God and Government: Chapter 4

This chapter is written by David McIlroy, a practising barrister. It is titled " The role of government is classical Christian political thought".

One of the points the author underscores, drawn from ancient Christian thinkers, is that Government is accountable to God. And

Another point the author underscores, as the previous authors have also stated, is that Government is limited. He goes to say that "it is now almost universally recognized in Christian thought that the Church's role is not to take over or dominate government either." This I understand to be saying that Christians are not in favour of a theocratic government.

What rather surprises me is the assertion that even in ancient times, Christian theologians asserted a limited form of government. However, it seems to the present form of limited government and the ancient form of limited government could have been different.

Christian political thinkers also make a distinction between state's law and church's morality. Or rather difference between 'shallow justice' and 'deep justice. The state may legislate certain form of moral norms, but this is not necessarily going to be similar to that of the church. The church may consider certain action immoral, but this necessarily cannot be legislated as illegal. So state's law can be termed as 'shallow justice' because it does not touch upon all aspects of ethical issues; and the church's law may be termed as 'deep justice' because it goes much deeper than that of the state.

The state in its legislation must take into consideration the common good. It must see that it's resources are distributed towards meeting the need of the poor too.