Compartmentalizing God

People in all ages have their conceits. For instance, a conceit of the ancient world was that man could manipulate the gods because the gods were a lot like man.

Today, in the modern age, a major conceit is that we think we can compartmentalize God and keep Him in His place.

Perhaps the primary way this is expressed in America and much of the Western world is through the concept of the separation of church and state. Unbelievers like Thomas Jefferson have (wrongly) used the Establishment Clause in the U.S. Constitution to claim that nothing from Christianity can enter into our considerations of how the government functions.

The compartmentalization of God does not stop there. We are not supposed to talk about God in the workplace. In school. At parties. Or just about anywhere in polite society. He is relegated to the church, some homes, and mission work–preferably in some poor, far away country.

We in the church have fallen for this as well. Not that we really believe God must be (or even can be) compartmentalized, but nonetheless we find ourselves not referencing Him and His Word in our everyday speech.

For instance, try to remember the last time you made reference to God in a conversation with an unbeliever at your work, school, or social setting. Even just a casual mention like, “When I was praying last night, I thought of how God …,” etc.

While much of this is unintentional because this modern mindset has become so ingrained in us, many in the church are quite intentional when it comes to the separation of God from the culture and government.

In the broader evangelical world, this takes the form of dispensationalism, the “the whole world is going to hell in a handbasket” theology that essentially teaches us we cannot do much about the collapse of the culture. In the reformed world, this has taken the form of the Two Kingdoms theology. which tells us there is Christ’s kingdom and there is the kingdom of the world, and good luck changing the world.

In both cases, advocates for each theology (though they would deny this characterization) have made the church and God into bystanders as the world takes it course. And even for those of us who do not advocate either theology, we also often slip into living as if we believe this ourselves.

Along these lines, when I recently stated that “our civil liberties flow out of our Christian liberty,” one friend commented, “All is subject to God’s providence and our civil liberties may be inspired, in part, by biblical ideas, but I don’t understand how civil liberties as applied to unbelievers flow out of the liberty given to Christians by God. It’s also not clear to me how civil liberties as they apply to believers flow out of our Christian liberty.”

My response to this starts with the fact that God created man in His own image. This, of course, in true of all men (and women), believers and unbelievers alike. Thus, all people are required by God to do certain things and refrain from others.

Christians, of course, have some capability to obey these requirements under “the liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers under the gospel [that] consists in … their yielding obedience unto him, not out of slavish fear, but a childlike love and willing mind” (Westminster Confession Chap. 20). Yet, capable or not, all of us are required to to do what God commands of us because we once had the liberty (in Adam) to do so. The fact that some have chosen to disobey Him does not release them from their obligations. Thus the obligations God places on us flow out of our liberty (past or present) to obey them.

For instance, God requires us to worship Him. The requirement of worshiping God stems from man’s original liberty to be able to fulfill it. Now, since the Fall of Adam (man), only believers can actually do this. Yet, every single one of us, male and female, believer and unbeliever, is still required to do this, whether we presently desire to or not.

It follows, then, that others–believers and unbelievers–are required not to interfere in our worship of God. In fact, it is just the opposite; they are required to assist us in our worship as part of their obligation to worship God. Civil rulers, like all others, do not have the authority to hinder us in our worship of God. Even if they do have the authority to, say, quarantine the sick and keep them away from gathered worship, they are to do so in a way that assists the sick in their worship. Thus, the civil liberty of freedom of religion flows out of our Christian liberty to worship God. 

Similarly, God also created us for a purpose:  to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and  subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the  sea and over the birds of the heavens and over  every living thing that moves on the earth.” Or, in other words, to prepare the entire earth (as was the garden already) to be the “dwelling place of God … with man” (Revelation 21:3).

To this end, God created the institution of private property. He, of course, could do this because He is the original Owner of all property and He can assign property to whom He wills. Thus, each of us is required by God to use the private property He bestows upon us to the end of fulfilling the cultural mandate (and those of us who are believers will be at least attempting to do so in our Christian liberty).

An example of this is that it is pretty hard to fill the earth with people if those people don’t have food and shelter and clothing. Thus civil rulers have no authority, except under rare and limited conditions, to hinder us from using our private property to exercise our Christian liberty in the fulfillment of God’s requirements upon us. Which in this instance would be making provision for ourselves and others to have food and shelter.

It is important to note that this “civil liberty” also extends to non Christians. For instance, a non Christian is not interested in fulfilling the cultural mandate. Yet, by God’s common grace, if she is in the business of making provision for people to fill the world, she is still participating in His purposes, even if unwillingly and sinfully. So a civil ruler interfering with the use of private property, i.e., interfering with property “rights”, to provide food and shelter and clothing is really interfering (in the sense that one can) with God’s purposes.

Of course, we can have discussions about whether the ways some people are worshipping or using their property are consistent with God’s requirements. And what are the “rare and limited conditions” under which a ruler might interfere with worship, use of private property, etc. It is obvious that we have a great diversity of opinion on this in the church. Nonetheless, it is still apparent that the civil liberties themselves, however far they extend, flow out of our original or restored liberty to obey what God has required of us.