(~) Battle Lines

God and Government

- Eberhard Arnold

Excerpted from God's Revolution, available FREE in e-book format.

As fighters down the ages have found, God is often the first conscript when a country goes to war. How many of them ever stopped to consider His predicament in being called on to back two opposing armies? Writer Eberhard Arnold is one who did. A would-be volunteer for the Kaiser's army in World War I (he was rejected because of his poor health), he later renounced all war and violence. The death of his only brother, a soldier on the eastern front, was a catalyst. So was the general state of disillusionment that swept Germany at the war's end, especially after the Kaiser abdicated to Holland.

By 1920, the year Arnold began what later became known as the Bruderhof, it was crystal clear to him: a Christian cannot take up arms in defense of the state and remain a true follower of Christ. Church and state cannot be mixed if God's order is to be maintained.

Arnold's literal interpretation of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5-7) and his efforts to live out its practical implications won him more than his share of enemies. And after the Nazis seized power in 1933, it brought intensified scrutiny, and raids by the Gestapo. Despite the danger of imprisonment, however, Arnold remained unwavering in his belief that his little group was called to be an "outpost for God" in the midst of terror.

From the start, Arnold recognized the insidious evils of National Socialism and spoke out against them. But this did not keep him from respecting what he felt was the state's God-ordained authority to govern. Not once, though, did his higher allegiance come into question: that belonged solely to God. Arnold challenged all who called themselves Christian to form a vanguard for His kingdom, and to recognize that choosing to follow Christ always means declaring war on the "spirit of the age."

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Is there such a thing as a Christian state? No government can exist without using force. Indeed, it is impossible to imagine a state that does not use police or military force. Nor can one imagine a government that does not resort to diplomatic lies to disguise the real state of affairs. In short: there is no government that does not kill.

According to apostolic truth there is no such thing as a Christian state. It is a widespread error to mix the task of the church with politics. It is not the church's task to be active in the political power structure. A Christian church does not fight for, or against, the interests of the state. No head of state can wield the sword in the name of Christ no church can support it. The state and the church are two distinct, and separate, spheres of life. Paul says that our politics is in heaven where we expect our Lord Jesus Christ to come from. Our politics is that of the kingdom of God.

The sword of the Holy Spirit given to the church is totally different in every respect from the sword of governmental authority (Eph. 6:17). God gave the temporal sword, the sword of his wrath, into the hands of unbelievers (Rom. 13:4). The church must make no use of it. The church must be ruled by the spirit of Christ alone. God withdrew his spirit from unbelievers because they would not obey him. Instead, he gave them the sword of wrath, that is, temporal government with its military power. But Christ himself is the king whose servants cannot wield any sword but the Spirit's.

Paul says we are ambassadors of God and his kingdom. We are to represent Christ, the Messiah king, the regent of that last kingdom. He is not represented by any state or government of this world, but by the church. It is a tremendous thing to be an ambassador, for it means that we do nothing at all except that which the king himself would do for his kingdom. The will of this king is the will to unite. This is why Paul says we are God's ambassadors on behalf of Christ, appealing to everyone: "Be reconciled to God" (2 Cor. 5:20). Our task is reconciliation and uniting. There is nothing else we have to do in this world.

The Christian community is a royal embassy sent out from the future kingdom, subject only to the law of the Spirit, not to the laws of the world around it. Nation-states and capitalist enterprises, on the other hand, work under the compromises needed in the zeitgeist. But Christ wants to free us from the spirit of this age. That establishes the church's front in its daily war. And that is why the apostles state repeatedly that we are joined to Christ in a community of martyrdom, of the cross. The prevailing zeitgeist cannot tolerate the spirit of Christ's future. The spirit of our age wants us to represent a little of Christ's future while simultaneously making a few concessions to the world's systems. Even the secular state likes to boast a touch of Christian spirit, and every capitalist enterprise shows off some dressing of Christianity. All the world's systems love that mixture.

But the apostles direct us to be free of any mixing of spirits. Christians - members of the church-community - must allow every aspect of their lives to be penetrated and changed so that everything is governed by the spirit of Christ's Sermon on the Mount.

The reason so many churches lack clarity regarding their relationship to the state stems from a false understanding of Paul's words in Romans 13. True, there is no state that does not have police and does not use the sword. What God has established in the state, then, is an order marked by the wrath of the sword. God has ordained this order for an unredeemed world, to keep evil from gaining the upper hand altogether. The state with its sword is God's order for the hell of evil! Even in hell, God has an order, an order for the evil and unjust in the world of evil God's relativity reigns. God has to be relative toward evil as long as evil exists. Governments and police force are God's means of dealing with what is evil in the world, not with what is good. We could not stand up now and preach, "Away with all police officers!" We do not deny the need for law and order in this world of evil - that would be an error. Let those who neither have nor want love alone, become soldiers and police officers.

Still, we cannot go up to a police officer or a soldier and say, "Lay down your weapons right now, and go the way of love and discipleship of Christ." We have no right to do that. We can do it only when the Spirit speaks a living word to our hearts: "The decisive moment has come for this person to be told." Then we will speak to him, and at the same moment God will tell him.

It is perhaps difficult for us to understand that a relative order is not God's will. Yet he does not abandon humanity completely, or else no one would be able to draw another breath. People would starve. God has not forsaken humanity, and so he lets his sun shine and his rain fall on the just and unjust alike. There is no such thing as a human being in whom there is nothing at all from God (Jn. 1:9). Even a prostitute bears a trace of something from God. That is why Dostoevsky's novels are so profound: they illustrate that even in a brothel, even in an army, God has his order. But it is an order of hell. We see this in the Bible, from Pharaoh on. Pharaoh was a relative instrument of God's wrath. God maintains order even in hell. Today, Hitler is a God-appointed master of hell!

But then comes God's absolute order, which is love (Rom. 13: 8-10)! The words "love is the fulfilling of the law" show that Paul meant this in the absolute sense; fulfillment is always absolute. There are two separate spheres: the sphere of evil where government rules, and the sphere of pure light and pure love where the Holy Spirit rules. The church is within this sphere of absolute love. Paul is saying: When you are within the church, you are within love, and you will do nothing evil. If you do no evil, you can only be killed for the sake of love - and for that you are prepared.

Jesus was tempted by the devil: "The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and he said to him, 'All these I will give you if you will fall down and worship me'" (Mt. 4: 8-9). The devil showed him his kingdoms of the world - the states and their glory, their power. "All this I will give you if you worship me" - that is, if you worship the dragon who gave his authority to the beast (Rv. 13:2). "You shall serve God alone!" answered Jesus.

Your service to God is to be absolute - not relative, as is the state's way. That is why Jesus refused to become a Roman emperor; he became Jesus Christ, and love was fulfilled in him (Rom. 13:10).

When Jesus said, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's," he was talking about money (Lk. 20:22-25). He called money something alien, something he had nothing to do with. Give this alien stuff to the emperor; they belong together - mammon and Caesar. Let the money go where it belongs, but give to God what belongs to God. That is what these words mean. Your soul and your body belong not to Caesar, but to God and the church. Let your mammon go to the emperor. Your life belongs to God!

Jesus means us to recognize the state as a pragmatic necessity. But there can be no Christian state. Force has to rule where love does not. That was how the devil tempted Jesus: "If you fall down and worship me, I will give you the kingdoms of this world." Do you want the kingdoms of this world, which the devil offers?

Even when authorities use weapons justly, they follow a different calling, and we have to find a way to call these people to repentance through love. They are not devils but people, sinful people; they must be challenged to abandon their sin. Quite apart from the specific sinful deeds of the Nazi authorities, though, we would refuse to bear arms for any government. A Christian cannot be a government official or a soldier; he can only challenge others to love and unity.

Reich Chancellor Georg Michaelis and General Viebahn were my friends. Both said in effect that they could not follow pure Christianity because love demanded they support their nation. I am sure they were being honest. Nonetheless, I told them that such an adulteration of Christianity disfigured the countenance of Christ. I granted that a general or chancellor could reduce misery a little, but not in the name of Christ.

Christianity is harmed most by Christians who feel moved to mix the church's task with the state's. When the devil offered Christ the kingdoms of the world, Jesus refused. He could have done a better job than Nero, but he would not have remained Christ.

To say something really bold: God controls the hell of human crimes with an infernal machine, the state. Someone may say, "I am going to operate this machine and make it less hellish; I will moderate the satanic properties of hell; I will serve the state." Such a resolve commands respect. Very well, whoever wants to do that should go ahead, and I pray his effort may help a little. For myself, I refuse to mount the machines of hell. I will board the ship that shows all humankind the way to the other shore: to the kingdom of peace, justice, and perfect love.

We need people who dare to set the course for this other shore, who dare to live in accordance with the ways of the land on the other side. And from this ship we intend to keep in touch with all other people. We have a message to send out to them, and in that way continue to carry responsibility for the fate of humankind. We believe this is the way we can best serve the world in this terrifying moment of history.

To be ready is everything. Let us be ready! The expectation of God's coming shall be our active readiness. That means stretching out our hands to Christ in order to be crucified with him. It means going down on our knees, ready to be humbled by God. It means laying down all our power over ourselves so that he alone may have power over us.

In these days of wrath and judgment, it is all the more vital for the heart of Christ to blaze up in the world and in history. The church is sent into the world for this purpose: in the midst of the mounting waves of panic, in the midst of the furious breakers of spilt blood, the church must fling itself against the waves and bring the banner of love to those who are drowning in loveless wrath.

Reprinted from http://www.bruderhof.com/, used with pernission