“Dr. Schaeffer, what is your biggest concern for the future of the church in America?” Robert Charles Sproul (1939-2017) asked the great Christian thinker of the twentieth century as they shared a cab in the early nineteen-eighties. Francis Andrew Schaeffer (1912-1984), already in his twilight years, did not hesitate: “Statism.” Sproul explains:

Schaeffer’s biggest concern at that point in his life was that the citizens of the United States were beginning to invest their country with supreme authority, such that the free nation of America would become one that would be dominated by a philosophy of the supremacy of the state. In statism, we see the suffix “ism,” which indicates a philosophy or worldview. A decline from statehood to statism happens when the government is perceived as or claims to be the ultimate reality. This reality then replaces God as the supreme entity upon which human existence depends. (R. C. Sproul, "Statism", in Tabletalk: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. September 2008)

Almost as an antipode in the ideological spectrum, Frederick Engels, in an article titled Progress of Social Reform on the Continent (first published in The New Moral World, 3rd Series, No. 19, Nov. 4, 1843), expresses his amusement with the association between communism and Christianity in the French milieu:

It is, however, curious, that whilst the English Socialists are generally opposed to Christianity, and have to suffer all the religious prejudices of a really Christian people, the French Communists, being a part of a nation celebrated for its infidelity, are themselves Christians. One of their favorite axioms is that Christianity is Communism, “le Christianisme c'est le Communisme”. This they try to prove by the bible, the state of community in which the first Christians are said to have lived, etc. But all this shows only, that these good people are not the best Christians, although they style themselves so; because if they were, they would know the bible better, and find that, if some few passages of the bible may be favorable to Communism, the general spirit of its doctrines is, nevertheless, totally opposed to it, as well as to every rational measure.

What I find truly curious about Engel’s criticism and attack on the supposed Christian communists of France, is that, besides being right on the mark concerning the incompatibility between their social propositions and a biblical view, what really offends him is not the incompatibility itself. As one of the fathers of communism, Engels finds utmost objectionable the fact that these “French Christian Communists” have a deep suspicion about the state, and for him it is their antistatism that, in the end, leads to the conclusion: “Nous voulons l'anarchie!” What we want is anarchy; the rule of nobody, the responsibility of every one to nobody but himself (Progress of Social Reform on the Continent). So statism, which in the mind of the twentieth century Christian philosopher represented a great threat, was for the socialist ideologue of the previous century the end goal (as he states, something necessary that had to be guarded against “libertarians and anarchists,” as well as Christians).

Today, almost three decades after Schaeffer’s assertion and almost two centuries after Engels’s statist postulations, we seem to continue to struggle in our discussions of social systems and economic models and the role of the state. I say “we” because I am not just thinking about such debates in academia, secular social thought or American politics, rather, I have in mind how even in conservative Christian circles discussions of justice have become qualified in identitarian and critical theory hues with a statist substratum:[i] Social Justice, Economic Justice, Racial Justice, Gender Justice, etc. And make no mistake: this is not simply a North American discussion, but it is global in nature.

The problem with how these discussions are carried out is that in good postmodern fashion they inadequately lump together different aspects of theoretical reflection such as economics, law, sociology, biology, psychology, even math and other more exact sciences. Under the mantle of intersectionality[ii] the traditional way of relating different aspects of reflection (interdisciplinary) is substituted by one that hinges on the struggles of identity groups, so that power struggles, class struggles and social grievances become the standpoint upon which one must look at society.

When society is viewed in terms of oppressed vis-à-vis oppressor (the old Hegelian dialectic), simplistic polarizations between social and economic visions in terms of left and right, progressive or conservative, revolutionary and reactionary become inevitable. The problem is that these polarizations leave a deeper kind of idolatry unscathed and unchallenged: idolatry of the state, or of the market, or of human society, or of any other human structure (whether nationalist or globalist).

It is indeed a dangerous thing to hide under the cloak of self-interest or of the collective good an underlying expectation of human-made social, economic or political redemption—this is typical of the haughtiness of creatures that long for salvation aside from God (2 Corinthians 10:4-5) and it is idolatrous! The catch, however, is that every idolatrous standpoint is inherently frustrating: Idolatrous perspectives are always fake versions of that which they seek to replace and, thus, will never adequately fulfill the expectations placed on them.  Baal cannot effectively replace God; false worship cannot fulfill the deep longing of the heart created for true worship; inordinate sexual intimacy cannot satisfy the longing for intimacy and connection that finds its home in marriage—this is spelled out quite drastically in the first chapter of Paul’s epistle to the Romans. Likewise, human institutions or human efforts will never realize the redemptive expectations that Paul so cogently expresses in terms of groans:  

For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8: 19-23)

The human condition will not see redemption coming through the state or the market or some dialectical, conflict based, dynamic.  No social structure, no human effort will balance the scales or produce cosmic justice, to borrow Thomas Sowell’s expression. To invest our redemptive yearnings in anything other than God’s action in Christ and through His body, the Church, to expect the rectification of “structural sin” or any kind of resolution for the identity-group-defined injustices through political action, is both naïve and dangerous: it is idolatrous and the story of Babel should forever be a dire warning!

God has a clear purpose for human institutions, for society and for government. Authorities derive their mission, and the accompanying power, from God’s purposes. The motive for human authorities is specified in such passages as Romans 13: 1-7; 1 Peter 2: 13-17 and Titus 3: 1-11 and it has to do with the administration of justice, the restraint of evil, the promotion of goodness and the preservation of freedom in the righteous ordering of human society. To unpack all of this here would take me off track, so let me just quote at length how C. S. Lewis understood the implications:

It is easy to think that the Church has a lot of different objects—education, building, missions, holding services. Just as it is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects—military, political, economic, and what not. But in a way things are much simpler than that. The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden—that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time. In the same way the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose. It says in the Bible that the whole universe was made for Christ and that everything is to be gathered together in Him. (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. New York: Collier Books, 184, p. 169)

The quote above is long, but I think it is worth reading a couple of times.  You might also want to read the passages cited above (Romans 13: 1-7; 1 Peter 2: 13-17 and Titus 3: 1-11 ) and ruminate on them. I will break for now. As the title of this blog article states, I will continue in two more parts, deo volente (that’s “God willing” for you—in that beautiful dead language!). I will try to sketch a positive proposal for looking at the state in a less idolatrous way (part 2); and then attempt to illustrate practically how this perspective would spread out concerns such as development, equity and other societal anxieties in a shared responsibilities model (part 3).  

See also:

No Idols (part 2 of 3): A Confessional Approach to the State and Shared Responsibility

No Idols (part 3 of 3): A Confessional Approach to the State and Inequalities

[i] Substratum: “an underlying support,” or, “the material of which something is made and from which it derives its special qualities.” Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

[ii] Merriam-Webster’s Definition of intersectionality: the complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups.

Dr. Davi Charles Gomes is the International Director of the Wolrd Reformed Fellowship, a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary, he is a minister of the Presbyterian Church of Brazil and the former Chancellor of Mackenziue Presbyterian University, in São Paulo, Brazil. Click here for a brief bio.