Church, State and Public Justice: Five Views (Spectrum Multiview Book Series)

All the five perspectives have some very valid points, and in a way or other, they complete each others' shortcomings. When I first start reading the Clarke E. Cocharn essay (The Catholic Perspective), I first liked this perspective, because I believe that no one can deny the long history of Catholic Church in dealing with the state. Moreover, Christianity is the only religion who believes in the incarnated God. For that reason, and because I am from a church that values the Sacramental communion, I liked the way Cocharn incorporated the incarnational and sacramental principles, in addition to the anthropological and social principles, into the Catholic social teaching. However, when I finished reading the book, I had made up my mind to with Ronald J. Sider essay (The Anabaptist Perspective). I realized that this perspective is more appealing to my view of the role of the church in the state and the world. I chose Sider's essay for two main reasons. Firstly, his perspective is derived from the Bible and the Cross. Secondly, it is closer to the way the early church lived, and by which the church was able to overcome all the obstacles within, persecution, and pagan (secular) powers. If we consider a rivulet, we will see that the closer we are to the fountainhead the purer and healthier the water, and the farther we go the more strange objects we will find in the water. It the same thing with the church, the closer we are the biblical principles and the way these principles were practiced and lived by the early church fathers and mothers, the healthier and more sanctified church we will be, and consequently, the more reliable witnesses of the Gospel we will become, which is our second assignment. The church has to strive for purity and holiness, and then offer the message of the cross to the whole world.I did not like the Classical Separation Perspective, even though they share same idea of separation between church and state as Anabaptists, and many Baptists advocated this separation in the 18th century, because the classical perspective advocates limit the role of the church by what the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It is like they are stating that "this is what the state wants from the church and it has to be faithful to it."I also found that both Catholic and Principled Pluralist Perspectives emphasis on a church as an institution and social structure within many others rather than being a spirit of institutions and a prophetic voice of the social structures. The mission of the church within the state should be "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight" (Mark 1:3).No one can ever deny "the power of people" in bringing change. I find that the social justice perspective rely on the power and responsibility of individuals within the "society as a whole" more than the prophetic ability of the church that is based on its power of the Holy Spirit in it. This perspective limits the role of the church as a prophetic voice that leads the community and the state to make choices that honor God and are committed to defense the innocent lives of unborn children.The church was conceived under the cross and born on Pentecost. Its mission is to be led by the Holy Spirit to witness for the act of forgiveness and salvation that was fulfilled on the cross. I believe that the first step for the church to be effective witness of the cross in the community is not to be involved in reclaiming society and point out its sins. Reclaiming the culture is a pointless and futile exercise. We can sense some hints in both Catholic and Principled Pluralist perspective regard the judgmental role of the church in the society. As believers, our duty is to apply ourselves diligently to the work of our own sanctification and be the light and the slat for the society. Only as the church practices radical discipline, it will begin to have God's truth that will help her affect the community powerfully - and it will not be an external effect, but a changing from within, because the Holy Spirit still works from within to transform the world. It is never the church who does the work; rather it is the Holy Spirit who brings the change. Church's Job is only to prepare the soil.God loves the world, and Jesus is the Lord of the church and world. The only different between the church and the world is that the church has accepted what God "is given to her through Jesus, which is in substance no different from what is offered to the world." Therefore the church has to love the world, pray for it, and awaken it when they go off track of what honor God and preserve human's dignity, because sometimes "they do not know what they are doing."Believers are not the citizen of this world. Jesus said in his prayer for His disciples that "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world" (John 17:16). The first Christians view themselves as "aliens and strangers" (1 Peter 2:11). Rick Warren says that Christians hold a green card of the world that enable them to work in this world and finish the assignment God has assigned each one of them. Then Jesus added in His prayer to the Father asking to" Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth" (John 17:17). Therefore, our first assignment, as a church, is to be holy.Jesus called his disciples light of the world that is put it on its stand, away from daily activities, and it gives light to everyone in the house. Therefore, I am convinced that when the church withdraws from being involved in politics or administrations of the state, it will have more time to work on its own sanctification. When the church is sanctified, it is able to become the prophetic voice that conveys God's will about all the actions and legislation that the state takes. "The visible integrity and goodness of Jesus' new community encourages the surrounding society to improve." It is not the church's role to run charities and "secular programs," because when the church does it is role to be holy, prophetic voice, and witness of the cross rightly, there will rise hundreds and thousands of organizations that will run charity programs.However, when the church views its role based on the biblical principles, it does not mean that it will have answer to every matter in life. Even the Bible does not answer to every question. Right? The Bible sheds its light on the darkest area of our lives and help us find answers that complement and correspond with its truth. In the same way the separation between the church and the state comes from the fact that the church does not give an answer to the state, but rather it becomes the voice of voiceless and of the truth. For instance the last main example discussed by Sider that reveals Anabaptist perspective clearly is pacifism. As there cannot separate lies to a white lie or fib and a lie, we cannot say that there is a just-war and unjust-war. War is never about defending God or a land. It is about defending a human ideology. In a war innocent people are killed, and people who have nothing to do with the ideology that are defending are killing each other. No one has the right to take a soul except for the One who gave it.Finally, I hope that I was able to reflect the basis that Anabaptist's perspective has built upon their view on the separation between the church and state in my own words. This perspective was more appealing to me because I believe that the church carries a treasure that no institution, no social structure, no powerful constitution, no human endeavor and responsibility are equivalent to its uniqueness. Paul wrote to Timothy, "You have been trusted with a wonderful treasure. Guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit, who lives within you" (2 Timothy 1:14). The church has to guard that treasure by sanctifying itself by the Holy Spirit that is within it. This is what our early fathers and mothers offered to the world before 312 AD and were able to turn the world upside down. We can do the same now. Church, State and Public Justice: Five Views

This is an interesting book that presents several Christian views about the Separation of Church and State, and the role the two organisations play in public justice. I was pleasantly surprised by the Catholic perspective. His vision of co-operation, challenge, competition and transcendence provide a fantastic framework for the Church to interact with the state and wider society. As someone who is not Catholic I found myself in agreement with much that Cochran wrote. However his essay suffered from a lack of engagement with the Biblical text and relied almost solely on tradition.The best essays were the Principled Pluralist (PP) and the Anabaptist (AB). The PP essay focused on the narrative of Scripture - Creation, Fall and Redemption. He argued that government would still be necessary even if the Fall did not occur. God has always intended to rule through Human beings. God's redemption is cosmic in scope, and every area of life is being redeemed, politics included. This means that Christians can and should be involved in the political process. By doing so they are not seeking a Utopia on Earth but seeking to embody God's kingdom here on Earth as it is in Heaven. This essay was written from a Reformed perspective but one that relied more on Abraham Kuyper (especially with all the talk about Spheres of Authority) than Calvin. However Cochran was right in that it suffered from an overly individualistic perspective. I was impressed by the Anabaptist perspective on non-violence, even though I lean more towards a just war theory. Apart from that it wasn't that different from the PP position. The social justice essay was OK but rather narrow in focus and you were left with more questions than answers. The least well argued essay was the classical separationist perspective. This essay suffered from numerous inconsistencies and flaws. For one it allowed for the accommodation of civil religion in public discourse. His rebuttals didn't fair much better. He allowed for religious views to be heard when deciding on legislation but legislation could not be based on religious views but must be secularized. His argument was that if the state followed religious views it would become a religious state. However that gave too much preference to the quasi religious view of secularism and it was hard to see how classical separation wouldn't collapse into strict separation. The worst part of this essay was that it focused exclusively on the founding Fathers of the USA and their intentions. Not being American this makes the discussion pointless. Perhaps his point would have been better served if He had compared the views of the Founding Fathers with Scripture.On the whole the book was not a rigorous discussion of what the Bible says about Church, State and Public justice (apart from the PP and AB perspectives). I was hoping for more discussion of the Bible. Some of the responses to the essays were pithy and the objections raised relatively minor. The entire AB objection the PP essay was that the Creation - Fall - Redemption narrative was not the exclusive domain of the Reformed Church.For 3 good essays, 1 average and 1 poor essay followed by some good and poor responses I give the book 3 stars.

Church / State issues divide Americans like few other religious topics. The editors here are very well positioned to help the reader navigate not only the basic tenets of the main camps but also the reasoning behind them. Dr. Kemeny has long been one of my favorite writers. (I actually read an early draft of his PhD dissertation 25 years ago, before it was published). He possesses a long and deep familiarity with the specific topic and its broader context. After top training in both theology and history (Wake Forest, Westminster Seminary, Duke, and Princeton Seminary), he has taught at Grove City College, where he has also been a dean.Dean Kemeny and his co-editor have assembled five writers, each committed to a different take on these issues. The result is a frank but irenic conversation. Any thoughtful reader will find this volume very accessible. IVP has done a great job of packaging this as well. I have never come across anything like it of this quality and objectivity. Highest recommendation.Rev. Dr. Ray CannataRedeemer Presbyterian Church of New Orleansauthor, Rooted: The Apostles' Creed

GREAT

IVP have done a great service over the years in producing the x views series (where 2 < x < 6). This one deals with a faithful Christian response to Church and State and public justice. Here we have a Catholic, Separatist, Anabaptist, Social Justice and Principled Pluralist perspectives.All the essay are well written and easy to follow. Each essay is followed by responses from the other authors.The principled pluralist view is expounded by Corwin E. Schmidt. Schmidt provides an excellent overview. He places his view in a creation, fall and redemption framework. He sees the state as being creational (as does Henry Meeter) rather than as a result of the fall (as does Kuyper). He recognises that Calvin broke new ground he didn't develop a full theory of the state. This was developed more by Abraham Kuyper with his view of sphere sovereignty, a the notion of a free church within a free state. Principled pluralism develops on these ideas and maintains that pluralism is good and that the role of the state, though limited, should be to ensure that justice is done by each of the different aspects of society. The state should also be an agent of common grace.He argues cogently that: Principled pluralism recognizes and accepts the diversity evident in public life and the presence of different structures of authority operating within different spheres of life. It affirms the state as a social structure possessing legitimate authority within a particular domain of life, but as only one among various structures to which God has delegated authority. (p. 152) Christians should not escape from the political domain, even though it is affected by the fall. Christians are called to 'act with political modesty, to demonstrate tolerance for those with whom they disagree, to cooperate with others to achieve the public good...' (p. 153)What is most remarkable about this position is that most of the other commentators seem to agree with it. Ronald Sider (Anabaptist) seems more concerned that this position has been labelled Reformed: "I agree with most of Corwin Schmidt's lucid description of principled pluralism. Most of it flows from fundamental biblical teachig and careful historical analysis' (p. 163). Clarke Cochran (Catholic) writes: this view 'comes closest to the Catholic position I describe' (p. 154); and J. Philip Wogaman (Social Justice) seems more concerned with Schmidt's amillenialism.One day everyone will come to their senses and accept that the principled pluralist view is biblical and the best perspective!