Claire Mathys comments on faith and political engagement

Claire Mathys

We've had the debates about whether we live in a Christian country. Now let's turn our minds to the question of a Christian government. Thinking beyond our current Government, and even our current democratic system, the question I'd like to pose is this - can you imagine a form of human government that you would happily call Christian?

There are lots of forms of government in countries around the world. Within the UK, there have been different types across the centuries. There are also a number of different forms of government demonstrated throughout the Bible; but would we be prepared to declare that any one particular form is a 'Christian government'?

Our Western society has many good reasons for thinking that we've found the 'best' form of government - democracy. Indeed, there are plenty of Christians who have made the Biblical case for democracy being the form of government we should want for ourselves and other nations; but I haven't heard many people express the view that any democracy is a Christian government per se.

Perhaps it depends on how many confessing Christian believers there are in a particular government as to whether you'd call it a Christian government. Maybe it would need to be 100%, or a simple majority, or some of the most senior members.

Alternatively, perhaps we would judge whether it was a Christian government by the outcomes of its policies - if it delivered justice, showed compassion and maintained a peaceful order then we might wish to call it a Christian government. Would we still want to call it one if the government that delivered these things made no reference to God or Christianity and contained no Christians?

A further problem with using the outcomes of a government to decide whether to call it Christian is that realistically we will never feel that a government has done a perfect job of delivering justice within its remit. There will always be people who we feel have not been treated fairly; who have not received enough support, or who have received too much support; or who have had to wait too long for a hospital appointment with detrimental effects on their health. Furthermore, politics will always be a messy business - compromises must be made as different interest groups compete for attention and hanker after finite resources - and decision-makers are imperfect people, as prone to error and the lures of power as the rest of us.

If it is the case that government will always be imperfect, will we ever want to be bold enough to describe one as Christian, associating it with Jesus by doing so? Political leaders tend to be wary of crediting their decisions to divine inspiration, for good reason. On the other hand, we readily talk about 'Christian organisations' even though we would probably admit that they are not perfect. Is it fundamentally different when we are talking about governments?

There are a lot of question marks in this article, but while the principal question I have been considering is an interesting one to mull over - can we imagine a form of government that we would wish to call Christian - I can't help feeling that it is rather beside the point. Are we called to seek after a 'Christian government'? I'm not sure that we are. The likes of Joseph, Daniel, and Esther in the Bible were all used by God in powerful ways in their respective nations, and they each served pagan states. It seems that the key is being faithful to God in our political engagement, wherever we find ourselves and so the yeast works through the dough. It is about doing the right thing - even if we are not in fact successful. The church has outlived many governments - and forms of government - and will continue to do so until the end, offering a prophetic voice that speaks into the society and government of the day. Seeking to make a Christian difference in politics, whatever that might look like for each of us, feels like a better focus than seeking a Christian government.