Douglas F. Ottati, Professor of Theology, Union Seminary/PSCE, Richmond, VA
[7-26-03]

Afganistan, Iraq, and the war on terrorism. Intimations of an American empire. Federal tax cuts, rising deficits, state and city budget crises. A modest French force sent into the Congo by the U. N. Gay marriages in Canada. Supreme Court decisions supporting some forms of affirmative action in university admissions and promoting dignity and respect for the private sexual behavior of gays and lesbians. A Medicare prescription drug benefit? Israeli troops withdrawing from Gaza. Calls for the United States and others to halt years of slaughter in Liberia. Seems like a good time to ponder the role of nations and governments.

Presbyterian liberals are pretty good on the importance of government and courts of law for upholding justice and civil rights. (Keep an eye on Attorney General Ashcroft.) We're also O. K. on the need for at least some government programs and services to promote the public good. But we tend to neglect the need for government to wield coercive power if it is to discharge even these functions, let alone its wider responsibilities in a fragmented and conflicted world. (Note to liberal Presbyterian. Government levies taxes in order to support courts of law, schools, roads, water treatment plants, universities, national parks, the military, Social Security benefits, and more. And, on April 15, it doesn't ask you to pay up only if you feel like it.)

Our theological heritage may help to sharpen our reflections. The doctrine of creation encourages us to affirm that humans are social creatures who need institutions to maintain order and direct cooperative enterprises. The doctrine of sin indicates that we need governments to restrain the inordinate interests and destructive actions of both persons and groups. It also suggests that the concentrations of power which governments require to undertake these functions often invite dangerous abuses.

Statements in our confessions add some important details. Westminster has a chapter on "civil magistrates" or government officials. It says they are ordained to be under God and over the people for the public good, and that they are armed with the power of the sword to defend good and restrain evil. It also says that magistrates are charged to maintain piety, justice, and peace, and to "wage war upon just and necessary occasions" (BOC 6.127-8). (Portions of the chapter were later revised by Presbyterians in America to reflect the official disestablishment of religion here as well as tolerance for a plurality of churches.) The Scots Confession of 1560 claims that God ordains civil powers and authorities "for the manifestation of his own glory and the well being of all men." It says that civil authorities must therefore be obeyed rather than resisted, so long as they act in their own spheres and vigilantly fulfill their office (BOC 3.24). The Theological Declaration of Barmen says that "in the as yet unredeemed world . . . the State has by divine appointment the task of providing for justice and peace," and that it undertakes this task "by means of the threat and exercise of force." At the same time, Barmen also rejects "the false doctrine" that "the State, over and above its special commission, should and could become the single and totalitarian order of human life" (BOC 8.22-3). The Confession of 1967 rather famously claims that "the search for cooperation and peace . . . requires that the nations pursue fresh and responsible relations across every line of conflict, even at risk to national security, to reduce areas of strife and to broaden international understanding" (BOC 9.45).

In general, Presbyterian theological tradition encourages us to engage questions of justice and the public good. It regards government as service and jurisprudence as high callings, and it resists privatized spiritualities that leave politics out of account. Those of us who are informed by this heritage will not be surprised at continuing needs for humanitarian military actions to restrain violence and to police political settlements, e.g., Bosnia, the Congo, Liberia, although we should also expand traditional horizons to take account of representative international assemblies and their authority. We will not be surprised that nations, including our own, sometimes resort to war in order to address significant threats. But we should be inclined to encourage vigorous public discussion and debate as to whether one or another threat is sufficiently imminent and severe to justify the use of military force. An inclination that will only be strengthened if we consider the abuses to which a lone superpower may well be tempted.

The insistence on justice will lead some of us to appreciate the need for government to check corporate power and greed (remember Enron), but also to question our government's recent detention of immigrants and foreign nationals. Together with an insistence that government provide for the well being of persons, the standard of justice also relates directly to questions of diversity and fair access to the substantial good of higher education, as well as the respect and life-options our society offers to lesbian women and gay men. The question of taxation should lead us to ponder appropriate levels of government responsibility for alleviating poverty, providing for the common defense, and subsidizing education, health care, transportation, etc. It may also encourage us to ask just how much power and how many resources should be concentrated in government offices and authorities.