Richard Baxter on Churches Meeting When Forbidden

The following is an excerpt from The Practical Works of Richard Baxter, the fifth volume, in his Christian Ecclesiastics, where he details answers to nearly 200 questions dealing with Christians and matters of conscience.

Richard Baxter

Baxter, an English Puritan, was obviously writing in a different day under a different set of laws, but I think that his response to these two questions is pertinent and helpful at this present time. I disagree with a few of the particulars (e.g., that it might be ok for the government to restrict meetings smaller than ten), but the general intent is, I think, well-considered and generally helpful as we process living under temporary restrictions driven by COVID-19.

Of particular value, I think, is the explanation Baxter offers regarding ceasing to hold services under orders of the magistrate due to “a time of pestilence.” He writes, “If the magistrate for a greater good, (as the common safety,) forbid church assemblies in a time of pestilence, assault of enemies, or fire, or the like necessity, it is a duty to obey him.”

As I understand it presently, that is the condition we are under. I do not like the requirement, but I think that, as long as there is a universal ban against large assemblies, we will do well to honor the orders to forebear meeting. This is not a change in position from my earlier post, which called for grace and prudence as congregations decide whether to meet or not, but a reflection of the changed circumstances. The earlier post was written when bans were not in effect and congregations were making decisions based on prudential data.

Baxter on Meeting When Forbidden By the Government

Question 109: May we omit church assemblies on the Lord's day if the magistrate forbid them?

Answer 1. It is one thing to forbid them for a time upon some special cause as infection by pestilence fire war &c and another to forbid them statedly or profanely.

2. It is one thing to omit them for a time, and another to do it ordinarily.

3. It is one thing to omit them in formal obedience to the law; and another thing to omit them in prudence, or for necessity, because we cannot keep them.

4. The assembly and the circumstances of the assembly must be distinguished:

(1.) If the magistrate for a greater good, (as the common safety,) forbid church assemblies in a time of pestilence, assault of enemies, or fire, or the like necessity, it is a duty to obey him. 1. Because positive duties give place to those great natural duties which are their end: so Christ justified himself and his disciples violation of the external rest of the sabbath. “For the sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath.” 2. Because affirmatives bind not ‘ad semper,’ and out-of-season duties become sins. 3. Because one Lord's day or assembly is not to be preferred before many, which by the omission of that one are like to be obtained.

(2.) If princes profanely forbid holy assemblies and public worship, either statedly, or as a renunciation of Christ and our religion; it is not lawful formally to obey them.

(3.) But it is lawful prudently to do that secretly for the present necessity, which we cannot do publicly, and to do that with smaller numbers, which we cannot do with greater assemblies, yea, and to omit some assemblies for a time, that we may thereby have opportunity for more: which is not formal but only material obedience.

(4.) But if it be only some circumstances of assembling that are forbidden us, that is the next case to be resolved.

Question 110: Must we obey the magistrate if he only forbid us worshipping God in such a place or country or in such numbers or the like?

Answer: We must distinguish between such a determination of circumstances, modes, or accidents, as plainly destroy the worship or the end, and such as do not.

For instance,  1. He that saith, You shall never assemble but once a year, or never but at midnight; or never above six or seven minutes at once, &c. doth but determine the circumstance of time: but he doth it so as to destroy the worship, which cannot so be done, in consistency with its ends. But he that shall say, You shall not meet till nine o’clock nor stay in the night, &c. doth no such thing.

So 2. He that saith, You shall not assemble but at forty miles distance one from another; or you shall meet only in a room that will hold but the twentieth part of the church; or you shall never preach in any city or populous place, but in a wilderness far from the inhabitants, &c. doth but determine the circumstance of place. But he so doth it as tends to destroy or frustrate the work which God commandeth us. But so doth not he that only boundeth churches by parish bounds, or forbiddeth inconvenient places.

3. So he that saith, You shall never meet under a hundred thousand together, or never above five or six, doth but determine the accident of number. But he so doth it as to destroy the work and end. For the first will be impossible and in the second way they must keep church-assemblies without ministers, when there is not so many as for every such little number to have one. But so doth not he that only saith, You shall not meet above ten thousand, nor under ten.

4. So he that saith, You shall not hear a Trinitarian, but an Arian; or you shall hear only one that cannot preach the essentials of religion, or that cries down godliness itself; or you shall hear none but such as were ordained at Jerusalem or Rome, or none but such as subscribe the council of Trent, &c. doth but determine what person we shall hear. But he so doth it as to destroy the work and end. But so doth not he that only saith, You shall hear only this able minister, rather than that.

I need not stand on the application. In the latter case we owe formal obedience. In the former we must suffer, and not obey.

For if it be meet so to obey, it is meet in obedience to give over God's worship. Christ said, “When they persecute you in one city, flee to another:” but he never said, “If they forbid you preaching in any city, or populous place, obey them. He that said, “Preach the Gospel to every creature, and to all nations, and all the world,” and that “would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” doth not allow us to forsake the souls of all that dwell in cities and populous places, and preach only to some few cottagers elsewhere: no more than he will allow us to love, pity, and relieve the bodies only of those few, and take none for our neighbours that dwell in cities, but with priest and Levite to pass them by.

Karl Barth's Political Theology

One model of political engagement for contemporary Protestant Christians can be drawn from the 20th century, Swiss theologian, Karl Barth. Barth is perhaps more well-known for his copious systematic theology, Church Dogmatics, or his public feud with his colleague, Emil Brunner, over the function of natural theology in shaping Christian doctrine and practice. However, amid his other, more famous works, Barth also produced a coherent, tested, and helpful political theology.

Barth was a citizen of Switzerland, but taught in German Universities beginning in 1921. During this period between the World Wars, Barth witnessed the rise of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, more commonly known as the Nazi party, with its infamous leader, Adolf Hitler. As a citizen of a neighboring nation, Barth observed the changes in German society, particularly in German Christianity, from within. He was eventually expelled from Germany in 1935 due to his resistance to the Nazi party, particularly his opposition to efforts to institute governmental control of various German churches. One result of Barth’s lived experience was the development of a political theology that maintains active engagement of Christians in politics while preventing churches from either controlling or being subsumed by the government.

Historical Challenge

In its essence, Nazism is not simply a political movement, but a worldview (weltanshaung) for the German people. One of the foreseeable consequences of the punitive sanctions enforced by the Allied victors of World War I in the Treaty of Versailles was the impoverishment of the German nation, which resulted in a sense of bitterness and desire for relief from oppression. The Nazi platform was, as a result, geared toward restoring national pride through a comprehensive social program that included such infamous institutions as the Hitler Youth, which aimed to build support for the rising National Socialist party and its vision for Germany from an early age.

The smothering nature of such a worldview program could not leave the independence of the German churches alone. As Arthur Cochrane observes, “The National Socialist ideology was actually a political religion.” (Cochrane, 1976, p. 21) At the heart of this political religion was the exaltation of the Aryan race, which began to take on cult-like characteristics, particularly when Hitler’s virulent hatred of the Jews began to spread. In his infamous screed, Mein Kampf, Hitler blamed Europe’s Jews for most of the problems of German, writing, “It was the Jews who plotted the First World War, and they are the power behind Germany’s two archenemies: international capitalism and international Bolshevism.” (quoted in Cochrane, 1976, 23) The National Socialist movement was, thus, in many ways a religious movement. Hitler’s vision was for “the State to control and to direct every area of life. All social, cultural, and economic life was supervised by the Party.” (Cochrane, 1976, 29) This included total control of churches. (Barth, 1939, p. 5)

Early on in his political career, before taking power, Hitler had deceived Christians regarding his position on independence in church doctrine and practice. Cochrane notes, “In Mein Kampf he [Hitler] stressed that the part would be neutral with respect to the confessional or denominational differences. . . . He maintained that Church and State should be strictly separated, and he condemned political parties that owed allegiance to any particular denomination . . .” (Cochrane, 1976, p. 35) Is should have been obvious early on, however, that National Socialism was a totalizing worldview that could not exist peaceably with Christianity or any other religion. Yet, on the 23rd of March in 1933—in the lead-up to his 1934 election—Hitler reiterated, “The rights of the Churches will not be diminished, nor their position as regards the State altered.” (Quoted in Barth, 1962, p. 24) Many Germans believed him.

Despite Hitler’s claims to the contrary, once in power, Hitler began placing officials in the ecclesiastical hierarchies in Germany. He also recognized a “German Christian” party, whose membership consisted of individuals who supported the totalizing worldview of National Socialism while still claiming to be Christian. Cochrane observes, “While the Church was engaged in withstanding the State’s encroachment upon its offices and government, it also had to combat the Neopaganism of the ‘German Faith Movement’ which the government, at first secretly and later openly, espoused, as well as the nationalist and racial ideology of the Party . . . .” (Cochrane, 1976, p. 37) The conflation of Church and State, largely through the State’s attempts to take over various German churches required political and spiritual resistance. It also required the development of a political theology upon which an appropriate resistance to State intrusion could be based. Karl Barth would provide that political theology.

The Resistance

Some Christian clergy in Germany resisted the Nazi inroads and immoral impositions in the life of the churches. (Haddorff, 2004, p. 3) However, after the dust settled in 1945, the evidence shows there had been very little civil resistance to National Socialism. “On the other hand,” Barth notes in Eine Schweizer Stimme, from the very first months on there was a German Church struggle. Even it was not a total resistance against National Socialism. . . . It confined itself to the Church’s Confession, to the Church service, and to Church order as such. It was only a partial resistance.” (Barth, 1945, p. 5) Barth’s vision for the Christian resistance to the totalizing civil religion of National Socialism required a total commitment.

The main points of Barth’s political theology, as it was published during the heat of the struggle against Nazism, were contained in seed form in his Bonn lectures on Ethics from the 1920’s. (Barth, 1981, pp. 440-51) Many of the same elements are discernable in his 1928 and 1929 lectures on ethics at Münster. (Barth, 1981, pp. 517-21) Though the origins are visible early on, Barth’s political theology was more fully developed and expressed more clearly as the challenges from National Socialism changed. In a short book, Theological Existence To-day!, published in 1933, Barth called German Evangelical churches to retain their independence from the National Socialist regime and instead honor the Word of God—that is, the Bible.

Barth’s critique focused on the syncretism of the German Faith Movement, or “German Christians,” with the German government. It was not simply that candidates and policies of one political party were being affirmed by a Christian group. (Hankins, 2008, pp. 143-76) That is usually done on a case-by-case basis. Rather, the theologically liberal (which is to say amorphous) “German Christian” faction merged itself with the German national government of the Nazi’s. The goal of the “German Christians” was to be indistinguishable from the German culture of the day, so that every German would want to return to Church to be built up for the vocation to which the national government was calling the German people—that is, the good “Christians” in Germany who happened to be of the Aryan race. (Barth, 1962, pp. 48-49)

Although the “German Christians” had a theology that would be more consistent with that of mainline denominations in the United States, it would be a significant mistake to overlook the fact that this blending of civil religion and Christianity can take place within self-described orthodox circles. Simply because one affirms the virgin birth, the inerrancy of Scripture, the bodily resurrection of Christ, and the doctrines of the Trinity is no guarantee that a thoughtless loyalty to party or politician is not a ready danger. Barth’s critique is as effective for theologically left leaning Americans who ignore the horrors of abortion and revise doctrines to embrace the sexual revolution as it is for right-leaning, Bible-thumping Christians who adapt their faith in other ways to overlook evils in the marketplace or in the politician’s personal life.

On this side of the horrors of World War II and the Nazi desecrations of the imago Dei in the Holocaust, it is hard to understand why the German Evangelical Churches were not more active in their resistance of the Nazi party. Barth chided German evangelicals for their passivity, and noted that a sort of pragmatic realism was a driving force for the acceptance of the advance of the Nazis and the ecclesiological affronts of the “German Christian” movement. Despite this, Barth’s early contentions were mainly theological rather than political. In other words, his concern was not that the government was doing evil things to people, but rather that there was a merging of the government of the Church and the national government. (Barth, 1963, pp. 55-61) His concern was that the Church would cease to be distinct as the differences between Christians and non-Christians dissolved in conjunction with the merger of Church and State. (Barth, 1962, 67-71)

Even if it seems Barth’s emphasis was misdirected in retrospect, his focus on maintaining theological freedom of the Churches to preach a biblically formed doctrine—even in opposition to prevailing political trends—is an essential aspect of a free society that can resist evil. (Jehle, 2002, p. 99). Barth’s goal was that the Church could continue to preach the gospel to the State and to the whole world. This is an essential aspect of encouraging justice in society. In the conclusion to Theological Existence To-day!, Barth (1962) wrote,

[T]heology and the Church cannot enter upon a winter sleep within the ‘Total State’; no moratorium and no ‘Assimilation’ (Gleichschaltung) can befall them. They are the natural frontiers of everything, even the ‘Totalitarian State.’ For even in this ‘Total State’ the nation always lives by the Word of God, the content of which is ‘forgiveness of sins, resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.’ To this Word the Church and theology have to render service for the people. . . . The Church must be allowed to be true to her proper pragmatic function, and be willing to be true. (p. 84)

Although it would turn out to be insufficient, Barth’s call for theological action in response to the “German Christian” movement contributed to the formation of the Pastor’s Emergency League in 1933 and continued through the adoption of the Barmen Declaration in 1934.

The Barmen Declaration was a succinct, ecumenical statement of evangelical belief designed to help faithful, orthodox Christians to resist the encroaching power of Nazism. David Haddorf (2004) helpfully summarizes the six paragraphs of the statement:

1) The church must hear and obey the one Word of God (Jesus Christ) and no other voice, person, events, powers, or sources of truth as God’s revelation; 2) Jesus Christ claims our whole life, and rejects the idea that other “lords” rule over other areas of our lives; 3) the church, too, must not be forced to have its message altered by prevailing social ideologies or political convictions; 4) the church does have a proper form of government, but rejects the notion that there are special leaders (Fuhrer) of authority over and within the church; 5) draws for a separation of duties of church and state, and rejects the state becoming the church and the church becoming the state; 6) the church’s task and mission should not be corrupted by its pride and desire for power and prestige.” (pp. 23-24)

This theological statement, which was largely drafted by Barth, was affirmed by the Confessing Church in May 1934. At that point, Barth’s welcome in Germany was nearly exhausted. (Clark, 1963, p. 47) This, perhaps, indicates the importance of his perspective and how significant a challenge his views were to National Socialism.

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Once Barth was removed from Germany and sent back to his native Switzerland in 1935, he continued to write on political theology. His three main political works between 1935 and 1946 were “Gospel and Law” (1935), “Church and State” (1938), and “The Christian Community and the Civil Community” (1946). Barth also published another helpful essay during this time, The Church and the Political Problem of Our Day (1939). These four works, which are expansions of themes found earlier in Barth, provide a framework for his vision of political theology, especially the relationship of the Church and State. All of his works reiterate the need for separation between Church and State with each entity playing its proper, limited role.

In his brief volume, “Church and State,” Barth argues that both institutions are ordained by God, but each has a particular role. The church is to proclaim justification through faith; the state is to enforce justice. (Barth, 1991, pp. 38-40) As such, rather than a sharp distinction between the two institutions, there is a vital relationship. The Church proclaims the gospel and reminds the State of its role under subjection to Christ. The State should subject itself to God’s intent (not the Church’s authority) and provide justice, especially the justice that allows the Church to proclaim the gospel freely, even to the state itself. This effectively recognized the legitimacy of government as declared in Romans 13, but rejecting anything like a totalizing state that could control truth.

The State, according to Barth, should be neutral with respect to truth. (1991, p. 42) This means it is not the role of the State to determine or regulate truths like Church doctrines. When the State oversteps its epistemic limits, it quickly becomes “demonic” because it fails to fulfill its God ordained duty and, instead, attempts to direct worship toward itself. As Barth argues, “The state becomes ‘demonic’ not so much by an unwarrantable assumption of autonomy—as is often assumed—as by the loss of its legitimate, relative independence, as by a renunciation of its true substance, dignity, function and purpose, a renunciation which works out in Caesar—worship, the myth of the State and the like.” (1991, p. 53) When the roles of the State and Church are blended, both institutions lose their value and must thus be resisted by faithful Christians.

The key to Barth’s perspective is contained in the last section of “Church and State.” Barth calls for the Church to pray for the State, but he notes that the Church must fulfill this service whether or not the State provides justice and without considering whether the State is worthy of continued existence. The Church should expect the State to fulfill its role in protecting the preaching of justification, but the Church should be prepared “to carry this preaching into practice by suffering injustice instead of receiving justice, and thereby acknowledging the State’s power to be . . . God-given.” (1991, p. 77) Continued prayer for the State, however, does not constitute support for all the efforts of the State, as when it is “guilty of opposition to the Lord of lords, to that divine ordinance to which it owes its power.” (Barth, 1991, p. 78) This radical submission, even to an unjust State, could take the form of being a victim of the State’s injustice. Suffering persecution for the proclamation of the gospel and the pursuit of justice would be the Christians’ duty as citizens. Since, as Barth argues, “Christians would, in point of fact, become enemies of any State if, when the State threatens their freedom, they did not resist, or if they concealed their resistance—although this resistance would be very calm and dignified.” (1991, p. 79)

In short, according to Barth’s political theology, the Church has the responsibility to help the State be what it ought to be rather than simply resist it carte blanche or support it uncritically. The Church also has a responsibility to refrain from attempting to control the State. The Church is always political, though it should never seek to replace the State. (Barth, 1946, 154) For Barth, Christians have the responsibility to remain engaged in shaping society without seeking to dominate it to introduce a theocracy. Such a careful balance between critical participation and refusing to control is a challenge for the Church, but is essential if the Church is to retain its prophetic voice.

Conclusion

In the United States, the Constitution prevents religious tests for public office and numerous court cases have been heard through the years to ensure the government remains distinct from the hierarchy of any religion. However, recent shifts in laws that have been passed have—sometimes by design, it seems—required abandonment of conscience protections for some Christians to enter into the public square. Even in the liberal democracy that is the U.S., there are threats of the government failing to remain neutral on questions of truth and attempting to become a Totalizing State. Elsewhere in the world this is more significant, though the threat is growing in the U. S.

Following Karl Barth, the Christian response to attempts by the government to seize power should be to continue to preach the gospel and to use appropriate means to convince the State to fulfill its role in guaranteeing the freedom to do so.

Perhaps more significantly for our day, Christians as individuals and the Church as a collective (to the extent that a Church catholic can be said to exist in the U. S.) should be very careful that they do not support an unjust State by giving unwarranted support or cheerfully ignoring (or defending) the shortcomings of a favored politician. Even if the formal roles of Church and State are not blended, the prophetic, gospel witness of the Church is at risk when it becomes too entangled in the role of the State or blind support for how the State’s role is carried out.

NOTE: I wrote a longer version of this argument, which was published in the Spring 2018 edition of Criswell Theological Review.