For the July/August newsletter I wrote my article about whether America is a Christian nation or not. The answer is complicated. You could say yes or no depending on what parts of the truth you choose to emphasize and what parts you suppress. What is undeniably true is that the nation is founded on principles of Protestant Christianity as they came to shape what is called the Enlightenment Era. Central to those protestant principles are the thoughts of John Calvin. You’ll remember that Calvin’s thoughts were central to the Presbyterian Church, the Reformed Church, Congregational Churches, and branches of Methodism and Anglicanism. Take away Calvin’s theology and America as we know it does not exist.
All of this led me to wonder what a nation built on Martin Luther’s thoughts would be like. To be fair, we have to note that both Luther and Calvin lived centuries before the founding of the United States. Calvin could not have foreseen the way his thoughts would be applied. He may or may not have approved. It is always wrong to ask a historical figure with a different world view how they would have answered today’s issues. Nevertheless, even though we cannot ask Martin Luther his thoughts on American democracy today, if we apply histhoughts to government in his day we can realize something very important about our lives today.
You may remember the German Peasants war in 1524-1525. (Okay, you probably don’t.) Many peasants, inspired by some of the principles of the Reformation, revolted against their leaders – who were kings and princes. Luther took the side of the monarchs and wrote that the peasants should be subdued. As many as 100,000 of the 300,000 peasants who participated were killed. Luther did not trust the masses. What did they know about science, law, and theology? How could you trust people whose whims changed with the seasons? Luther cited scripture like Romans 13 to make his point. You’ll remember that we read, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed.”
Luther firmly believed that the government was by God’s choosing. That included cruel, abusive, and unjust governments. Remember, St. Paul’s letter to Rome occurred during Roman time. Rome’s government was hardly ideal. It oppressed, exploited, and killed numerous people. It was ultimately responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion! But Paul said it was God’s authority. Therefore, it must be obeyed.
A look at early Christian writings shows that the Christians prayed for their government and leaders, even as those leaders had them killed.
Luther’s own thoughts came back in the 20th century with horrible consequences. The Nazis in Germany cited Luther to support that they were put in place by God and that their actions were carrying out God’s will. Clearly that is way beyond what Luther intended. But the fact remains Luther trusted the educated and established leaders. He did not trust the general population.
For Luther, the point of government was to keep evil in check. It did so by laws, punishments, and wars when necessary. With evil in check, the Church could then spread the gospel. It was a fine idea by Luther, and it could be said to have worked in his time.
But then contrast that with these bold words in the Declaration of Independence.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
“…from the consent of the governed.” That’s definitely a departure from what any of the biblical authors intended. To them the power of government, even bad government, came from God; not from the population.
The Declaration of Independence has an immensely optimistic view of the world. It fits with the Age of Enlightenment, that with education and freedom you can trust people to know what is right and to do it.
But can you? And did the founders really believe it?
If you know your American history at all you know that we did not immediately go from the Declaration of Independence to the constitution that we have today. Our first centralized government was approved on November 15, 1777. It was called Articles of Confederation. While it is to be credited with having been capable of getting the infant nation through its revolutionary war, it wasn’t an effective form of government. The current constitution went into effect on September 17, 1787. You’ll remember that the only part of the federal government that the general population of the United States was originally allowed to choose directly was the House of Representatives. Senators were not chosen by the general public but by each state’s legislature. The president was chosen by the electoral college, which, like senators, was also chosen by the state legislators.
And who all actually had the right to vote? Again, this was determined by the state legislatures. It was a patchwork of rights that varied from state to state. Voter eligibility was determined by race, gender, wealth, land ownership, religion, and whether or not you paid your taxes. You might be an eligible voter at one time but not sometime later or in a different state.
There are many such examples of this. Pennsylvania serves as an interesting case. In the early 1800s wealthy black men had the right to vote. Poor white men did not. Then in 1838 Pennsylvania changed its constitution to remove wealth barriers to voting but it added race barriers. Thus, poor white men got the right to vote and wealthy black men lost it.
As far as I know, all of the oldest states have a complicated messy patchwork of who could vote and who could not. We may look back on it today and be offended. But note this, despite the Declaration of Independence saying that government derives its just right to govern by the consent of the governed, the founders didn’t really believe that. Like Martin Luther, they didn’t trust the common masses to make decisions about government.
These days many people may throw condemnations at them like: racist, sexist, ignorant, greedy, fearful, etc. Undeniably there is a measure of truth to those condemnations. But let’s not forget that there is wisdom in their thoughts as well. It is more likely that a reasonably well-to-do landholder is conscientious, dependable, hard-working, well-informed, and disciplined, than a homeless drug addict.
We may say that we’re all for equal voting rights, but how would we feel if government ran on the perspective of homeless drug addicts? No, we want our leadership to come from the perspective of education, discipline, and long-term critical thinking.
Given the warped logic, partial truths, and many downright lies I find on social media platforms, I understand why Martin Luther and why the founders of this nation didn’t trust the common masses to know how to rule effectively.
If, as Romans 13 says, we accept that government authority is instituted by God, and if we believe that we the ordinary people of a nation have the just right to the creation of that government, then we have taken upon ourselves an enormous divine responsibility. We have taken upon ourselves the rights of: life, justice, morality, war, economics, community development, technological innovation, and environmental protection.
We like to talk about the blessings of freedom and we consider it a basic human right to democratic rule. That may be good. But we should be terrified by the amount of responsibility such rights infer upon us.
It is astonishing that the American experiment of putting enlightenment era ideals of self-rule into a government system has actually worked for 250 years. Though the nation has myriads of problems, the remarkable experiment is proving to be robust.
But if it is going to flourish and embody the Christian ideals of Romans 13 then the work is never done. If you don’t have the right to determine your government then you can always shift the blame. But if you do have the right to determine your government then it is necessary for a society to put at the top of its virtue list: discipline, conscientiousness, humility, moderation, self-sacrifice, hard work, and trust in God. These are, in short, the virtues John Calvin thought should rise up in faithful Christians.
It is a long and difficult list, but it is the moral requirement of any people who desire to faithfully rule themselves. It’s never been done perfectly, but hopefully it has been done well enough. Ultimately, we Christians believe that the purpose of the government is to keep evil in check so that the gospel may be spread. Regardless of the form it takes, that is its purpose. It is supposed to support the mission of the gospel. May God forgive us when we inevitably fall short, and may God’s gracious providence continue to be with us.
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