When you’re a libertarian Christian, you keep a number of Scriptures on your theological Rolodex. We love to talk about 1 Samuel 8, where Israel asks God for a king and He responds by chastising them for their lack of faithfulness. Revelation and Daniel have lots of great passages about Jesus coming to destroy all empires at the end of the age that serve to salve the longsuffering libertarian. Acts 5:29 is short and sweet–it’s better to obey God rather than men. I probably quote Luke 4:6-7 the most. That’s the one where Satan offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world on the basis that Satan is actually the one who directs the rulers of nations.
But we also have passages we get tired of responding to–render unto Caesar, be subject to the governing authorities. But the Bible verse that seems best poised to take down libertarianism is all the more anxiety-inducing because its author isn’t content to say it only once–he has to repeat it three more times! You may have already guessed it: “in those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6, NASB; but repeated in whole or in part in 18:1, 19:1, and 21:25).
Why is this one so dangerous? Because a cursory reading seems to suggest that the reason Israel was in such a bad way was not just because they didn’t have a state, but because they had a decentralized approach to governance. Now that’s really rubbing salt in the wound.
How can a libertarian deal with such a thorny verse? One might say, as David Beldman did in his book Deserting the King, that the missing king in Israel at that time was actually God. Thus, far from being a monarchist, the author of Judges was really advocating what we might today call a “no king but Christ” approach. But while this response is tempting, it seems a little too convenient, even a tad contrived. The period of the Judges was a period without a central monarch, so this is more than likely what the book’s author had in mind. In addition, it would be inaccurate to say that God was not Israel’s king at this time. He was still Israel’s King, even if His people didn’t honor Him as they should.
Finding a more plausible answer requires us to take a step back and take in the larger narrative Scripture is telling of Israel’s early history. 1 Samuel 8 tells us that the period of the Judges ended with Israel insisting on a king and God warning them that in their rejection of Him as their true Monarch, they would have to contend with all of the indignities, confiscations, and warmaking that centralized government brings about. If having a king is so bad, then why did the author of Judges seem to suggest that all of Israel’s problems in that period came from a lack of centralized authority?
If we step back a little more yet and look further down Israel’s timeline, we discover a problematic historical fact about kingship in Israel once it gets established–a good king makes the whole country better, but a bad king makes everyone behave at their worst. David and Hezekiah might have brought about some short-lived spiritual golden ages, but there were far more evil and idolatrous kings than good ones–and evil flourished all over the country under their reigns. The pattern skewed so strongly toward wicked kings making wicked people that it was actually during the period of the kings when God sent Judah and Israel into exile–not during the Judges.
But decentralization carries with it a different challenge–without a good or evil king to force his will on everyone, each community, each family, and each individual must pursue the good as they see it. Instead of everyone being good or everyone being bad, something much more complicated emerges.
The claim of 1 Samuel 8 is that the people actually could have been righteous without a king. Decentralized authority does not automatically mean moral lawlessness. But this would require something of them that they weren’t willing to do–bow down to God as King. They would listen to a human king, whether it meant following him into holiness or even the pit of sin and debauchery, but they would not give their allegiance to God. This is both the promise and the peril of centralized human government, and Scripture tells us that it’s far more peril than promise.
But here’s where Beldman is unquestionably right–far from urging us to create a powerful central government, the book of Judges tells us one part of a larger story that we must understand if we’re going to get the whole picture. And that story is this: whether you have a top-down society or a decentralized one, sin will inevitably reign when God isn’t on the throne. For a “no king but Christ” libertarian, this is hardly a defeater for our position.
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