Abuse does not reject proper use

I want to talk about Kuyperian sphere sovereignty, briefly.

All of life is overseen by the family, the church, or the state.  These “spheres of sovereignty” overlap a fair bit, too.  An abuse in one sphere can be corrected by another.

This is probably a bad idea, but I’m going to categorize this politically and simplistically, for this article:
The Left emphasizes the state’s role in correcting abuses in the other spheres.
The Right emphasizes the family’s role in correcting abuses in the other spheres.
The Left tends to de-legitimize the church and family’s authority.
The Right tends to de-legitimize the church and state’s authority.

Here are some examples, where abuse does not reject proper use.

1. Our state governor has used the attorney general’s office to pursue the prosecution of clergy who have been accused of sexual abuse.  The state may be overreaching in the details, here, and doing so out of malice toward the church.  But the state has a legitimate role to prosecute and penalize church officers who commit such crimes.  State abuse of the church does not reject their proper intervention in the church when needed.

2. A man wants to marry but has seen the divorce court do injustice to his friends and family in the past.  So he wants to marry without getting a license from the state, giving it no role.  The state screws up, yes.  But the state has a legitimate and important role in registering marriage and regulating its dissolution, even if they don’t do it well.  The church and family do not have the tools to regulate it when a marriage falls apart.  State abuse of marriage (including wrongfully defining it!) does not reject its proper intervention in a marriage when needed.

3. A church misuses its authority and excommunicates a member for a petty, vindictive, or minor reason.  The member takes his family to another church, vowing never to join another church again.  But the church has a legitimate role to oversee members.  Church abuse of the family/individual does not reject its proper intervention in the family when needed.

(Extra on that one: Christians need church membership like fathers need jobs.  It provides something you need in life.  Even if you get fired wrongly, you need to pursue another job.)

4. A pastor has seen too many cases of authoritarian fathers and presses the men of his church to be “servant leaders” in their homes.  The concept is decent, but he winds up implying husbands should not ever use their authority to lead their wives and children.  The family can go awry in its role.  But the family still has a legitimate role to cultivate marriage and raise children, without undue intervention from the church or state.

5. School administrators press a trans agenda, and insist that if parents do not encourage a child's gender transition, they do not have a role in that part of their children's lives.  The parents should listen when the school talks about their child's behavior in class, etc., but the school is abusing its role with the trans agenda.

6. An older daughter gets pregnant before marriage.  The father asks their pastor not to get into it because it would be too hard on everyone.  They’ve seen how hard ex-communications are on families.  The church can carry out discipline poorly, but the church has a required role in this.    The church’s counsel and discipline within the family aren’t always perfect – it should step carefully and slowly.  But the family should remain open to receiving it with humble grace.  The church has a legitimate role to disciple and discipline families.

(This is the conservative’s Achilles’ Heel.  They talk big about the importance of church and country.  But the second either church or state impinges on their family, even rightly, many will loudly protest or leave.)

7. An elder despises the state’s past covid restrictions on the church.  He agitates to keep the state out of any say in the church.  It is the enemy.  But the state does have a civic role in ordering businesses and institutions.  The state wasn’t wrong to ask churches to consider closing for a little while, when covid started.  (Of course, it turned into something we needed to reject.)  The state screwed up during covid, yes.  But the state has a legitimate role in overseeing the church’s operations, on a civic level.  A cordial relationship between the church and state is much preferred to a hostile one, wherever possible.

Hopefully in each of these seven cases, you can see that any sphere can abuse its authority.  In that instance, it should be corrected, rejected, resisted, over-ridden, vetoed, etc. as possible.

But each sphere's general role and authority remains in place.

Abuse does not reject proper use.