When Kansas City Comes After Church Membership

If ever there was a time to heed Francis Schaeffer’s warning against authoritarian government, the time is now. Schaeffer urged the Christian to speak and act on the absolute to combat the arbitrariness of the state. The federal and local governments must avoid at all costs the interference with the sphere of the church. The church functions independent from the state since they offer a different sacramental table than what the government offers. We offer bread and wine to weary sinners and the state offers the sword to wicked sinners.

If there is to be any joint enterprise it must be on the assumption of mutual agreement between the spheres in times of absolute necessity. Kuyper notes that all government authority “originates from the Sovereignty of God alone.” When the state assumes a self-serving authority beyond God’s boundaries, there can be no harmony between the spheres.

As churches all across the country re-open, Kansas City, Mo. is demanding that churchgoers turn over membership lists along with personal data as a way of tracking and isolating individuals exposed to COVID-19. This act is a clear violation of the fundamental nature of the church. Our loyalty is to a heavenly regime and not some local authoritarian eager for notoriety and power. We don’t need much blood to call the attention of a hungry lion, and the government (even at its local level) seeks only a sample of blood to jump at the opportunity to seize a table that belongs only to the church.

There is no virus that can take the authority of the church, and certainly there is no virus powerful enough for the church to hand over her keys to the civil magistrate. The keys of heaven and hell belong to the institution of the church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. Church membership is a distinct document used for the benefit of the local church and her members. It does not belong on the desk of a bureaucrat and it is certainly not to be used for surveillance no matter how well intentioned it may be. Let the church be the church. Leave the bread and the wine where it belongs.

Politics