The demands of sacrificial love and citizenship are hard to reconcile. Christ demands that we welcome strangers, turn the other cheek, and love our enemies. But the governments we elect have immigration laws, prisons, and armies that they use to turn away strangers, imprison those who assault others, and fight against those who declare war against us. Rather than trying to balance these, some give into the temptation of solving the problem by multiplying one or the other side by “zero” (which every middle school student knows makes things easier, but is nonetheless illegal).
On the one hand, we have those who either opt out of being a “citizen” or who make the government responsible for fulfilling our individual Christian obligations. The former recognize the tension and refuse to be tainted by anything that would damage their adherence to Christ’s teaching; the latter see the government as a kind of giant Christian everyman. For them, the command to “feed the poor” becomes a directive to use the government to make sure it happens and the commands to “turn the cheek” and “love your enemy” become a call for disarmament and (in this world of thugs) capitulation. They have relieved the tension by refusing to admit that the state has any additional obligations and refusing to allow the government to do anything that an ordinary Christian should not do.
Abdication of our civic duty is a weak response to the challenge of Christian citizenship, acceptable only among monks and others with a special calling. Nietzsche was wrong: Christianity need not be a timid slave religion. Christians need not be timid. We are called to accept martyrdom if it comes, but we should fight its general imposition to our last breath. Refusing to vote in times when oppression is a real possibility may be a way to model meekness, but for those with the legal right to influence policy, it makes a mockery of virtue. But as problematic as this is, anthropomorphizing individual morality into state policy is folly on a far grander scale. The traps are obvious and well known: pacifist states soon become subjects or disappear altogether; states that offer “everything to everyone according to their need” ensure that very few needs are actually met; and theocratic states fall far too easily into heresy and totalitarianism.
On the other (and no less gauche) hand, we can solve the equation by allowing the state (and by implication, its citizens) to act without restraint. It is allowed to an amoral protector of the interests of its subjects, doing “what needs to be done.” It is “beyond good and evil”. It is above sin, doing the dirty work so that we can live lives completely devoted to purity and Christ-like perfection. While I find this repugnant, it would be like living under the Roman Empire before it was Christian in those places/times where Christianity was tolerated. It was a useful situation then, but it is not an option available to citizens in a democratic country. As I wrote above, pretending that the state is nothing more than a roof over our heads is an abdication of responsibility. We are governed by fallen men and women, not angels. As Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Democracy is designed to limit the damage evil (or incompetent) men can do, but it only works if “good men” actually do something.
So what is the solution? Embrace the tension. The Christian knows that embracing tension causes spiritual growth, while eliminating it often leads to heresy and spiritual death. You can resolve the tension in Trinitarian theology by either degrading the personhood of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit or by turning them into a pantheon. Well-meaning Christians have tried to do both and caused suffering in so doing. Let me share a couple of more concrete examples: we cannot turn away the hungry when we ourselves have food. But should a Christian employee at a grocery store offer its food to the hungry for free? We must give shelter to people with no homes, but should a Christian father invite every stranger who knocks at the door a place in the house next to his wife and children? The store employee and the the Christian father have to balance their Christian duty to those in need with heir obligation to faithfully serve their masters/employers and their families. It is in this light that the government and its Christian citizens must balance their own duties and obligations.
The answer is not pretend that there is no problem, but to seek the best possible solution through prayer … and to atone for its inevitable shortcoming with repentance.
P.S. Professor Nikolas Gvosdev has forgotten more than I will ever know about Christianity and Democracy, Church and State, etc. He is coming to St. Michael’s this Wednesday to give a talk on “Orthodox at the Polls: Comparing the U.S. and Ukraine”. I can’t wait!
