A Critical Review of James Baird’s 'King of Kings: A Reformed Guide to Christian Government'

James Baird’s King of Kings: A Reformed Guide to Christian Government presents readers with a simple argument: “Government must promote Christianity as the only true religion.” In just eighty-five pages, Baird seeks to simplify centuries of complex Protestant debates on the nature of church-state relations. He presents his thesis as the “classic Protestant view” and offers logical, biblical, and historical arguments to back his claim. After presenting his main argument, he closes with four brief chapters on the nature of political freedom, the relationship between the way of love and political power, and the necessity of wisdom in politics.

Does Baird succeed? Does he prove that God calls government to promote Christianity? King of Kings will certainly generate discussion on the topic of Protestant political theology. Its clarity and brevity—as well as the tremendous effort of its publisher to get it into readers’ hands—will ensure that it doesn’t go unnoticed. However, though the book has clear strengths, Baird ultimately fails to make a convincing case for his thesis.

Strengths

The book’s major strength lies in Baird’s argument that the church must apply the truth claims of Christianity to the realm of politics. As secularists seek to relegate religion to private life, Christians must assert Christ’s universal lordship over every dimension of life, including politics. We submit politics to the lordship of Christ, not just because Christ is the rightful Lord over that domain, but also because we believe that Christianity benefits the world. We want every person in every nation to submit to Christ because we love our neighbors. This powerful message resounds through the pages of King of Kings.

Second, Baird carefully and wisely preserves the distinct mission of the church. He does not want the church to abandon its sacred mission of preaching the word, administering the sacraments, and practicing church discipline in exchange for  political activism. Baird clearly wants the church unhindered in pursuit of its mission, and his attempt to avoid conflating church and state is commendable.

Finally, Baird’s final four chapters model wise theological reasoning. Here, Baird preserves liberty of conscience by asserting that “God designed government to deal with the external things of man, not the internal things.” He also shows that politics and love are not necessarily opposed—“we should wield our political power for the sake of loving our neighbors.” Finally, he tempers irresponsible use of his principles by suggesting that we should always err on the side of love and discretion by carefully considering the viewpoints of our fellow citizens.

The book has clear strengths, but it also has debilitating weaknesses.

Too Simple?

It’s clear that Baird wanted to write an accessible book for lay readers, but his efforts to simplify such a complex topic negatively impacts the book’s capacity to prove his thesis. I’ll provide two examples.

First, Baird claims neutrality on the question of how government should promote Christianity, choosing instead to offer guiding principles in the last chapters of the book. The latter chapters certainly prove helpful, but avoiding the implementation of his thesis raises more questions than it answers. How can the reader rightly assess the argument without clarity on what Baird means by “promote”? If Baird means that government should ensure that churches and families are free to pursue their respective God-given missions, count me in. However, if Baird wants a renewed Christendom in which the government plays a role in determining or enforcing the boundaries of theological orthodoxy, I’m out. Abstaining from questions about implementation may assist Baird in arguing a simple thesis, but it does not assist the reader in determining the thesis’ validity.

Second, Baird’s definition of “government” poses significant problems. In the introduction, he defines “government” as “leaders who are called to hold offices of authority over civil matters.” However, throughout the book, he speaks of government more generally as an institution. Again, the imprecision of the language confuses the issue at hand. If Baird believes that regenerate government leaders should use their office to promote truth and righteousness as defined by God, then I agree. Christians enter the public square as Christians, whether they are teachers, truck drivers, or state senators. We do not check our commitment to truth and righteousness at the door of our respective vocations. The Christian elected official ought to legislate according to Christian truth claims and values as represented by the second table of the Decalogue. 

The issue, however, regards the question of authorization. Has God commissioned the institution of government to promote Christianity? While government certainly plays a secondary role through ordering society so that the church is free to pursue its mission, the risen Christ gives the Great Commission exclusively to his soon-to-be Spirit-filled people. It’s this point, in fact, that causes me to question why Founders—a confessionally Baptist organization—would publish this book. Baptists have historically maintained a strict jurisdictional divide between government and church due to our understanding of the new covenant in Christ. Jonathan Leeman captures this emphasis well when he writes, “With the new covenant, God no longer ties his name to a geopolitical people, but to his Son, and then to everyone united to his Son, the church.” 

Across the scope of revelation, God expresses deep concern over the question of who he allows to identify with his name. God’s name goes exclusively with God’s people, and God’s people are now identified exclusively as those who are “in Christ.” Christian citizens, even elected ones, must enter the public square unapologetically as Christian citizens advocating for laws and policies that uphold justice and protect life—laws and policies that lead to genuine human flourishing. However, in the new covenant, God has explicitly given the commission to promote the gospel to his regenerate people, the church.

To illustrate the importance of this distinction, think about the unintended consequences of combining gospel witness with the task of government. Christ explicitly commissions his church to proclaim the gospel (Matt 28:18-20) and then fills them with his Spirit for the task (Acts 1:8). Their new identity as God’s “holy nation” is tied to their ability to proclaim God’s excellencies (1 Pet 2:9). The redeemed people who proclaim his gospel must share somewhat in his character. When you make blanket statements like “Government must promote Christianity,” you inevitably task the institution of government with a mission it is not equipped to accomplish. Furthermore, you confuse the distinct missions of both the church and the state. The church preaches the word and administers mercy. The state bears the sword and administers justice. 

Logical?

Logical syllogisms present premises toward the goal of proving a conclusion. If the premises are true and logically valid, then the conclusion must follow. In a proper syllogism, there’s only one way to disprove the conclusion—disprove one of the premises. Baird wants readers to understand how syllogisms work because he makes the entire argument of his book depend on one. 

What is Baird’s argument? 

First Premise: Government must promote the public good.

Second Premise: As the only true religion, Christianity is part of the public good.

Conclusion: Government must promote Christianity as the only true religion.

Of the two premises, Baird thinks the second is the most controversial and thus devotes considerably more attention to proving it. However, his second premise is unobjectionable. Of course, Christianity benefits the public good. If every person in the world repented and believed the gospel, the world would drastically improve. It’s his first premise that needs revisiting.

To illustrate the problem of the first premise, consider this syllogism:

First Premise: Government must promote the public good.

Second Premise: Disciplining children in the home contributes to the public good.

Conclusion: Government must discipline children in the home.

My syllogism begs us to place limits on the first premise. It needs qualifications. Obviously, government must promote the public good, but it must do so only within its proper boundaries. No sane father would allow a police officer to administer discipline to his disobedient son. That’s not the government’s proper role. That domain—the domain of the home—is ruled over by the institution of the family and reaches the purview of government only when laws are broken by the family. God has specifically equipped and authorized parents to administer discipline to unruly children in the context of loving authority.

As a stand-alone statement, the first premise holds. Government absolutely must promote the public good. However, in the context of Baird’s argument, the premise becomes problematic because it lacks a limiting factor. It should say something like, “Government must promote the public good within its God-ordained capacity.” 

Baird concedes this point later when he writes, “God designed government to deal with the external things of man, not the internal things.” But he makes this comment in passing and never satisfactorily expounds its profound implications. If God calls government to only deal with external things, then God has severely limited government’s capacity to promote Christianity. 

Baird’s failure to dive deeply into the vexed question of government’s proper role and limitations—a question that has occupied political theorists for centuries—oversimplifies the debate and creates a false dichotomy. Baird writes as if readers have only two choices before them: follow him and “the Greeks, Romans, and early Americans” in concluding that “the public good includes religion” or conclude that “religion has nothing to do with the public good.” 

However, where does this either/or choice leave the myriads of people past and present—in full disclosure, people like me—who believe that religion has everything to do with the public good, but that God has authorized and equipped church and family, not government, with promoting the gospel of Jesus Christ and that government’s proper function is to ensure that church and family can pursue that mission unhindered? 

Biblical?

Baird claims that the biblical case for his thesis is “absolutely overwhelming.” However, this chapter represents the weakest argument of the book. Here’s a summary of his scriptural argument: God calls Israelite kings to promote truth and righteousness among his covenant people. Several pagan kings in the Old Testament are described as promoting truth and righteousness in their realms. Since the New Testament never explicitly denies these teachings and since Paul bases his teaching in Romans 13:4 on Psalm 2, we must conclude that modern governments possess the same calling as Israelite kings.

This view ignores any discontinuity between Old and New Covenants, once again raising questions about the theological partnership between Baird, a Presbyterian, and Founders Ministries, a confessionally Baptist institution. But it’s not just Baptists who question the direct application from Old Covenant kings to modern day governments; Baird dismisses Meredith Kline as representing theologians within his own Presbyterian tradition who “argue that modern governments do not have a duty to promote true religion because, unlike ancient Israel, we are not in a holy covenant with the Lord.” He dismisses this entire perspective by alluding to his discussion of pagan kings promoting true religion outside the covenant in the Old Testament.

However, this debate is not settled by appealing to the examples of pagan kings who repented but by examining the nature of the New Covenant in Christ. God no longer deals with his people as a geopolitical unit. In the New Covenant, the people of God are marked out spiritually by regeneration and physically by baptism into the church. God’s covenant people are no longer gathered within the borders of a physical nation under a human king but exist as scattered exiles among all the nations of the earth under the King of Kings. The kings of modern nations possess no claim to a special covenant relationship with God and thus cannot rule under the same expectations as Israelite kings who did. Baird’s covenant theology does not account for the way Christ fulfills Old Covenant types and figures.

It's remarkable that Baird fails to find even one explicit New Testament passage that advocates his view. While arguments from silence vary in effectiveness, in this case, the New Testament’s silence cannot be ignored. Virtually every book in the New Testament instructs the church on how to live faithfully in pagan culture. In other words, the epistles explicitly address the topic of politics. Yet not once do Jesus’s apostles instruct Christians to wield political power in advancing Christ’s cause. Instead, the explicit New Testament language for engagement with politics by the church includes “submit,” “pay taxes to,” “pray for,” and “honor” (Rom 13; 1 Tim 2; 1 Pet 2). As we consider contextual factors, we must note the apostles’ complete disinterest in wielding the levers of political power in service to the church’s mission. 

Baird argues that Paul derives his claim that government is “God’s servant” (Rom 13:4a) from Psalm 2:10–12. Since the rulers in Psalm 2 are called to “serve the Lord with fear,” Baird deduces that Paul must intend the same meaning. However, in the passage under consideration, Paul calls the pagan Roman government “God’s servant,” not because it promotes Christianity (it certainly did not), but because it “carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Rom 13:4b). While every ruler will one day stand before God to give an account for how he wielded the political authority entrusted to him, Paul calls Christians to view earthly government as “God’s servant” regardless of whether the government promotes Christianity.

Historical?

Finally, Baird fails to model careful historical thinking. Good history accounts for context and complexity. Baird has scoured the history of Reformed Protestantism in search of quotes to back his claims, and, of course, the theologians he quotes did believe, to various degrees, that government should promote Christianity. However, these figures made complex arguments in support of this claim within unique historical contexts. These complex contextual factors are simply ignored. The reader walks away from this book believing that Reformed Protestants, until very recently, all spoke with one unified voice on the relationship between church and state. 

As a Baptist historian, I especially note the two mentions of Baptists in the book. First, readers are treated with a quote from Charles Hadden Spurgeon in the introduction. Of course, the uncontroversial quote does not support the book’s thesis. Second, John Gill appears in a footnote as a representative of “magisterial Baptists.” If a category called “magisterial Baptist” exists, Gill is certainly the closest thing to it. However, Gill’s view that the magistrate should enforce both tables of the Decalogue distinguishes him from mainstream Baptist political theology. It’s interesting that a book arguing for magisterial political theology and published by a Baptist press can find only one Baptist figure who qualifies as a “magisterial Baptist.”

If readers want to understand Baptist political theology as it developed in seventeenth-century England, the better source would be the Second London Confession (1689). Modeled after the Presbyterian Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) and the Independent Savoy Declaration, the uniqueness of Baptist political theology comes into clear view upon comparing the three documents. 

Both the WCF and the Savoy Declaration list the duties of the magistrate as maintaining “piety, justice, and peace.” However, the Particular Baptists excluded “piety” from their listing of governmental duties. These Baptists limited government’s authority to the civil realm, thereby excluding religion from its purview. Likewise, the Baptist confession omits the earlier confessions’ language recognizing the authority of magistrates to preserve unity and peace within churches, to guard doctrine, to suppress blasphemies and heresies, to reform corruptions and abuses, to oversee the administration of God’s ordinances, and to call synods. At the very least, the earliest Baptists were uncomfortable authorizing the government to act in religious matters.

Baird’s primary historical argument derives from the language of state constitutions in early America. Since many of the first state constitutions explicitly gave preference to Protestantism by either naming it as the state’s official religion or requiring religious tests for elected office, Baird concludes that the United States Constitution does not ban states from promoting Christianity and insinuates that we should return to such a system today. However, Baird relegates the fact that every single state disestablished by 1833 to a footnote. If Baird had explored the reasons for state-by-state disestablishment, he would have seen that, in the words of Carl H. Esbeck and Jonathan J. Den Hartog, many of those leading the cause were “convinced that past church dependence on state aid had led to religion’s corruption where matters of religious doctrine and observance were bent to serve reasons of state.” These early American actors did not end state religious establishments to suppress religion but to preserve it.

Did it work? Did the decision to end state establishments lead to religion’s increase in the United States? Comparing the cultural influence of religion in America today with the severe secularism in modern European nations with established churches suggests it did. Alexis de Tocqueville certainly believed America’s system worked. Visiting in 1835, the French intellectual marveled at the counterintuitive American dynamic in which Christian religion exerted extraordinary influence over the mores of society while at the same time remaining institutionally separate from political power. In fact, Tocqueville believed that the strength of religion’s power in America was the result of that separation. When religion attaches itself to political power, he theorized, it binds itself to the fragile and ephemeral fortunes of political institutions. But when religion stands on its own, it operates unhindered within its own protected sphere.

Conclusion

James Baird has written a short book with a simple thesis—government must promote Christianity as the only true religion. The book will certainly spark conversation within the church on the proper relationship between church and state, hopefully generating charitable debate grounded in the truth of God’s word. However, though it has clear strengths, the book ultimately fails to make a convincing argument. 

Baird clearly believes that Christianity will gain ground with the government's backing. However, a second question—one that Baird ignores—deserves attention: What does Christianity lose by such a marriage? In his recent book, John D. Wilsey offers a historically apt reflection on that important question: “In any alliance of religion and politics, politics loses nothing and religion loses everything. That is, religion loses its credibility and influence in society because it becomes too closely associated with fleeting political trends of the day.”