by Adi Schlebusch
In his 2021 book, The Confessional County: Realizing the Kingdom through Local Christendom, the senior executive fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Raymond Simmons describes the logic of social Christian covenantal confessionalism as follows:
Only by Christ’s power can we begin to have a righteous society. Only by covenant is Christ’s power available to us. The covenant required for this is a social covenant. Societal curses are caused by societal sins and are only removed by societal confession.[1]
There is no aspect of and no reality in creation over which Christ does not have a legitimate claim to Lordship. If we acknowledge the existence of a family, Christ is to be Lord over that family. If we recognize the existence of a community, Christ is to be Lord over that community. The same applies to cities and nations. Understanding the reality of Christ’s claim to Lordship over every societal structure in existence and the redemptive significance of His victory over sin and death for all of creation—including every unit of human society—is the key to understanding why every family, society, town, city, county and nation is a confessional and covenantal unit. The only question is whether it is an obedient covenantal community functioning and prospering in accordance with God’s will, or a degenerate one doomed for destruction.
So once a people repent of their sins and throws off the yoke of a humanistic law-order, what would such a society look like? How will a society living up to its covenantal calling differ from all the dying and crumbling societies that make up what is left of Western civilization today?
One of the first spheres in which the fruits of socio-covenantal repentance would be evident is of course legislation. To the degree to which a repentant society or community has the power to legislate, its laws would reflect the perpetually abiding principles of God’s Law (see Westminster Confession of Faith XIX.IV). This is an inescapable aspect of any Christian society, since as R.J. Rushdoony points out, the lawgiver in any society, by virtue of his demand for obedience, is the de facto theos of that society.[2] The religion of any society will therefore inevitably be reflected in its laws.
One key practical aspect of a Christian society will be that its entire social order will be distinctly marked by the principle of subsidiarity. Subsidiarity aims to ensure the liberty of citizens from the interventions of the central government, by emphasizing that socio-political matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest and least centralized authority.[3] This means that larger governmental structures only come into play with those matters which cannot be handled by the smaller structures. Subsidiarity therefore logically entails a very limited civil government. In fact, because the family is foundational to society as primary covenantal unit, even the authority of the local church government—the secondary sphere of government ordained by God—only extends to those matters which cannot be adequately handled by the family. The municipal or county government and its police officers or sheriffs would then only called upon in matters which cannot be adequately handled by the family, clan or the local church governing the confessional community made up of Christian families. As a covenanted community consisting of covenanted families, a high level of ethnic homogeneity would also be maintained in accordance with the ethno-nationalist principle of Acts 17:26-27. Matters such as the education of children and care for the elderly should be the prerogative of the community’s covenantally constitutive families with the church only serving in an advisory role. Caring for poor and needy families would be conducted by families collaborating by means of the local church.
Privatizing all property, including infrastructure and natural resources such as roads and rivers, is also key to the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity. In many Afrikaner communities in South Africa, for example, where the government has completely stopped functioning, local civic organizations, private contractors and local churches have completely taken over care of local infrastructure, meaning that if these communities (such as Orania, for example) could somehow find a way to cease paying taxes and privatize local government property, they would be very close to achieving de facto independence.
Another major advantage of subsidiarity is that it serves as a natural mechanism against both corruption and oppressive taxation. This is because it reflects the biblical political order for society, accurately described by Raymond Simmons as “one where we have access to our rulers, one where we actually sit down and eat with them (Prov. 23:1), one where they are held accountable by families and the church.”[4]
Furthermore, lower taxes, which Biblically speaking should never be any higher than 10%, would mean that local communities are left with more funds to handle their own welfare and infrastructure. If national governments require more funds for their duties, these funds can, in accordance with the principle laid out by Jesus Christ Himself, be acquired by means of customs and tariffs, without increased taxation of its own people (Matthew 17:25-26). A Christian family and community should also work the existing system through all legal means to try and pay as little tax as possible. For as the sixteenth-century Huguenot work, Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos teaches, if the government
"disregards the law or church of God, the people ought to resist it… If it attacks the people with words, it ought to resist with words; if with force, with force—by diplomacy and warfare, and even by virtuous guile if guile is used against it. When you are engaged in a just war, it makes no difference whether you are fighting openly or craftily.”[5]
The public practice of non-Christian religions, such as Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Cultural Marxism, and Atheism would be forbidden in the sense that its synagogues, mosques, temples, schools, universities, and child sacrifice (abortion) centers would be banned in a Christian society. Blasphemy ought not to be tolerated in the public square and any blasphemous advertisements, publicly visible signs or billboards ought to be taken down.
The unconditional right of a person to defend his own person, family and property from attacks will be socially and legally acknowledged. On the other hand, those who have been convicted of murder and rape would be completely expelled from that society. If the Christian society in question has the necessary executive authority, this should be done by means of capital punishment, but if not, then those convicted of such crimes should at least permanently forfeit their rights to reside in that community. Crimes which do not entail complete banishment, should be punished by means of the restitution principle (repayments or fines, labor or community service). A Christian society would not have any prisons.
Fornication, adultery and divorce ought to be criminalized, with only rare exceptions for legitimate divorces tolerated. Marriage ought to be viewed as a covenant between families, rather than a contract between individuals. As such, the church, rather than the state, ought to be the authority recognizing marriage covenants and ruling in divorce cases. Abominations such as pedophile relationships or sodomite relationships ought to be outlawed as such. For as long as a Christian community does not have the capacity to legally outlaw such relationships, however, it should at least do so by means of social pressure and socio-economic exclusion. The same goes for fornication, abortion, adultery, pornography consumption, the use of hormonal contraception as well as all forms of blasphemy against the one true living God.
Local get-togethers, cultural festivals, fairs, art exhibitions, sports events, historical re-enactments and other public events would serve to glorify God through cultivating an organic covenantal community life in which all generations participate together. The public singing of psalms ought to be normalized. Exclusively peer-orientated nightclubs would have to make way for intergenerational, family-friendly pubs and cafes, allowing the social lives of young people to remain covenantally interconnected with both family and church life.
Financial transactions will be conducted by means of sound money such as gold or bitcoin, removing the need for third-parties such as the state or the bank to intervene or verify transactions. Local guilds made up of councils consisting of both employers and employees, rather than Marxist labor unions which effectuate a state of chronic social warfare between employers and employees, increased government intervention and skyrocketing labor costs, would regulate labor relationships and disputes.
These are a few of the main characteristics of any Christian society which I believe would follow genuine covenantal repentance. This is what the societies which will make up the new Christendom will look like. Since all societies (neighborhoods, cities, counties, nations) are called to covenant with God and structure their social life in a way that glorifies Him, Christian families are called to do all we can to see to it that social covenants are established and practically maintained in order to regulate life in our communities, so that God’s Kingdom may come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10).
The author is a senior researcher at the Pactum Institute.
[1] Raymond Simmons, The Confessional County: Realizing the Kingdom through Local Christendom (Red Oak, TX: New Dunedin Press, 2021), 60.
[2] Rousas John Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law: Volume I (Vallecito, CA: Ross House, 1973), 215.
[3] McManners, P. Green Outcomes in the Real World: Global Forces, Local Circumstances, and Sustainable Solutions. (Surrey: Gower, 2012,) 35.
[4] Simmons, Confessional County, 4.
[5] Stephen Junius Brutus, Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos (Basel, 1579), 46. “si Rex legem Dei Ecclesiamve evertat, resistere … Resistet verò verbo, si verbo oppugnabitur; vi, si vi, arte, inquam et Marte. Quin et dolo bono, si dolo: cum nihil intersit, ubi justum bellum susceperis, utrum aperte pugnes, an ex infidiis.”