International Legal Evangelism: Intelligence, Reconnaissance & Missions

On the other hand, Finnis it seems to me pushes the issue of democracy
aside too lightly. If democracy is a possibility, in a given political setting, then
Christian political thought is far from indifferent to it. Christian attitudes to
democracy should be informed by attention to the connection between God’s
commandment to order the world and the special dignity of the active political
intellect of each person. Our church leaders may be called pastors, but our destiny
is not to be sheep-like, in either ecclesiastical or political affairs. The National
Association of Evangelicals has affirmed, in its statement on civic responsibility
that
We engage in public life because God created our first parents in his image
and gave them dominion over the earth (Gen. 1:27-28). … The
responsibilities that emerge from that mandate are many, and in a modern
society those responsibilities rightly flow to many different institutions,
including governments, families, churches, schools, businesses, and labor
unions. Just governance is part of our calling in creation. 89
And democracy is a way in which that vocation is exercised responsibly and fairly
among millions of individuals. 90
7. International Responsibility
I have suggested that, with this reservation about democracy, Christians are largely
agnostic on particular forms of political power. Parliamentary sovereignty,
constitutional democracy, responsible monarchy when democracy is not
available—these can all be ways of discharging the tasks of governance and order
that descend upon the ordinary nation-state.
I believe a similar agnosticism is justified in international affairs. I do not
mean agnosticism about the tasks of order incumbent on those who inhabit the
world. Those tasks include the securing of peace, the relief of famine and natural
disaster, the sheltering of refugees, the regulation of armed conflict, and where
necessary the organized opposition to violence and aggression; and they also
include the less dramatic but affirmative tasks of international cooperation—trade,
communications, travel, migration etc., that I spoke about last week. Some of
these challenges arise mainly out of the interaction of nation-states. Others—like
89 National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic
Responsibility (available at http:// www.nae.net/images/civic_responsibility.pdf ), p. 2. See also David P. Gushee,
“Evangelicals and Politics: A Rethinking,” J. Law & Religion, 23 (2007-8), 1.
90 Some biblical scholars note that the Genesis account of imago Dei turned its back deliberately on the ancient
Babylonian proposition that the king alone was created in the image of God and that this status underwrote his
exercise of regal power. We now see this regal image in every man. So, to the extent that it is exercised politically,
the image of God is necessarily represented by the participation of millions in a polity not just one person.
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