Covenant Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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The Biblical Covenant

The biblical covenant is a mutual and voluntary pledge between God and humankind for the attainment of the common good and justice. A congregation of equals (since people were created alike and in God’s image) consents to a covenant; God does not force them to obey (Deuteronomy 4:1). A transcendent sovereign oversees the content of the covenant, and intervenes occasionally to ensure all act according to its terms. God submits to the same law he proposes for humans (Deuteronomy 7:12), limiting his omnipotence. Subsidiary covenants establish different sets of rights and obligations: between ruler s and the ruled, under God’s super vision (2 Samuel 5:3, Joshua 24), or international treaties (Genesis 21:27–32, Joshua 9).

Failure to comply with these stipulations leads to internal collapse, preceding the destruction of Israel by a foreign power. This causes the replacement of the original covenant (Jeremiah 31:31–32) and the introduction of a mediator between God and humankind, which warrants Christ, the new covenant in the New Testament (Hebrews 12:24). The new bond is anchored on grace and faith and sealed with baptism, which replaced circumcision.

Covenant Theology In The Reformed Church

The Protestant theologians of the sixteenth century saw Reformed Christians as the new chosen people, a new Israel persecuted by a papal monarchy that identified them as “false teachers” (2 Peter 2:1). Reformation embodied the restoration of the covenant and the original purity of the religion of the patriarchs. The right to resistance to Catholic false idols and gods was therefore a religious obligation that extended to the civil domain through the duty to depose rulers who renounced true faith. The task was to govern according to

God’s will for the benefit of the population, which corresponded to a subsidiary double covenant between the people and the political leader and between the political leader and God. Violation of these conditions would lead to tyranny, which would contradict the biblical horizontal paradigm. This paradigm is based on a democratic republic moderated by the aristocracy of magistrates, such as Moses and pious kings. The Christian magistrate, a man of staunch faith answerable only before God, would adapt this model.

Secular Versions

In the following two centuries, establishing a parallel between the biblical episodes prior to the covenant God made with Abraham and the condition without government, contractarians identified both with the state of nature. For Thomas Hobbes, this is a state of “war of one against the other” that can be overcome only by a covenant, through which people irreversibly deliver all rights to a sovereign whose powers are absolute. John Locke acknowledges the inconveniences of the state of nature, given the absence of a universally accepted law and coercive power. This creates a need to transfer certain rights to a sovereign with power that is conditional upon fulfillment of the compact with the people who can always depose the sovereign. For Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in the state of nature, humans were “noble savages” who were later corrupted by society. The social contract, signed by the people who collectively exercise sovereignty and obey no one but themselves, is the means to restore the freedom enjoyed in an idyllic state of nature.

American Synthesis

Religious and secular versions merged in the foundation of the early American Republic. The country was built by religious confessions—Puritans, Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, German Sectarians, Huguenots—in the name of liberty. The means to that end lay in the covenant paradigm; just as the Israelites had entered freely into a covenant with God, so did early Americans voluntarily agree to the creation of a church or a political society. That rationale was extended to all domains—labor unions, businesses, professional associations, towns, cities, states, the federal Union—through a network of secularized versions of the covenant. Saintly conduct—charity, interdependence, self-discipline, submission of the private interest to the community, obedience, virtue—ensured by influential churches, was translated in the political realm. This resulted in limited government, popular sovereignty, equity, and an equal share in the decision-making process.

Bibliography:

Elazar, Daniel J., ed. The Covenant Connection: From Federal Theology to Modern Federalism. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2000.
Hobbes,Thomas. Leviathan. New York:Touchstone, 1997.
Holy Bible: Contemporary English Version. New York: American Bible Society, 2000.
Lindberg, Carter, ed. The Reformation Theologians: An Introduction to Theology in the Early Modern Period (The Great Theologians). Oxford: Blackwell, 2002.
Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Lutz, Donald. Documents of Political Foundation Written by Colonial Americans. Philadelphia: ISHI Press, 1986.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. On The Social Contract. Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Publishing, 1987.
Schmitt, Carl. Théologie Politique. Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1988.
Spinoza, Baruch. A Theologico-Political Treatise. Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Publishing, 2001