Why Christians Should Oppose Religious Legislation
CHRISTIANS should oppose religious legislation in the same spirit and for the same purpose that they should teach any other phase of the gospel,—in order to implant and to preserve in the hearts of men the genuine principles of truth and righteousness. During this reign of sin God has established civil government as a means of protecting and conserving the rights and liberties of all classes of men in their relations to one another, and of inflicting temporal punishment upon those who interfere with these God-given rights and liberties. When they exercise their powers within the proper sphere, civil rulers have authority from God to make and to enforce necessary laws. Here are the Lord’s own words concerning this matter: “Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers: for there is no power but of God; and the powers that be are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power, withstandeth the ordinance of God.” The marked deliverances which God has wrought for his servants when civil rulers have attempted to compel obedience to decrees which were in plain conflict with the commands of God clearly show that subjection to the powers that be is expected only when they exercise their authority within their legitimate sphere. The church was established by God to represent the principles of his kingdom upon the earth. His own Son is the Head of this church. “He put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body.” To the church thus established God has given a well-defined authority in things spiritual. “What things soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what things soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”4 Such authority can be exercised only by the church when Jesus Christ is actually given his place as Head, revealing himself through his body, the church. When either the state or the church attempts to exercise authority outside of its own peculiar province, it results in disaster to both. It introduces disorder, and ends in a lawless state and an un-Christian church. This is not a matter of theory, but of actual historical record. It is the lesson of the fourth and fifth and the following centuries, which needs to be remembered to-day. The following extracts from Neander’s “Church History” show the consequences to the church of disregarding the divinely ordained principle of the separation of church and state:— In the relation of the church to the state, there occurred, with the commencement of this period [the period of Constantine in the early part of the fourth century], a most important change, the consequences of which extended to all parts of the church constitution, and which had an influence, in various ways, on the whole course and shaping of the church development. In the preceding period, the church stood to the state in the relation of an independent, self-included whole, and was to the state, for the most part, an object of hostility. At all events, the utmost which she could expect from the state was bare toleration. The important consequence of this was that the church was left free to develop itself outwardly from its inward principle,—that no foreign might could introduce its disturbing influence; and that the church itself could not be exposed to the temptation of employing an alien power for the prosecution of its ends, and of thus entering into a province that did not belong to it.
But, with the commencement of this period, the church entered into an entirely different relation to the state. It did not merely become a whole, recognized as legal, and tolerated by the state,—which it had been already from the reign of Gallien down to the Dioclesian persecution,—but the state itself declared its principles to be those to which everything must be subordinated. Christianity became, by degrees, the dominant state religion, though not entirely in the same sense as paganism had been before. Church and state constituted, henceforth, two wholes, one interpretating the other, and standing in a relation of mutual action and reaction. . . . The church had now to struggle under a great disadvantage: for instead of being left free, as it was before, to pursue its own course of development, it was subjected to the influence of a foreign, secular power, which, in various ways, would operate to check and disturb it; and the danger, in this case, increased in the same proportion as the political life with which the church came in contact was corrupt, and a lawless, despotic will ruled supreme,—a will which acknowledged no restraints, and which, therefore, whenever it intermeddled with the church development, was prone to act after the same arbitrary manner as it did elsewhere. So it actually happened in the East Roman empire. Without doubt, it belongs to the essential character of Christianity, that it can propagate itself even under the most depressing of earthly relations, and, by the surpassing energy of its spirit, break through every species of temporal bondage. This was seen under the empire of pagan Rome, and in the Persian empire. Despotism, arrayed in open hostility to Christianity, only served to call forth, in still greater strength, the Christian sense of freedom rising superior to all earthly constraint. But despotism in outward alliance with the church, proved a more dangerous enemy. . . . The church was now exposed to the temptation of appropriating a foreign might for the prosecution of its ends,—a temptation ever ready to assail man, the moment the spirit is no longer sovereign alone, but the flesh intermeddles with its proper work. Looking only at the holy end which he fancies himself in pursuit of, any means that can subserve it seem good to him. He does not consider that the truth itself, forced on man otherwise than by its own inward power, becomes falsehood. . . . How invariably did the wrong proceeding bring along its own punishment! In forgetting and denying its own essential character, on the simple preservation of which its true power depends,—in consenting to make use of a foreign might for the furtherance of its ends, the church succumbed to that might. Such is the lesson taught by the history of the church of the Roman empire in the East.—Neander’s “General Church History,” Vol. III, Section Second, Part I, Div. I, par. 1. The following extracts show the consequences to the state of attempting to unite what God has put asunder:— There is ample evidence to show how great had been the reaction from the simple genuineness of early Christian belief, and how nearly the Christian world had generally associated itself, in thought and temper, not to say in superstitious practise, with the pagan. . . . This marked decline of distinctive Christian belief was accompanied with a marked decline of Christian morality. Heathenism reasserted its empire over the carnal affections of the natural man. The pictures of abounding wickedness in the high places and the low places of the earth, which are presented to us by the witnesses of the worst pagan degradation, are repeated, in colors not less strong, in lines not less hideous, by the observers of the gross and reckless iniquity of the so-called Christian period now before us. It becomes evident that as the great mass of the careless and indifferent have assumed with the establishment of the Christian church in authority and honor, the outward garb and profession of Christian believers, so with the decline of belief, the corruption of the visible church, the same masses, indifferent and irreligious as of old, have rejected the moral restraints which their profession should have imposed upon them.—Merivale’s “Conversion of the Northern Nations,” Lecture IV, pars. 10-13. The criminal and frivolous pleasures of a decrepit civilization left no thought for the absorbing duties of the day or the fearful trial of the morrow. . . . The banquet, theater, and the circus exhausted what little strength and energy were left by domestic excesses. The poor aped the vices of the rich, and hideous depravity reigned supreme, and invited the vengeance of heaven.—Lea, “History of Sacerdotal Celibacy,” chap. V, par. 20. The uncontrollable progress of avarice, prodigality, voluptuousness, theater going, intemperance, lewdness; in short, of all the heathen vices, which Christianity had come to eradicate, still carried the Roman empire and people with rapid strides toward dissolution, and gave it at last into the hands of the rude, but simple and morally vigorous, barbarians.—Schaff, “History of the Christian Church,” Vol. III, sec. 23, par. 2. From these facts of history it is perfectly plain that a union of church and state is disastrous to both. In the interest of the purity of the church and the stability of the state we should therefore oppose religious legislation, which is one of the outworkings of a union of church and state. Only those who decline to commit their consciences into the keeping of the state, and who follow the apostolic principle that “we ought to obey God rather than men,” will be saved from the evil effects of religious legislation. Such legislation will result in hardship and persecution to them, and will interfere with their liberty to proclaim the pure gospel, and it is proper that they should seek to avert this condition of things until their work for God is done; but they should beware lest they should oppose this evil thing merely from the selfish standpoint of avoiding personal trouble. The true ground for opposition to religious legislation is an unselfish interest in the welfare of those who enact it, and of those who may be wrongly influenced by it. Those who put themselves in the place of God by assuming to legislate for him, and those who obey men rather than God, will meet with an infinite and an eternal loss. And this is most emphatically true in the case of Sunday laws, which, in the mind of Satan, their instigator, are always an expression of treason against God, and a rejection of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the closing years of the great controversy5between Christ and Satan the observance of the Sabbath of the Lord becomes the test of loyalty to God and of the acceptance of the gospel of Christ. Religious legislation and the enforcement of Sunday laws will mark the utter downfall of Babylon the Great, and the ruin of the world. In opposing such legislation we should present these facts, and should give the warning message which God has committed to us. Thus our work will not be merely negative,—merely opposing the efforts of others,—but we shall do a positive work in teaching the everlasting principles of the gospel of salvation from sin. This is our Christian duty. And in it all let the love of Jesus be revealed.