The Greatest Danger Facing the Presbyterian Church in Australia Today?
The Two Kingdoms
In 1596 one of the most famous scenes in Presbyterian history took place. Andrew Melville, a well-known Scottish minister was summoned to appear before King James to answer for his opposition to the 'Black Acts', which sought to impose the King's desire for bishops on the Church of Scotland. Melville told the King: "I must tell you, there are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland: there is King James the head of this commonwealth, and there is Christ Jesus the King of the church, whose subject James the sixth is, and of whose kingdom he is not a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a member. Sir, those whom Christ has called and commanded to watch over his church, have power and authority from him to govern his spiritual kingdom both jointly and severally; the which no Christian king or prince should control and discharge, but fortify and assist; otherwise, they are not faithful subjects of Christ and members of his church."
The history of Scottish Presbyterianism, from the Reformation, through to the Covenanters and the Free Church Disruption of 1843, is the history of the two kingdoms. This is also true of Presbyterians throughout the world. We are not theocrats. We do not believe that the Church has the right to tell the State how to govern. But neither are we Erastians – we do not accept that the State has the right to tell the Church how we should be governed.
The Australian Presbyterian church was set up on that basis. So was the Australian constitution, which declares in section 116 that the Commonwealth was banned from making any law which would prohibit the free exercise of religion.
However, there is an enormous danger that the Presbyterian churches in Australia could forget their historical, confessional and biblical roots – by adopting a 21st century version of Erastian Church/State relations.
Today's Cultural Background
The cultural background to this situation is that we live in a society which is rejecting its Christian roots. Rather than there being two kingdoms, there is in effect only one – that of the State. The government, instead of accepting that it has a limited role, is now setting itself up as God, determining what is right and wrong, for everyone. This is seen in terms of business, academia, media, sport and most significantly for us – education, the family and the church. Ultimately Caesar does not mind if we exist, as long as we acknowledge Caesar as Lord (i.e. the Supreme Authority) in everything.
Chaos and Confusion
As an observer to last week's New South Wales General Assembly, I saw at first hand the confusion and chaos that the acceptance of this Erastian doctrine causes us.
The situation arose out of a decision which in effect binds the Assembly from making any decisions without first of all, conforming with the NSW government's Work Health and Safety Act. Under this Act we were told that all office bearers, staff and volunteers were to be considered workers – and therefore the Act would apply to them. Accordingly, no change can occur without consulting all workers and addressing any concerns they may have. The Assembly were told that all members of the Assembly were to be regarded as PCBU's (Persons Conducting a Business Undertaking) and were individually legally responsible to consult every 'worker'. We were also told that this includes not only actual volunteers but those who might 'aspire to the role'. In other words, everyone. By requiring 'consultation with all workers' (i.e. anyone who does anything within the Church), we are in danger of forsaking the basic principles of Presbyterianism, that we have government by elders and that we are not Independents or governed by votes on each issue. Nor are we be governed by 'experts', lawyers or focus groups.
This is all done with the worthy aim of protecting workers' health. Health in the Act includes psychosocial effects. Counselling should be offered and, in some cases, even the consultation should not take place until the relevant risks were minimised. This all arose because of a threatening letter which the General Office received before the 2023 Assembly. In response, everything was put on hold.
The presenting issue was the decision of the Assembly to seek to draw up legislation which would permit only male elders. I have no desire to get into that issue in this article – (although I think it is important, especially where the biblical teaching has been misused to disguise or justify misogyny.) My whole point is that that is a question for the Church to determine, not the State. My concern is with people who use the civil law in order to control what the Church can and cannot do – on whatever side of whatever issue.
The Assembly decided that, amongst other things, "that the sex qualifications of elders shall not be the subject of questions, speeches, comments or debate for the duration of this session of Assembly."
The result of this decision was to make the Assembly one of the most confused and chaotic I have ever witnessed. We had reports on the Women's committee and from the Elders committee, which we were not allowed to discuss fully. Decisions were made on the basis of legal advice that we were not allowed to see (although we were told that we were legally liable for it!). A second legal opinion was asked for and refused. A motion limiting discussion was itself passed without discussion. (I am not telling tales out of court. This was all done and decided in public. As an observer, I observed).
State-Sponsored Pharisaism
I am sure that most of this was done with good intentions. The decision makers wanted to protect the Church, and also to deal with some of the injustices that some women have faced over the years. In that they were right. The trouble is that the decision did neither, and in fact may have made both worse. If you can't talk about a subject, then you can't deal with it. And if you limit the discussion to the confines of the WHS Act, you have placed the Church in an unbiblical bind. The root meaning of the word 'religio' means 'to bind'. Ironically, by allowing the State to be our rule maker and supreme governor we have ended up in a bind that will cripple us – a kind of State-sponsored Pharisaism. To paraphrase an article in the Spectator (on a different subject): "Our Presbyterianism is in danger of wrapping ourselves in bureaucratic bandages to manufacture the visage of life and competence, even as holiness and courage evaporate".
What's Wrong with Wanting to Obey the State?
Why do I say this? What can be wrong with just simply obeying the law of the State, especially when that law is designed to prevent harm? That is a good and reasonable question. But it all depends on:
a) how much you trust the State to make the laws of the Church,
b) what is meant by harm?
c) whether the State has authority over the Church.
Some of the arguments made in the Assembly were quite disturbing. For example, we were told that we should always want to follow the Word of God first, but it should not be the first box to tick. On the contrary, it should be the first and the last tick in the order – the alpha and omega of all we decide!
We were told that the WHS was an example of love which should remind us of the prophets standing up for the less powerful, and that what the government is asking us to do and what we should be doing, are the same thing. The notion that love can be imposed by government laws, or that those making and enforcing those laws, are not the powerful, is highly disputable. Furthermore, it is Scripture which determines what love is, not the State. The idea that the State can impose love through the legal system is profoundly unbiblical as well as demonstrably false. I hope that everyone would agree that all people involved with the Church (and indeed those outside it) should be treated with love and dignity. But the best way to do this is through the law of Christ, not the bureaucratic, legal requirements of a fundamentally unchristian State.
The argument was also made that this is not about religious freedom because everyone has to do it! In the world of the early church, I doubt that the fact that everyone had to bow to Caesar as Lord, meant that the first General Assembly in Jerusalem felt the need to acquiesce!
Another member suggested that we had to pass it because of the threats of individual members of the Assembly having to pay thousands of dollars if a court case went against us. Again, I cannot see how the martyrs of the early church, whom we profess to admire, would accept that as an excuse for not obeying Christ – even if it were true.
The Trojan Horse of Psycho-Social Harm
One of the main difficulties here is the notion of psycho-social harm. That is a real thing and should not be minimalised. There are those who have experienced deep traumatic events in their lives, such as rape, whose experiences must be taken into account. The bruised reed he will not break. The trouble comes when psycho-social is not defined and therefore everything has the potential to cause psycho-social harm. When you lose a motion in a General Assembly it trivialises and demeans real victims to say that, as a result, you have been a victim of psycho-social harm.
A number of years ago I was made aware of a woman who was incredibly upset at a sermon I preached. Speaking to her afterwards I was somewhat puzzled as the sermon was all about God as our loving Father. "Yes", she said, "how could you say such a thing – that is horrible!". I understood, of course, that her father had abused her, and I thanked her for being so courageous in speaking to me. I suggested to her that it was important to judge her father by The Father, not the other way round. I also told her that in future on some occasions when I spoke of God as Father, I would add an explanation – qualifier – for those for whom the term was triggering. However, I would not do in every instance, or even most of the time. I would never get a sermon done if I had to account for every emotion, felt by every person in the congregation.
In a similar vein the Church must take account of the varieties of experiences, hurts and pains within our communities. The question is not whether we do so, but how we do so, and whether the government is the best guide to tell us how the Church should be governed. Psycho-social harm can be used as the Trojan horse to let the State's ideologues into the Church.
What Does the Confession say?
It was argued in the Assembly that "It is not against the church's polity to allow the civil magistrate to tell us what to do". It is. Our Confession of Faith (the WCF) tells us that the civil magistrate must 'not in the least interfere in matters of faith' (23:1). The power of the 'keys of the kingdom' is not to be given to the civil magistrate. Furthermore, the WCF tells us that "as Jesus Christ hath appointed a regular government and discipline in his church, no law of any commonwealth should interfere with, let, or hinder, the due exercise thereof, among the voluntary members of any denomination of Christians, according to their own profession and belief." By requiring the General Assembly to submit its actions and decisions to the state's WHS Act, the Assembly is acknowledging, contrary to the WCF, that the state has the right to interfere in the government and discipline of the church.
Likewise in WCF 31:2 "It belongeth to synods and councils, ministerially, to determine controversies of faith, and cases of conscience; to set down rules and directions for the better ordering of the public worship of God, and government of His church; to receive complaints in cases of maladministration, and authoritatively to determine the same: which decrees and determinations, if consonant to the Word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission, not only for their agreement with the Word, but also for the power whereby they are made, as being an ordinance of God, appointed thereunto in His Word." By requiring that our procedures must first meet the (moving) requirements of the State, we have placed the State above the Church in these matters.
By adopting an unbiblical and unspecified criterion for decision making (the concept of psycho-social harm), we have created a confused, bureaucratic and unclear decision-making process, which is first of all subject to the State, rather than the Scriptures. Once again, the clear teaching of Scripture that Christ is the head of the Church is being undermined.
Observations, Past, Present and Future
I write all of this as an observer – and a stranger. My own background is that of being a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. Our denomination was formed precisely because of this issue – the State telling us who we could and could not have as ministers. Indeed, our forefathers were threatened and had to deal with almost the same arguments I heard in the Assembly. As a result of the State legal system finding against them, they lost their manses, churches, stipends, schools….and yet more than 400 ministers refused to bow to the State's dictate, and so lost everything. One-third of the people agreed with them and so the great Disruption resulted in a new, dynamic and evangelistic Presbyterian denomination – the Church of Scotland, Free. It was a denomination that was to play a key part in Presbyterianism in Australia.
As a minister of the Church part of one ordination vow was promising to uphold the 'spiritual independence' of the Church. "Do you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, as King and Head of the Church, has therein appointed a government in the hands of Church-officers, distinct from, and not subordinate in its own province to, civil government, and that the Civil Magistrate does not possess jurisdiction or authoritative control over the regulation of the affairs of Christ's Church; …."?
Whilst I am aware that that particular vow on the spiritual independence of the Church is not one that Australian Presbyterian office bearers take, we do promise to uphold the teaching of the WCF and more importantly we are asked to affirm that we "believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, the only rule of faith and practice". Scripture teaches us that we are to give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's (Mark 12:17). Taxes belong to the government. The government of the Church belongs to Christ.
Why is this so important?
One speaker at the Assembly got a row for talking about a boa constrictor which tightens its grip bit by bit. I felt it was an appropriate analogy – although perhaps better to talk of the camel getting its head into the tent, or one drop of yeast working through the whole batch of dough (Galatians 5:9). There are those in our secular society who think that they should have the right to govern how the Church should be governed, and they often use what are termed 'salami tactics' or the 'boil a frog' slowly method. For some in the Church, to go along with the State on this WHS Act is not a big deal as we would be doing most of it anyway. The trouble is that it won't stop there. Slice by slice our freedom of religion will be removed.
Imagine if (and it doesn't take a lot of imagination), the State decided to allow polygamous marriages. After all, we are a multi-cultural society and should reflect the different international cultures – plus 'love is love' no matter who you love! If the Presbyterian Church was to reaffirm our commitment to marriage being between one man and one woman, under the WHS we could not do so without 'proper consultation' being provided to all members in the Church. By binding ourselves to this Act, in all circumstances, we have opened the door to endless litigation, bureaucracy and confusion.
As an example of the State's continuing overreach into the Church take a report in the Australian of 23 July where we were informed that the Productivity Commission was recommending that a government agency, the ACNC (Australian Charities and Not for Profit Commission), could appoint or remove a clergyman from his parish or religious charity. The government's Charities and Treasury Minister, Andrew Leigh, refused to immediately reject this recommendation. The strict and impossibly broad interpretation of the WHS Act accepted by the NSW General Assembly is one step nearer to the State being able to tell us who we can, and cannot, have as office bearers.
Lex Rex
I began with a historical example – let me finish with another one. Samuel Rutherford, the 17th Century Scottish theologian, was banished to Aberdeen by the King and prohibited from exercising his ministerial duties. In 1650 Charles II visited Rutherford's university of St Andrews where he was subjected to a lecture from Rutherford on the religious duties of Kings. Rutherford died in 1661, just before he was due to be tried for treason. What was his treason? He wrote a book called Lex Rex (a book which is of enormous importance – not least because of its influence on the American Founding Fathers) – the Law is King. His book was burned because it rejected the ideology that the King is the Law. In today's Australia we are again being told that the King (i.e. the political governing authorities) is the Law. The Christian Church must now, more than ever, stand up for religious freedom and liberty.
Just as the notion of 'harm' is being used to limit freedom of speech, so the notion of health and safety (and its expansion beyond the physical to the psycho-social) will be used to limit the freedom of the Church to govern itself. We must not wait until it is too late. Now is the time to declare that we stand under the Bible, and that the State too stands under the judgement of God's word. Christ is Head of the Church. We must not give one inch on this most fundamental of doctrines. Here we stand – we can do no other!
- David Robertson
No comments:
Post a Comment