The Duties of the Collective Magistrate

The Duties of the Collective Magistrate January 17, 2025

The soon-to-be-in-place Trump administration is gearing up to deport immigrants who are here illegally.  There are some 11 million of them, many of whom have been in this country for years, so this would be a huge and disruptive undertaking.  Reportedly, the goal will first be to deport immigrants who have committed crimes and have a deportation order issued by a court, but which has not been enforced, which is a travesty.  But the goal ultimately is to deport everyone who is in this country illegally.

Pope Francis says doing so would be a “grave sin,” a crime “against life” equivalent to advocating abortion. The new archbishop of Washington, D.C., Cardinal Robert McElroy says, “indiscriminate massive deportation across the country would be something that would be incompatible with Catholic doctrine.”  Mainline Protestants, though supportive of abortion, also oppose deportation.  Some evangelicals agree.

After all, the Bible says things like,

Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 10:19)

You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.  (Leviticus 19:34)

I was a stranger and you welcomed me.  (Matthew 25:35)

Grayson Quay takes such verses seriously but comes to a different conclusion in his article for The American Mind entitled The Christian Case for Deportation.  He balances them with the Bible’s teachings about civil government in Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2, which he summarizes in this way:  “The civil realm exists to punish criminals, deter would-be offenders by making them fear punishment, and uphold public morality. Civil magistrates who violate or neglect these duties sin against the people God has entrusted to him.”

What interests me most in his discussion is not so much his position on deporting illegal immigrants (though feel free to comment on that topic, if you wish), but his application of what seems like Two Kingdoms theology and what he says about vocation:

In every political order depicted in the Bible, there is a sharp divide between rulers and ruled.

In a republic, those two roles coexist in every eligible voter. The authority to determine public policy devolves indirectly upon the electorate. As a private citizen, the Christian must turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, and all the rest. But when he steps into the voting booth, he participates in the duties of the collective magistrate.

This includes voting for policies that would be sinful to undertake for oneself. If my father were murdered, my duty as a Christian citizen would be to refrain from vengeance. But as a partial magistrate (that is, voter), my duty would be to see the killer imprisoned or executed. I might, with perfect consistency, forgive my father’s murderer and then vote for a DA who would seek the death penalty.

This can be a difficult balance to strike. I might stab the killer myself, thus improperly executing the vengeance that belongs to me only in my impersonal capacity as a partial magistrate. Or I might vote for a soft-on-crime DA, thus improperly allowing my moral duties qua individual to override my moral duties qua voter. To commit the latter error would be a sin against my law-abiding neighbors, for whom I (as partial magistrate) bear responsibility.

Yes, we are to submit to our lawful rulers.  But who is the lawful ruler in a democratic republic?  Government officials and magistrates are chosen by ordinary citizens and are answerable to them.  It follows that ordinary citizens–“we the people,” as our Constitution puts it–themselves have a vocation of ruling.  They still also have a vocation of being subjects.  They should indeed submit to the lawful authorities.  At the same time, they themselves are lawful authorities when they cast their ballots.  As such, they too are responsible for restraining evil and advancing the public good.

I’ve written about this dual calling for citizens of a democratic republic, but I appreciate Quay for coining a word to describe it:  the “collective magistrate.”

In practice, this means Christians in their private lives should indeed welcome strangers, treat strangers like natives, and love sojourners.  But they must also obey the law as subjects and, as “collective magistrates,” insist that the law be obeyed.

 

Image by Wynn Pointaux from Pixabay

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