Baptist Ideas: Facing The State

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Martin Sutherland

So far we have considered the cluster of ideas which lie at the heart of Baptist thinking - radical discipleship, radical community, covenanting membership - together giving us a particular vision of baptism and “being church”. There are other implications, which take us out of the church doors, indeed out of the fellowship itself and begin to shape a distinctive view of society. Crucial to this is a view of how the church and the state are related.

Two Kingdoms?

Baptists have always argued for a fundamental separation of church and state. This places us massively in the minority as far as the rest of the Christian church is concerned. At the time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century the Catholic vision was of civil authority subject to the church.

Martin Luther, however, refined an alternative idea of there being ‘Two Kingdoms’ decreed by God. One was spiritual, relating to the church and individual faith. The other was civil and was the realm of the “magistrate” or civil ruler. Each had their separate functions and jurisdictions. God’s will was advanced if they understood their respective “knitting” and stuck to it. The civil authority was to administer law, maintain peace and protect the church from physical attack. The church was to determine doctrine, preach the word, administer sacraments and pray for the magistrate. The two kingdoms operated in parallel, neither truly over the other. (This suited Luther, as he had to rely on the protection of his local ruler from the Catholic authorities.)

One Kingdom

The Anabaptists had a very different vision. The Kingdom of God was not of this world but of the world to come. There were, however, signs of it. The point was that these signs were not to be found in civil authority; they were to be found in the church, which was itself a foretaste of the Kingdom. Thus, whilst Anabaptists attributed some pragmatic usefulness to secular authority, they accorded it little ultimate value. It was merely a temporary structure, a necessary evil in a world which was passing away.

The notion that the state might exert any authority over the church was therefore patently absurd, as was the idea that the lives of Christians should be shaped by secular society. Radical discipleship affected every part of life. The church was in all aspects a new society, not parallel to the state and dealing only with “spiritual” matters but alternative to the state. Disciples of Christ were citizens of heaven and owed their allegiance elsewhere than to civil rulers.

Not surprisingly, this brought them into conflict with the authorities. Military service was often rejected; the refusal to baptize children undermined the record-keeping of the state. The intense persecution these groups suffered was as much for their perceived threat to order as it was for their theological positions.

Even if the two could coexist peacefully, as became the case in later centuries, it was nonetheless seen as essential that the state stayed out of religious matters. There should be no state church, no privilege given by law to one religious expression. Neither should the law be used for coercion on religious or moral issues. English Baptists in Victorian Britain, for instance, declined to be part of calls for prohibition legislation. Baptists in New Zealand argued against religious instruction in state schools. A long tradition of refusing any state funding for church activities springs from the same impulse.

New Zealand Baptists Today

All of this presents some interesting challenges to New Zealand Baptists today. In areas like social services (and theological education!) we have come to accept, indeed depend upon, state funding. Even tax-deductibility and charitable status lie uncomfortably with the earlier Baptist vision. We have, rightly, got over the reluctance to take part in the political process as individuals. Life can be made better in many respects by state intervention and we should push for justice and proper care. There are, however, some issues around which the questions become sharper.

Baptists have spoken up on both sides of the controversy over the so-called “anti-smacking bill”. Is there any further clarity which can come in such matters if we take a baptistic view of church and state seriously? Well, it would be a bit hopeful to imagine that one solution would miraculously emerge but some general principles can perhaps be identified. Christians are citizens of heaven, but we must nonetheless deal with the state and its laws responsibly and humbly. Where there is conflict the question must be asked, is a proposed or enacted law directly in breach of the way of the Kingdom? If not, then we should quietly comply. If so (such as, say, a law which was racist or which forbade worship) then we would not comply and would be prepared to take the consequences.

Now, “directly” is the key word. Baptists do not expect the state to bring in the Kingdom. Indeed, we anticipate that state will always be thoroughly compromised. The anti-smacking bill seems to me to be an example of a move which does not meet the test of direct repudiation of divine principles. It is, let’s face it, difficult to make the case that smacking children is a positive value of the Kingdom. It is not something Christians must do. To suggest that it is would be to conclude that Christians who choose to discipline without corporal punishment are in that omission sinning. It is of course entirely open to Christians to make a strong pragmatic case for or against the bill, but we should be careful of casting it as a front in the battle between good and evil.

There are other issues which call for a more radical response. In New Zealand, legislation for civil unions deeply disturbed many Baptists. Among the reasons was the view that it threatened the institution of marriage. In fact, of course, it challenged only the institution of state marriage. Now, the Anabaptists might have had a different response, one we should ponder. They might ask why Baptists have any part in state marriage in the first place. Why are our celebrants acting as agents for the state? Christian marriage, they would argue, is not to do with civil laws, but with identified exclusive relationships within the covenanting community of disciples. Perhaps a more authentic Baptist response to civil unions would be to withdraw altogether from the marriage act. Whew! They don’t call it the radical reformation for nothing!

That may seem an extreme reaction, but on this issue and others Baptists must think long and hard about what they perceive the state, and the church, to be. It is far from Baptist ecclesiology to expect or lobby civil authority to bring about morality, much less a “godly nation”. We inevitably end up being strident, unlovely and unloving - and we almost as inevitably fail. It is, rather, our calling to model the alternative, to be the new society in the midst of the old.