AP

The Challenge before us: Church and State

The Presbyterian Church of NSW has a number of issues before it at the moment.

There is the issue of the gender of eldership (that is whether both men and women should be elders), and there is also the issue of Work Health and Safety (how WHS law is carried out in the decisions the state assembly makes).

The first issue we need to resolve is surely the church and state issue. The covid pandemic forced us to think more deeply about the relationship between the church and the state. Do we have a developed ‘theology of the government’? Could it be that we’ve had it good for so long that we have not had to think much about it? Is this a muscle we simply have not exercised? What is the relationship between the church and the state? Who has authority? And where?

The Dutch theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper has taught us that among many spheres, God has established three great spheres of authority: the family, the church, and the state. None of these spheres should intrude on the sovereignty of the other.

The church has spiritual authority over its business via its elders. Jesus said to the church: “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matt 16.19).

The state has been given a more temporal authority. It has been given the power of the sword to punish those who do evil and commend those who do good (Rom13.1-7). The church is to be a watchman to tell the state when it’s overstepping its bounds in the church.

As I mentioned, one camp of Christian thinking encourages us to uphold authority in two different Kingdoms or spheres: church and state. Emphasis on the word ‘different’. The Spheres should not encroach on the authority of the other spheres. Therefore, the state rules by the power of the sword but Christ rules his church by the Word and the Spirit, and as we noted, by the power of ‘the keys’.

Traditionally we have all held strongly to our political theology based in Romans 13:1-7, which tells Christians that we must obey the government. To be good citizens and Christians this is true, because God has commanded us to do this (see too 1 Peter 2:13-15).

But how do we understand the “relationship” between the church and the state? How much authority does the state have in the church? The different spheres (church and state) are each given authority directly from God. We need to think deeply about our political theology and the relationship between the church and the state. What does it mean for the WHS regulations that Jesus Christ is King and Head of his church? I believe the GAA code on the spiritual freedom of the church (chapter 7) is clear on this where it says (in full):

It seems good and necessary to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Australia to make a Declaration on this matter, lest the Church be assumed to acquiesce in any infringement of the Crown Rights of Christ within His own Church, as declared in the Standards of the Church, or in any infringement of the essential principles of Presbyterianism, as held by Presbyterian Churches throughout the world.

Accordingly the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Australia hereby declares as follows:

1. That the General Assembly holds, in accordance with the Word of God and the Westminster Confession of Faith as accepted by this Church:

(a) That God has ordained Civil Magistrates to be, under Him, over the people, for His own glory and the public good, and the Church has ever been instant in teaching the people to pray for the sovereign of the realm, and all who under him administer the government, to honour their persons, to obey their lawful commands, and to be subject to their authority for conscience’ sake.

(b) That the Lord Jesus has instituted His Church in the world as a society of His believing people, to which He has promised His own presence and Spirit to guide and rule the Church to the glory of His holy name and the advancement of His kingdom upon earth; and this Church of the Lord Jesus is distinct from the kingdoms of this world, both in its origin and its nature, and not subject to them in spiritual affairs.

(c) That the Lord Jesus, as King and Head of His Church, has therein appointed a government and jurisdiction, in the hands of Church Officers, distinct from the Civil Magistrate. With this distinct jurisdiction, which is directly from Christ, the only King and Head of His Church, the Civil Magistrate has no lawful right to interfere or to assume to himself any authoritative control over the same. This jurisdiction comprehends the determining, interpreting, changing, adding to and modifying its constitution and laws, its subordinate standards and Church formulas; the preaching of the Word; the administration of the Sacraments; the exercise of ecclesiastical discipline, including the admission and exclusion of members, and the ordination, induction, and suspension, or deposition of office-bearers; and generally all matters touching the doctrine, worship, discipline and government of the Church.

(d) That in all matters coming within the jurisdiction of the Church, as defined above, office-bearers and members of the Church are bound to abide by the decision of the Church Courts, and recourse to Civil Courts against any decision of the Church in these matters, or against the execution thereof, is excluded.

2. That Christ, having established His Church and appointed a distinct government and jurisdiction therein, the maintenance of the spiritual freedom of the Church specially concerns His honour and  dignity, as the Church’s only Head and Ruler.

3. That, while the Church claims to be in the spiritual sphere under no authority other than that of Christ, whose mind and will it is bound earnestly to seek to know and obediently to follow, it makes no claim to infallibility of interpretation as to the mind and will of Christ in any particular case, any

more than the Civil Magistrate claims to be infallible in his own sphere; yet such absence of infallibility in either case does not warrant the intrusion of the Church into the sphere of the Civil Magistrate or of the Civil Magistrate into the sphere of the Church.

So, in summary,

We have Church and State. Two different Realms/spheres, two different authorities, neither should transgress tonto he rightful authority of the other, which has been handed down from God to each sphere.

Jesus said: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” (Matt. 22.21).

– Jesse Huckel