Vote?

a 19th century painting by Jean Paul Laurens,
of a very cranky St. John Chrysostom "voting," or confronting
a very haughty Empress Aelia Eudoxia

 

I'm on a discussion list called "Theology." This name is comical, most of the time, because the discussion is usually anything but. 

A recent topic has formed under the rubrical question, "Who should we Christians vote for?" And the subsequent commentary is, as you might expect, replete with vocabulary like "nut job," "socialist," lame stream media," "wing nut," "muslim," "morman," "bloviator," "liberal," "conservative," etc., etc.

A certain preacher (prefacing himself with "Dr Archbishop," zeroing in from some very interesting sector of modern church history), advised that one needn't worry about how to vote, because "the Spirit of Discernment will surely tell you to vote the idiot out of the Whitehouse." Sic. Rather sic.

In all of these comments, there seemed to be held, as axiomatic, the belief that the Bible and Christian Tradition know all about voting in American elections.

This belief, it turns out, is unsubstantiated. It has no legs.

The idea of "voting" is a more difficult subject than one might expect. In the long history of the church, the vote given to every adult (i.e., universal suffrage) to choose an executive is a very recent thing.

The Church is certainly more used to dealing with Emperors, Kings, oligarchies and plutocracies (like the one we might be in, actually). No matter what form of government, or how intensely anti-Christian (or even "antichrist") the government was, the Church has been willing to articulate its prophetic voice about certain prevailing concerns.

I suggest that in the use of this new thing -- this "vote" -- that we follow the Church's longstanding prevailing concerns (or "values") when we make our political decisions.

These concerns can actually be tallied up in Scripture (from the pronouncements of our Lord Himself, and also from the Apostles) and in Church History from 90 AD on. What did the Church constantly "complain" about, in the face of the State?

The Church's "governmental" concern was firstly to be left alone to worship God through the celebration of the Eucharist, in accordance with the Apostles' teachings. This you can find in the writings of the Apologists, especially Justin Martyr. You might want to call this concern "religious liberty," but myself, I don't know -- that term, "religious liberty" is tied up inextricably with the concept of modern terms like "establishment" and "separation of church and state." I rather like some elements of establishment (like certain tax-free amenities) -- but this is not at all what the Apostolic Fathers were writing about. And I'm not at all sure whether the Church has evern been sanguine about "pluralism," either. If we ever get to a state of affairs where we lose our tax privileges, it is not difficult for me to imagine Justin or Clement or Ignatius saying something like "Well, at least now you don't have to accept the equal validity of other religions, n'est-ce pas?" (I mean, doesn't it make sense that if you accept at least a rudimentary form of establishmentism, then you must also accept a sort of neo-Roman syncretism, like what modern pluralism really is?)

Another concern was for the treatment of slaves, and the treatment of other disenfranchised people (like women, children -- born and unborn, and non-citizens). The Church worked to raise money for the manumission, or freeing, of slaves.

Another concern, especially before Constantine, was about the prosecution of war. For the first three centuries, the Church was largely pacifistic, actively doubting whether anything was worth the horrors of military conflict. Bishop Ambrose of Milan actually locked the door of the church to Emperor Theodosius for his having commanded his troops to massacre 7000 civilians  in Thessalonika.

Another concern was about the appetite for violent entertainment. It was the Church's complaints, over a few generations, that led the Roman Empire to put a stop to gladiatorial combat. And the Church continued to protest against entertainments that played on violent and sexual themes. The Church has always been more "puritanical" than we'd care to admit.

What became prominent as prevailing concern, stretching over the centuries, was the State's relationship with the poor. Many, many Church Fathers -- starting with James in his Epistle and including figures like the heroic St. John Chrysostom -- continually reproached the rich and powerful for their lack of concern about the economic and physical miseries of their fellow man. Chrysostom himself was sent to his certain death in exile because he dared to criticize the Empress for her luxurious aristocratic largesse (Aelia Eudoxia, in haute couture, was lucky to have, willing to join her, a lot of other people whose feelings were hurt by the Patriarch of Constantinople -- including the Patriarch of Alexandria and his imperial minions).

Later on, in the exceptional period of time known as the Byzantine Empire, the Church actually invented the idea of the hospital, as we know it today. St. Basil the Great constructed, in his town from his own funds, a vast complex that offered food and assistance to the poor, and healthcare for the sick and infirm. Healthcare and welfare have always been essentially Christian notions -- at least, "Christian" in the sense of Holy Tradition.

What is interesting here is to consider what is absent from these prevailing concerns of the Church over the centuries, and under various forms of governments.

Never once did the Church stand for the de-regulation of economic activity, especially usury. The Church has never been "on the side" of free market or business/corporate interests. You may counter that there Christian voices, starting with the Reformation, waxed lyrical about capital and complex interest, industrialism, and the protestant work ethic: if you were to say so, I would gently remind you that laissez-faire theories used to be called "liberal" in the olden days, and were produced by Reformation economic theory that severed the marketplace from the judgment of the Saints (cf. Revelation 20.4-6).

Never once has the Church opposed "Statism" per se, or "federalism" or the centralization of the State. This is hard for me to admit, because I harbor not a few libertarian notions. But the fact remains that the Church has always perceived a single, strong State as an aid to the promulgation of the Gospel. Witness, as an example, the early Church's very positive view of the pax Romana established by Caesar Augustus -- this despite the sporadic (but harsh) persecutions of the Church by Roman officials. The Church has never profited from the breakdown of civilization.

Never once did the Church oppose immigration. Americans, over the course of their short history, have repeatedly opposed immigration. But the Church, in her longer history, has not.

Never once did the Church protest against what we have grown to call today, inaccurately, "socialism." The Church, historically speaking over the centuries, has never discouraged any "dole" or "welfare" or governmental relief given to the poor. This sort of "Christian protest against relief" is a rather modern anomaly that is troubling, to say the least, and has nothing to do with real Christian values.

Real Christian values -- which one expects should constitute the benchmark for Christian voting -- has always been "conservative" when it comes to doctrine and belief. 

But it has always been quite "liberal," as it were, when it comes to economic legislation and political enfranchisement.

So if you are interested in voting, then plan your vote under the historic guidance of the Church. Listen to the Holy Spirit, Who not only speaks to you directly, but through Holy Tradition. No one can tell you, from Holy Tradition, that you "must" vote -- that is not at all an obvious Biblical or ecclesial command.

But voting is certainly a privilege -- and if you use that privilege, you are enrolling yourself in the franchise of this government, and you must answer to the hard criteria that the Church has laid down for government throughout the ages.

Because if you really take the theory of modern democracy seriously, in a strictly Christian sense, the Ruler of this nation will be neither Barak Obama nor Mitt Romney -- it is you.

And you will have to answer.

Comments

[one9]

the struggle of
living within...(location of the body)
and/or
being of...(identity & location of the mind)

[Aaron Taylor]

Wow, yeah, people really need to stop passing that phony quote around.

Excellent thoughts, Father!

[Fr. Jonathan]

Chris, you're right -- the libertarian cluster of ideas cannot act as "first principles." I wonder, rather, if there are any "first principles" that the libertarian agenda does possess. My libertarian notions, whatever they are, are more reactionary than basic.

James, thank you for that correction. The "less government" ideal is meaningful in an autocratic rule, like a monarchy (which, because of its ties to tradition, is probably the only autocracy that might be tolerable). "Democracy" per se must have regulation -- for regulation (even marketplace regulation) is a primary mode of government, especially in a modern culture.

Frmartyw, I would only suggest that the authority of the state and the authority of the church are qualitatively different. I agree that in the West all authority is tempered by some sort of social contract -- which, in the case of our current President, seems not to be working all that well for him with regard to fellows who would like to disqualify his authority.

Which leads me to recommend, once again, that in the Church, authority must be predicated upon theosis -- or, more to the point -- the filling of the Holy Spirit. Ecclesial authority without the presence of the fruits of the Spirit become just another worldly tyranny -- i.e., just another exercise of the Gentiles "lording it over others."

[Fr Jonathan]

Elizabeth, this quote -- which may be the most popular Chrysostom quote on the Internet -- turns out to be miss-attributed. I don't know who wrote it originally, but it could not have come out of St John's oeuvre.

At best, it is an idiosyncratic translation of some cobbled-together fragments -- redacted mainly to make Chrysostom more amenable to certain agenda than what he would have been.

The only source for this quote seems to be a little anthology called "On Living Simply." The author
/translator -- a certain van der Weyer -- gives no feasible reference for this quote. (Many thanks to John Sanidopoulos for his gumshoe work on this troubling attribution: http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2012/01/can-anyone-trace-source-of-this-quote.html)

But who is suggesting the armed removal of the rich's precious gold? Is that what is thought as soon as anyone says something nice about welfare? Just recently, in regard to this very and spurious quote, a sitting Metropolitan was catcalled as a Marxist, of all things.

Daring to mention a single snot on the nose of the sacred free market, these days, will get you the gong-and-hook exeunt off the burlesque stage.

[Elizabeth]

"Should we look to kings and princes to put right the inequalities between rich and poor? Should we require soldiers to come and seize the rich person’s gold and distribute it among his destitute neighbors? Should we beg the emperor to impose a tax on the rich so great that it reduces them to the level of the poor and then to share the proceeds of that tax among everyone? Equality imposed by force would achieve nothing, and do much harm. Those who combined both cruel hearts and sharp minds would soon find ways of making themselves rich again. Worse still, the rich whose gold was taken away would feel bitter and resentful; while the poor who received the gold form the hands of soldiers would feel no gratitude, because no generosity would have prompted the gift. Far from bringing moral benefit to society, it would actually do moral harm. Material justice cannot be accomplished by compulsion, a change of heart will not follow. The only way to achieve true justice is to change people’s hearts first—and then they will joyfully share their wealth."
-St. John Chrysostom

[Frmartyw]

For some time now, nearly a decade, I have thought that the central issue facing Orthodoxy and State relations is the interaction between the two in a democratic political system. In many ways, historically, it seems that there was a "check/balance" relationship between Church and State. Church was never independent of the state - either an Emperor, a Sultan, a Czar or a Communist Central Committee stood ready to oversee the administration and (to varying degrees) the theology and praxis of the Church.

Canon law developed around this model, and so enshrines the relationship, not explicitly but implicitly.

In the Democratic west, particularly the United States, it seems that Congregationalism was the model, because that model preserved the balance between Church and State - the "state" in this instance being the people. The consent of the governed became the defining principle of democratic state.

Most of the debates we see today, be it same-sex marriage or abortion on demand or divorce or pornography, seem to rotate around this issue of consent of the governed. The Church, through the hierarchy, bangs it's fists on the table and stomps it's feet on the floor and says, "NO! You MUST obey - I represent GOD HIMSELF!" And yet, that ugly idea of consent of the governed still comes into play. In the Western World, we want very much to *choose* whom we obey, or disobey, and so we vilify the elected leadership of the opposition, and disobey - He's not MY president! Not MY Bishop!

What's missing is the place of the Holy Spirit, in my view. St. Paul reminds us that all leadership is put in place by God Himself. How that individual comes to leadership is the Holy Spirit Himself. Be it Obama or Bush or Metropolitan or Priest, all authority is given by God. We would do well (all of us - including the leadership!) to remember that.

[Mgmackavey]

An example of what you will find in this blog: "Never once did the Church protest against what we have grown to call today, inaccurately, "socialism." The Church, historically speaking over the centuries, has never discouraged any "dole" or "welfare" or governmental relief given to the poor. This sort of "Christian protest against relief" is a rather modern anomaly that is troubling, to say the least, and has nothing to do with real Christian values." Worth a read. It is instructive.

[James the Thickheaded]

Thanks for the closing especially... makes me think the cloak of democracy excuses much legerdemain... it is harder to determine who is accountable, where and for what. And yet this diffusion slows the process of governance so that some of its errors might occasionally be corrected before the consequences prove dire.

I suspect one of the casualties of the modern era was to discover that if you can run your country on a permanent war (or war-like) footing, you can posit a need for urgency that thoroughly discounts and totally trumps the legitimacy of one's opposition... and essentially voids a truly democratic process. I wonder whether at times that the legacy of the Cold War followed by the War on Terror and paralleled by any number of manic policy wars "on poverty", "drugs", old people, children, etc. ... is that all our urgency belies a lost confidence in our people, a lost confidence in democracy and belief in each other. Too time consuming? Too unrealistic? Too troublesome? So let's just gerrymander so we don't have to actually have any voting! I wish we had actually had peace and let peace be peace, so that we could actually try the hard work of democracy again... and discover whether anyone actually wants to do it.

I thought I was a libertarian until I saw how dogmatic libertarians allow themselves to become.... and the chaos that would flow from that. Were it not for a terrible historical record, the whole philosopher king thing has some appeal. Problem is that once they get the crown, they seem to get away from the philosophy pretty quick.

Think perhaps the corollary to the "Government that governs best is the one that governs least" probably refers to a king ... because a decree is a whole lot less effort to issue than forging a consensus. By contrast, democracy presupposes some sort of earthly communion, loving one's enemies, self-restraint, etc. in order for it to work. Without a virtuous people, it fails. And for a people who have convinced themselves that the only virtue is non-judgmentalism... it fails absolutely.

[Chris Jones]

Very, very wise post, Father.

"Never once has the Church opposed 'Statism' per se, or 'federalism' or the centralization of the State. This is hard for me to admit, because I harbor not a few libertarian notions."

So do I. I don't think a Christian can be a "libertarian" as such. Not that one can't have some libertarian ideas, but not as first principles. You have to justify them on prudential grounds in the context of first principles that can pass Christian muster. One can believe that "that government which governs least, governs best" -- but not to the point that injustice is allowed to flourish for lack of restraint.