The United States of America, for all her greatness, is not the “my people” of 2 Chronicles 7:14. That people was God’s temporary, national people Israel. That national covenant expired at the cross. Since that time God has had no national people, though many have thought and apparently still think that they must be God’s special, national people. God made that promise to national Israel not the USA or to any other civil people. The USA has no more standing before God, as a national people, than pagan Rome or the “Holy Roman Empire,” neither of which exist any longer.
A few days ago, just after he announced the election of Donald J. Trump as the 45th president of the United States of America, Vice President Joe Biden turned to the Speaker of the House to say “God Save the Queen.” Indeed. Then, a couple of days ago, I was reminded that Elizabeth I (1533–1603), who reigned from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603, was crowned on 15 January, 1559.
The Vice President’s quip and the anniversary of Elizabeth’s coronation prompted two thoughts: 1) This peril of a state-church ; 2) The utter absence of any evidence in the New Testament of any expectation that, after the expiration of the Israelite state (Westminster Confession 19.4), there should ever be a state church. I am regularly astonished at the number of American Christians who seem to want a state-church. They seem not to understand the history of the post-canonical history of state-churches nor the difference between national Israel and the USA.
History
There was no state church in the apostolic period. The state religion was paganism. The Christian religion was a voluntary association despised and misunderstood by the pagans and hated by the non-Christian Jews. By the early 2nd century Christians were beginning to experience outright hostility and even persecution at the hands of pagan secular authorities. By the middle of the 3rd century Christians were suffering grievously at the hands of pagan secular authorities. Under persecution it was demanded of Christians that they renounce Christ and swear loyalty to Caesar and to the pagan gods. Those who refused, were tortured and martyred. There was no relief from this cycle of private harassment and state-sponsored persecution until Christianity was made a legal religion in the early 4th century. Under legalization, Christians were permitted to gather for worship without fear of arrest. Their property, which had been seized by the state, was returned to them. Gradually, however, through the course of the 4th century, church and state became increasingly entangled. The Roman emperors began, in fits and starts, to suppress paganism. By the late 4th century ministers were receiving a salary from the state. This was a natural impulse since it was assumed that every state should have a church. There was no question among most whether there should be a state religion. The only real question was whether it should be Christian or pagan.
History suggests to me, however, that Christianity was much better off without a state-sponsor. The plea of the earliest post-apostolic Christians was not that they should replace paganism as the state religion but rather that they should be left alone. The treatise To Diognetus (c. 150) and Justin Martyr’s defense did not ask the civil authorities to give them special status but only to stop murdering them. Justin invited the pagan authorities to investigate the Christians thoroughly and see that they were no threat to the state or to public tranquility. The Christians only wanted to be able to work quietly, worship peacefully, and otherwise to be left alone.
Fast forward to the accession of Elizabeth I. By the mid-16th century, Christendom, the state-church complex that developed after Constantine, had been established for a millennium. It was virtually unthinkable to most that there should not be a state-church. The only contest was which? Rome or the Protestants (i.e., the Lutherans or the Reformed). Under the Henrician Reformation, the church had been made a creature of the state. Elizabeth had complete control of the visible, institutional church. Thus, she had civil authority (on 27 December 1558) to issue a royal proclamation suspending the preaching of the Word. Her rationale was that the religious disputes that had developed under Henry, and Edward (and the vicious persecution of the Protestants by Mary) had so unsettled the realm that preachers had to be silenced. Ministers were forbidden to “teach or preach.” They were permitted to read the assigned Gospel passage and/or the assigned passage from one of the Epistles (in English) but without “without exposition or addition of any manner, sense, or meaning to be applied and added…”. This prohibition was lifted by the Injunctions promulgated in June of 1559.
Such gross interference with the divinely mandated administration of the keys of the heavenly kingdom necessarily accompanies a state-church. When the Apostles were told to stop preaching Christ they declared, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). The magistrate has not been given divine authority to silence the preaching of the Word but in the history of the church rulers both orthodox and heterodox have sought to corrupt or silence the preaching of the Word, when the pure Word was found to be inconvenient.
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