By What Measure?

Here in America we are once again faced with the painful process of selecting whom to vote for to serve as our President. The dialogues that accompany this process show just how many devices and points of view the people (that’s us) use to measure and evaluate the candidates and the policies they espouse.

There are those saying that the other party is too far “left or right”; that candidate is “too conservative or too liberal”; that policy is too “liberal or intolerant”. Many have a sense that there is more wrong with our government than can be fixed by an election. It seems to have gotten off track in some way.

I have been reading about the relationship between the government and God from his point of view as revealed in the Bible and expounded upon by one of the greatest Christian apologists of the last century, Francis A. Schaeffer. I believe he states clearly what the problem is: We the People are guilty of elevating our government beyond its rightful position.

The following has been taken from an address delivered by the late Dr. Schaeffer in 1982 at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is based on one of his books, which bears the same title. I encourage you to read this to the end.

When the government negates the law of God, it abrogates its authority. God has given certain offices to restrain chaos in this fallen world, but it does not mean that these offices are autonomous, and when a government commands that which is contrary to the Law of God, it abrogates its authority.

Throughout the whole history of the Christian Church, (and again I wish people knew their history. In A Christian Manifesto I stress what happened in the Reformation in reference to all this) at a certain point, it is not only the privilege but it is the duty of the Christian to disobey the government. Now that's what the founding fathers did when they founded this country. That's what the early Church did. That's what Peter said. You heard it from the Scripture: "Should we obey man?... rather than God?" That's what the early Christians did.


Every appropriate legal and political governmental means must be used. "The final bottom line"-- I have invented this term in A Christian Manifesto. I hope the Christians across this country and across the world will really understand what the Bible truly teaches: The final bottom line! The early Christians, every one of the reformers (and again, I'll say in A Christian Manifesto I go through country after country and show that there was not a single place with the possible exception of England, where the Reformation was successful, where there wasn't civil disobedience and disobedience to the state), the people of the Reformation, the founding fathers of this country, faced and acted in the realization that if there is no place for disobeying the government, that government has been put in the place of the living God. In such a case, the government has been made a false god. If there is no place for disobeying a human government, that government has been made GOD. (Emphasis added.)


Caesar, under some name, thinking of the early Church, has been put upon the final throne. The Bible's answer is NO! Caesar is not to be put in the place of God and we as Christians, in the name of the Lordship of Christ, and all of life, must so think and act on the appropriate level. It should always be on the appropriate level. We have lots of room to move yet with our court cases, with the people we elect -- all the things that we can do in this country. If, unhappily, we come to that place, the appropriate level must also include a disobedience to the state. (Stated in 1982)


If you are not doing that, you haven't thought it through. Jesus is not really on the throne. God is not central. You have made a false god central. Christ must be the final Lord and not society and not Caesar.


May I repeat the final sentence again? CHRIST MUST BE THE FINAL LORD AND NOT CAESAR AND NOT SOCIETY.

Taken from an address delivered by the late Dr. Schaeffer in 1982 at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is based on one of his books, which bears the same title.


I challenge you to read the book.