We have it on the highest authority possible that the children of this world are sometimes wiser than the children of light.
One has the feeling that when Christians in general, and theologians in particular, venture into the political and quasi-political realms, they appear somewhat as innocents abroad. I fear that both Wayne Grudem in his Politics according to the Bible and Dr. John Hayward, in his review of Grudem’s book in the October issue of EN, give this impression. I shall enumerate a number of areas where, I believe, they have misconstrued things.
1. Dr. Hayward writes: ‘Grudem demonstrates . . . how the nine unelected members of the US Supreme Court have recently appropriated the power not only to interpret and judge according to the nation’s laws and Constitution, but also to make new laws — a section that has worrying parallels with what is reportedly happening with Britain’s law lords and Supreme Court’.
Judges have been making law in this country for hundreds of years. This is how the Common Law grew and developed. Legal philosophers debate whether judges declared an already existing law which was hidden in their bosom and which was founded on custom or whether, in reality, they were actually making the law. What is indisputable is that the Common Law was largely judge-made law, law which was made according to the doctrine of precedent. Historically, Equity grew up in the Chancery Courts as an attempt to soften the rigours of the Common Law and of certain statutes. Furthermore, our judges have frequently been the last line of defence against an executive that has encroached more and more upon the rights of the individual.
The USA system is different from ours by virtue of its possessing a written constitution. Many Christians in the USA lament the fact that it was the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade which opened the floodgates to wholesale abortion in the USA; however, they either forget or do not know that it was also the Supreme Court which effectively made law in Brown v. Board of Education by declaring segregation of schools on the basis of colour to be unconstitutional. This may be why, in the American scene, those who are against Roe v. Wade are perceived by many liberals as being reactionary and anti equal human rights. The leading American legal philosopher and former Oxford professor, Ronald Dworkin, certainly makes this connection in Life’s Dominion.
2. The pejorative use of the phrase ‘unelected members of the US Supreme Court’ is unfortunate. An independent judiciary is one of the safeguards of the rule of law. The US has a strict separation of powers and, this being so, it is right that the judiciary is unelected. In this country, for historical reasons, there is not a strict separation of powers: since the executive is answerable to, and scrutinised by, Parliament, members of the executive are drawn from the legislature, while, historically, the Lord Chancellor was a member of all three organs of government. Nevertheless, the judges have not been elected and, subject to certain requirements, are secure in their tenure. This, of course, safeguards their independence from the whims of public opinion as well as from those of an executive which, the judges ensure, must live under the rule of law.
3. It is probably worth pointing out that many of the measures in this country which have concerned Christians have been passed by the elected members of Parliament: it has been statutory legislation, rather than judge-made law, which has caused most concern among some Christians. Of course, the judges have to interpret and apply the law, but they cannot be blamed if they correctly interpret a piece of legislation which we regret. Indeed, parliamentary democracy can create what Lord Hailsham rightly identified as the ‘dilemma of democracy’, where elective dictatorship may result.
4. The USA situation is considerably different from ours. Roe v. Wade decided that any state law which forbade abortion was unconstitutional. Whatever one thinks of the merits or otherwise of that decision, it was for the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution. The decision was based on a woman’s constitutional right to privacy. In this country the legalisation of abortion in certain circumstances is the result of an Act of Parliament, not of judge made law. The UK law is not cast in terms of conflict between the rights of the mother and those of the foetus, but in terms of the welfare principle. It is unfortunate, to say the least, when Christians in the UK allow secularists to cast the debate in American terms.
5. There are historical reasons why US citizens favour less government intervention than many European citizens. None of us does theology in a vacuum. This applies as much to Professor Grudem (whom I regard as a very fine and godly theologian, and who has spoken in our church on numerous occasions) as to anyone else. Too frequently Christians have interpreted Romans 13.1-7 as if it were a treatise for governors on how to govern; in fact, of course, these verses set out the reasons why Christians in Rome were to honour the political rulers of the day. Paul is not necessarily stating in these verses that government must never concern itself with anything other than punishing evil and commending good.
Furthermore, the punishing of evil and commending of good to which Paul refers is relative not absolute: for the Roman authorities permitted or tolerated many things which Paul classed as evil, homosexuality being one of them. Professor Grudem sees wealth distribution by governments as a social agenda which the Bible does not support. Indeed. But then, there is nothing in Roman 13 about state-funded education for children, nor is there anything in Scripture which requires those in authority to ensure that there are emergency services such as fire fighters maintained at the public expense.
It would be a bold person, however, who argued that the authorities in New York should not have maintained the fire crews who saved lives on 9/11. But this is where the logic of Professor Grudem’s position leads. This is not to argue for socialism; it is simply to acknowledge, as a hermeneutical principle, that we must not try to milk a passage of Scripture for more than it is worth.
Stephen Clark,
minister of Freeschool Court Evangelical Church, Bridgend
