Violent Political Action: A Christian Approach? Pt. 3 John Calvin

The third of three articles examining whether or not violent political action, in the form of rebellion or insurgency, have a place in Christian teaching, looking at the writings of John Calvin.

This is the final piece of three.  The others can be found here: Violent Political Action: A Christian Approach? Pt. 1 Biblical Foundations.  And here: Violent Political Action: A Christian Approach? Pt. 2 The Catholic Catechism.  Here we conclude the essay by looking at the theology of John Calvin.

A foundational idea for Christian theology going back to Augustine is that rulers and magistrates, even unjust and evil ones, are put there by God, and Christians should accept their authority.  When laws are evil or unjust, it is the obligation of Christians to obey God and not man.  Even an evil ruler is God’s appointed representative.   The believer is generally expected to suffer the unjust wrath from the king or magistrate when they are punished for doing what is right.  Martyrdom is the path of choice for the individual Christian.  We trust in God’s judgement, that God will right all wrongs and reward the righteous.  Martyrdom is always an act of faith, trusting the judgement of God in the face of evil actions, laws and people.

In a sinful world, though, the magistrate is given the power of the sword to restrain and punish evil.  The king can use violence to promote righteousness and justice.  This separates the role of the state from that of the church.  The church is pastoral and ministers the Word and sacraments.  The state wields the power of the sword.  But the goal is supposed to be the same: to promote righteousness and justice in society.  Each in their own way, each reinforcing the role of the other.

In just war theory going back to Augustine, one of the primary justified uses of physical violence and force is defensive, defending one’s people and place from unjust attack.  But not only must one use violence for the right reason, but one must also use violence in the right way, that is, according to upright conventions.  Fighting only with combatants.  Fighting in a way that minimizes harm. How a Christian fights is as important why a Christian fights.

There is a couple of sections in Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion that point to a roadmap for when it is just and right to use violence rebelliously to oppose tyrants and evil kings.  The preferred route is always to work peacefully within the system for change, respecting the rules and procedures as set up.  We saw this approach in part two with our look at the Catholic Catechism.  Calvin also lays out paths other than that of martyrdom.

Let’s look at what he had to say in 4.20.30-31 of the Institutes:

30. When God intervenes, it is sometimes by unwitting agents.

“Here are revealed his goodness, his power and his providence.  For sometimes he raises up open avengers from among his servants, and arms them with his command to punish the wicked government and deliver his people, oppressed in unjust ways, from miserable calamity.  Sometimes he directs to this end the rage of men with other intentions and other endeavours.  Thus, he delivered his people of Israel from the tyranny of Pharaoh through Moses (Ex. 3:7-10); from the violence of Chusan, king of Syria, through Othniel (Judges 3:9); and from other servitudes through other kings and judges.  Thus, he tamed the pride of Tyre by the Egyptians, the insolence of the Egyptians by the Assyrians, the fierceness of the Assyrians by the Chaldeans; the arrogance of Babylon by the Medes and Persians, after Cyrus had already subjugated the Medes.  The ungratefulness of the kings of Judah and Israel and their impious obstinacy toward his many benefits, he sometimes by the Assyrians, sometimes by the Babylonians, crushed and afflicted—though not all in the same way.”

“For the first kind of men, when they had been sent by God’s lawful calling to carry out such acts, in taking up arms against kings, did not at all violate that majesty which is implanted in kings by God’s ordination; but, armed from heaven, they subdued the lesser power [ed. God being the greater power and the king being the lesser] with the greater, just as it is lawful for the kings to punish their subordinates.  But the later kind of men, although they were directed by God’s hand whither he pleased, and executed his work unwittingly, yet planned in their minds to do nothing but an evil act.”

So, here is the first justification for armed revolt or insurgency against one’s ruler.  On one level, acting violently against the king who is there because of God, even when that king is a tyrant, is always an evil act.  Yet, there comes a time when God will raise up men, give them a calling, whether consciously or unwittingly, to acts as God’s instrument of judgement against the king.  This sets the bar high. 

Leading a rebellion can be a “calling,” a “vocation,” from God.  But embracing that calling does not absolve you from the evil you are doing to fulfill that calling.  A man of integrity who would take up this calling, who would claim it for himself, would do so knowing it would require him to do evil to accomplish that task.  In a sense, you place your soul, your eternal future, on the line to do the work of God.  You will face the judgement of God for your actions. Yet at the same time it is the calling of God. We are dealing with a mystery here.  You will face judgment for your rebellion in Christ, yes, but it is judgement none the less. The stark, cold, honesty of this, even though crouched in theological speak, has a very realpolitik feel to it.  Calvin lives in the world of the real, not in the world of abstract ideals. God does at times give people the vocation, the calling, of punishing an evil ruler.  The key is knowing when to claim that for one’s self or urge it upon another.

Continuing:

31. Constitutional defenders of the people’s freedom.

“But however these deeds of men are judged in themselves, still the Lord accomplished his work through them alike when he broke the bloody scepters of arrogant kings and when he overturned intolerable governments.  Let the princes hear and be afraid.”

“But we must, in the meantime, be very careful not to despise or violate that authority of magistrates, full of venerable majesty, which God has established by the weightiest decrees, even though it may reside with the most unworthy men, who defile it as much as they can with their own wickedness.  For, if the correction of unbridled despotism is the Lord’s to avenge, let us not at once think that it is entrusted to us, to whom no command has been given except to obey and suffer.

“I am speaking all the while of private individuals.  For if there are now magistrates of the people, appointed to restrain the willfulness of kings (as in ancient times the ephors were set against the Spartan kings, or the tribunes of the people against the Roman consuls, or the demarchs against the senate of the Athenians; and in perhaps as things are now, such powers as the three estates exercise in every realm when they hold their chief assemblies), I am so far from forbidding them to withstand, in accordance with their duty, the fierce licentiousness of kings, that, if they wink at kings who violently fall upon and assault the lowly common folk, I declare that their dissimulation involves nefarious perfidy, because they dishonestly betray the freedom of the people, of which they know that they have been appointed protectors by God’s ordinance.”

This section continues the theme of the previous section, and then opens yet another door.  A smaller power, such as a local prince or magistrate, would be obligated not to “wink” at the injustices and abuses of the king who stands over him because his calling as magistrate – the obligation from God in wielding the power of the sword – to protect the people would require him to defend his people against the predations of an evil and unjust king.  In the American context this would obligate a governor to stand up to the federal government when the federal government infringes on the wellbeing of his people.  It would require the mayor to stand up to the governor.   And it would require them to resist with the force of arms, if necessary.   

But it would also open the door for a community within a sovereign nation to withdraw and develop their own political consciousness, perhaps using the existing charters to govern themselves within the system.  Or perhaps as a quasi-secessionist entity whose designated magistrates then would have the moral justification to oppose the tyrannical rule of the larger power.  I do think Calvin envisions working within the system as long as possible, but that eventually the lesser power within that system can claim the obligation as protector of his people against the predations of an overbearing larger, perhaps imperial, power.  The larger power might even have a military or police presence within the territory as the larger controlling power, but the lesser magistrate claims the divine authority to rebel against this larger authority by means of a guerrilla war or an insurgency.

For me this is a sound beginning and I think a foundation I am comfortable with.  Martyrdom remains the baseline for the Christian. But within a sinful world there is not always clean-cut distinction between good and evil.  Sometimes one is dealing with lesser and greater evils.  The power of the sword entrusted to the magistrate is one such lesser evil, used by the authorities to restrain evil and promote virtue.  It is in this role of the sword, the role of “king” that justifications for direct political action from a Christian perspective is to be considered.

Looking deeper into this issue, there are a number of concerns that must be wrestled through in regard to rebellion.   We must establish both the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the regime as well as that of any prospective rebellion.  Who has legitimacy and why?  This is very important to establish.  In today’s context it is not always obvious, and I think that this is part of the point of the managerial society.  The enemy is everyone and no one, its everywhere and no where all at once.  Who is sovereign?  In some sense the system and its managers are sovereign, yet the nature of the technical-managerial system is that persons are merely incidental to the policies, procedures and structures of the system itself.  In that sense, no one is sovereign.  You are fighting an idea.  Yet, this idea is instantiated and reified everywhere we look.

Legitimacy.  It is a growing realization among many these days that the system itself is losing its legitimacy to rule.  In the US neither political party has a legitimate claim to rule.  At the same time, living within the system of the administrative, managerial state as expressed both in the private and public sphere, we have a hard time conceiving life any other way.  We have grown used to many of the comforts of the western world and don’t want to give them up.  If we could change things without changing how we live our lives, that would be great.  I think this is the allure of the world that Rousseau opened up for people: born blank slates, corrupted by the system, believing that if we tinker with the system, we can manage away all our problems.  This world is the one that captures our imagination and lives in harmony with the core myths of the West, the Myth of Progress especially.  In many ways, we live under the boot of a grand global empire of technical management.  Our local communities have been “occupied” by this frame.  Even if we can cogently make the case that the global order lacks true legitimacy, it has functional legitimacy because we give it legitimacy through our compliance. 

When or if the time comes for rebellion or insurgency, how do we convince the populace to fight?  For women to give their sons over to the fight, wives to give their husbands?  There is no denying that rebellion is an act of evil, however justified.  With sadness we will have to bless our men to fight, to taint themselves with blood.  The calling from God is always tricky to claim.  And even in claiming it, it does not absolve one of guilt.  David was not allowed to build the temple because of the blood on his hands. 

The other form of legitimacy is the common ascent of the people, that this rebellion would reflect the general will of the people.  This is a tricky thing.  How do you know?  How can you secure it?  50% plus one is not the general will.  This would have to be a “spiritual” struggle for the soul of the people.  It would require that the people become “conscious” of themselves as a people, not necessarily as a nation, but as a locality tied together in a common cause to throw off the oppressor and its enablers.  They would become conscious that their way of life is existentially threatened, enough so that they are willing to die and to fight for that way of life. This is the essence of the political. From the perspective of the Christian community, it would have to discover a political consciousness, a recognition that it has an existential way of existence that is so threatened unjustly by the regime, that the magistrates of the community conclude that the lesser evil of violence is the only way to protect the community from the greater evil of the regime.  That is a lot of “ifs.”   The Christian community lacks this consciousness today. There is no true “us” of the Christian community in the West today. We have not yet formed the existential identity of “friend.” Without this, there is no true “enemy.”  At the same time, is the regime so irredeemably evil, so overwhelmingly threatening to our way of existence that the only option left is armed resistance?  We are not there yet.

There is more that can and should be said.  Even I have questions about what is said here.  But it does erect a framework within which to discuss the problem.  I also think that it will be useful in coming Substack pieces to work our way through some Schmitt, discussing notions such as “sovereignty,” “legitimacy,” “legality,” and the “political” especially as they relate to the Christian community.  Schmitt helps us through the fog of the ideology of the west to see clearly the present situation as well as the task ahead for the Christian community in the present political context.