Today, most Reformed pastors know Charles Hodge (1797–1878) as one of the magisterial theologians of American Presbyterianism. Many of us often turn to his green three-volume Systematic Theology on our shelves (and if you do not, you should). However, far fewer pastors know the significant contributions Hodge made to politics. In my book, King of Kings: A Reformed Guide to Christian Government, Hodge helped me navigate several thorny questions surrounding church and state. His political writings are, perhaps, more useful today than ever. They present a consistent political theology: the church’s mission is spiritual and distinct, yet the civil magistrate must govern according to God’s moral law. After a sketch of Hodge’s life and context, this essay traces key political-theological arguments he makes, especially regarding Sabbath legislation and public education.
No Mere Spectator
Hodge advocated for a masculine piety in the public square. As he trained pastors, he taught them how to proclaim the law of God with strength and apply it to political issues of the day with incisive prescience. He took bold stands, calling for the state to promote Christianity, pass laws against breaking the Sabbath, and ensure children receive a Christian education in public schools. At the same time, he clearly differentiated between church and state. He prohibited the government from doing the work of the church. To elders alone belong the keys of the kingdom (see Matt. 16:19; 18:18; cf. John 20:23). The civil government ought not to meddle in the government of the church. Nevertheless, Hodge taught that church elders ought to call civil rulers to honor the law of God in their public offices.
Life, Education, and Intellectual Formation
In 1812, Hodge enrolled in The College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) at the age of fourteen. The University had been founded in 1746 by Presbyterians, primarily to train pastors. Its presidents included men like Jonathan Dickinson (the first president), Aaron Burr Sr. (yes, the father of that Aaron Burr), and Jonathan Edwards. In 1768, John Witherspoon became president. Famously, Witherspoon was the only minister to sign the Declaration of Independence. He was also a member of the Continental Congress and served as a highly influential Founding Father. John Adams called Witherspoon “as high a Son of Liberty, as any Man in America.” Under Witherspoon, the University began to produce a litany of American Statesmen, including James Madison. Hence, in 1812, the Presbyterians decided to turn Princeton University into an institution designed to train politicians and create a new school, Princeton Seminary, for training pastors. By attending Princeton University, therefore, Hodge received an education fit for an American statesman.
After graduating from the University, Hodge then enrolled in the Seminary. He quickly distinguished himself as remarkably capable. As soon as he graduated, the Seminary hired him to teach the biblical languages and was made a full professor soon after. Hodge taught at the Seminary for nearly sixty years and even served as the second principal of the Seminary.
Recently, scholars interested in Hodge’s view of church and state have focused on his writings about the spirituality of the church.[1] Hodge did not believe that Christ founded his church as a political organization. The church’s mission is not political, but spiritual. Its weapons are the ordinary means of grace: the Word, Baptism, Communion, and prayer. Pastors, as officers of the church, ought not speak on issues outside of their realm of jurisdiction and competency. Where the Scriptures speak, the pastor must speak; and where the Scriptures are silent, the pastor must remain silent. However, Hodge believed that the Scriptures address political matters quite substantially. The pastor must proclaim all the teachings of God’s law, and God’s law speaks directly to many political questions. Consequently, pastors ought to engage the political sphere as is fitting to their office and calling. We see this most clearly in Hodge’s writings on the Fourth and Fifth Commandments.
1. Alan Strange, The Doctrine of the Spirituality of the Church in the Ecclesiology of Charles Hodge (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2017).
Hodge on the Fourth Commandment[2]
2. Unless otherwise noted, all references in this section come from Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 3 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997): §19.8.
The Fourth Commandment requires all men to honor the Sabbath as holy (Exod. 20:8–11; Deut. 5:12–15). This duty raises the question of Sunday Laws, or Blue Laws as they were sometimes called. If we believe in the separation of church and state, then upon what grounds may the government require businesses to close on Sundays? Hodge begins his answer to this question with several concessions.
In a free country, every man is equal before the law. No one denomination, form of worship, or principle of church discipline may be established (or officially favored) by the government. No man may be forced to financially support any one church or religious institution. Moreover, every man is at liberty to conduct his life according to his own conscience, provided he does not violate the law. These are important qualifications.
Nevertheless, Hodge also affirms the following principles. No nation is a mere collection of individuals. It is an organized body with “its national life, its national organs, national principles of action, national character, and national responsibility.” Moreover, in a free country, the government must be an expression of the national “mind and will of the people.” Therefore, since the people of America are a Protestant people, “the government must be administered according to the principles of Protestant Christianity.” The government may not ignore the religion of the people any more than they can ignore the facts of human biology. People are biological creatures. Hence, the government must govern them according to the laws of their biology. People are also religious creatures, too. Therefore, the government must govern them according to the laws of religion. It is not merely permissible that the government establish Sabbath laws, according to Hodge. It is an unavoidable necessity baked into the duties of the American government.
Hodge presses this point even further. It would be great folly for the government to rule its citizens in a way contrary to the laws of their biology. However, violating the laws of religion is far, far worse. “Indeed it would be far safer,” says Hodge, “for a government to pass an act violating the laws of health, than one violating the religious convictions of its citizens.” Why? Because “the one would be unwise, the other would be tyrannical.” Hodge drives home his point with force:
It is vain for the potsherds of the earth to contend with their Maker. They must submit to the laws of their nature not only as sentient, but also as moral and religious beings. And it is time that blatant atheists, whether communists, scientists, or philosophers, should know that they are as much and as justly the objects of pity and contempt, as of indignation to all right-minded men. By right-minded men, is meant men who think, feel, and act according to the laws of their nature. Those laws are ordained, administered, and enforced by God, and there is no escape from their obligation, or from the penalties attached to their violation.[3]
3. Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 3, 342.
There is simply no escaping the laws of religion that God designed into the nature of humanity. But what are these laws of human nature? They are the natural law, summarized and codified for us in the Ten Commandments (Exod. 20:1–17; Deut. 5:6–21). These are the moral and religious laws built into the souls of human creatures. They address not only our duties to our fellow man, but also our duties toward God, including our duty to set apart unto God one day in seven. Hence, Hodge concludes:
If Christianity requires that one day in seven should be a day of rest from all worldly avocations, the government of a Christian people cannot require any class of the community or its own officers to labour on that day, except in cases of necessity or mercy.[4]
4. Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 3, 343.
But if the government did enact such anti-Sabbath laws, what would it mean? According to Hodge, such laws are tantamount to “enacting that no Christian should hold any office under the government, or have any share in making or administering the laws of the country.” Hence, “it would be an act of tyranny, which would justify rebellion.” In Hodges’s eyes, Protestants ought to go to war rather than allow their government to force them to break the Sabbath. And if we did not go to war in this case? Well, then “the nation would be in complete subjection to a handful of imported atheists and infidels,” which no Christian people ought to idly permit.
Hodge then addresses the “imported atheists and infidels” more directly. He argues that their demands are “not only unreasonable” but also “in the highest degree unjust and tyrannical.” Indeed, he calls it positively Satanic to join in the shout, “Civil government has nothing to do with religion; and religion has nothing to do with civil government.” There is no better way to bring judgment down upon one’s head than to join in this atheistic “free thinking.”
Why does Hodge place such weight upon Sabbath laws? Quoting Hengstenberg, Hodge gives us the answer: the Sabbath “rests on the unalterable necessities of our nature, inasmuch as men inevitably become godless if the cares and labours of their earthly life be not regularly interrupted.” If we yield the Sabbath to imported atheists and infidels, then we doom our nation to godlessness.
Hodge on the Fifth Commandment[5]
5. Unless otherwise noted, all references in this section come from Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 3 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997): §19.9.
Hodge deploys a similar line of reasoning in his exposition of the Fifth Commandment to honor our fathers and mothers (Exod. 20:12; Deut. 5:16). Along with the rest of the Reformed tradition, Hodge notes how the Fifth Commandment teaches the principle of filial piety, that is, the duties between parents and children. Embedded within the command for children to honor their parents lies the duty of parents to care for their children. “As children are bound to honour and obey their parents,” argues Hodge, “so parents have duties no less important in reference to their children.” Indeed, Hodge goes so far as to say that “parents stand to their dependent children, so to speak, in the place of God.” Hence, children ought to obey while parents ought to love, care, nurture, provide, discipline, and educate their children.
In his explanation of this commandment, education plays the central role. Hodge takes Ephesians 6:4 as his point of departure: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Often translated as “nurture and admonition,” the words “discipline and instruction” convey the idea well. The parents in general, but especially the father, bear a grave responsibility to discipline and instruct their children in the ways of God. According to Hodge, then, education cannot be reduced to mere intellectual instruction. “Man has a religious as well as an intellectual nature,” he states. Hence, “to neglect the former would be as unreasonable as to neglect the latter and make all education a matter of mere physical training.” In other words, when we instruct a child’s mind without reference to God, we treat the child like a wet computer. We educate them as if they were nothing but little calculators made of meat; beasts that multiply and divide. Put simply, Christian parents must provide their children with a Christian education.
For Hodge, this assertion was no mere appeal to sentimental religiosity. It was a simple matter of fact. It is worth quoting his argument in full:
We must act in accordance with facts. It is a fact that men have a moral and religious nature. It is a fact that if their moral and religious feelings are enlightened and properly developed, they become upright, useful, and happy; on the other hand, if these elements of their nature are uncultivated or perverted, they become degraded, miserable, and wicked. It is a fact that this department of our nature as much needs right culture as the intellectual or the physical. It is a fact that this culture can be effected only by the truth instilled into the mind and impressed upon the conscience. It is a fact that this truth, as all Christians believe, is contained in the Holy Scriptures. It is a fact, according to the Scriptures, that the eternal Son of God is the only Saviour of men, and that it is by faith in Him and by obedience to Him, men are delivered from the dominion of sin; and therefore it is a fact that unless children are brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, they, and the society which they constitute or control, will go to destruction.[6]
6. Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 3, 353.
In short, the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ has spoken. Hence, children must learn his ways. If not, then a generation of men and women will not give him his due. The only alternative is slavery to sin and, eventually, the destruction of society. Make no mistake: Hodge sees non-religious education as an existential threat to America. If children do not learn God’s Word in school, the American experiment will fail. The country will fall into doom and despair.
During his own day, so-called “thought leaders” advocated for removing religious instruction in public schools. You can imagine Hodge’s reaction. “When a state resolves that religious instruction shall be banished from the schools,” he says, “it virtually resolves on self-destruction.” Hence, Hodge’s exposition is theological as much as it is political. He does not stop at merely expositing the Fifth Commandment in a vague, general way. He applies it to the situation of society during his own day and calls for particular political action. Moreover, he does so not only out of a concern for obedience to God’s law but also out of a concern for the health (no, the mere existence!) of American society. Unless rulers governed according to the law of God, the country would be lost. Many, many people would suffer. The blood of the Christian men who built our nation would not fall on fallow ground but on dead, dry dust. The future of America depended upon public Christian education.
Hodge’s Vision in the Fray
Hodge anticipated the likely objection. It’s an objection many of us have heard. Perhaps it is an objection that some of us may have offered ourselves. “Of course, public schools must not teach against Christianity,” so the argument goes. “No one should suggest such a thing. However, religious education is best left to the church and the family. It would be better for public schools to allow others to do that work.” In response, Hodge unfolds six arguments. We will not rehearse them all here. Instead, we will focus on his final one.
In his sixth argument, Hodge notes that “the banishment of religious influence from our schools is impossible.” In other words, the above objection that we ought to leave Christian education to the church and family is wrong not merely because it is unwise or immoral. It’s wrong because it is simply not an option for any school to be religiously neutral. “If a man is not religious, he is irreligious; if he is not a believer, he is an unbeliever.” There are no other choices on the table. An education devoid of religious instruction teaches kids atheism. Hodge did not “third-way” the political question of whether public schools ought to teach kids Christianity. He did not hold back his political capital for a more important issue. He didn’t keep his powder dry for a later date. Instead, he did the exact opposite. He raised the stake of the political question. He pulled back the curtain to show that the issue was far more important than anyone might otherwise think. It was not a trivial debate. No, he put the question in the starkest terms. “This controversy, therefore, is a controversy between Christianity and infidelity,” said Hodge. It was nothing less than a clash “between light and darkness; between Christ and Belial.” Indeed, according to Hodge:
If you banish Christianity from the schools, you thereby render them infidel. If a child is brought up in ignorance of God, he becomes an atheist. If never taught the moral law, his moral nature is as undeveloped as that of a pagan.[7]
7. Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 3, 356.
Will America turn into a nation of infidels, atheists, and pagans? That was the fray into which Hodge flew. However, he recognized the difficulties of how to deal with the vocal minority of people in his day that objected to public Christian education. He offers a few suggestions, but does not teach his rough policy recommendations in order to bind the conscience. His driving concern was to ensure that his seminary students knew to oppose any civil magistrate that would require public schools to banish Christianity, especially when such a banishment went against the will of the people.
As in our own day, Hodge faced criticism that Christian public schools broke down the so-called separation of church and state. Hodge grants this point. The two institutions are not united in America. Nevertheless, the state must obey the moral law of God as much as the church. God’s law binds all men everywhere and all institutions equally. In his words,
Men cannot lawfully cheat in banking, nor can they rightfully conduct their business on the Lord’s Day. In like manner if God requires that education should be conducted religiously, the state has no more right to banish religion from its schools, than it has to violate the moral law.[8]
8. Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 3, 356.
No matter your vocation, whether you are a fireman, a banker, a baker, or ruler, you must obey the law of God. And, if you are in charge of educating the American populace, you must ensure the children are raised in the nurture, admonition, discipline, and instruction of the Lord. That’s what the Word of God says.
Today, we live in a sad day. For decades now, our public schools have banished Christianity. Most, if not all, public schools now not only refrain from teaching Christianity but publicly oppose it at every opportunity. What should Christian parents do? Here is Hodge’s advice:
The whole thing comes to this: Christians are bound by the express command of God as well as by a regard to the salvation of their children and to the best interests of society, to see to it that their children are brought up “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord;” this they are bound to do; through the state if they can; without it, if they must.[9]
9. Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 3, 356.
One way or another, parents must ensure their children receive a Christian education. It is, perhaps, the great challenge of our day. How do we ensure we do not lose our children to infidelity, atheism, and paganism? Not everyone can afford a Christian school—though, in my own state of Florida, our governor has provided funds for kids to receive a quality education outside of the public schools. Other states have done the same. But many are not as fortunate. Hodge does not address our particular situation. Undoubtedly, he would be horrified. But I cannot help but offer my own exhortation.
Concluding Exhortation
Fathers, wake up. You have a dragon bent on devouring your children. Gird up your loins. Prepare your mind for action. Sacrifice everything necessary: your time, your treasure, your talents. All of it. Sacrifice it all for your children’s Christian education. Nothing is more important. Raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Everything you love hangs in the balance: the future of your children, your nation, and the glory of God.
