Thoughts On Sphere Sovereignty

Last week we watched video 9 of the Truth Project. I’ve been mulling it over ever since. The “tour”, as each session is called in the series, addressed “the state”. In the course of the video, Dr. Tackett covered God’s design for the state, both its designed role and its responsibility in relationship with other areas of life (called spheres) such as church and family.

The strength of this particular tour is the emphasis that as followers of Christ, we are not to allow the state to become our king and our provider. God is that to us. Although not explicitly stated in the video, I also gleaned out of this week’s presentation that neither should we depend on the state to take care of that which God has called us to; caring for the poor, the widows and the orphans…the least of these.

The greatest weakness of this tour was the discussion of “sphere sovereignty.” This term was coined Abraham Kuyper, a Dutch theologian and statesman in the late 19th century. It was later further developed by Herman Dooyeweerd, among others. To state it very broadly and with only a couple hours of research under my belt, the idea was that God created the world with spheres and each holds its own inherent value and law that is sovereign to itself. Primary examples of these spheres are the state, church and family, but can also include arts, science, and education among others. (There is a lot of interesting material on sphere sovereignty. I recommend googling it and doing some reading on the subject if you’re at all interested).

At one point, Dr. Tackett states that there’s something the old western movies got right. He provides the illustration of a posse chasing someone who then runs into the local church. The posse does not breech the doors of the church as that is considered “God’s territory”, not the state’s. This is provided as a terrific example of appropriate sphere sovereignty. This is a very inadequate and, I would posit, incorrect understanding of sphere sovereignty. What the video failed to capture was that by harboring a criminal (assuming that the posse was actually chasing a “bad” guy”), the church was breaching the sovereignty appropriate to the state (term used loosely as “state” in that environment is much different than it is defined today).

One primary claim of the more conservative proponents of sphere sovereignty is that by funding education and/or healthcare, the state is overstepping the responsibility God gave this particular sphere. They state that this responsibility should rightly fall to the church or the family. Sounds like it makes sense, doesn’t it? But, then my mind is flooded with exceptions. The first that comes to mind is the recent problems of sexual abuse within the Catholic church. The church attempted to handle this within its own sphere, to the detriment of the children entrusted to this institution. I also think of the inner cities, which, if left to their own, lack the appropriate resources to provide education to their children, which is easily obtained by those in the wealthier suburbs. The question boils down to how we implement biblical principles with life in a consumer-driven, industrial, capitalist, modern/post-modern environment. It’s not as easy as saying, “Stay off my turf.”

My basic point is this, sphere sovereignty, as presented by the Truth Project, is problematic and not a great basis for a fully formed and informed Christian worldview.

To follow that up, I think it is imperative that each of us, both individually and collectively, should consider what our responsibility as Christian social agents should be in light of the various spheres in which we reside. Rather than pointing fingers at what other spheres should not be doing, I believe it would behoove us to ensure that we are fulfilling Jesus’ call to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and to love others as ourselves.