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Narrafivc ( liarm U i of Christian Social MliU s
must recognize that her first social task in any society is to he herself.'7At the
very least that means that the church’s first political task is to be the kind of
community that recognizes the necessity that all societies, church and political
alike, require authority. But for Christians our authority is neither in society
itself nor in the individual; it is in God.38As a result the church must stand as a
reminder to the pretensions of liberalism that in spite of its claims to legitimate
authority, some necessarily rule over others as if they had the right to com
mand obedience.
The church also has a constitution that requires consent, but its constitu
tion takes the form of the story of a savior who taught us to deal with power by
recognizing how God limits all earthly claims to power.39 Because we have
been so called and formed, Christians should be free from the fear that fuels
the power of coercion for liberal and illiberal states alike. The moral adven
ture represented by liberalism has been to diffuse the coercive nature of the
state and society by developing a culture and government that left the indi
vidual to his or her own desires. As a result the coercive aspects of our social
order are hidden, since they take the appearance of being self-imposed. Yet
the distrust of the other inherent in liberal social and political theory cannot
help but create powers that claim our loyalties and destructively run our lives.
Ironically, the most coercive aspect of the liberal account of the world is
that we are free to make up our own story. The story that liberalism teaches us
is that we have no story, and as a result we fail to notice how deeply that story
determines our lives. Accordingly, we fail to recognize the coercive form of
the liberal state, as it, like all states, finally claims our loyalty under the
self-deceptive slogan that in a democracy the people rule themselves because
they have “consented” to be so ruled. But a people who have learned the
strenuous lesson of God’s lordship through Jesus’ cross should recognize that
“ the people” are no less tyrannical than kings or dictators.
In the absence of anyone knowing the truth, it has been the liberal
assumption that “ the people,” particularly as they balance one another’s
desires, limit the power of falsehood. The church accepted such a strategy
because it seemed to express a humility about the status of the state that, if not
founded on the confession of God’s lordship, at least was appropriate to our
conviction that God limits all earthly power. Moreover, such a strategy
seemed to offer the church freedom to preach the Gospel in a manner few
societies had ever been willing to allow. While reveling in such “ freedom”
we failed to notice that the church had again been coopted into accepting the
assumption that the destiny of a particular state and social order was intrinsic
to God’s Kingdom.
The challenge of the political today is no different than it has always
been, though it appears in a new form. The challenge is always for the church
to be a “contrast model” for all polities that know not God. Unlike them, we