuted” church or the “unified” church? The answer to this question involves a religious judgment. State support of a particular group tends therefore toward an official state theology. This tendency became more apparent as the emperor gave increasing attention to the older dispute about the deity of Christ.
Constantine had broadened the local discussion on this point into an ecumenical council, held in his palace in Nicea. He himself presided. When Arius was condemned as heretical, the emperor thought it wise to impose a secular penalty also and to send him into political exile, thereby making certain that he could have no further disturbing effect. When Arius claimed to be ready to accept the spirit of Nicea, however, the emperor’s concern for unity enabled him to overlook the fact that no real commitment had been made to the specific content of the Nicene creed; and he asked for Arius’s reinstatement. When Athanasius, the leader of the orthodox party, refused to believe in Arius’s orthodoxy and to receive him, the emperor then banished Athanasius! The teaching of the church had come to be determined by whatever doctrine, or lack of doctrine, the emperor thought would contribute most to harmony within the empire.
The situation that arose from the division of the empire at Constantine’s death was even more complex. Although Athanasius’s own Alexandrian church supported him and his doctrine, he was deposed by an Eastern synod. Appeals to the rest of the church were ignored in the name of the “independence of the East.” The Eastern churches could then use the force of the state to impose their will upon the Alexandrian church, with no interference permitted from the church as a whole. The church’s only defense against the petty actions of the sectional synods, so easily coerced by a local ruler, appeared to be the ancient prestige of the Roman church and her bishop. Thus, for the church to protect itself against political interference, the only course seemed to be submission to the protection of Rome.
All this hardly seemed to influence Constantius, the successor to Constantine in the East. He felt he had unified the church with another simple, non-technical creed. Granted, it didn’t say as much about the deity of Christ as some wished; but how could the objections of Christians who were outside his responsibility be important to him? He was sure that the prosperity of his reign showed God’s approval of his theological policies. Apparently the providence of God could demonstrate not only what was the proper opinion for the whole church, as in Constantine’s day, but also what was true for part of the church; Constantius was even sure that providence preferred an ambiguous creed to a precise one. When he secured power over the whole empire and over the church, his policies became even clearer: bishops were given the choice of rejecting the orthodox doctrine of Athanasius or being banished. The will of the emperor was literally the law of the church!
Not all the details of fourth-century controversies concern us today, but some aspects stand out as relevant. It is clearly dangerous for the church to stress the “providential” character of a particular government or movement, for the state is likely to conclude that whatever it does, even without specific biblical warrant, has some kind of divine authority from which there can be no appeal. This is tyranny. It was this kind of thinking that led to the Catholic state’s use of force against the Donatists, the Donatist rebellion against the empire, and, even worse, Constantius’s suppression of orthodoxy in the name of unity. Some will say that God desires to work his will through the most unlikely means, simply because he has done so in the past, or that the outcome is the most important thing. But both arguments are wrong. Since only a few decades have passed since the “German Christians” saw the “providential” raising up of Hitler as an indication that Nazi policies were the will of God, this should not be difficult to remember. Nobility of purpose or desperateness of need cannot substitute for the truth of revelation.
But how can the church avoid this outcome? The ancient church found it advantageous to unite around Rome, to find in her a rallying point from which a defense against the tyrannical state could be organized. Surely the principle of uniting was correct and is still useful. Moreover, it also appeared possible to unite against ecclesiastical injustice at the local or regional level, for a broader-based synod should be able to consider a question more objectively and more biblically than a local one. But how easily the appeal to a truly ecumenical council turned into the extra-conciliar (and ordinarily extra-biblical) authority of the bishop of Rome! There is no point in the church’s exchanging one tyranny for another.
Even today the church may still attempt to resist a civil wrong by turning to a council, only to discover too late that it is one that employs a policy-making criterion other than Holy Scripture.
The church may even try to control the state. This is what the Western medieval church attempted. However, there are problems in politics and society for which Scripture has no specific answers. How easy it becomes for the church to help itself out of such a difficulty by finding God’s will in a “natural law.” And how much more fascinating than the Gospel become the intricacies and deductions of that natural law and its theology. How easy it is for the church to ignore the Gospel as irrelevant to its “real” task of controlling society!
Perhaps the modern church can still try to maintain a “harmony” of state and church, as the Eastern church continued to believe it could do. But that harmony seemed much easier when Constantius’s old policy was perpetuated: for the sake of peace, refuse to take seriously the necessity of continuing theological discussion with all its accompanying “discord.” Civil unity might well demand the suppression of fresh study of Scripture. It is far easier to appeal to the harmony so providentially established in the past.
There can be no doubt, of course, that the situation confronting the American churches today is far different from that in the days of the Christianized Roman empire. The state is essentially democratic and thus basically opposed to an imperial or autocratic rule. And the church is pluriform. Christianity itself has led to a decentralization of authority and a tolerance of religious beliefs unknown for the most part in the Constantinian age. Nevertheless, it would be dangerously superficial to conclude that the constitutional safeguards or the pluralistic character of modern society make revival of the ancient dangers impossible. Not only is civil government becoming increasingly centralized; so is the church. Denominational differences are losing significance. Certainly there is already an ecumenical theology.
Nor is an official state religion absolutely unthinkable on the American scene. Some semi-religious groups now maintain their tax-exempt status with difficulty, and many complain that the ecumenical organizations, which are just as much involved in attempts to influence legislation, have no such problems. The orientation of the theologies to be taught in tax-supported universities and schools is perhaps not yet clear, but it would be surprising if it were anything but the customary “neutral,” moralistic sort, which explicitly repudiates the exclusive claims of the Gospel. To be sure, there is no question of state direction of individual belief. But Christianity is an evangelistic religion, and the direct or indirect state promulgation of the “inclusive” faith is an attack upon its evangelistic effort. The Iron Curtain definition of religious freedom may not be greatly different in principle from that toward which our own land appears to be moving. It is a freedom to believe but not to evangelize.
Christians dare not become blinded to the implications of the Word of God for all areas of life. Evangelical opposition to the social gospel’s shameful neglect of man’s eternal welfare must not become opposition to the Scripture’s social implications. But it is one thing to make common cause with men of pagan faith for the advancement of a particular program, and quite another to accept the coalition religion they may also desire to promote in the name of unified action. It is equally wrong to make united opposition to a particular movement a quasireligion in its turn. Thus Christianity is not to be equated with, and is certainly not to be consumed by, either “socialism” or “anti-Communism.”
Awareness of the needs of the day must not be allowed to obscure the eternal truth and significance of the Gospel of the one Christ. Christians have been called to point to the commandments of Christ, but only within the context of the good news about him and his lordship over the world.
