Government, health & safety, the court of public opinion…what about the Bible?

Jul 4, 2020 by Jill

by Dave Brennan, Christian Concern:

This week FIEC National Director John Stevens posted his response to the contention that the lockdown of churches and the more recent guidelines are unacceptable government overreach into the domain of religious freedom.

He says that this view is “superficially understandable,” but goes on to express his strong disagreement.

His central argument appears to be that in strictly legal terms, religious freedom in this country has never been absolute, and so the government has every right to tell us what we can and can’t do in the current situation, and indeed it seems to be Stevens’ view that the government has been reasonable and wise in its pronouncements so far.

I have to confess that I found this article most concerning, because in it the writer treats three authorities as inviolable – using the word ‘absolute’ for two of them – but not one of these authorities, in this post, is the Bible. Indeed, the Bible is not mentioned or quoted once. Perhaps this is understandable as Stevens appears to be responding (though he doesn’t name it) to Christian Concern’s legal challenge to the government, and he does acknowledge, regarding the history of our religious freedom, “I am not commenting as to whether this is right as a matter of theology, merely that it is the legal reality.”

But we need to know whether it’s right as a matter of theology; we cannot have a thorough discussion of this all-important question of Church and State without reference to the Bible.

Read here