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The Politics of God and the Politics Of THE POLITICS OF GOD AND THE POLITICS OF MAN By the same author: The Christian Philosophy of Education Explained, 1992 Christianity and Law, 1993 (Second Edition 2012) The Nature, Government and Function of the Church, 1997 A Defence of the Christian State, 1998 The Political Economy of a Christian Society, 2001 Common-Law Wives and Concubines, 2003 The Problem of the Gifted Speaker, 2009 Baal Worship Ancient and Modern, 2010 The Great Decommission, 2011 The Christian Passover: Agape Feast or Ritual Abuse? 2012 THE POLITICS OF GOD AND THE POLITICS OF MAN Essays on Politics, Religion and Social Order STEPHEN C. PERKS KUYPER FOUNDATION TAUNTON • ENGLAND 2016 Published in Great Britain by THE KUYPER FOUNDATION P. O. BOX 2, TAUNTON, SOMERSET, TA1 4ZD, ENGLAND Copyright © Stephen C. Perks, 2016 All rights reserved ISBN 978-1-909145-02-3 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY PREFACE POLiTicS and religion are inseparable. This fact alone accounts for the persecution of the early Church by the Roman State. Francis Legge stated the matter clearly when he said that “The officials of the Roman Empire in time of persecution sought to force the Christians to sacrifice, not to any of the heathen gods, but to the Genius of the Emperor and the Fortune of the city of Rome; and at all times the Christians’ refusal was looked upon not as a religious but as a political offence.” At the trial of Christ the chief priests of the Jews said to the officials of the Roman Empire: “We have no king but Caesar” ( Jn 19:15). The early Christians, when faced with the same question, replied: “We have another King: the Lord Jesus Christ.” The Romans understood what this meant: either Jesus would bow the knee to Caesar or Caesar would have to bow the knee to Jesus (cf. Jn 19:12). The Church faces this same question again today, and in a way that she has not had to face it since the days of the Roman emperors. Who is Lord: Christ or Caesar? Christ or the modern secular State? There was, and is, no third option, no “third way.” This was, and still is, a political issue. Jesus Christ was victorious in his struggle with the Roman State. He will be victorious in his struggle with the modern secular State. The only question that remains is this: on whose side will you stand? Whom are you for? Whom will you obey? The Lord Jesus Christ or the modern idolatrous secular State? Christianity is not a mystery cult, a private devotional worship hobby, that could find a quiet place in the greater context of ancient Roman idolatry. Christianity is not comparable with the mystery cults that were popular in ancient Rome. For the early Church, merely adding Christ to the Roman pantheon—a tactic that was tried, unsuccessfully, by at least two Roman emperors—would have 5 6 ThE POLiTicS Of GOD AND ThE POLiTicS Of MAN been a denial of his lordship and sovereignty and would have suc- cessfully neutralised Christianity as a threat to the Roman State. But Christianity is more than a devotional cult. It is a religion that structures the whole of man’s life. Both the early Church and the Roman State understood this. Modern Christians on the whole have signally failed to understand this. And it is in large measure this failure that accounts for the decline of Christianity in the West today. The Lord Jesus Christ does not merely demand that we refrain from burning the incense to Caesar; he demands that Caesar burn the incense to him and acknowledge his lordship and sovereignty over Rome and the empire. To burn the incense to Caesar was to acknowledge that Caesar was the political overlord. For Christians, to refuse to burn the incense meant that Jesus Christ is the political overlord, the King of kings to whom all kings must bow, Caesar included. There is no area of religious neutrality anywhere in the created order. Politics is not a religiously neutral enterprise, it is an intensely religious enterprise. Burning the incense was a religious act of political submission. Refusing to burn the incense was not a religious crime in the narrow sense (a devotional offence); it was, rather, a religious act of political rebellion against Rome. The Church in the twenty-first century must recognise this truth and begin living in terms of it, as did the early Church, by challenging the political idolatry that is destroying the Western world today. Only when the Church awakens from the deaden- ing slumber that has overtaken her and proclaims once more the lordship and sovereignty of Jesus Christ over the whole of life, including the political realm, will the world be delivered from its slavery and bondage to sin as manifested today in the politics of rebellion against God; and only then will the world experience real freedom, the glorious liberty that the gospel of God brings to all nations that submit to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. The law and gospel of God is a public truth, a light not only for man’s personal devotions but also for the government of the nations. This is not a new doctrine, it is the established orthodox teaching of the Christian faith. For example, on 2 June 1953 Queen Preface 7 Elizabeth II was crowned in Westminster Abbey. One of the first things she did in the coronation ceremony was to swear an oath that she would to the utmost of her power “maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel” and to the utmost of her power “maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Re for med Religion established by law.” After swearing this oath a Bible was presented to the Queen with the following words: “Our gracious Queen: to keep your Majesty ever mindful of the Law and the Gospel of God as the Rule for the whole life and govern- ment of Christian Princes, we present you with this Book, the most valuable thing that this world affords. Here is Wisdom; This is the royal Law; These are the lively Oracles of God.” It is true, of course, that since this oath was taken and these solemn words were spoken the British political establishment and the British people as a whole have turned away from the Christian faith and adopted the atheist religion of secular humanism as public truth. What this means, however, is not so much that Britain is no longer a Christian nation, at least covenantally and constitutionally, as that Britain is now an apostate nation. The answer to this apostasy is not abandonment of the Christian faith as the religion of State, but rather repentance and reformation, a whole-hearted return to the Christian faith as the guiding principle of our national life. If this is to happen the law and gospel of God must inform all that we think, say and do, as individuals and as a nation. Only when submission to the Lord Jesus Christ becomes a reality in the life of the nations of the earth can it be said that the Great Commission is being fulfilled, since the Great Commission is not a command to disciple individuals from among the nations, but a command to disciple the very nations themselves—i.e. to make Christian na- tions. It is the comprehensive nature of the Christian faith that these essays seek to explore, but especially as the faith relates to the realm of politics, social order and national life. This book is a collection of individual essays. With the excep- tion of the Introduction (Chapter One), which is meant to be read before any of the others, these essays do not have to be read in the 8 ThE POLiTicS Of GOD AND ThE POLiTicS Of MAN order in which they are presented here. Nevertheless, the order in which they are presented here is the one that I consider to be the most logical and appropriate. The Introduction deals with certain questions that the other essays do not deal with, questions to which readers may well want answers before they consider the material presented in the other essays. The Introduction also provides definitions of some important words and terms that are used throughout the book. The common theme running through these essays is the nature of Christianity as public truth. Over the past century Christianity has increasingly ceased to function as public truth in the West- ern nations. Whatever a society considers to be public truth will inevitably function as the religion of that society. What functions as public truth in modern Western nations is secular humanism. Secular humanism is the religion of the West today. Christianity has been reduced to the status of a mere mystery cult, i.e. a personal salvation cult. But secular humanism is too weak to function as a stable foundation for civilisation. Nor is this a problem that can be corrected. The spiritual and moral relativism that lies at the heart of secular humanism’s core values makes it impossible for secular humanism to function as a stable foundation for civilisa- tion. Like it’s offspring, multiculturalism, secular humanism is a temporary phenomenon, a staging post in a process of transition from one civilisation to another. Eventually the secular humanist multicultural society must give way to the dominating influence of some other religion as the foundation of Western civilisation.
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