Community and Subsidiarity

W.H. Chellis

Collectivism or Community?

We must be careful. As the doctrine of the mediatorial Kingship of Christ over the nations demands a robust doctrine of solidarity (see last months article) it would be easy to draw a number of unbiblical and dangerous conclusions. If the human race is really an organic unity, if nations are really moral persons, does the doctrine of Christ’s social Kingship demand big government liberalism? Does utopian socialism serve the kingdom of God? This is the answer adopted by the Protestant “social gospel” movement. It is not the answer of the Bible. Rather, the Bible’s teaching on the solidarity of nations must be considered along side of its teaching about community and subsidiarity. That is, while the nations enjoy a true organic unity, their unity does not destroy diversity. Therefore, while the social Kingship of Christ challenges us to embrace authentic community, it also demands that we resist the pervasiveness of centralizing tendencies and collectivist ideologies.

Community and the Triune God

In Deut. 6:3 we read, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the LORD is one.” The Bible insists upon the unity of the one true God. Yet, the New Testament makes clear that the solidarity of God does not destroy His Triune diversity. Instead, we worship one God in Trinity, and in Trinity unity. These three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, remain one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory. This truth about the nature of God reveals a great deal of truth about created reality. The tension between the one and the many finds its resolution in the Tri-unity of God. Here ultimate unity does not overwhelm diversity nor does diversity destroy unity. Thus, the Triune God is a community of divine persons enjoying the perfect fellowship of shared divinity.

Community and the Image of God

What does the mysterious nature of the Trinity have to do with the politics of nations? The answer is everything. Remember, mankind was created in the image of God. Made in the image of God, Adam could not live a solitary existence of undifferentiated unity. Just as God’s being expresses itself in the fellowship of the Divine community (the shared love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) so Adam needed a helper fitted to his needs. The provision of a wife and family did not destroy the unity of man but rather perfected it through diversity. Adam needed community within which to enjoy a fellowship of shared loves. To be complete, the image of God must be exercised in community.

Authentic Community

Since man is made in the image of God, he is necessarily a social being. As social beings we long for authentic community. According to Augustine, community is a fellowship of shared loves. Because we are finite creatures of time and space our loves must necessarily tend toward the familiar. The bonds of faith, kinship, tongue, place, and craft unite the hearts of men in fellowship.
As the Triune God is diversity in unity, so the Christian delights in the authentic diversity of social interaction and the intricate web of communal structures that make up the cultural life of nations. The social obligations flowing from family, church, village, and vocation provide stability, responsibility, and most importantly, the opportunity to exercise the image of God through fellowship with other bearers of the divine image.
Sadly, a broad based sense of alienation and loneliness testifies to the break down of community as a meaningful aspect of American life. For nearly two centuries, modernist liberalism has waged an unrelenting war against all forms of mediating structures standing between the sovereign state and the individual. Family, church, village, and fraternal organization are damned as authoritarian imposition restricting the individual right to sovereign self-expression. Thus emancipated from the ancients bonds of community, man is free to live a life of anonymous individuality suffering no authority save the absolute power of the state. This is a danger to be corrected by biblical wisdom.

Community and localism

It is fashionable to speak of America as an idea rather than place. Liberalism and neo-conservatism proclaim that to be a true American is to espouse certain ideological principles. Love for abstract principles like freedom and equality replace traditional love for the concrete realities of hearth and home. Yet, for all the hyperbole of American political discourse, it is unlikely that authentic community can flow out of a commitment to abstractions. In 1 John 4:20 we read, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” John is confirming that our loves must be rooted in concrete realities before they can pass to the abstract. If you do not love the things you know: your family, your home, your village, and your congregation, you cannot exercise the image of God in community. The foundation of all authentic community is local.

Community and subsidiarity

In order to understand how a nation can enjoy a unified solidarity as a moral person (corporately responsible before the throne of God’s judgment) while preserving the blessings of diverse local communities, it is necessary to understand the doctrine of subsidiarity. The biblical doctrine of subsidiarity serves as the necessary balance to the doctrine of solidarity. Subsidiarity, or sphere sovereignty, means that nothing should be done by a larger and more distant social organization that could be done by a smaller more local one. Exodus 18:25 recounts:
Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people, chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. And they judged the people at all times. Any hard cases they brought to Moses, but any small matter they decided themselves.
Following the wise advice of Jethro, Moses organized Israel as a system of ascending courts moving from elders over ten to elders over thousands. These elders were not simply the creatures of Moses, but nobles and chiefs chosen by the families, clans, and tribes of Israel (Deuteronomy 1:13-16). Thus, even under the theocracy, political and legal decisions remained as local as possible.
In the New Testament, Jesus affirms the principle of subsidiarity within the context of church discipline. Jesus declares, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone… But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you… If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church (Matt. 18:15-17). Former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill famously declared, “all politics is local.” Contrary to the spirit of modernist liberalism (and its love-child the welfare-state), subsidiarity depends upon the humane virtues of the local and familiar to solve the complex problems of community.

Subsidiarity, localism, and the Christian community

We have defined the social Kingship of Jesus Christ as His royal rule over the nations. As we consider this Kingship it is valuable for us to remember that a Christian nation is nothing more than a useless abstraction unless enriched by a diversity of families, communities, and free associations that honor Christ according to the Scriptures and the ancient traditions received from faithful generations who struggled to develop and live within authentic community.