I attended a Charities Parliament event last night – a panel-based discussion about the challenge of restoring trust in the British political process following the expenses scandal. The panel consisted of the Times religion correspondent, Ruth Gledhill, David Landrum (Senior Parliamentary Officer for the Bible Society), the Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, and, when they eventually turned up after voting for a new speaker of the House of Commons, the MPs Alistair Burt and Andy Reed. Despite Jonathan Bartley’s disappointment about the make-up of the panel, it proved a stimulating, if at times incoherent, conversation.

A chat with David Landrum after the event led me to the Theos website and a report by Sean Oliver-Dee entitled ‘Religion and Identity: Divided loyalties?’ The report sets out by describing the de-secularization of Europe as a consequence of immigration and the high birth rates prevalent among immigrant communities. Oliver-Dee primarily has Islam in view here and the particular challenge it poses to Western governments. But he believes that the solution to the problem lies in the existing model of accommodation between Christian and British identities, and it is this first part of his paper that I want to examine.

The poly-loyalism of church and state

He argues for a ‘poly-loyalism’ or ‘two tier’ theory that allows religious and state identities to occupy different spheres or layers of public life ‘without either sacrificing its integrity’ (14). He supports this with reference to Jesus’ saying in Mark 12:17: ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ By this, he suggests, Jesus challenges the sort of ‘mono-loyalism’ that confuses state and religious identities. He quotes William Lane: ‘There are obligations to the state which do not infringe the rights of God but are grounded in his appointment’ (The Gospel of Mark, 424); then summarizes the argument:

Christians are required to be loyal to the state because they enjoy the benefits of belonging to it, such as protection from aggressors and the maintenance of justice. This doctrine separated out the role of the state and the role of God, distinguishing their different functions and thereby subverting the idea of mono-loyalism. Instead, a form of ‘poly-loyalism’ is commended. The two identities, of religion and state, can and should exist together without pulling in opposite directions. (18)

We have effectively abandoned any pretensions to mono-loyalism in the UK – despite some earnest pleas yesterday evening, from the Bishop of Rochester among others, for a renewed public adherence to explicitly Christian values as the only way to restore confidence in the political process. We clearly need, therefore, some way practically to divide our loyalties between Christ and political authority.

The clash of mono-loyalties

But I wonder how useful Jesus’ statement is for us as we endeavour to define the relationship between church and state. For the Jews the ‘state’ to which they had obligations was Israel – a mono-loyalist entity whose king ruled, in principle at least, as YHWH’s ‘son’. It differed from the cult of Caesar as ‘son of god’ only really in terms of size. The issue, therefore, is a conflict between mono-loyalties, in which Rome as the more powerful force has come out on top, has become the oppressor. The question posed by the Pharisees and Herodians (who would have had sharply differing views on the matter) arises only because Israel is under Gentile occupation.

It is not at all clear how we should interpret Jesus’ cryptic response. Precisely because we have two mono-loyalties at loggerheads it is difficult to tease apart the religious and the civil obligations entailed in giving to YHWH what is YHWH’s and to Caesar what is Caesar’s. In addition, we must consider the rhetorical force of Jesus’ respose to these two highly interested parties. But we can hardly suppose that Jesus is arguing here for a normative ‘two tier’ system in which Jewish religious commitments are accommodated to Roman civil requirements. Indeed, we must surely question whether anything Jesus said about the relationship between first century Israel and the Roman occupying force can have paradigmatic relevance for the Western church today.

Lane argues that by ‘recognizing the relative autonomy of the civil authority in the first part of his response, Jesus showed himself opposed to any belief in an essentially theocratic state and to any expectation of an imminent eschatological consummation of his own mission’. But it is not the ‘autonomy’ of Roman rule that Jesus’ recognizes; it is the brute political reality. He did expect eschatological change to take place: on the one hand, the existing state of Israel would be almost obliterated by Rome within a generation; on the other, he would bring into existence an alternative community for YHWH that would continue to challenge Roman hegemony. Paul’s argument for civil obedience in Romans 13:1-7, with its call to pay ‘taxes to whom taxes are due’, still presupposes an imminent eschatological expectation: a day of wrath is coming both upon Israel and upon the Greek-Roman world, ‘the night is far gone, the day is at hand’ (Rom. 2:9; 13:12).

A narrative self-understanding

So my question is whether we can properly make use of historically and eschatologically conditioned teachings as the direct basis for a modern theory of church-state relations. To what extent is the relationship between the church and the state in Western democracies analogous to the relationship either between first century Israel and the Roman occupier or between the early church and Roman imperialism?

The problem is that the proof-texting manner of Oliver-Dee’s argument presupposes not the biblical narrative but the theological grid of an unexamined modern political theology, and the effect is basically to confirm the status quo. That may or may not be politically useful, but my concern is that by not taking into account the full narrative shape of biblical thought we risk missing a crucial dimension to the church’s self-understanding. It may indeed be the case that Jesus’ teaching about God and Caesar has the potential to inform our political theology, but it will be by re-instating a prophetic, narrative and eschatological perspective, not by excluding it.

The conversation last night turned mostly around the question of Christian values: How do we recover the traditional Christian virtues of integrity and trustworthiness? How do we get good people into public life? How do we change the political culture? That is perhaps a necessary response, but it strikes me as spiritually myopic. It lacks precisely the sort of prophetic imagination that grasps the nature of the existence of God’s people under eschatological conditions and condenses the insight into such polemically telling arguments as ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s’.