The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 Article XV: The Christian and the Social Order
I obviously did not plan for us to speak on this just a few days before the Supreme Court documents were leaked, but this is a fun way to do this. This section is about the Christian’s political and social involvement in society as well as how we are to view and think through government involvement as a denomination and as a local church.
Many people are offended by a pastor’s discussion of political and social topics. If they are in a Southern Baptist Church, they should check out the statement of faith. It’s on their pastor’s side.
Here is the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 statement on “The Christian and the Social Order”.
The Christian and the Social Order
All Christians are under obligation to seek to make the will of Christ supreme in our own lives and in human society. Means and methods used for the improvement of society and the establishment of righteousness among men can be truly and permanently helpful only when they are rooted in the regeneration of the individual by the saving grace of God in Jesus Christ. In the spirit of Christ, Christians should oppose racism, every form of greed, selfishness, and vice, and all forms of sexual immorality, including adultery, homosexuality, and pornography. We should work to provide for the orphaned, the needy, the abused, the aged, the helpless, and the sick. We should speak on behalf of the unborn and contend for the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death. Every Christian should seek to bring industry, government, and society as a whole under the sway of the principles of righteousness, truth, and brotherly love. In order to promote these ends Christians should be ready to work with all men of good will in any good cause, always being careful to act in the spirit of love without compromising their loyalty to Christ and His truth.
Exodus 20:3-17; Leviticus 6:2-5; Deuteronomy 10:12; 27:17; Psalm 101:5; Micah 6:8; Zechariah 8:16; Matthew 5:13-16,43-48; 22:36-40; 25:35; Mark 1:29-34; 2:3ff.; 10:21; Luke 4:18-21; 10:27-37; 20:25; John 15:12; 17:15; Romans 12–14; 1Corinthians 5:9-10; 6:1-7; 7:20-24; 10:23-11:1; Galatians 3:26-28; Ephesians 6:5-9; Colossians 3:12-17; 1 Thessalonians 3:12; Philemon; James 1:27; 2:8.
An Important Preliminary Discussion
Some form of government is essential for people to live in communities. Consider how governments were formed and this becomes very obvious.
When a man and a woman have children and raise children, they govern their own household. But as the population increases and there are multiple households living close to each other then there is a need for people to somehow govern their relationships between the families who are governing themselves. In its most simple form, government is how people relate to one another.
People have organized their selves in many ways throughout the years. Here in America, different tribes had their own forms of governing their selves. Those who came from England had a different way of governing their selves. And, when the Constitution was ratified, it was an advancement that was built upon many centuries of advancement in Western government.
My point here is simply that government is a part of life. It doesn’t look the same everywhere one goes. But it is necessary to a civilization. If we are going to live faithfully in this world, it is something that we must think about. We must interact with governing authorities in some way, and we want that way to be biblical. And so, it is necessary for us to think through how Christians are to involve their selves in social and government affairs.
Scriptural Basis
There are a few passages of Scripture that help to give us an overview of what the government is and what it is supposed to do. And there is a lot of Scripture dedicated to the wicked doings of the government in the Old Testament. Because this serves as more of an overview, we will focus on the few passages of Scripture that give us an overview. But, as you can see in the list of Scriptures here, they are important.
With that being said, we will approach this as we did last week’s discussion. We will look at the biblical texts first and then dive into what that means for us.
Genesis 9
Sometimes I get a bit frustrated at the folks that worked on the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. They sometimes left off the most helpful and informative passages of Scripture. I believe that to be the case with Genesis 9:1-6.
“And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” (Genesis 9:1-6 ESV)
If you consider the context of this statement, it is all about how the people are to govern themselves post flood. As Daniel Scheiderer points out, two things become abundantly clear. First, the entire human race is related to each other. They are our “fellow man”. And every person is part of mankind. And this text makes it clear that the community as a whole is responsible for one another. The second is that the community is held accountable for paying justice, retributive justice.[1]
It is interesting that, in just a few words, an incredible summary of what a government is to do takes form. Life is to be considered sacred, and the community is responsible for upholding that. And part of that responsibility is that the community is responsible to deliver justice.
What is it that we expect of our government today? Is this not the most important to us? When this goes away does our society prosper? Obviously not. We turn on the news and shudder at the horror that takes place in modern American cities as these things are not upheld.
Romans 13
Paul’s discussion of government in Romans 13 is very similar to the discussion in Genesis 9.
Paul tells us that government is created by God.
“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.” (Romans 13:1-7 ESV)
As Christians, we understand that we are to be good citizens. As long as the government does not command us to disobey God’s Word, we should be willing to obey the law. The minute that we are told to disobey God’s Word, we need to disobey those governing authorities.
So, why are we to obey governing authorities? Because they are instituted by God.
Who is afraid of governing authorities? Or, who should be afraid of governing authorities? Those who do evil. And the reason is simple. Governing authorities exist to punish evil doers.
Governing authorities have been given this sword of Civil Government in order to curb bad behavior and reward good behavior. That is the purpose of Civil Government.
Now, let us look at the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 and make some observations.
All Christians are under obligation to seek to make the will of Christ supreme in our own lives and in human society.
Who is Lord over all? Jesus is.
“And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (Matthew 28:18 ESV)
How much authority does Jesus have? All of it. He has all the authority and it is important for us to begin right there.
In our personal lives, Jesus is Lord and we are to seek to make His will supreme in our lives. We are to repent of our sins and seek to live godly lives. We are to obey Christ with our lives.
This also moves outward. We are to seek to make the will of Christ supreme in “human society” as well. For me that means I am to seek to make the will of Christ supreme here in America.
I have seen a lot of Christians today decrying the possible abortion decision that was leaked yesterday. And the reason was not that they were not against abortion, but they were against forcing this on other people. What a shame!
Jesus has all authority. And we are to work to make the will of Christ supreme in our lives and in human society.
Christians are the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world”. As the salt of the Earth we are seasoning the Earth with the righteousness of Christ. And as the light of the world, we are shining the light of Christ on the world so that others will see it.
“”You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:13-16 ESV)
Surely, being salt of the Earth encompasses spreading the will of Christ to the Earth!
Means and methods used for the improvement of society and the establishment of righteousness among men can be truly and permanently helpful only when they are rooted in the regeneration of the individual by the saving grace of God in Jesus Christ.
We understand that the only way for society to truly and permanently be established in righteousness is through salvation in Christ.
There have been a lot of means and methods employed in the fight against abortion. That is plainly obvious to anyone who has observed the situation over the years. There have been prayer meetings, sermons, marches, organizations that were devoted to this cause, officials elected that could change things, and presidents voted on that could appoint Supreme Court justices. And honestly, I am probably leaving some things out here. But the point is that these are means and methods that were used by Christians to remove this horror from our society. And these means and methods will continue to be used to, hopefully, remove abortion from our midst.
But we know that the results of these means and methods will not be permanent unless the country itself is converted. Until the people of America are brought to faith in Christ, there will be no true and permanent establishment of righteousness in the land. This is because of the sinful condition of mankind, which was covered in an earlier section of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.
In the spirit of Christ, Christians should oppose racism, every form of greed, selfishness, and vice, and all forms of sexual immorality, including adultery, homosexuality, and pornography. We should work to provide for the orphaned, the needy, the abused, the aged, the helpless, and the sick. We should speak on behalf of the unborn and contend for the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death.
Even though we understand that these changes may not be permanent, we work to eliminate wickedness form our midst. The list given here, in the Year of our Lord 2000, doesn’t look much different than it would if it were written today. I do believe that if it were written today there would be an addition of transgenderism. I do not believe anyone really saw this coming 22 years ago.
And I want to mention something important here that could be overlooked. Our stand against the immoral behavior of our age should begin in the Church. We should preach and teach on these things. And we should come together with plans to eliminate such things from our society.
As a local church in Conway, Arkansas, this means that we should stand opposed to these things within our community. When occasion arises, we should speak against and work to eliminate the immorality in our community.
We are to oppose racism, greed, selfishness, vice (immoral behavior), and sexual immorality. When I preach a sermon against homosexuality, I do so because God’s Word speaks against it, and as a Southern Baptist Pastor, our statement of faith tells me to do so. I occasionally mention pornography from the pulpit for the same reason. I mock the adulterous husband, as I did this last week for the same reason. I discuss greed and selfishness for these same reasons. I know that people won’t always like what is said, but that is sort of the point. We should oppose these things.
We should not only stand against things in our society, but we should also work to better the lives of people in our community. “We should work to provide for the orphaned, the needy, the abused, the aged, the helpless, and the sick.” And praise God! I see this among us as a local congregation and as Southern Baptists.
People will wrangle and argue about the best way to do this. Some people believe that the only way to do this properly is through taxation. Others argue that the best way to do this is through the kindness of others and that government aid exacerbates the problem. And some people argue for a mixture of the two. I’m not here to enter into that fray. But I do want to say that people on both sides of this argument really want to fulfill this obligation to work for the good of those in need.
As a church, we devote a significant part of our budget to help people in these areas. Some help these organizations personally and financially in other ways. These are very good things. And as a convention we have all sorts of ways that we do this.
One area of this I will mention is the State Convention’s involvement in foster care. I was in Alma when the State of Arkansas asked the Arkansas Baptist State Convention to help with foster care in Arkansas. The biggest need was in Fort Smith and since we were so close, we heard about it often. To me, that was beautiful. The State of Arkansas understood that the “salt of the Earth” was the place they could go for help with this difficult situation. And we, as Arkansas Baptists, have been working in foster care ever since.
The last line mentioned above is about the sanctity of human life. “We should speak on behalf of the unborn and contend for the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death.” Despite what many people say about us, we are concerned with the sanctity of human life from the womb to the tomb. That is important to us as Southern Baptists and we have worked in this area since the 1970’s. And if the decision to overturn Roe V. Wade holds, then praise God! He has blessed the labor!
Every Christian should seek to bring industry, government, and society as a whole under the sway of the principles of righteousness, truth, and brotherly love.
This gets to the heart of the issue without mincing words. Christians are to work for the betterment of society. Christ is King and we work to bring all of society “under the sway of the principles of righteousness, truth, and brotherly love.”
I am going to glean a lesson from what has probably taken place with Roe V. Wade. Stop whining and get to work. It’s not enough to be angry about the condition of the world and its unrighteousness. Get to work at changing it.
In order to promote these ends Christians should be ready to work with all men of good will in any good cause, always being careful to act in the spirit of love without compromising their loyalty to Christ and His truth.
The end of this section looks a lot like the previous section, and for good reason. In order to promote these good things in society Christians will oftentimes need to work with “all men of good will in any good cause”.
Our church was represented at the March for Life this year. There were a lot of Roman Catholics present, that was obvious. And I am sure there were unbelievers in the crowd as well. But I had no problem marching with these folks for this cause.
This is how we should view the moral maladies of our day. We should be willing to work together with other people of good will to make our society better.
We should, however, be sure to act in accordance with our beliefs. We should always be “careful to act in the spirit of love without compromising” our “loyalty to Christ and His truth.”
Conclusion
The happenings of the last few days are very helpful in making this front and center. We are to the salt of the Earth and work toward the righteousness of Christ being spread throughout our society. And we should work with other people to make this happen. But we never sacrifice our loyalty to Christ for these causes.
R. Dwain Minor
[1] Daniel Scheiderer, Still Confessing: An Exposition of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, p. 186.