I wrote the substance of this post in 2015, itself probably from some notes I made in 2010. Because I do not consider myself a Christian nationalist, nor do I accept the so-called “R2K” label, I was asked about my own political views. Do I think America today should be a monarchy? Hamilton and others did, only they rejected the hereditary part of it.
Following each main thread, I offer my own comments on my ideas to see if they hold up today or if my thinking changed.
My collected notes on why I think monarchy is less problematic than oligarchic republicanism (which, ultimately, are the only two options for government). We can say these are running theses in no particular order:
[1] Prima facie appeals to 1 Samuel 8 as a universal condemnation of monarchy are illegitimate for reasons that will be discussed below.
[2] Yahweh specifically told Samuel the Israelites were rejecting Yahweh. My question: do evangelicals actually think and see the new America as ruled by Yahweh himself without a mediating figure?
My comments today: On second thought, do not answer that question.
[3] Some form of mediating figure is necessary (O’Donovan, 50). In order for their appeal to 1 Samuel 8 to be strong, they have to posit the same social form seen in 1 Samuel 8. During pre-Davidic Israel, Samuel was the mediating figure between Yahweh and the nation (1 Samuel 3:19-21). Thus, republicans have to posit some Samuel-ite figure to mediate between God and the nation (the papal overtones should not be missed). Few evangelicals will take this route.
Comments today: This was Paul Avis’s argument in The Church in the Theology of the Reformers and it is my argument against Christian nationalists today. With the line of church and state blurry, and I can perhaps grant Christian nationalists and theonomists that point, what with their talk of “every one is a theocrat, etc., etc., etc.,” then we have to answer a new question: if the church is part of society, then the magistrate will be the one who organizes the church and calls the judicial shots. I understand the distinction of circa sacra. I know the Reformers held to it. I also know that Richard Hooker would make short work of it.
[4] If David was a “detour,” further, it is odd that the prophets again and again hold out the hope that Israel would return to the “detour” (Isaiah 9:7; 16:5; 33:15-26; Ezekiel 34:23-24; 37:24-25). That is not how detours work.
Comments today: I think this is generally sound, but there is a better argument for it. Israel was promised a monarchy long before the Judges period (which were generally a very terrible time). One cannot play 1 Samuel 8 against Genesis 49:10. Israel’s problem was she “reached” for monarchy before she was ready (a common theme in the Bible, reaching before one is ready). Adam reached for the fruit of the knowledge of Good and Evil before he was allowed to. The phrase “knowledge of good and evil” is what the Bible calls kingly wisdom (cf Solomon).
Cornelius Vanderwaal notes: “The Israelites were asking for a king along Canaanite lines” (16). They did not reject Yahweh because they asked for a king. Yahweh had already promised them one (Gen. 49; Deut 17; Hannah’s Song). It was the type of king that they wanted that was the problem. They wanted, to use a phrase which Vanderwaal will note later of the Caananites, “a blood and soil” king. What Yahweh had promised, by contrast, was one who would be a servant of the covenant and a brother to his people. What they got was Saul, someone who did not come from Judah’s line, the line of promise.
As Vanderwaal notes, “Yahweh’s king would subject himself to God’s law and be a brother to the Israelites” (17). He would point to and disclose Yahweh’s own kingship. Vanderwaal does not call attention to it, but another line of thought strengthens his case: the system of Judges, even by the book of Judges’ own account, was not working. The ending of Judges notes “there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” We are tempted to look at that and think that the period had degenerated, and it had. But the most revolting scene in Judges, the one where Israelites were dismembering prostitutes and concubines and wiping out cities, does not happen at the end of the period, but at the very beginning. God’s people needed a king. They just asked at the wrong time and in the wrong way.
My comments today: I used to say that Israel was wrong to ask for a king along Canaanite lines. I do not think the bible makes that argument. Deuteronomy 17, specifically setting forth a monarchy with Yahweh’s blessing, admits that Israel will want a king “like the nations,” and that does not really seem to be a problem. Rather, I think the solution to this is twofold: on one hand, Saul was the wrong king because God promised the line through Judah. On the other hand, the true nature of kingship is not one of military might, which seemed to be what Israel wanted in 1 Samuel 8.
[5] Monarchy is an “angled mirror” that allows us to see other worlds, or to see around the power games of this world (N. T. Wright).
Comments today: I like the idea of “angled mirror,” but I think a better way to say it, a way expressed by Alastair Roberts in his Davenant talk on the coronation of King Charles, is monarchy discloses to us the kingship of Christ in a way that other governments do not.
[6] Augustine teaches us (Civ. Dei, Book 19) that a people must be united around common objects of love. Historically, this has either been the liturgy/Faith or the monarch. This doesn’t immediately rule out some forms of Republicanism, to be sure, but it does put it on a tight squeeze. Republicanism as a general rule
[7] This is a bit difficult. In Colossians 1:24 St Paul sees an interplay between Christ’s Sufferings, His Sufferings, and his people’s participation in one or the other. Perhaps monarchy can put this tension into sharp relief. Sergius Bulgakov saw the tsar as carrying the cross for his people, of the tsar not as the presiding authority in a police state, but as the symbolic focus of Russia in all its pain and confusion. To be a tsarist in this context was, he says, to share in that pain and confusion (Rowan Williams).
My comments today: That is true enough, but I am more reluctant to appeal to Tsarism today.
[8] Per [6], liturgy is how the Church embodies and acts out its faith. Liturgy is both vertical and horizontal. Western politicians at least since the age of King John of England have wrestled with the question of the limits of the king’s authority. They sought to “bind the king to the law,” or something like that. King’s could be bound to the law from time to time.
Liturgy, however, does not bind the king to an abstract “law,” but rather connects him via baptism to the people. King and commoner are thus bound together before God.
[9] The creational order is not egalitarian. There is a hierarchy (though not an ontological chain) in creation. Unless you have pure anarchism, someone is in charge of others. Hence, mediation is inescapable [3]. This means we have the following types of mediation:
- (a) some form of monarchy
- (b) a republican president
- (c) economic oligarchy
Royalists usually point out that (c) normally controls (b). To be elected you have to have financial backers. Therefore, any good you want to do for society is limited by not alienating your financial backers. There may be a host of problems with monarchy but this is not one of them. N.T. Wright said when he was on the House of Lords, only the Lords could truly debate what was good for society because they didn’t have to worry about offending economic backers.
My Comments Today: That’s true enough, and that remains a damaging criticism of elections, but monarchies are not entirely immune to that problem. It is not as bad for them, to be sure, but it is still there.
Conclusion
I have not addressed the problem of monarchy and Christian nationalism. To be honest, Christian nationalism stands or falls (falls) on its own (de)merits. Monarchy as such does not refute it. Some Christian nationalists might see themselves as monarchists. Most, interestingly enough, do not. Those who hold to a longer monarchist tradition see politics as much deeper than is commonly bandied about on social media by Christian nationalists.
A Patriot King 