In a recent podcast by The Rebel Podcast, formerly The Rebel Alliance Podcast, the concept of sphere sovereignty was defined and used to support the church’s separation of authority from that of the state to the point where the state could not dictate to the church what the church could or could not do. The primary application is the church in Canada as in 2021 several pastors have been arrested for holding church meetings that do not abide by the Canadian guidelines for COVID restrictions. This podcast then took the current situation for the Canadian church and the concept of sphere sovereignty and explained why it was right for the Canadian church to resist.
For those less familiar with sphere sovereignty, the concept of sphere sovereignty originated from Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920). I have not read Kuyper’s argument yet, nor those that followed, but I am a little familiar with the concept. It is the idea that there are different spheres of life, like the church, the family, the government, etc., that are completely independent of each other and are responsible directly to God for what happens in that sphere. These spheres only have a limited authority that pertains directly to what is needed to benefit their sphere. But most importantly when one sphere oversteps its bounds into other spheres it always does more damage than good. An example from the podcast is that if a child has disrespected his parents the police are not called to spank him. We all would see a country with such a law as overbearing and stepping beyond the bounds it not only should, but could, maintain. This is why it is good for the spheres to maintain a separate but equal status of power. One sphere does not control the others.
The argument in the podcast though is that the sphere of government does not have authority over the sphere of Christ’s Church. Even in cases of pandemic, or at least in the case of COVID, the government does not have the authority to tell the church that the church cannot meet or gather. This podcast urges the Church to stand up against the state and to continue to obey God who has commanded us to meet, rather than men who have commanded us not to meet or not to fully meet.
This whole topic of whether churches should defy government orders has been interesting to me. I am still open to hearing differing positions, but I have gradually started to see the strengths of one side over others.
Hands down for all Christians God has to come first. Anything God has commanded us to do has to take precedence over anything contrary that others, no matter who they are, might command. Those who might agree that we are to do all God has commanded us but suggest that the first thing God has commanded us is to love our neighbors and loving our neighbors means mask wearing, social distancing, and not gathering are jumping a few steps. While I wholeheartedly agree that loving our neighbor, and our enemy, is one of the primary things we must do, it does not automatically follow that masks, distance, and not gathering are loving.
In fact, the results that we have seen for our society through this little social experiment have proven the opposite. Family members dying in a hospital room alone untouched for days, overwhelming fears, general suspicion of each other, lack of encouragement, difficult breathing, loss of income, and loneliness are just a few results our whole country has experienced. These things are not good, nor is it loving to continue the policies and actions that perpetuate them.
At this point, from the little I as an American know about what is going on in Canada, I would agree with the Canadian Church to resist and oppose the mandates given to them by their government. I agree with them because God has told us to not forsake gathering together as the most loving thing we can do for the Church and because now, a year later, we have all seen how essential the Church really is in promoting emotional and spiritual help and in giving aid to those in need.
When the American church for the most part shut down we cut ourselves off from the whole body. Some people were still able to maintain community, but not all. I was one of the blessed ones. For the rest of the Body isolation, fear, and depression ruled unchecked, unhindered by encouragement and interaction with others.
But part of the question is if the concept of sphere sovereignty is necessary to the argument of resistance. I don’t think it is. My concern with sphere sovereignty is that it can create false barriers between areas of life that God did not actually create. The issue isn’t that we can see distinctions between areas like government, family, and church, because we can, the issue is that such distinctions when placed in their own separate areas can lead to a disconnect in the believer’s daily life as each area has its own accepted rules and actions.
From the biblical side, if God had intended for all the spheres to be separate, He would have given clearer instruction on how to separate and keep separate each sphere. Israel is a unique nation and yet God had intended to be Israel’s King until they wanted another. Also, there is the role of the prophet in the nation that the king could go to for advice or receive correction from. And there is the initiation of kings to sacrifice to God in the temple, a temple built by the kings, not the priests. All of these examples seem to be pointing to more of a cohesive view of the different areas of life, one where all things are under God, one where God is all the authority anyone needs to do what is right, one where all are responsible to God whether they acknowledge Him or not.
This is a topic I plan to look into more and I could change my mind, but for now it seems like all we need is God and Christ’s kingdom as our authority, as the ones we should obey rather than our governors. And the argument that Christ is our King is historically the most important truth that we can uphold.
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