First Things: "GODLY POLITICS"

By Curt Biren here. A taste:

Citing Midrash Rabbah - Devarim, John Milton argued against monarchy and for republican government. Milton insisted that “God did not order the Israelites to ask for a king … but ‘God was angry not only because they wanted a king in imitation of the gentiles … but clearly because they desired a king at all.’” 

Milton’s views resonated with many of his contemporaries, including the English politician Algernon Sidney. For Sidney, monarchy “was purely the people’s creature, the production of their own fancy, conceived in wickedness, and brought forth in iniquity, an idol set up by themselves to their own destruction, in imitation of their accursed neighbours.” 

In 1776, during the momentous debates leading up to the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Paine published the pamphlet Common Sense. Influenced by Milton, Paine argued against monarchy and for republican government. Referring to 1 Samuel, Paine wrote, “These portions of scripture are direct and positive. They admit of no equivocal construction. That the Almighty has here entered his protest against monarchical government is true, or the scripture is false.” 

This history tells a story very different from the conventional Enlightenment account. The political institutions of America and throughout the West today reflect at least in part the Christian Hebraists’ careful study of the Bible and related texts and commentaries. Our republican form of government was not conceived in strict separation from religious discourse, but rather as part of an extensive deliberation concerning what godly politics requires of us.

As I noted in the comments,  one question to consider is whether this is sound theology. It doesn't seem apparent that the Bible as a whole condemns monarchy; likewise it doesn't seem, either, that the ancient Hebrews understood themselves as having a "republic" (which was an Ancient Greco-Roman institution).

The contemporary scholars the original piece sources (Eric Nelson and Yoram Hazony) admit that Christians didn't "see it" in the biblical texts until certain rabbinic commentaries were discovered. And then the usage of this understanding by 17th Century European republicans -- and then Thomas Paine in the 18th Century -- seemed entirely opportunistic.

Likewise, as it pertains to America, the line of thought mentioned above was no doubt influential; but it was of a number of different strains of influence others of which perhaps didn't view the concept of "republicanism" as an authentically Hebraic thing. Did "Publius" in the Federalist Papers have this understanding? Not from what I remember.

Further, I note Eric Nelson stresses that key to the thought of the Hebraic republicans was economic redistribution through a revised understanding of Agrarian laws that in principle limited how much wealth individuals could own and redistributed for the sake of balance. Just as the notion that the ancient Hebrews had a "republic" was part of a revised understanding of the Old Testament, so too was the notion that the Old Testament's redistribution of land constitute a type of "Agrarian law."

As I understand it, both the concepts of "republican" forms of government AND "agrarian laws" derive solely from the pagan Greco-Roman tradition and that such concepts were "read in" to the Old Testament. I could be wrong in my humble understanding. But, according to Dr. Nelson's research, the two rise and fall together: all of the notable 17th and 18th century figures who argued the ancient Hebrews had a "republic" also argued that God instituted an original agrarian law in the Old Testament. And that BOTH the ancient Hebrew's "republic" and "agrarian law" models could provide instruction for the then present in Europe and later in America.

Finally, I note that the more liberal republicans who didn't rely on the notion that the ancient Hebrews had a republic also didn't seem to buy into the present need for Agrarian laws. James Madison is instructive here. He was more classically liberal than republican. His views on property left no room for Agrarian laws. And he, as far as I know, like the other two authors of the Federalist Papers never indicated he thought the ancient Hebrews had a "republic."