The Appeal to the Christian Friends of Our Nation (1883)

The Norwegian Political Climate of the 1800’s[1]

The greatest political crisis since 1814 was beginning to boil, climaxing in the impeachment of the chief of state, Frederik Stang, and the introduction of parliamentary government in 1884. The politically astute Johan Sverdrup forged the image of the Liberal Party as the champion of the common man, the defender of the rights of the Norwegian people to govern themselves, and the mainstay of the laity in their struggle against a clerical dominated state church. Though Norway had one of the most liberal constitutions in Europe, many could not vote because of the property and revenue qualifications. It was the Liberal Party that sought to extend suffrage to the landless.[2] During the political crisis in the 1880's many bought worthless meadow land and mountain slopes in order to qualify for the ballot. The main issue in the crisis was parliamentarianism. The constitution of 1814 provided for a constitutional monarch who ruled both Norway and Sweden through separately appointed councils or cabinets. Thus up until 1884 the executive branch of the Norwegian government was responsible not to the Storthing (Large Assembly), and thus indirectly to the people, but rather to the dual monarch who also ruled Sweden.[3] Many politically conservative Norwegians, however, feared a legislative and an executive branch of government controlled by one majority party. They felt it would abolish the system of checks and balances within the three branches of government if parliamentary government should be instituted. Among the conservatives was Gisle Johnson who looked upon the theory of popular sovereignty as a product of infidelity. It was derived from Rousseau and res ted upon pagan foundations, he said. In order to sanctify the concept of popular sovereignty, the Grundtvigian, Odmund Vik, reminded Gisle Johnson that it was one of the Puritan cornerstones and had formed the foundation for the American republic.[4] The historian, J. Ernst Sars, through his journal Nuttidsskrift, trumpeted popular sovereignty out of Rousseauean presuppositions.

The state is not a mechanism, but an organism that amorphorizes as it develops. It is not a question of the rights of a single organ or person but of the wellbeing and progress of the whole. No one has the right to dominate but all are in duty bound to participate in the common obligations which constitute the public life of a society. The French Revolution's basic philosophy was the doctrine of popular sovereignty. An absolute monarchy was said to derive from "divine right." Popular sovereignty could not, however, derive from a less absolute right. It had to also, from the beginning, be “by the grace of God .” Society rested upon a contract in which the will of the people had been freely voiced and had found an expression which over the years became obscured through the usurpation of lords and princes. A monarchy does not exist unto itself. It is not an independent authority that has its own independent validation. It is rather established by the people, for the people. Our royal house is just as much a representative of the people as the Storthing. But if the king, like the Storthing, is to represent the people, he must be subject to the same conditions as the latter. The Storthing cannot oppose itself against the general will of the people. A majority in the Storthing that opposes the prevailing desire of the nation will be rejected at the next election and replaced by another. It follows therefore, that neither can the king who derives his jurisdiction and power from the people, be allowed to oppose the general desire of the nation in so important a matter as parliamentary government.[5]

Gisle Johnson looked aghast at this kind of reasoning. Popular sovereignty is not of necessity the same as God's will. From a Christian point of view, he maintained, there was much more reason to fear that popular sovereignty was opposed to the will of God, thus revealing his conservative monarchical prejudice. "Popular sovereignty and infidelity as they have evolved, are not just twins, but are each other's mother," he said.[6]

Gisle Johnson orientated his political thoughts largely from the conviction that man who is sinful by nature and totally depraved, according to the Lutheran confessions, is not able to govern himself in such a way that would lead towards the ideal of a Christian state.

The modern idea about the infallibility of majority rule and absolute power which lies behind the phrase vox populi vox dei (the voice of the people is the voice of God) is a very old teaching. It goes all the way back to the Old Testament. But the Scriptures have an entirely different concept about people. It even designates God's own chosen people as a stiff-necked, worthless, indiscrete, blind, and deaf people. It was the will of the people that brought Christ to the cross. It was the liberal statesman, Pontius Pilate, who in order to please the people, in order to follow the vox populi, set the robber free and crucified the Lord of Glory. An outstanding example of the blindness of the masses is found in Acts 19:23ff. People are depraved in sin and from this depravity the majority is no exception.[7]

If one adopted the Liberal Party' s platform of parliamentary government, one would eliminate the executive government's check on the Storthing and give free reign to the sinful and selfish desires of the majority. “Democratic despotism is just as unchristian as monarchical despotism,” said Gisle Johnson. If the majority of the people who were on the broad road that led to destruction according to Gisle Johnson's view, should ever come to control both the legislative and the executive branches of government, then he feared for the worst concerning the state church. For this reason he threw himself into the midst of the agitation for church reform and fervently sought both "churchly guarantees" for church council members and at the same time pressed for an independent, responsible representative national church assembly. Otherwise he could see in the future only a worldly church dominated by a worldly majority. M. J. Færden expressed the view of many conservative churchmen when he said:

In our days it is the will of the people that is supposed to be the living constitution and out of which each law is supposed to be understood and interpreted. "The voice of the people" is to be "the voice of God" or more correctly, it is “the voice of the people" which is now supposed to be what "the voice of God" formerly was for them, namely, the rule, guide, and testing stone for both public and private life and the highest, most decisive and unappeasable judgment over what is true and false, and what is right and wrong.[8]

Another element which entered into Gisle Johnson' s thinking was the old Lutheran concept of obedience to the governing authorities. Though he differed from the ultra-conservative Heuch in that Gisle Johnson maintained that no one particular form of government was laid down by God,[9] he heId that on the basis of Romans 13: 1-5, each person was in duty bound to obey the governing authorities that reigned over him. "The governing authority is the personal embodiment of the civil law and as such society's personal representative.[10] In one sense, every governing authority can be said to be of God but not necessarily by the grace of God. It can also be according to the wrath of God.[11] A Christian had to acknowledge that the latter type of authority was also “of God” since such a governing authority was the product of an historical development that stood under the providence of God.[12] Bjornstjerne Bjornson took exception to Gisle Johnson' s exegesis and maintained, on the basis of Romans 13:3, that the apostle Paul was speaking only of the good and upright governing authorities.[13] Though Gisle Johnson was reminded of the events of 1814 in Norway, he clung tenaciously to his position as the debate dragged on into 1885.

Behind this controversy lay the “veto debate.” According to Paragraph 79 of the [Norwegian] constitution, the king had only a suspensive veto. After the passage of a piece of legislation in unaltered form by three successive Storthings, the legislation became the law of the land in spite of the king's veto. In 1880 the proposal for instituting parliamentary government was passed for the second time and subsequently vetoed by Oscar II. In the veto message, prepared by the Attorney General, there was a phrase that created sensation and shock. It read, "Most humbly the Department wishes to address itself to this matter and make it known that when it is a question of amending the constitution, without a doubt, the king possesses an absolute veto…”[14] The conservatives rejoiced at the Justice Department's declaration, but everyone else, including many moderate conservatives fumed. During the next few years many rifle associations were formed in Norway and there was talk about secession and revolution. Bjornson even hailed the rifle associations with a poem that glorified bullets and bloodshed in the name of freedom.[15]

Such talk in the eyes of Gisle Johnson was nothing less than heresy and rebellion against God. The governing authorities (Attorney General) had spoken on the question of the veto power of the king and the Christian had nothing else to do but obey. To do otherwise would be non-Christian. Since the Liberal Party would have nothing to do with the Justice Department's declaration and only increased its agitation for parliamentary government while at the same time it began talking about the impeachment of the king's cabinet, it became more and more obvious to Gisle Johnson's way of thinking, that a Christian could hardly vote for the Liberal Party and that the latter's platform constituted the greatest threat to Christianity in Norway.

The Liberal Party's Christian newspaper on the west coast thought otherwise. It said that the major goals of the Liberals were the rejection of the concept of an absolute veto, a reasonable expansion of suffrage,[16] parliamentary government, and fiscal economy.

Can anyone maintain that these goals are opposed to God's Word? All sound Christian sense will answer that such a charge is ridiculous. Those who believe that no absolute veto can be found in the Norwegian constitution can with the best of conscience oppose this veto. His Christian faith lays no obstacle for such a course of action. He who maintains that the extension of the ballot and the even development of the nation is a righteous goal, does not need for a moment to fear that he is opposed to Christianity in this matter. He who feels that a heaIthy cooperation between the Storthing and the government for the benefit of the whole nation can only take place when we have a truly responsible executive government, will find nothing in his confirmation instruction that can hinder such thoughts.[17]

Gisle Johnson could never quite understand how the west coast church reform advocates under the leadership of Lars Oftedal could ally themselves with the goals of the Liberal Party. It was easy to understand how the Grundtvigians could make common cause with infidelity, but Oftedal and his kind were Haugeans[18] with whom he had had so much fellowship during the years of awakening in the fifties and sixties. That their differences lay not so much in spiritual outlook but in a basic difference in political orientation never quite became clear for him. During these years those pastors who dared to support the Liberal Party were often shunned by their clerical colleagues and sent letters of warning and admonition by their bishops.[19]

Thus it was on January 28, 1883, that Gisle Johnson' s famous appeal ' 'To the Christian Friends of our Nation" appeared on the front page of the conservative Christiania newspaper, Morgenbladet, followed by the names of 457 leading Norwegians from all walks of life. Gisle Johnson's name headed the list. The "Appeal" created an immediate sensation in the midst of a tense political situation and was reprinted and commented up on by friend and foe.[20] It read as follows:

To the Christian Friends of our Nation

Because of the political radicalism which according to our view endangers our nation's most precious heritage, we are driven to address ourselves to all those in our nation who desire the preservation of Christianity.

For over two generations our nation has been able to build upon the foundations of 1814 in peace and quiet with results that are without equal. This quiet and peaceful development of our nation has lately been disturbed by the persistent and violent agitation of the radical party.

It is quite obvious that we are not speaking of a "progressive-politic" which respects the given historical foundations. Rather what we have in mind is the kind of political activity which for good reasons is called "radical." Its goals cannot be achieved without a complete rupture of the sound development of society, without the subversion, dissolution and loss of the benefits of the present order which are precious and prized by everyone who is aware of his true heritage. It is to one of these societal benefits that we wish to direct our attention. We do not wish to involve ourselves in the present political strife. We have hitherto kept out of it and do not feel ca 1 led upon at the present moment to enter it more than our place private citizens would allow. What leads us to our present course of action, as already intimated, is the conviction that it is not only finite matters which are being contended for. We fear that our nation will be tricked or robbed of that which is worth more than all our earthly goods and which alone is able to prepare a nation to solve its problems and achieve its goaIs.

We believe that the old proverb is true: "Righteousness exalteth a nation but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14: 34). We do not know-of any other power that can conquer sin and attain that righteousness, peace and joy which is the primary prerequisite for its welfare. We do not know of any other healing power for the nation' s moral and social needs than that which Christianity proffers. We do not believe that Christianity is just an individual matter. It is also of societal consequence. As such it will permeate not only the Church but also the life of the whole nation including civil affairs. Up until the present, it has in reality occupied such a position in our nation. Our country has hitherto earned the name “a Christian nation,” though not in the sense that there are only to be found true spiritual Christians within it, but in the sense that Christianity has been the object of its attention and respect. It has been a force which by and large has motivated our nation and stamped its unique image upon our society. It is the Christian character of our nation and this Christian influence upon our daily life that we now see endangered by political radicalism. It is not our intention to label all of those in our nation who have aligned themselves with the radical party as the enemies of Christianity. We would rather like to believe that there are many among them who do not know what they are doing. We are not speaking about the intentions of an individual member of the [radical] party but only about what the radical movement as such will inevitably lead to and what its leaders, who have a more or less clear understanding of things, are trying to attain. Then, finally, we cannot for one moment escape the conviction that the suppression of Christianity's position which it has hitherto occupied in our nation is not only of necessity a consequence of this movement but is its final goal.

The fruit which the radical movement has so far produced in the religious and ethical life of our nation is evident for anyone who has eyes to see. From many parts of our country one hears acrimonious complaints already about the decline of Christian life where this movement has begun to gain power over the hearts of people and where an understanding of God's Word and Kingdom has had to give way to the surging and damaging political interest. One need not wonder whether such is the case when one sees the demoralizing influence that accompanies the radical politic in those sections of the nation where it has permeated. With ever-increasing boldness it has adopted the jesuitical presupposition that the end justifies the means and has trampled over truth and justice. In its onward march it is breaking down the respect for all that is high and holy. It sets in motion evil passions and produces unrest in the nation, creating divisions among the various classes of society. It ought to remind us of the words of our Lord , "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation" (Matthew 12:25). That one, under the circumstances still finds Christianity dealt with a certain respect, is evidence only that one sees in it a power within the nation which one has not yet dared attack openly. The actual relationship of radicalism to Christianity of which we have enough evidence, has already penetrated the religious and ethical realm. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit. It is becoming increasingly clear that what stands behind the whole movement and is its leading spirit and driving power is free thought, the modern infidelity. This is true especially of the press where the radical politic has its most potent spokesmen and gets its powerful leverage. Here rules a spirit which is about to poison our whole national life in several directions. Through it a mighty unchristian, yes, anti-Christian, worldview pours into our nation and is received with open arms by a naive people. They do not recognize that their guide is actually a seducer whose motto is that of the unrighteous judge:  “fear not God, nor regard man” (Luke 18:4).

This is our view of the situation. Thus we have decided to step forth with this appeal. Whether our nation really wants Christianity displaced from the position it has previously occupied in our national life, that we do not know. If such should actually be its wish, then no earthly power will be able to stop it from doing what it wants. Among all its friends, however, there is but one wish, that what is done be done not out of blindness but rather with a full comprehension of what one is doing. Therefore we wish to make our contribution, as far as we are able, to open the eyes of our nation to the danger which threatens it. We see it as an unavoidable duty for each one who desires that Christianity be preserved in our nation, to step into the battle as time and talents allow wherever it is attacked in our society, directly or indirectly. But Christianity's most dangerous enemy, as far as we can see it, is political radicalism. Thus it is our belief that our first and foremost task is to enlighten our nation as to the relationship of this radicalism to Christianity.

What we ourselves here can contribute is not very much. It is our intention to enlighten the situation from its various aspects through a series of brochures and thereby drive home what we have only had the opportunity to touch upon and allude to. In recognition of the importance which the spoken word has alongside the written, we have decided to send out men who through public lectures and conversations will also contribute to the same goal. But it is obvious, that we will not be able to accomplish anything unless we find the necessary support throughout the land which is needed. For this reason we are addressing ourselves through this appeal to all those in our country who share our view. We have reason to believe, that there are many of our countrymen who are saying that it is high time that the friends of Christianity in our land rise up and band together for a common defense of our nation's most precious treasure. Just as we, according to our abilities desire to extend to you a helping hand through the abovementioned means, so also we ask you to help us and support our work. It means that each one has to do his duty. Involved is a struggle for our nation's welfare which no one who has come to see its importance can scarcely avoid. There is a time to keep quiet, but there is also a time to speak. We believe, that in the matter which now concerns us, we have kept quiet long enough. What is needed now, is that each one in his own circle through word and deed make a witness against the infidelity which is on the verge of flooding our nation and against the political movement through which it seeks to reach its goal, namely, the destruction of that power which Christianity has hitherto held in our national life.

May the Lord and God, out of whose undeserved grace our land has so richly been blessed both materially and spiritually, lead this endeavor and this struggle so that all be done in His Name, be to national blessing, and to the honor and praise of His Holy Name.[21]

 In addition to the sentiments expressed in The Appeal, Johnson also lectured extensively on the relation between the state and Christianity in his Lectures on Christian Ethics. Below is a rough draft of a translated section.

Gisle Johnson, “The Christian State,” Forelaesninger af den Kristelige Ethik[22]

We have now treated the Christian Society in its various Relations and now pass on to the Consideration of the Christian State.

Of the sociable Society. The bourgeois society appears again as the Law and the Idea of organically-ordered Society. The organic unity, which connects the individual members of the Family with each other, is dissolved in the society. What characterizes this as the opposite of the family is precisely the looser connection between the individual members of society, the freer relationship in which these here stand to each other. But precisely for this reason there is also in the virtuous Society itself the Desire for a higher form of Society, for a Family Society in a higher Power, as an Organization of Society, which enables it to stand out and act in organic unity. This urge now almost finds its satisfaction in the State; in it we have just such an organization of society, whereby each of its members gets its specific place in the organism as a whole, stands in a specific relation to the whole society and through it also to all its individual members. What separates civil society from moral society is precisely its constitution, as it is arranged and determined by the law in force and stated in its law. What the Spirit of Society, the virtuous General Consciousness, is in the Society, that is the Law in the State; it is precisely Society's virtuous conscience, expressed in the objective form of a law binding all its members. Only in this form does it, in the full meaning of the word, meet the Individual as an objective Power. The custom and usage prevailing in the company can and must often be exceeded by the individual; the law of civil society, on the other hand, confronts the individual with a power that compels obedience, precisely therein lies the essential meaning of the state and society's urge to organize itself as a state, that it is only in the state with its compelling power of law that society is able to fully exercise the decisive, morally nurturing influence on the individual individuals, which is its task.

It also applies to the State, however, that it is under the disturbing influence of sin and therefore needs a Regeneration, which only Christianity is capable of effecting. If Christianity is at all called to conquer the world, then it also has the task of Christianizing bourgeois society. In the early days of the Church, the state in its then pagan guise was far too hostile to Christianity for there to be any talk of any Christianization of it. The Christians then had to stand by the Truth: that Christ's Kingdom is not of this world. However, since the state's attitude towards Christianity was changed, the Christians also recognized the possibility and necessity of doing the pagan State Christianity subservient. This task, to Christianize the state, Christianity can solve by its essence alone by permeating society in its individual parts with its man and its life. From the Christianized society in this way, a Christian state will emerge with inner necessity. What we mean by this expression is not a society whose individual members are all Christians, but a society which not only tolerates Christianity within its area and allows it to freely display its powers, but also in its entire appearance as such, in its principles, laws and institutions, it allows itself to be controlled and determined by the man of Christianity, by the principle of Christian morality, or at least sets itself the goal, as far as possible, of letting this spirit express itself in its entire order and activity of life. It is clear that even this Christianization of the State, as long as Society is in Development, cannot ever be expected to be completely implemented. In the concrete reality, the people will always be governed on the basis of the virtuous consciousness, which in reality lives in it. Therefore, the Christian state, as well as the Christian family, the Christian society, will always remain for the Christian as an ideal that has never been fully achieved, as a goal for his endeavors. But as such a moral purpose he must also always maintain the Christian state; he will always see in it an essential form of the Kingdom of God on Earth, a form of society, which in its own way is destined to promote the coming of the Kingdom of God. The purpose of the Christian state will thus be this: as an organ for God's revelation in Christ. Desire, on the foundation of the Christian family and the Christian society, through its Christian law and legal order, to promote the moral upbringing of the individual citizens and thus contribute to the coming of God's Kingdom.

Its Christian character must come to light in all its activities of life in all its different directions, in its exercise as much of its legislative and judicial as of its executive power. If in this way it must always take into account and be conditioned by the individuality of the individual people, its legislative activity must always have its real origin in the spirit of Christianity and therefore also always be in accordance with it. A Christian State cannot allow what Christianity forbids, or forbid what Christianity demands, even though due to historically concrete circumstances it can and must command and forbid many things that the Church cannot deal with at all. In its Judiciary, the Christian State will faithfully uphold its Christian Law and Law. Finally, the same must also apply to its executive business or its business to fulfill the law's commandments and the judgment's demands. The question that particularly arises here, the question of the right of the Christian state to use physical force as a means of coercion to realize its idea, must be answered in the affirmative by anyone who recognizes the legitimacy of the state at all. The opposite claim would not be Christian, but pseudo-Christian or even anti-Christian.[23]

For the Christian, the Christian state is an essential part of God's Kingdom on Earth. As such, it is based, not on any mutual human, arbitrary, random agreement between a Part of Individuals, but in the divine World Order and World Government exalted above all human arbitrariness. The individual state is probably, with regard to its special arrangements and constitution, a human order,[24] but it is equally true that the state as an institution in general, as a peculiarly determined form of the earthly human society, according to its moral being and its moral Meaning is a divine order, to which the Christian submits "for the Lord's sake."

Authority

This also applies in particular to the moral-personal Representative, which the State or civil society has in its Sovereignty. The civil authority corresponds to the Office in the Church. In the Public Administration, we have a peculiar and significant part in the Organism of the civil society, whereby it is also distinct from the social Society. Where there is a society, in which there is law and justice, there must also be persons whose duty and right it is to assert its law and implement its order. The authorities are the personal bearer of the civil law and as such the personal representative of civil society. The Idea of the Commonwealth is in it, as it were, incarnated; it appears in it in personal Reality. But with this it is also a given that everything that applies to the Christian State must also essentially apply to the Christian Authority. Therefore, it is also this, not the State as such, about which the above-mentioned Scriptures most closely and immediately deal. If the State itself is a divine order, then the same must also apply to the Authority. Its Right as such rests not on any merely human, but essentially on a divine order. The Christian State and the Christian Authority are, what they are, essentially "of God's Grace."[25] This expression, which originates from Louis the Pious, does not denote a certain state constitution in contrast to others, it applies to the Christian Authority as such under any constitution. What it signifies is not the closest, let alone exclusively, the Christian Right of Rights, but primarily its peculiar Obligation. Authority is always what it is, by virtue of God's Will and Arrangement; it is set by God to act in His Name and on His behalf, but therefore also obliged to act according to His Will. The predicate "by the grace of God" therefore also essentially applies only to the Christian Authority and only to the same degree in which it corresponds to its Name. When in our time one not infrequently refrains from using this expression, there is undeniably a certain sense of truth underlying it, the feeling that the Authority is not a Christian Authority. An authority that does not ask for what pleases God, but only for what pleases men, that does not rule according to God's will, but according to human discretion, does not deserve the name of Christian authority and therefore has no right to derive its Position from God's grace. In a certain sense, every authority can probably be said to be of God, without regard to the relationship in which in reality the heathen belongs to God, namely insofar as its existence is always the product of a historical development, where such is under God's rule. But it is something else to be subject to God's grace. An authority can also be of God's wrath; its existence may have its reason in a divine punishment of wrath, which applies both to itself and to the people it has to rule.

Thus, that the true Sovereign Power and Authority which is thus founded in God's Will and Arrangement, not in any human Agreement, thus nothing is said about any single determined State Constitution which is exclusively Christian. The NT, like the OT, does not recognize any State Constitution directly ordained by God himself. The arrangement, the arrangement of this is therefore uncharged to the Christian Freedom on the basis of God's Will, especially also provided as it manifests itself in the concrete, historically given conditions.

Even where an authority has formally had its authority handed over by the people themselves, e.g. in a Republic, where the Authority is elected, even there it must, if it can be recognized as a legitimate Authority at all, be said to have its Call as such, not from the People, but from God, and only insofar as it itself recognizes this and thus then also bends under God's Will and supports itself to the Right that God's Arrangement provides, only insofar as it is also in truth a Christian Authority.

As such, this Christian concept of authority forms the diametrical opposite to the unchristian, anti-Christian idea of an absolute autocracy, a dominion that rests only on human arbitrariness, whether it is exercised by an absolute sole ruler or by a plurality of rulers or even by the People's Majority. Democratic despotism is just as unchristian as monarchical. The Christian consideration of the state must necessarily be opposed to any consideration of it, according to which it or the actual state power appears as absolutely independent of any moral constraint, so that its will is the law and law of society, and all law depends only on its will. The Christian State therefore gives everyone the Honor and Right that is due to him, because it asserts God's Right and gives Him His Glory. The modern claim about the infallibility and absolute power of the Popular Majority, which lies in the phrase: "vox populi vox dei," is a very old doctrine; it is found stated, but also judged already in the OT.[26] The Holy Scriptures have quite different thoughts about the people; it even describes God's own chosen people as a stiff-necked, stupid, foolish, blind and deaf people.[27] It was the People's Will who brought Christ to the Cross; it was the liberal statesman Pilate, who, in order to please the people, to follow the vox populi, set the robber free and crucified the Lord of Glory. We find an excellent picture of the blindness of the masses in Act. 19:23ff.[28] Sin is the People's Corruption,[29] but from this Corruption the Majority is by no means free.[30]

Subjects

Directly opposite the Authority as the State's Representative, the other members of civil society stand as subjects, obliged either to recognize its authority and to support it in its fulfillment of its duty of call, or to obey it in its arrangements and orders aimed at the maintenance and implementation of the social order. Such a demand for obedience on the part of the subjects has, for the Christian, first and foremost authority. he must recognize as a Christian authority, as such, which in reality, in deed appears as God's serving organ, God's representative, the enforcer of divine law and justice. The command of the Christian Authority is, by its very concept, only an expression of God's Will; Only insofar as the Authority is truly Christian, as it really makes God's Will applicable. The full concept of a Christian authority also includes that it has a morally justifiable reason to stand on, that it is legitimate. Only the legally existing, the rightful, legitimate Authority can be a Christian Authority.

However, it is not the Christian Authority alone that has such a demand on the obedience of its subjects. Even a non-Christian authority, an unjustly created or unjustly ruling authority, must be recognized by the Christian as, in a certain sense, set by God. If it does not yet take its position according to God's pleasing Will, then . however, it does so according to His Permission; isn't it yet. whatever it is, by God's will, it has not become so without God's cooperation, without God's rule. Although the Christian may consider it unjust and therefore also use all legal means to promote the Restoration of the right Christian social order, he must, however, as long as it exists, i.e. actually approved by God, recognize it and thus also obey it as the divine order Representative. Such an unjust government is also most often a tool for God's punishing justice over the sins of the people or of a previous government, and such a divine punishment of chastisement the Christian dare not arbitrarily avoid.[31]

The Christian obeys his authority not as a human slave, but as the free servant of God, he obeys it for the sake of the Lord, for the sake of conscience,[32] he does not make his obedience to it dependent on whether it seems advantageous to him, but one and only, that it does not conflict with his obedience to God. Here we have the sole but as such also absolute limit for his proof of obedience. Precisely because he is submissive to authority for the Lord's sake, he must refuse that obedience where it demands something that is in obvious conflict with God's will; this is a simple consequence of the entire Christian consideration of the Authority's position. If its right to command is not an unconditional right, but conditional on it staying within the divine order, in which its entire position has its moral foundation, then the Christian cannot have any obligation to unconditional obedience to its commands either; where these intervene disturbingly in the area of life, which is undoubtedly ordered by God's Word, there it applies to "obey God more than men."[33] Naturally, this also means not confusing or mixing up God's Will with one's own opinions or inclinations, i.e. having the firm foundation of God's Word to stand on.

But where the Christian thus has to refuse obedience to authority on the basis of God's word, he will at the same time always preserve not only the love for it, which is especially effective in intercession,[34] but also the reverence and awe of it, which he in the Whole is guilty as a Servant of God.[35] He will therefore not set himself against it by force, but when he has tried all legal means in vain, will willingly bear, speak, suffer whatever his disobedience to it may bring upon him in terms of temporal consequences.[36] All that is called  rebellion, insurrection, fierce resistance against the authorities, is for the Christian essentially rebellion against God and as such an abomination, a moral impossibility, Something in which he is so far from being able to participate that he resists, everything according to his bourgeois status, he must and will fight it with all might.[37] Nor can the Nationality principle, which is much talked about and exalted these days, however justified it may otherwise be, justify someone to stand up against the existing Authority.[38]

The State's Duty towards its Citizens

Concerning the temporal life-prayer, the task of the Christian state directly towards its citizens consists in that, with the means which stands at its disposal, but in heartfelt connection with the Christian Church and therefore also with the given higher purpose for sight, preserves, arranges and promotes the moral existence, life, and development of the individual citizen as well as the family and society. In all its activity, the state is essentially referred to that Sphere from which it derives its peculiar means of action, i.e. earthly life. However, it does not follow from this that the purpose of its activity should also lie exclusively within the limits of this life. While the non-Christian state knows no higher purpose than the earthly-temporal one, the Christian state, on the other hand, stands in a relationship with the Christian Church, in which it must necessarily recognize why the Church works, also as the purpose of its endeavour. The promotion of Christian morality is thus the essential, last, highest purpose of the Christian state. Communicating the Salvation of Sinners is probably not the task of the State, but exclusively of the Church; only this is in provision of the necessary means. But that is why the Christian state must equally recognize it for its task by its own means of supporting the Church in its work. Only through an organic collaboration with the Church can that truth expect to achieve its goal. As the highest moral organization in the temporal sphere of life, the State not only encompasses a diversity of individual moral individuals, but also the lower forms of moral society, in which it has its moral foundation. Of the Relation in which it stands to these forms of society, comes with Necessity, of which it cannot want to abolish or destroy them, but on the contrary must recognize them in their moral entitlement and strive to ensure their existence and promote their development. The Christian state also differs significantly from the non-Christian state, which has always shown a certain tendency to absorb and destroy all such lower forms of society. Only within the Christian state is true freedom to be found both for the individual individuals and for the lower forms of moral society.

As far as its relation to the individual persons is concerned, in the recognition of their morally free personhood, it will not only protect their lives and promote their temporal welfare, but also in the higher moral area of life, preserve them in their individual rights and freedoms. This includes almost everything that can be summed up under the care for society's "material interests," especially when also the care that the individual does not lack the external reason to sustain his earthly life through moral work. But at the same time, the state will also preserve and protect the individual in the possession and enjoyment of personal freedom, which is an essential condition for his moral development and thereby also for the development of the state itself as a moral organism. That this Freedom, which the State thus grants its Citizens, cannot be absolutely unrestricted, is a matter of course. What makes a curtailment of it necessary is again sin, which, where it does not meet its necessary limit, appears in subjective, unreasonable, selfish arbitrariness. It is this sinful arbitrariness of the irrational personality, not the virtuous freedom of the reasonable personality, that the Christian state must and will curtail.

The personal freedom that the State must thus grant to its citizens is essentially freedom of conscience in the broadest sense of the word, religious and moral freedom of conscience, freedom in word and deed to publicly acknowledge and announce not only one's religious beliefs, one's faith, but in general one's personal Conviction in its full scope, provided it does not conflict with the State's Law and Law. A Christian State will therefore not force anyone to do an action which he must consider, according to his conscientious conviction, to be unchristian or immoral. But to the freedom of conscience, which is required here, to the personal freedom of the Christian citizen, freedom of expression, speech and the press also essentially belong. What the State can grant to individual individuals of such freedom, that must also benefit the Church. Of what importance this freedom is to Christianity and the Church, its history throughout all ages shows; the spread of Christianity is precisely conditioned by the free preaching of the evangelical truth.

Freedom to profess one's faith is thus something that the Christian cannot allow himself to be robbed of. Therefore, this was precisely the point where the Christians first of all had to refuse obedience to the unchristian State.[39] If Christianity has actually won its victory over Judaism and paganism with its spiritual weapons, then it cannot possibly remain where it itself has been. The Power controlling society, would use the external, physical weapon of power against the delusion that might come against it; it must also here rely on the Power of Truth.[40] This freedom of conscience and freedom of expression finds its necessary limitation in its own moral assumption. It belongs to the individual, not as a simple individual, but as a moral personality, as a member of the moral society, and therefore also only insofar as he does not himself deny the moral being of the personality and society. He who places himself outside the Law and Justice of the virtuous Society cannot demand from it what it bequeaths to him who actually recognizes it and joins with it. Such a curtailment of the individual's freedom of expression becomes necessary to the same extent as it is the State's duty to protect society's morally incompetent members from seduction and the entire society from outrage. In such freedom of expression, the Christian cannot see any real freedom of conscience, but only the freedom of individual egoism to assert itself within and against society.

In essentially the same relation as to the Individual, the Christian State stands second also to the Family existing within its area. Here, too, it becomes its task partly to protect the existence of the family, partly to promote the discovery of the common goal.

This mostly applies to marriage. Already the foundation of marriage is of such significance for the whole of society that the state cannot be indifferent to it, but must strive to bring that thing into a fixed order, which then within the Christian state must necessarily rest on the virtuous, Christian idea of marriage. Here we have one of those points where there is cooperation between the Christian State and the Christian Church proves to be absolutely necessary, even if there will always be a difference between the two, provided that the state does not have to do with Christians alone, but must also recognize openly non-Christian Christians as members of its society, which is why it must then also be able to enforce compliance in an emergency of its Commandments and Arrangements, while the Church is only referred to spiritual means of action. The more this difference between the State and the Church has been brought to light in recent times, the more strongly the question of civil marriage or the civil establishment of marriage alongside the ecclesiastical one has also become relevant. This question can certainly not be answered differently than that the State, as the situation as it is now will not be able to do without this form of marriage, at least not for those of its citizens, whom the Church cannot recognize as its members (Emergency civil marriage, optional civil marriage, compulsory civil marriage). Another point, where the difference between the State and the Church applies, is the divorce. Even if the Christian State here too wants to start from the Christian idea of marriage, it may, on the basis of the "hardness of the heart,"[41] see itself forced to grant Divorce even where the Church cannot recognize it as Christianly justified.

Of particular importance here is the subjugating relationship in which the Christian State steps in to the family with regard to child-rearing. At the same time as it weighs on the sanctity of marriage and defends the family against external attacks on its existence, it will also support and promote the upbringing of children at the Christian school or even, where the family is in fact unable or unwilling to fulfill its duty completely step in its place, itself take over the work of education in its entire extent. Although the Christian state should not intervene in the right of the family by depriving it of the work of education, it must, however, on account of the superior position it occupies to the other lower Forms of society, always reserve the right to control the Family in this its business and to charge the underage children against its possible folly or ill will. Here, too, we have a Prayer, which the State cannot possibly do without the Church's involvement.[42] The normal thing here will always be for the State to hand over the actual responsibility for schooling to the Church, which, where it is a Christian school, can basically perform the necessary function alone, and only retains the necessary oversight to ensure that also its peculiar interests are thereby taken care of in a satisfactory manner. An "Emancipation of the School" in the sense of its complete separation from the Church is something that a Christian state cannot agree to; it would thereby only work to its own destruction as such. What the Church here under all circumstances must demand, that is, that the organization and management of the school do not make it impossible for it to provide the children belonging to the Church with the necessary help to progress in Christian knowledge and Christian disposition, and that the State, where such is the case, at least, does not force the Church to send its children to anti-Christian schools, but allows it to found its own Christian schools.

In the same way, the Christian state will finally also take over the preservation and management of the Christian society as the form of the Christian society in which it has its closest essential foundation. Its task here is, in all its reality, to appear as the bearer of Christian morality, partly by making this morality the basis and expression for all its peculiar life activities, especially then also for its legislation, partly also by that, that in the outstanding personal bearers of their lives, in their personal representatives themselves portray the spirit of Christian morality in the reality of life. It is not enough, of course, that its legislation is permeated and solidified by this spirit; it must also prove effective in the individuals who have to uphold the state's Christian law in its name. The people's "Covenant" was also supposed to be its moral role model, to be at the forefront of everything that is true and good. Therefore, a Christian State will not be able to say that its servants, the Representatives, outrage the Christian People by unchristian living. It is indeed one of the State's main tasks vis-à-vis Christian society to avert all public outrage at unchristian Being, to protect Christian society from the offense it would thereby suffer. That the non-Christian being, which can also be found within the unique characteristics of the Christian state, in this way suffers a curtailment of its freedom, it is a matter of direction, but also a necessity, if not the Christian being, which the state precisely has to maintain and promote, shall suffer some loss in his Right and his Freedom. One of the most serious accusations which in our days is leveled against the Christian state, is the fact that it tolerates fornication even where it is shameless enough to appear publicly.[43]

Another main task for the Christian State here is to uphold the Christian Society by protecting the decent and civil legal order and protect it against any violation. As the bearer and enforcer of the law, as the earthly representative of the ethical world order, it is both justified and has the duty to, also by physical force, ward off all injustice and punish anyone who violates the existing legal order. Its peak when the civil penalty as an expression of retributive justice, whose representative is the state, in the death penalty, which has already been discussed earlier in its place.[44] It is at all clear that the state here too, especially where it has to behave punitively, is only able to fulfill its task as a Christian state as it works hand in hand with the Church, to the extent that it is true. If it is the case that even the civil punishment is almost and really only aimed at the enforcement of justice, the maintenance of moral order, then it should also serve to promote the moral improvement of the punished individual; but such an improvement in the Christian meaning of the word can of course only come from the Church. A properly Christian Penal Care therefore also necessarily includes a Soul Care.

The task of the Christian State also still includes that it assumes the poor and miserable and comes to their aid in their need, provided that the family and society are not able to remedy it. Here, too, it shows how the State needs the Church's assistance. According to the nature of the case and the testimony of all experience, any purely bourgeois poverty leads only to a particular kind of Communism, as the poor are thereby led to regard public support as a legal claim, which exempts them from all gratitude to the outsider.

Science and art also belong within the scope of the Christian State's activities. Probably, both are almost the ideal for the virtuous striving of the individual individuals; but if this endeavor is to be able to reach its goal in truth, it will always require some support from the government, and this urge must, just as the higher spiritual formation is a moral good both for the individual and for society as a whole, then also be the Christian State's task to meet. Bringing forth the spiritual life that finds expression in science and art is something that the State with its external means, its laws and institutions, cannot shape. But what it can do here, and as a Christian state will also do, is to promote the healthy development of this spiritual life by protecting it against everything that would interfere with its free expression, and to support it with the means that stand for it Wisdom, but at the same time also see to it that it does not stray into areas where it comes into conflict with the idea of Christian morality. The means to which the State is referred in its activities, its remedies, are previously mentioned.

The Christian’s Duty to the State

We now come to the question of the role of Christians contradistinct from the state as a member of civil society. The Christian Citizen's Duty towards the State does not coincide with the Christian Subject's Duty towards the Authority. The Authority also belongs to the citizens of the State, and the other members of the civil society, the subjects, constitute at the same time that they stand under the Authority, although alongside the also essential member of the civil society's virtuous organism. They also have, just like the State's servants, in their place in the Organism and thus also in their own way to contribute to the common goal of achieving the State's existence and development as a Christian State. The Christian thus has, in whatever civic position he finds himself, to work for the Realization, the Realization of the Idea of the Christian State. As a citizen, he also has a noble task, which he dare not evade, however much there may be in the political conditions, which discourages him from dealing with them. This Task is essentially twofold: it applies both to maintaining and preserving the State in its historically acquired existence and also to promoting its Development to ever higher levels of perfection. This once conservative and reformative endeavor is the natural expression of the Christian view of the state as a divine Order in human form.[45] As a divine institution, an order, which has its final principle of causality in God's original world order itself, the state has a right to exist, a claim to be vindicated by its very existence, which every Christian will respect. As a human order, it is at the same time always burdened with an imperfection, which makes constant progress necessary, always mixed with sinful, impure, alien elements to the divine order, which it needs to cleanse.

The Christian's task as a citizen thus becomes closest to preserving and maintaining the State, as it confronts him in reality as a product of historical development. Any upheaval of the existing according to abstract ideals must, for the Christian, be seen as an offense against the right of historical reality. A Christian State is impossible without Citizens' Loyalty, but all Loyalty is essentially conservative, Loyalty to the historically Given. The more the state responds to its idea as a Christian state, the stronger this conservative side of the Christian's moral striving as a citizen will naturally become.

But at the same time, he will never be able to close his eyes to the indigent and needy,[46] which cling to every State, however close it may be to the Realization of the Idea. His Conservatism is no Stabilism, for which all that exists is divinely unassailable. Therefore, his conservative striving also has on its essential other side a reformative striving, a striving after the historically given foundation, in Christian fidelity to what exists, to carry this forward towards the goal of perfection, especially also by separating and purifying Everything that within it points back to Sin as its Source. Precisely because of the reformative Striving, the conservative Striving is only the other side, it differs significantly from all revolutionary Striving; In contrast to this, it will always maintain the historically given basis of development and therefore also always pursue its goal along the path of legal order.

The healthy life and development of any state is conditional on both of these in and of themselves justified ethical endeavors coming to their rightful place and standing in the right relationship to each other, and that where they are represented by different individuals, these also mutually recognize each other's noble right and strive to work together for the common goal.[47]

This once conservative and reformative endeavor is the natural, moral fruit of the Christian love of the country or "Patriotism." With the term "love of country," one probably often thinks of the love of man towards the country in which he has the physical basis for his earthly life, and especially his homeland. Christian patriotism does not really apply to the country, however; the Christian cannot stand in any moral relation to a piece of land; it essentially applies to the people to which the Christian belongs. It is the Christian's self-denying love for his people in its peculiar, historically given peculiarity. Christianity does not abolish national consciousness, because it does not admit the difference of nationality to any significance in relation to God,[48] and the Christian is in no way indifferent to his earthly Fatherland, because he has his rightful Citizenship and Fatherland in Heaven;[49] his awareness of being a "stranger and foreigner" in the world[50] destroys his love of country as much as his love of neighbor at all. The actual existence of humanity in a diversity of different peoples, although it is a fruit of sin's dissolving influence on the family, nevertheless forms the natural basis for the formation of the various states, and love of country will therefore also only find full satisfaction there, where the state appears as the organically arranged Community. Herein lies the moral justification of the "Nationality principle." Every people must feel the urge for an ordered social life, a state life, which corresponds to its specific historical peculiarity. But this does not by any means imply the absolutely unconditional validity of this principle. Where in and of itself natural conditions have been destroyed by the sin of the people, the Christian will bow under such an act as a due divine chastisement, even if he will still strive to assert the right of national property, of nationality, in any way that is compatible with obedience, which he owes the existing Authority.

The Christian love of country differs from the purely natural by its self-denying character; it is an element of Christian charity and must therefore also exclude all hatred towards those who belong to another people. Only he who knows and loves the eternal Fatherland is able to love the earthly Fatherland properly. Only the true Christian can honor a true Patriot; for only with him is found the pure love for the fatherland that is untainted by selfish ulterior motives; only he is capable of truly sacrificing everything for its sake. Even the most ardent love of country is very often only a peculiar form of the sinful heart's natural selfishness and pride.

We find the true virtuous essence of Christian patriotism expressed in Acts 7:26 (Brothers). The scriptures also give us shining examples of such love of country, especially in the Old Testament, where what is usually referred to as "Jewish particularism," which is most often only the moral love of the Israelite for his people. In the New Testament, this Love meets us in the Apostle Paul, where, even as an apostle to the Gentiles, he continued to embrace his people with a fervent love;[51] yes, even Christ, whose Call embraces the whole of humanity, shows such love to his people of the day.[52]

[1] This section is taken from Trygve Skarsten, Gisle Johnsons: A Study of the Interaction of Confessionalism and Pietism (dissertation; University of Chicago, 1968), 270-282.

[2] Storthings forhandlinzer (1883), Sec. V, Doc. 100

[3] The dual monarchy of Norway-Sweden lasted only until 1905 when it split over the control of foreign affairs.

[4] “Diskussionen paa stiftsmddet om kristendomrnens forhold til politiken," Luthersk kirketidende, Series 4, XIl (1882), 199.    

[5] J. E. , Sars, 'Et og andet om vor politiske situation,’  Nyt tidsskrift, I (1882), 82-84.        

[6] “Diskussionen paa stiftsmßdet," pp. 195-96.

[7] Gisle Johnson, Ethik, p. 284.

[8] M. J. Fæ rden, t 'Hvad betydning har det for et folk, om de bygger sin samfundsorden paa kristendommens el ler paa den suveræ ne folkeviljes grund, Luthersk ugeskrift, XIV (1883), 369.

[9] Johnson, Ethik, 269.

[10] Ethik, 282.

[11] Ethik, 282-283.

[12] Gisle Johnson, "Kristendommens forhold til politiken," 176.

[13] Bjdrnstjerne Bjdrnson, “Hr. Prof. Gisle Johnson,” Fædeland Vol. XV (November 29, 1882).

[14] Olaf Gjerlow, Norges politiske historie. Vol. I (Oslo: Johan Grundt Tanum For lag, 1934), p. 142.

[15] Keilhau, Det norske folks liv og historie, X, 113-14.

[16] Universal suffrage for men was introduced in 1898 and for women in 1913.

[17] “Venstre og kristendommen," reprinted in Verdens tang, Vol. XVI (January 6, 1883).

[18] Jakob Sverdrup, ed. , "Hans Nielsen Hauge og Lars Oftedal," Ny luthersk kirketidende, V (1881), 321-36.

[19] Anders Skrondal, "Den kyrkjelege bakgrunnen for gjennomfdringa av par lamentarismen i 1884," Norsk teologisk tiddskrift XLVI (1945), 279.

[20] Cf. Verdens gang (February 1, 1883); Vestlandsposten. Vol. VI (February 3, 1883); Luthersk ugeskrift. XIII (1883),

60-68, 98-102; Luthersk kirketidende. 4th Series, XIII (1883), 33-36.

[21] Morgenbladet (January 28, 1883).

[22] [The following is a translation of Gisle Johnson’s Forelæsninger over den kristelige Ethik (Christiana: Jacob Dybwads, 1898), pp. 278-297, aided by AI.]

[23] Cf. Rom. 13:3; 1 Pet. 2:14; 1 Tim. 2:2; Prov. 20:8, 26; 29:4, 14; see also, what has been stated above about the Christian justification of the death penalty.

[24] 1 Pt. 2:13, krisis anthropinei.

[25] Cf. 1 Cor. 15:10.

[26] Num. 16

[27] Exod. 32:9, 22; Dt. 32:6, 28; Jer. 5:1; Is. 1:4, 30:1, 9; 42:18.

[28] Cf. also Act. 12:1; 14:19; 17:5; 13:21, 28; 27:25; 9:22.

[29] Prov. 14:34.

[30] 2 Pet. 2:10:19.

[31] Rom. 13:1ff.; Tit. 3:1; 1 Pet. 2:13; Ps. 82:6; Jn. 10:34; Mt. 17:25ff.

[32] Act. 13:20, 21; 1 Pet. 2:13, 16; Rom. 13:5.

[33] Act. 4:18ff.; 5:29ff., 40 ff.

[34] 1 Tim. 2:2.

[35] 2 Pet. 2:17

[36] Rom. 13:2; Prov. 24:21; Act. 23:3ff.

[37] Num. 16; 2 Sam. 15; 20:1f.; I King. 1:5; Lk. 19;14, 27; 21:9; 23:19; Act. 21:38; cf. Mt. 26:52; Rom. 13:4, where the Lord teaches us that the Authority has received the sword from God and therefore must also give an account to Him for how it uses it, while, on the other hand, no one has received the sword from God to use against the Authority.

[38] Cf. Mt. 22:17ff.

[39] Act. 4:17 f.; 5:28 f., 40 f.

[40] Act. 5:38f.

[41] Mt. 19:8.

[42] See s. 313.

[43] [Mid-19^th century Norway was dealing with an epidemic of sexual impropriety. Skarsten oberserved: “Sexual promiscuity was also found to be rampant. One out of every eleven live births in Norway was illegitimate. During the period from 1831-1850 there were thirty-one births out of wedlock for every one hundred marriages. Some parishes in Gulbrandsdal had as high a ratio as sixty-seven illegitimate births for every one hundred marriages” (Skarsten, Gisle Johnsons: A Study of the Interaction of Confessionalism and Pietism, 232).]

[44] S. 181f.

[45] 1 Pt. 2:13.

[46] Brøst og mangler, an idiom for the indigent and downcast. The words both imply, to be lacking. Ordbog over den Danske Sprog, ad loc.

[47] Cf. Mt. 12:25.

[48] Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11; cf. Mt. 28:19; Mk. 11:17; Lk. 2:31; Act. 2:8.

[49] Php. 3:20.

[50] 1 Pt. 2:11.

[51] Act. 22:1; Rom. 9:1; 11:1, 14.

[52] Mt. 9:36; 10:5, 15, 24; Lk. 19:41; 23:27.