Principles of a Christian State

Principles of a Christian State

Thomas Allen

    This paper sets out the basic principles for a Christian state. Basic social, political, and economic principles are covered.

Fundamental Principles
    A Christian state recognizes that it is under the authority of the Sovereign King Christ Jesus and, therefore, has limited authority.

    The government of a Christian state is strictly limited and is under God and should administer justice in faithfulness to His word. It has the duty to serve God as the ministry of justice and social order. Its authority is always ministerial or delegated from God and never creative or independent. It should not assume as its own those areas and activities that are properly the spheres of the family, church, or economy. It should not deny any citizen his freedom to work out his divine mandate as God's image-bearer.

    A Christian state is a state where God’s law rules instead of man’s, where family, church, and state are separated and distinct institutions, yet all are ruled by God and under His law, and where all religions are tolerated that do not actively promote the destruction of Christianity (for those that do are evil and intolerant and are at war with Christianity).

    The constitution forming a Christian state and its government is a compact between each citizen individually and all citizens and federated parts collectively. This compact places certain obligations on all parties thereof. Each citizen is obliged (1) to worship and serve God in his own way, (2) to provide for himself and his family, (3) to defend his homeland and community from foreign invasion and from domestic despotism, (4) not to trespass against his neighbor and fellow man, and (5) to maintain his racial purity. The state through the government is obliged (1) to allow and to protect the freedom of each citizen to worship and serve God in his own way, (2) to allow and to protect the right of each citizen to acquire and use property as he sees fit and to keep and use the fruits of his labor, land, and capital to provide for himself and his family, (3) to allow and to protect the freedom of each citizen to acquire the means to defend his homeland and community against foreign invasion and domestic despotism as well as to protect each citizen from the same, (4) to protect each citizen from trespass against his person and his property, and (5) to guarantee the racial purity of the land.

    The government of a Christian state should be instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the community and people thereof. Its primary objective should be to protect citizens in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property. A basic function of government should be to prevent the use of coercion (compulsion, force, violence, intimidation, fraud, deceit, theft, confiscation, trespass, slavery, involuntary servitude, etc.) in constructive productive activities and in the distributive activities of the market by maintaining the peace, defining property, settling disputes, and enforcing voluntary agreements,

Economic System
    The economic system of a Christian state is the universal capitalistic free market, free enterprise economic system of voluntary cooperation. Capital and land should be privately owned by the greatest number of people. Governmental intervention in the economy should be minimized.

    The basic economic policy of a Christian state should be agrarianism. Agrarian agriculture should be the leading occupation and economic activity with industry enough for self-sufficiency whenever such self-sufficiency is economical. Such industry should be decentralized whenever feasible, both as to ownership and physical structure. Such industry should not be protected by tariffs, quotas, licenses, permits, and other restrictions on free trade. Absentee ownership of land, industry, and natural resources should be minimal.

    The economic system of a Christian state should be based on the freedom to produce, the freedom to trade the products of one’s labor, land, and capital in a free market, and the freedom of individuals to keep the fruits of their labor, land, and capital. Such an economic system is based on voluntary cooperation, consumer sovereignty, private ownership of the means of production including land, free initiative, and a labor market not manipulated by government or labor union monopolies.

    The rights of private ownership of property in capital and land should be preserved, respected, and protected. Each person should be free to plan for himself and to trade freely; monopolies and protectionism should be avoided.

    Economic equality is incompatible with liberty, limited government, and the free market and is contrary to Christianity. Therefore, a Christian state should never engage in any program of redistribution of wealth.

Social System
    The social system is a Christian state is a triumvirate of family, church, and state under the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ. The basic unit of society is the family.

    The social objective of a Christian state is to be a free society. A free society is a society of variety, complexity, and individuality. It is a society of diversity, not conformity. It is a society of individual freedom within a framework of respect for, and willingness not to violate, the equally valid freedom of each individual in society. Association with others is free of coercion.

    If more than one race inhabits the society, then it is or should be a multiracial society. In a multiracial society, each race should be allowed to retain its identity, independence, and integrity and should be allowed to develop at its own pace. Each race should be free to develop the highest type of civilization of which it is capable. Therefore, the races must be distinct and must not be merged into an integrated society in which intermarriage can occur, for this would destroy the integrity and identity of the races.

    A Christian state is composed of multiple social and economic classes. Like economic equality, social equality destroy liberty and is contrary to Christianity. Therefore, social egalitarianism should be opposed. However, social status should not be guaranteed by law.

Duties of the Church
    The Church is the ministry of grace of the Word and sacraments (or ordinances) and the discipline of faith.

    The Church should give society and the state what is necessary to sustain their existence and oppose anarchy within their ranks. The Church should watch over the state and warn the state against transgressing its legitimate limits. The Church should deny the state whatever it demands beyond its legitimate limits.

Copyright © 1991 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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