Good Government

“Since the property, honor, and life of the whole city have been committed to the faithful keeping [of the council and authorities], they would be remiss in their duty before God and [people] if they did not seek its welfare and improvement day and night with all the means at their command.” From To the Councilmen in All Germany that They Should Establish and Maintain Christian Schools (Luther’s Works, Vol. 45, p. 355).

 

I determined to write this post before the election results came in. On purpose. Because I believed strongly that however the election might turn out, there is one important element of Luther’s theology regarding government that is important to remember and can be agreed upon, I hope and pray, by persons of all political affiliations. And that is that government is God’s instrument for caring for the people.

Persons with different political convictions may come to different conclusions about how best to care for the welfare of the city (or state or country) and its citizens. Some will stress individual responsibility while others will look for more systemic responses. Some will focus on the government offering direct aid and support, while others believe it should set the conditions in which individuals can thrive. Those are legitimate differences. But they must be differences about policy not about the fundamental commitment that government is responsible for caring for the welfare of its people.

Luther, you see, believed that God was an active God, always at work for the good of God’s people. And he believed that God exercised authority through two distinct arenas and toward two particular ends. The first arena was the spiritual one, and God worked through the church to make sure that all knew of God’s love, grace and mercy in Christ and so had peace of heart in this world and eternal life in the next. The second arena was what he would call the “temporal” one – the world of our immediate and physical needs of this time and place (as opposed to our spiritual and eternal needs) – and God’s means of caring for our temporal needs is through the family and government.

Indeed, for Luther these two things – family and government – were quite similar in their function – to care for those under their charge – and differ only in scale. The individual household – which was defined far more broadly in Luther’s day than in our own – cared for the children, grandparents, household servants, visiting guests, and all who might take shelter under the same roof. It was the local agent for care, whereas the government was the broader, communal and societal agent of care, tending the needs of the larger society. In one sense, Luther viewed government as “parents writ large,” as they were to tend the needs of their people as parents cared for their children.

The quotation above comes from a treatise Luther wrote in 1524 urging city councils throughout Germany to support public education. In the middle ages, most education was consigned to the church (although they were increasingly funded by local municipalities by Luther’s day). But rise of the Reformation initially gave rise to an anti-educational wave for two reasons. First, distrust of church teachings led to distrust of church schools. Why support schools that were teaching erroneous doctrine? Second, some took Luther’s doctrine of “the priesthood of all believers” – the idea that any Christian can offer absolution and the comfort of the gospel to another apart from the mediation of a priest – to mean that God spoke directly to the heart of individuals and that therefore there was no need for significant education; indeed, education became rather suspect as potentially encouraging a form of self-reliance apart from God. Municipality leaders, seizing on these “theological” warrants but probably more motivated by a desire to get rid of the expense of running schools, let the education system deteriorate.

Because he had been quoted by those who supported the dissolution of schools, Luther felt compelled to write a defense of the importance of education, arguing, “My dear sirs, if we have to sped such large sums every year on guns, roads, bridges, dams, and countless similar items to insure the temporal peace and prosperity of a city, why should not much more be devoted to the poor neglected youth…? (LW 45:350). Continuing, “A city’s best and greatest welfare, safety, and strength consist rather in its having many able, learned, wise, honorable, and well-educated citizens” (356).

When some argued that education was the responsibility of parents, Luther countered that many parents simply do not have the resources, time, or ability to educate their children adequately and therefore this responsibility fell to the government. This was particularly true when it came to education because children are so vulnerable and God has a particular interest in protecting “the least of these.” And that captures the heart of Luther’s understanding of government, that God institutes government to care for the needs of its people and the larger world God created with special attention to the most vulnerable.

So my hope and plea as we move through and beyond this election is that Christians of all political loyalties can agree to
1) hold government accountable for the care of its citizens and remind office-holders of their God-given responsibility to care for all and particularly for those who are most vulnerable,
2) imagine that those citizens with whom they may disagree still seek the welfare of the people and world and therefore engage in civil debate about policies, and
3) hold all of our leaders in prayer because acting in the interest of the larger society takes courage and conviction. Good government, that is, takes a lot of work and all have a responsibility to contribute themselves and to pray for our leaders.

 

Post image: Detail, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Allegory of Good and Bad Government, c. 1337-40, fresco, Sala della Pace (Hall of Peace).