So, does the Christian God, the God of the Bible, have a political philosophy? And if so, what is it?
Actually, I don’t believe God can be said to belong to any earthly political philosophy: “For so as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9)
Still, we might be able to find some evidence in the Bible concerning the character of God, and that evidence might have some political implications. Let’s see what we can find out, if we’re brave (or foolhardy) enough to investigate this question.
And let’s be polite as possible, OK? Political debates can get heated, and so can religious debates. This is the intersection of those two; things are gonna get touchy. So let’s try to hold onto both our intellectual integrity and our mutual respect.
God bless you for having the balls to post this topic. Thank you very much.
Politics, of course isn’t just “the art or science of government” (Merriam-Webster), but also " the total complex of relations between people living in society".
As you’ve noted, Jesus lived His life very libertarianly. He could have, with a wave of His hand, brought all men for all time into immediate submission to His will by simply redesigning His own paradigm.
The God of the Bible is clearly a despot. All laws come from him. All punishment and reward are ultimately his to decide as well. The best analogies of his style of government here on Earth are less than flattering.
Elmer J. Fudd,
Millionaire.
I own a mansion and a yacht.
Whatever kind of political philosophy is expounded in the Bible, the only political system I see in either the Old or the New Testaments is plain old-fashioned monarchy. Kings and lords, rulers and servants, masters and slaves, seem to be recurring themes in both Testaments; nowhere do I see any mention of, say, the Representative Democracy of the old Roman Senate or the Direct Democracy of Hellenic Greece.
Which is why it always amuses me when Pat Buchanan or one of his ilk claims that the U.S. government is founded on Christian principles.
Well, there are at least two Gods in the Bible, the one of the Old Testament, and the one of the New. The God of the old testament was something of a fascist - the New something of a socialist-anarchist.
I think we may need to distinguish between God’s relationship to us and the relationship God expects us to have with each other.
I think the 2nd concept is a more interesting discussion since it has a bearing on the American election year politics.
1 Samuel 8, the Israelites wanted a king and in verse 7, God says (NAS) “… Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but have rejected me …”
Samuel was the last judge before Israel’s monarchy was established. When the children of Israel were persecuted before the advent of monarchism, God would raise up a judge to rectify the situation (Samson, Deborah, Othniel, etc.).
If I had to guess at what life was like after Joshua and before Saul, I would guess it would be fairly libertarian. That is, everyone had land - the promised land was divided among the tribes, clans, and families. An agrarian lifestyle was perpetuated via inheritance. If there were troubles between individuals, “take it to duh judge.”
The various texts defining the Cities of Refuge suggests (to me, YMMV) that the concept of police officers was somewhat foreign (literally, HA!).
HOWEVER, the prophets known as the minor prophets roundly & soundly condemned social injustices and prophesied doom for their failure.
Both the OT and Paul’s letters to the church suggest that it is not proper to ignore social issues (poverty, abuse of orphans and widows, etc.).
My perception is that libertarians don’t like social programs, or at the minimum suggest that it shouldn’t be in the hands of the government. Here, I respectfully disagree. A government seems to be the most effective way of administering ordinances of social well-being in a society vastly more complicated than an agrarian one.
What we don’t like, and what I am sure you are inadvertently missing, is the seizure of property by threat of force from peaceful honest people.
When did Jesus ever do this?
(“Huh?” you might say. Keep in mind how you get your loot for your social programs. You don’t pay your taxes, you go to jail. That ain’t how charity works.)
As far as I can tell, God changed from a fascist dictator (OT) to a fickle one (NT). Jesus was just an anarchist, he fought every government he was under (Ceasar, the Jewish people).
I sold my soul to Satan for a dollar. I got it in the mail.
The Pharasees asked Jesus the kind of loaded question that people ask me about libertarianism. Their intention was to trick him into saying that Jews should pay taxes to Rome. But rather than say, “if the government wants taxes - pay it,” He asked them whose image was on their coin?
Do you know why He asked them that?
Because they weren’t supposed to be carrying around graven images of Roman gods. That’s why. It is a murder of the lesson to implicate Jesus as an advocate of tyranny.
His point was not what they owed Rome, but what they owed God.
Let’s start off with this familiar passage from Exodus 20:
Possibly history’s first labor law. Not only can’t you work on the Sabbath; neither can your hired help, your slaves, or even your livestock. No matter how low your standing in society, you could only be worked for 72 hours a week, more or less (depending on hours of daylight, since most labor was field labor).
Under the guise of a law that applied equally to everybody, who did God primarily protect? Slaves, servants, and others who were otherwise most vulnerable to being worked to death, just to earn enough to stay alive. Good going, God!
Next, we come to the following (much less familiar) laws from Deuteronomy 24:
This one’s fun; let’s dive in.
vv.10-11 deal with the imbalance of psychological power between one loaning money and the one borrowing it out of necessity. In effect, it says, “Just because you’re in the power position, that doesn’t mean you can just walk into his house to collect your security for the loan. Nope - you respect his house, and wait outside while he brings it to you.”
vv.12-13 deal with the fact that, at this time, the security for the loan was likely to be a man’s cloak, which he’d sleep in. They require the person loaning the money to return the security, the cloak, each night, because the poor man needed it for warmth. A similar verse earlier in the chapter
conveys the same message.
vv.14-15 protects the day laborer from an employer who might be tempted to hold back on paying the help. v.17 makes it clear that widows, orphans, and aliens had a right to justice, as well as those in better circumstances. By way of explaining why, v.18 reminds them that they were descended from slaves, and had been redeemed by the mercy of God; they were not just expected, but required, to pass on that same mercy.
And, of course, in vv.19-22, God’s law appropriates a portion of the property of landowners for the use of the poor and destitute. And again, I say: good going, God!
I must admit I never thought of the issue of graven images. Thanks for the brain teaser. Nevertheless, it is tortured hermeneutics (sp?) to suggest that Jesus evaded the question.
I’m sorry, what?
Let me ask this question, how should the poor be helped? If we limited government to punishing crimes against society, how would society pick up the slack?
As I recall, Lib, your answer to the pig issue was to use your personal understanding of Jesus to imply a non-scrptural resolution which ameliorated the scripturally evident fact that Jesus coerced some pig farmer out of a whole herd of prime bacon futures. If you recall something else then one of wil have to go digging through the old threads and exercise those advanced mouse skills.
If you recall as I do, then I wuld have to say you are guilty of manipulating the evidence to conform to your hypothesis.
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
Maybe looking at the whole passage in its context will help to avoid misconstruing the meaning.
The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him immediately, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people.
Keeping a close watch on him, they sent spies, who pretended to be honest. They hoped to catch Jesus in something he said so that they might hand him over to the power and authority of the governor.
So the spies questioned him: "Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right, and that you do not show partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.
Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"
[Notice that this is a yes or no question, and is positively loaded, as their intention was to trap Him. Didn’t you ever wonder why He didn’t simply answer yes or no?]
He saw through their duplicity and said to them, “Show me a denarius. Whose portrait and inscription are on it?”
[Zowee! Caught with their pants down! Idolatry is expressly prohibited by their law.]
“Caesar’s,” they replied.
[Can you image how sheepishly?]
He said to them, “Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
[That is, let the Romans practice idolatry. You should be worshipping God.]
