In the Reformed Christian community, there is little disagreement with the general idea that we are to apply our faith to all areas of life, including the realm of politics. But there is more disagreement about how to do this effectively and faithfully.

Most Reformed Christians have come to view Christian engagement in politics under what could be called the “Daniel Model,” but we shouldn’t forget that there are other biblical examples of how God’s people might interact with our civil authorities, such as the “Jeremiah Model.” Christians today can learn from both models – and why they were used in different contexts in the Bible – in our political engagement today.

The Daniel Model

The Daniel Model assumes that individual Christians, as well as the broader Church, are exiles in a foreign land that has never had any acquaintance with the gospel or God’s law. (Joseph, Esther, and Mordecai are additional examples of biblical figures in this setting, but we’re going to use Daniel as a catchall for all of these individuals.) In Daniel’s time, the world was starkly divided between the pagan Babylon (and all the other nations of the world) and God’s people, the Jews.

Daniel and his fellow Jews had been carried off to Babylon in one of several waves of deportations. This was catastrophic for the Jewish way of life. God had prescribed in His law to the people of Israel and Judah that they would have a temple or tabernacle at the centre of their religious life, a specific place where they were to offer sacrifices for sin, for purification, and for thanksgiving. There were civil legal codes that the government was to follow. The Jewish calendar revolved around the Sabbath, the Passover, and various other ceremonial feasts. With the captivity into Babylon, all that was gone. And so, the exiles wept in Psalm 137, “how can we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?”

This led Daniel and his friends to engage in the world in a particular way: the Daniel Model. Under the Daniel Model, preserving personal integrity and convictions came first and foremost. When Daniel and his friends were asked to eat defiled food, they refused and suggested a personal accommodation. When Daniel was called in to interpret the king’s dream, he gives God the glory for the interpretation but gives no call for King Nebuchadnezzar to covert to Judaism. When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego were ordered to bow down to the king’s golden image, they refused to do so but did not try to convince Nebuchadnezzar to abandon his idolatry. When Daniel interprets King Belshazzar’s dream, there is no call for him to repent. When Daniel was forbidden to pray to God, he defied King Darius’ order and continued to pray to God but did not suggest a counter edict that everyone in Persia could only pray to the God of Israel.

According to the Bible’s accounts in Daniel, Daniel and his friends generally did not “evangelize” the pagan world, converting them to Judaism or calling them to follow the moral, ceremonial, and civil law of God.

This isn’t a knock against Daniel. This was a wise, God-honouring way of life given the circumstances of God’s people being a captive minority in the pagan kingdom of Babylon. This pattern of engagement showed personal faithfulness to God in a pagan world. God rewarded and protected Daniel and his friends through it all and received praise and glory from pagan kings.

The Daniel Model Today

This is arguably the model of political engagement that the North American Reformed churches have pursued in recent years. We consider the world around us to be pagan and antithetical to the Church and so much of our attention is devoted to being privately faithful, protecting the freedom of our local churches, schools, and families to be faithful to God’s Word. We are content to live in a pluralistic, multireligious society where everyone is equally allowed to follow their own conception of the good life. We want Christianity to be no more or less privileged than any other religion. And when we do weigh in on issues of public justice around us – like abortion, euthanasia, or medical transitioning – we often lead with arguments about science, human rights, or political polling more than we do with God’s Word.

And if we truly are in the same situation as Daniel, then this is a faithful, wise, and godly way to interact in the world around us.

But what if we aren’t actually in the same position as Daniel?

The Jeremiah Model

What if our situation in twenty-first century Canada is more akin to the prophets in the times of the judges and kings of Israel and Judah?

During those times, God sent his prophets to rebuke the ungodly kings of God’s people and the people themselves. Jeremiah spoke to the evil kings Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah. (We could include many other prophets – Nathan, Elijah, and Isaiah for example – but we’re going to use Jeremiah as a stand-in for all the prophets to the Old Testament kings of Israel and Judah.)

Jeremiah did his work very publicly. God commanded him many times to go to the city gate – a very public place where important decisions were often made – to prophesy. And Jeremiah prophesied boldly. He didn’t mince words when he repeatedly compared Judah’s idolatry to adultery and prostitution.

Notably, Jeremiah primarily called upon the kings and the people to return to following God’s law. We often think of prophecy as telling the future, but most words of the prophets pointed out the sins of the kings and the people and called them to repent and return to the LORD. They could do this because the people that they were prophesying to were God’s people, or at least had been entrusted with the oracles of God. They had been delivered from bondage in Egypt, given the law of God, ruled by judges and kings of God’s choosing, and protected by God for hundreds of years. They had a rich heritage of being God’s people. The role of the prophets was to call them to return to the LORD and to follow his law.

This returning to the LORD applied not only to the people but to the kings as well. Jeremiah called the political leaders also to follow and enforce God’s law. Notably, most of the descriptions of the kings of Israel and Judah in 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles focused on whether the king promoted the worship or the LORD or the worship of idols. Josiah in particular demolished idols, covenanted to keep God’s law, and kept the greatest Passover in the history of the Jewish kings so that “before him there was no king like him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to  all the law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him” (2 Kings 23:25).

The Jeremiah Model Today

Now, why might this be a model of Christian engagement for us to consider today?

Although Canada today is not the special people of God like Old Testament Israel/Judah, we are also not a country entirely ignorant of God’s Word. Unlike Babylon, Canada has a rich Christian heritage. For example, every single Canadian Prime Minister has claimed to be a Christian (predominantly Roman Catholics). Stretching back to our British origins, the Westminster Standards subscribed to by Presbyterians were written by a national, ecclesiastical council and were meant to be the confession of the national Church of England. Even before that, there was a close connection between the Church and the state ever since the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and made Christianity the official state religion. England, most of Europe, and the broader Western tradition have been profoundly shaped by Christianity for over seventeen hundred years.

And so, like Old Testament Israel/Judah, we have been entrusted with the oracles of God for a long time. They have seeped into the very fabric of our country. For example, our Constitution still formally recognizes the “supremacy of God.” Our national anthem prays in its chorus, “God keep our land glorious and free.” Our national motto, A Mari Usque Ad Mare (from sea to sea), comes from Psalm 72:8. Our Parliament buildings are inscribed with verses of Scripture. The House of Commons opens each day with prayer. The last census reveals that 53.3% of Canadians claim to be Christian.

All of this means that we are a far cry from Old Testament Babylon which had no Jewish history, no God-honouring government, and essentially zero percent of its population claiming to follow the LORD. Instead, we are more like the nations of Israel/Judah in the times they were ruled by ungodly kings and were practicing idolatry. Like in Jeremiah’s time, there is a great need for a remembering, revival, and repentance in a nation that has lapsed from the Christian faith. Millions of Canadians – including our Prime Ministers – claim to be Christian but show little evidence of that confession in their actions or their beliefs. Our government institutions have broadly confessed Christ at some point in the past but have since fallen away.

If our calling is to be like the Old Testament prophets, then we need to use God’s Word to call our country back to God’s law. Focusing on personal faithfulness and the survival of our local churches, schools, and families is not enough. We must also call the self-proclaimed Christian who is wandering from the faith (e.g. the nominal Catholic or the mainline Protestant) back into the fold of the Church. We need to ask more of our government. Simply stopping abortion, banning euthanasia, and stopping gender ideology – as important as these goals are – aren’t our ultimate goals. Jeremiah called the people to abandon various sins (e.g. oppressing the sojourner/fatherless/widow, shedding innocent blood, stealing, committing adultery, swearing falsely in Jeremiah 7:5-9), but his overarching message was a call for spiritual repentance and returning to the worship of the true God. Following the example of Jeremiah would require us to wear our faith on our sleeves far more in our public life, reminding our neighbour not only what laws they should follow but also which Lawgiver needs to be followed too.

Additional Considerations for the Twenty-First Century Church

While biblical examples are instructive, we can’t exactly imitate either Daniel or Jeremiah today.

First, in the Old Testament, Israel was uniquely both a political kingdom and a religious community under God. They were a theocracy unique from all the other kingdoms and religions of the world.

Second, unlike Old Testament Israel/Judah where God’s people was made up of one ethnic nation and not called to actively proselytize to the surrounding nations, we live in the age following the Great Commission to the Church. Christians are commanded not only to call lapsed Christians to return to Christ but also to make new disciples from all nations. We have been called to actively evangelize people, cultures, and nations that have never known Christ and to teach them to observe God’s law.

Bringing it all Together

If we are inclined to follow only the Daniel Model or only the Jeremiah Model, then we may need to reconsider how we as Christians engage in politics. We do live in a world that is increasingly hostile to Christianity and so we do need to take bold stands like Daniel in Babylon to preserve our personal integrity and convictions. But we need to recognize that our country has a greater Christian heritage than we might think and that we also need to be active in recalling lapsed Christians (or Christians who think that their faith has no role to play in politics) back into a living and active faith. And we need to explain to those who have never heard the gospel that our God gives the ultimate standards for us to follow both in our personal lives and in our political laws.

Some of this may require substantial change for the average Reformed Christian. If we live exclusively according to the Daniel Model, we play by the rules of the game, so to speak. The rules of the game in Canada are liberal democracy, where each person is free to follow their own conception of the good life as long as it does not harm others. Daniel, in bold humility, made few demands of others and few direct appeals to God’s law. The Jeremiah Model rejects the rules of our day where every conception of the good life is equal and insists that there is ultimately only one path that leads to the good life. Jermiah, in humble boldness, made many demands of others and many direct appeals to God’s law.

Both approaches – the Daniel Model and the Jeremiah Model – are based in Scripture and have been followed by Christians throughout the ages, and so this isn’t necessarily a fight between these two approaches. But all Christians would do well to take a step back from the immediate political fights and consider what our bigger goals are and how we are to faithfully serve God here and now.