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scholarly precision with accessibility. And here she goes
beyond a purely historical analysis to consider the
prospects of a biblical politics in the twenty-first century.
But why should twenty-first century Christians take the
time and effort to learn about how seventeenth-century
Protestants thought about politics? I can think of three
reasons. First, it is a means of resourcement. In the
contemporary climate, Christians are strongly tempted
to follow secular ideologies and neglect the resources of
their tradition. But instead of lurching to the Right or
to the Left, we need to reengage with the history of
Christian political thought. In different ways,
Moltmann, Gutierrez and the O’Donovans have
encouraged us to draw on the legacy of earlier Christian
political thinkers. And while reflecting on the political
thought of previous generations of Christians can be
taxing, there is no better way to enlarge our reference
group and learn from the wisdom (and folly) of past
generations. G.K. Chesterton urged us to enfranchise
our ancestors in that ‘democracy of the dead’ called
‘Tradition’. Ferdon’s paper does just that, convening an
animated and rather fractious seminar in which we hear
some powerful and utterly distinctive voices: Sir Robert
Filmer, John Milton, James Harrington, John Lilburne.
A second reason to look to the past is that there are
certain perennial issues and tendencies in Christian
political thought. We still find ourselves divided over
questions of political power – Who holds it? Where
does it originate? To whom are the powerful
accountable? How can they be removed from power?
British Christians who value the institutions of the
monarchy and the established church will resonate with
certain aspects of Royalist thought. For American
Christians, the conclusions of Ferdon’s Republicans
may seem like common sense. Human rights activists
will find the Levellers’ vision of practical Christianity
particularly compelling. And as for Fifth Monarchists,
one might argue that they are still with us in the shape
of theonomists or Christian Reconstructionists (a small
movement whose influence has been greatly exaggerated
by alarmist commentators). The persistence of these
tendencies can be explained in part by reference to
Scripture itself – different strands of the biblical text
perpetually give rise to different political emphases
among Christians. But it also testifies to the seminal
character of early modern thought. In Britain, Royalists
triumphed at the Restoration and we still have a
monarchy and an established church; in America, the
republican tradition as mediated by Milton and
Harrington exercised a significant influence on the
Founding Fathers; our human rights discourse has roots
in the theistic natural rights tradition powerfully
articulated in the writings of Grotius, the Levellers and
Locke; and theonomists justify their aspirations for
godly rule by appealing to the godly commonwealths of
early modern Calvinism. As the novelist William
Faulkner once explained: ‘The past is never dead. It’s
not even past’. Understanding the past helps us to make
sense of our present.
Finally, this study gets us to wrestle with the problem of
biblical hermeneutics. We see how different factions in
the English Revolution turned to different parts of
Scripture as they sought to answer fundamental issues
about power. Contemporaries were concerned that the
Bible had become ‘a nose of wax’, that could be twisted
in various directions to suit different interests, and there
is evidence of this here. This study shows that there are
no easy answers when it comes to reading the Bible
politically, and it ought to make us more self-critical in
our own hermeneutics. Yet we also find evidence of
deep and serious engagement with the Bible, and see
how the reflecting on the Old and New Testaments was
once an integral part of European political thinking.
Reading the Bible with the dead can be a valuable
exercise. It highlights strands of Scripture that we may
have neglected, and suggests levels of meaning that we
may never have encountered. 5 Past thinkers cannot do
our thinking for us. But by reading them, we will learn
to think more carefully and more deeply about politics.
In the light of current controversies over religion in the
public square, this could hardly be more necessary.
John Coffey
Professor of Early Modern History
University of Leicester
February 2013
5
See John L. Thompson, Reading the Bible with the Dead: What you
Can Learn from the History of Exegesis that You Can’t Learn from
Exegesis Alone (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Co., 2007).
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