Law, Freedom, and Tyranny

J. Thomas Johnson

It would seem that our culture has been under ever increasing pressure to legislate not only behavior, but to legislate opinions and their expression. In other words, there are those who would make illegal the expression of opinions that they themselves find repugnant. I suspect that some would even seek to criminalize the opinions themselves.

Now, this is nothing new, of course. There have been many instances in world history in which our own religious communities have attempted to criminalize the expression of contrary opinions, as well. Whether we use the term inquisition or fascism or totalitarian dictatorship or censorship or thought police, the scenes that arise in our imaginations are those of monolithic regimes attempting to control by force of law and violence the thoughts and mouths of their constituents. By including freedom of speech in the United States Bill of Rights, the framers of our own national polity sought to protect this very freedom that has rarely ever been afforded a populace in the recorded history of humanity on earth.

There have always been words and sentiments that societies have wished to excise from public discourse. However, the attempt to do so brings with it a myriad of often unforeseen consequences for all who live under its wings. To silence even the most odious of opinions is to diminish severely the capacity of a society to encourage the character development of its citizenry.

1920s author and educator R. M. MacIver in his book The Modern State warned long ago as follows:

Why must we deny the state this right to regulate opinion, a right which it has owned almost up to our own time?. . . .Force allies itself as easily with falsehood as with truth, so that its mere invocation in support of an opinion is a blasphemy against truth. Opinion can be fought only by opinion. Only thus is it possible for truth to be revealed. Force would snatch from truth its only means of victory. Force can suppress opinion, but only by suppressing the mind which is the judge of truth. . . .When the law of the state is exercised over opinion, then it becomes sheer coercion. . . .Law therefore becomes false to itself when it would enforce belief.

. . . .

What then is the relation of law to morality? Law cannot prescribe morality, it can prescribe only external actions, and therefore it should prescribe only those actions whose mere fulfilment [sic], from whatever motive, the state adjudges to be conducive to welfare. . . .But it shows us clearly that law does not and cannot cover all the ground of morality. To turn all moral obligations into legal obligations would be to destroy morality. . . .To legislate against the moral codes of one’s fellows is a very grave act, requiring for its justification the most indubitable and universally admitted of social gains, for it is to steal their moral codes, to suppress their characters. Here we find the condemnation of ‘puritanic’ legislation, which claims that its own morals should be those of all, even to the point of destroying all moral spontaneity that is not their own. There are groups which, with good but narrow intentions, are always urging the state in this retrograde direction. . . .They cannot see that certain actions which they are perfectly entitled to regard as moral offences are not necessarily a proper object of political legislation. They demand censorship of the stage, of literature, and of art, assigning thereby to some executive official the power of deciding in advance what a whole people shall be permitted to read and think and witness and enjoy.

MacIver, The Modern State, loc. 1941-54, 2001

If we, as a society, are to have any chance at finding unity within our diversity, our government must ensure that opinions are permitted to be voiced and confronted with contrary or alternative opinions. If we continue to bend to the pressure to outlaw words and opinions which offend or even disgust, I fear we will sow the seeds of our own undoing. The following words from MacIver might do more to explain the social unrest of our times than the words of any prophet at any time:

The inner sanction of morality should never be confused with that of political law. We obey the law not necessarily because we think that the law is right, but because we think it right to obey the law. Otherwise the obedience of every minority would rest on compulsion, and there would be so much friction in the state that its working would be fatally embarrassed.

MacIver, loc. 1965

Perhaps the following excerpt from a speech written for Jean Luc Picard from the Star Trek series The Next Generation might drive home our peril.

When the first link of the chain is forged, the first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied chains us all irrevocably. . . .The first time any man’s freedom is trodden upon, we’re all damaged. . . .Villains who twirl their mustaches are easy to spot.  Those who clothe themselves in good deeds are well camouflaged.  But she, or someone like her, will always be with us waiting for the right climate in which to flourish, spreading fear in the name of righteousness.  Vigilance…that is the price we must continually pay.

Jean Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Drumhead.

For Christians, we must love our enemies by allowing them to speak against us. For those who are not Christians, you will enslave yourselves if you insist on not allowing us to speak against you. The tyranny of the state is sown when its people wish to outlaw opinions with which they do not agree. The thought police we enlist will inevitably come after us once our enemies are vanquished. Let’s learn to protect the right to think and to speak of those whose opinions we find repugnant. Let’s confront opinion with opinion. Once the sword is drawn, we will not be able to control how it is wielded.

Reflecting on Psalm 51

Rev. J. Thomas Johnson, B.A., M.Div.

When we have chosen to betray the most sacred and solemn of our commitments may we hope for restoration?  When we have lived into patterns and paths that have done violence to those for whom we have covenanted to care, may we pursue reconciliation?  Are some choices too dastardly, some patterns too devastating, some rebellions too grotesque for us to be redeemed?  Perhaps some reading this have stood in this space, a space of utter desperation, a space in which the way before us seems to lead only into increasing darkness and distance from both God and our neighbors.

In the tradition of the Hebrew people, this is the moment out of which Psalm 51 has arisen.  What might the fallen say?  How might God and our human community respond?  Is there hope before us, or is hope now forever lost?  Much depends on our theology—that is, our understanding of God.

From the earliest days of the Christian Church, it has not been uncommon for the so-called “God of the Old Testament” to be depicted pejoratively as a harsh, sometimes tyrannical ruler—a head-of-household patriarchal dictator who is easily disappointed and anxious to discipline His wayward children.  From Marcion to Jonathan Edwards to contemporary ‘hell-fire’ expositors, the wrath of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has been emphasized and variously interpreted. And it must be confessed that the Christian Scriptures do reveal the seriousness with which God treats sin, as well as the willingness and the capability of God to act to forestall its pervasiveness.

But, of course, there is more to say.  After all, if this is all there is to say of God, then the hope of those who transgress seems fleeting.  And, indeed, the First Testament does have other things to contribute to the conversation.  As willing and capable as God is to act in judgment, the Torah and the prophets and the writings of the First Testament insist repeatedly that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in hesed (steadfast love).

This is where the psalmist, standing on a road of deepening darkness, moving toward increasing isolation from God and neighbor, begins his turning away, his repentance, his cry to God.  He cries out not to a just God or a wrathful God or a disappointed patriarch, but to a merciful and compassionate parent.

1     Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy

blot out my transgressions.

2     Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

and cleanse me from my sin.

Psalm 51:1-2, NIV

The word translated ‘abundant mercy’ is the Hebrew rachămim, which refers to the innards of the lower abdomen.  In the plural, as it appears in psalm 51, it is often translated as ‘intestines’ or ‘loins’.  In the singular it can refer to a uterus or womb.  Among the Hebrew people this is the anatomical area associated with compassion, hence the translation above.

The psalmist does not appeal to God’s justice or even God’s holiness, but to God’s womb, to God’s intestines, to God’s compassion.  Samuel Terrien in his commentary on the Psalms has written:

The compassions of Yahweh are those of his femininity, for the words “tender mercies” are the plural of majesty for the singular “uterus” or “womb,” which never forgets the child it has conceived, nourished, and brought forth (Terrien, The Psalms, 404).

Hope in the darkness of the deepest human failure is to be sought in the compassion of God.  This is humanity’s primal and only lasting hope, and it is toward this that the cry of the repentant is directed.  There is no hope of forgiveness, none of reconciliation, none of cleansing or redemption or reconciliation or transformation if the God who draws near when we pray is not gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in hesed.

This is, of course, only the beginning of psalm 51.  The psalmist proceeds to confess his rebellion against the fundamental shape of the Kingdom of God (vs. 3-5), and implores God to cleanse him, create a clean heart within him and breathe a fresh breath into him which might animate him in the ways of the Kingdom (vs. 6-12).  And he covenants again with God that these acts of compassion on the part of God will result in his own grateful response.  He will live into God’s Kingdom, confessing with his heart, soul, mind, and strength the goodness and orderliness of God’s good creation (vs. 13-17).

There is much to explore in verse three and following.  However, I want to pause and reflect on the appeal to God’s compassion with which the psalmist has begun.  It is sometimes presumed that those who have fallen short must begin their journey toward God and neighbor with contrition—that is, with a confessed and perhaps ideally emotional realization of the wickedness of their actions.  Of course, these features of repentance are necessary in proper time.

However, restoration and redemption of the fallen is not rooted in the individual.  Restoration and redemption is rooted in the compassion of God.  We do not hope in our earnestness or our contriteness, believing that somehow by our pitifulness or our authenticity or our earnestness that God might be manipulated.  It is the compassion of God that is the source of our hope for deliverance.  To say it another way, because God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, we can repent; we can imagine restoration and reconciliation; we can hope.

We will not be restored by contrition or sincerity, by intention or conviction, by sacrifice or by ritual.  These may be describe the road that we must walk out of the darkness, but they are not the source of our deliverance, nor can we simply trust them to save and to restore us.  We will be saved by the compassion of God.  And so repentance begins, not with us, but with God’s compassion.  And redemption proceeds in faith along the road that God’s compassion carves out of the darkness.

That road, no doubt, will include confession and contrition and forgiveness and reconciliation, and the rest of the journey revealed through the prophets of Israel, the Gospel of Jesus, and the interpretations of the Apostles.  But, repentance is rooted in the compassion of God, and this is no idle observation.  Bound up in this confession is the realization that our restoration does not depend on human effort or capability, but on God’s compassion.  If we hope in repentance as a process or ritual, our hope lies in our capacity to complete what we’ve started.  If we hope in God’s compassion then our hope rests in the capacity of God to bring to completion what has begun in Him.  May it be so.

Perhaps the Church Should Surrender…

Perhaps the Church Should Surrender

J. Thomas Johnson

As I have reflected on the current disagreement over the definition of marriage between the evangelical church and secular polity in the U. S., I have found myself returning again and again to the example of Jesus.  In describing the manner in which God chose to transform the world in Jesus, the Apostle Paul wrote the following in his epistle to the Christians in Philippi:

1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:  6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!

9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:1-11 (NIV)

In theological circles, this section of Paul’s letter has often been called a kenosis hymn.  The word kenosis is a Greek word, and in the verbal form of the word occurs in verse 7.  The NIV reads, “rather, he made himself nothing. . . .”  That is the verb form of kenosis, and the noun means ‘empty’.  Kenosis is the self-emptying of God in Jesus; kenosis is God in the flesh taking the role of a servant and washing His disciples’ feet; it is God submitting Himself to a human death sentence; it is God redeeming humanity through death and resurrection.

I am one who agrees that marriage for Christians cannot be disentangled from the narratives of creation and Eden.  But, I am also one who recognizes that the persecution of those who choose to behave outside of the intentions of God delivered to us through the chosen people of Ancient Israel is not the way of the New Covenant—it has never been the way of Jesus.

And so, the church finds itself in a moment for which we are as much responsible as those who are embracing a more secular perspective on marriage and family.  Make no mistake, as Mordecai’s refusal to show respect to Haman in the book of Esther set into motion the near genocide of the Jewish people in the ancient empire of Persia, so our abuse and persecution and disrespect of those with whom we have disagreed has in no small part precipitated the backlash we are now experiencing.

In some ways, church, we are reaping what we have sown—not all of us, of course, but enough of us that the current climate smells as much of justice as it does of rebellion.  We need not repent of our submission to God’s elect spokespersons—the prophets and apostles of Israel.  Even so, we must repent of our treatment of our adversaries when the church in the United States wielded cultural hegemony.

But, how might we repent?  In my view, perhaps we might follow the self-emptying example of Jesus and surrender what remains of our cultural, conjugal authority.  Perhaps we might surrender the right of our clergy to officiate over legal marriage ceremonies in the United States.

The culture has redefined marriage for themselves.  For those of us who continue to submit to the Christian Scriptures, the world cannot redefine marriage for us.  But, partially as our repentance for the misuse of our influence when we had it and partially as a kenotic profession of faith, might we refuse to embrace the authority with which we were once entrusted, to marry?

Might evangelical clergy from here on out surrender our right to marry in the eyes of the state?  Might Christians from here on out, submit to the governing authorities and seek legal marital status only from state-sanctioned officiators?  Might the celebration of marriage in the evangelical church no longer have legal standing in secular polity, but only religious standing before the God we believe became flesh in Jesus, our Messiah?

If this challenge were to be embraced throughout evangelical Christianity, I envision the following results.  First, the church will have repented of our abuse of cultural influence which resulted in the persecution and marginalization of those with whom we disagreed by divesting ourselves of a significant portion of legal authority.  Second, the church will remove itself from the charge of discrimination by forsaking all legal authority in the private practice of our religious beliefs.  And third, the church can protest a redefinition of marriage with which we amicably descent by playing no further legal role in marriage in the United States.

Pastors, of course, could still provide pre-marital counseling to our congregants, and the church could still sanctify marriages before God.  But, if we surrender our right to officiate in any legal capacity, and if we refuse to rent or to use our property for legally-officiated weddings, then we have professed our faith by divesting ourselves of authority and power.  I find this to be uniquely Christological, profoundly kenotic, and secularly just.

Perhaps the evangelical church, rather than defending and fighting for our right in this respect, might find holiness by surrendering our authority out of faithfulness to the God of Israel who became flesh in the Person of Jesus, our Messiah.  This is my challenge, but for it to be realized, the very polity and guiding documents of evangelical churches around our nation must be amended.  How shall we respond?  If not this, then how, church?  The question has been put to us.