The UK recently elected a latest government within the General Election, raising the query of what, from a Christian perspective, governments are for. What is their purpose?
On the premise of two key New Testament passages on this subject, Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-17, the reply which the Christian faith has given over the centuries is initially that the role of presidency isn’t to do all the pieces in society, as totalitarian regimes of each the left and the correct have been tempted to think. The reason that that is the case is because individuals, families and other social organizations (including the Christian Church) each have their very own proper role to play in enabling the well-being of society.
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church notes, governments are called to follow the instance of God, the supreme governing power, on this respect. As the Catechism puts it:
‘God has not willed to order to himself all exercise of power. He entrusts to each creature the functions it’s able to performing, in line with the capacities of its own nature. This mode of governance must be followed in social life. The way God acts in governing the world, which bears witness to such great regard for human freedom, should encourage the wisdom of those that govern human communities.’
Rather than attempting to do all the pieces, the right role of presidency is to advertise the well-being of human societies under God by performing acts of judgement in response to wrongdoing. The final coming of God’s kingdom for which Jesus taught us to wish within the Lord’s Prayer will bring a few state of perfect justice through an act of judgement by which all wrongs are put right, and the role of presidency is provisionally to anticipate that final state of justice by acts of judgement within the here and now.
Such acts of judgement might be either reactive or proactive. They are reactive after they are a response to acts of wrongdoing which have already been committed: as when someone commits against the law, comparable to dangerous driving, theft or assault, and is punished by the state with an appropriate penalty comparable to a high quality or a period of imprisonment.
They are proactive after they are intended to forestall types of wrongdoing which are foreseen. These proactive acts of judgement can either be direct prohibitions of certain types of motion or they might be ways of encouraging activity that may prevent a mistaken occurring. For example, a government could tackle an issue of drug addiction by banning certain drugs, however it could also run an education campaign to influence people who not stoning up was a superb idea. For one other example, the payment of unemployment profit is a way of stopping the mistaken that will occur if people had nothing to survive while they’re in search of work, and government financed job training is a way of stopping the mistaken of individuals lacking the talents to have interaction in productive work.
If they’re to perform their God given role, governments need money. That is the first reason why governments must impose taxes and why, as Jesus (Matthew 22:15-22) and Paul (Romans 13:7) each made clear, Christians have an obligation to pay them.
However, taxes even have a task to play in acts of proactive judgement. This is because governments can use taxes to discourage people from engaging in certain activities, and tax incentives to encourage them to have interaction in others. For example, if it was judged that excessive use of personal cars must be discouraged since it was damaging to the environment a government could determine to lift taxes on private motoring as a deterrent. Alternatively, it could give tax incentives to encourage people to make use of public transport as an alternative.
A corollary of this understanding of presidency and taxation is that, from a Christian perspective, taxes are only legitimate in the event that they are needed as a way to achieve the legitimate purposes of presidency. Imposing taxes for the non-public advantage of those in government, or as a way to ensure party political advantage, wouldn’t be legitimate.
The overall purpose of governments’ acts of reactive and proactive judgement is to advertise what Christian political thought has come to call the ‘common good,’ a term which the Catechism of the Catholic Church helpfully defines as ‘the sum total of social conditions which permit people, either as groups or individuals, to succeed in their fulfilment more fully and more easily.’
The common good might be seen to own plenty of different elements:
- In order to live rightly before God, people need the flexibility to exist (‘the correct to life’) and subsequently they need foods and drinks, clothing, shelter and medical care, and that is why abortion and euthanasia are vital political issues.
- In order to develop emotionally and to learn to exercise their God-given abilities, people need loving and supportive families (which from a Christian perspective are best headed by two parents of the alternative sex who’re married to one another) and so they require education in order to give you the chance to grasp and appreciate the world by which they live and to cultivate their mental and physical skills. They also require access to non secular education and freedom of worship as a way to understand and reply to who God is and what he has done for them.
- In order to act as responsible stewards of God’s creation, using their God given abilities to offer for their very own well-being and people of their families and neighbours, people need the chance to undertake fulfilling work.
- In order to exercise their responsibility for the welfare of their neighbours and of God’s non-human creation, people need the flexibility to take part in decisions which affect the best way by which their society operates and the way it pertains to the natural world. This in turn implies that they should give you the chance to take part in the political system in any respect levels and in addition need freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.
- In order for all of the above to occur and for people to give you the chance to relate to one another over distances a framework of transport and communication can be required.
- In order for people to live rightly together there must be a framework of law and order by which those things which are contrary to the common good are prevented or discouraged and people things that are conducive to the common good are supported and affirmed. In order to place such laws into effect and to guard people from those that wish to do people harm, there must be a police force, a justice system and at last armed forces.
The Bible and the Christian tradition don’t provide direct guidance about specific political decisions or for instance, whether Britain should move to a system of proportional representation in national elections, what the right level of income tax is, or whether a latest stretch of railway must be built. That is because such specific decisions need to be decided in the sunshine of the actual circumstances that apply today and in the sunshine of local tradition and established practice and these may differ from the circumstances, traditions and practices referred to within the biblical material or in subsequent Christian tradition.
Nevertheless, the overarching moral principles taken from the Bible and the Christian tradition do give us guidance for making such decisions. Because they set out for us what’s required for the common good, they tell us in regards to the essential conditions for reflecting God’s ultimate justice, to which local tradition and established practice should be held answerable.
For instance, it might be against the common good if a government was to take a lot money in taxation that individuals and families now not had enough money for their very own legitimate needs. Conversely, a refusal to lift taxes needed to finance activity in support of the common good would even be mistaken from a Christian perspective. From a Christian viewpoint the political debate about taxation must be about the right way to avoid these two opposite errors.
An extra point to notice is that, because the Bible makes clear (Acts 17:26-27), God has placed human beings not only throughout the human race as a complete, but inside specific localities and nations, each with their very own histories and cultures, and so they have the actual responsibility to hunt to advertise the well-being and well-doing of those that live inside their localities and nations. They are called to like these near neighbours ‘the brother whom he has seen’ (1 John 4:20), but without forgetting the needs of those that live in numerous localities and nations. This implies that those in government in a single country must work with those in government in other countries to perform actions of judgement to advertise the common good of humanity as whole.
Today we live in a time by which we live in an age by which many individuals are distrustful of governments and cynical about those that are engaged in governing. From a Christian perspective, nevertheless, although the exercise of presidency authority is something that may go horribly mistaken, and although politicians, similar to the remaining of us, might be sinful and corrupt, nevertheless governmental authority is something that’s God- given. We should subsequently see involvement in government as a legitimate Christian calling. We should honour those in government (1 Peter 2:17), we should always pray for them (1 Timothy 2:2), we should always undergo their judgements, and we should always be willing to pay our taxes (Romans 13:1-7).
Nevertheless, precisely because governments have their authority from God there are limits to what they’ll rightly do. The Christian faith teaches us they should not have the authority to do whatever they feel like doing or just what is going to make them popular. Like everyone else, those with governmental authority are subject to the reign of Christ and so they should make acts of judgement that reflect the approaching of the dominion of God. Government isn’t, and can’t be, a ‘God free zone.’ Christians are called to remind those in government of this fact. In extreme circumstances this calling may take the shape of refusing to obey specific decisions by government which are contrary to God’s will after which being willing to pay the value of this disobedience. As the apostles declared, if there’s a contest ‘We must obey God reasonably than men’ (Acts 5:29).
