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Recently, a Federal Court struck down Alberta’s legislation protecting children from transgender ideology. A leaked memo shows that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith plans to use the Notwithstanding Clause to override the Federal Court’s decision. Premier Smith has come under severe criticism for doing so and has been accused of “unconstitutional” activity. 

What should Christians think about all this? More precisely, what is the rightly ordered role of a lesser magistrate in the moment of political turmoil? Does the lesser magistrate, i.e. the Premier, have a right or a duty to defend the interests of her province against the federal power? Does Premier Smith have any right to rebuke the Prime Minister and his appointees? 

First, we must delineate where political authority comes from. From there, we can reason towards legitimate actions. 

At root, all authority is from God. By the right of having made all things, God has authority over all things. When we read in Genesis 1 that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” we are to know and believe that God did make everything. He made everything, and he has authority over it all. 

In Genesis 1:26-28, God gives man authority (dominion) over the whole created order—what is often referred to as the Dominion Mandate. This command to assume the mantle of authority is repeated in verse 28: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion…” Man has rule over all creation.  

In the aftermath of the fall and the flood, this dominion mandate is renewed, as found in Genesis 9:1-7. Of particular interest is the statement in verse 6, “whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” 

This is rightly seen as the first statement of civil authority, setting out that God has specifically given man authority to avenge murder. From this statement, all civil authority finds its beginning. Paul returns to this principle in Romans 13:3, stating that the magistrate is a terror towards evildoers. 

The next place that we should look for ideas of Christian political theory is in the constitution of Israel, after they came up out of Egypt. 

In Exodus, Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, observes Moses sitting all day before the people. All the people bring their lawsuits to Moses, and he spends all day judging cases. Jethro sees this and says, “What you are doing is not good. You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you. You are not able to do it alone. Now obey my voice; I will give you advice, and God be with you! You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God”(Ex 18:17b–19). And later, in verse 21, “Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens.” 

Here we have the division of authority necessary to run a large nation. Moses could be said to be a type of federal authority, a supreme court of sorts. Each level of authority below Moses is responsible for its own segment of the people. 

These judges are to be defined by the fear of the Lord; a fear which is most keenly manifest in obedience to his Word, the evidence for which is a judge’s righteous judgements. Righteous judgement, by definition, is judgement according to the perfect Law of the Lord. The judge is a creature of the Law. The Judge owes his loyalty to the Lord who gave the gracious Law.  

There is further evidence of this principle in 1 Chronicles 19, where Jehoshaphat reestablished the lower magistrates in Israel. There we read, “He appointed judges in the land in all the fortified cities of Judah, city by city, and said to the Judges, ‘Consider what you do, for you judge not for man but for the Lord. He is with you in giving judgement.’ ” (1 Chron. 19:5-6)

Of particular interest to our argument is what Jehoshaphat said during the commissioning of these judges. Their judgement was “not for man but for the Lord”. The Law, its judgements, and its judges are the Lord’s. If the judgement is the Lord’s, then it is not Jehoshaphat’s.

We may, by these arguments, establish that political authority in and of itself is from the Lord, and that the lesser offices of civil authority are also from the Lord. Their judgement belongs to Him. 

If the judgement of the lesser magistrate belongs to the Lord, then it follows that the lesser magistrate may at times be required by the nature of his office to restrain, resist, and reprove the greater magistrate. Not all governments are faithful. I cannot recall within my lifetime any case where other federal power in Canada was upright before the Lord. Provincial governments have been just as wicked as the federal Parliament, and municipalities are often not far behind in evildoing.   

And yet, these lesser magistrates owe their allegiance to the Lord, not to the greater civil offices. It is just and good for a municipality to resist the province in order to defend righteousness. The demands of true justice are such that, from time to time, the Provincial government may be required to act against the federal Parliament for the sake of its people. 

And so we return to the original question. How should Christians think about all this? The same could be asked of the Federal Government’s COVID mandates, misuse of the Emergencies Act, expansion of euthanasia, and the destruction of profitable industry for political reasons. 

Were I to list all of the ways in which the federal government has acted unrighteously, I might well run out of ink. The oppressions of the federal power are innumerable. When faced with such unrighteousness, it becomes the job of the lesser magistrate to resist and restrain that magistrate. Any lesser magistrate who does not do so participates in the crimes of the other. 

As for our Premier, she has her duty. Her duty is to be the minister of the Lord’s wrath against evildoers. In the current situation, the evildoers are from Ottawa. She and the Legislature are duty-bound to defend our Province from the callous rapaciousness of federal scoundrels. 

We in the Church have a duty to teach her of her duties from the Law of God. We also have a duty to support her in carrying them out.    

And one final thought from Calvin.

“For if there are now any magistrates of the people, appointed to restrain the willfulness of kings (as in ancient times the ephors were set against the Spartan kings, or the tribunes of the people against the Roman consuls, or the demarchs against the senate of the Athenians; and perhaps as, as things now are, such power as the three estates exercise in every realm when they hold their chief assemblies), I am so far from forbidding them to withstand, in accordance with their duty, the fierce licentiousness of kings, that, if they wink at kings who violently fall upon and assault the lowly common folk, I declare that their dissimulation involves nefarious perfidy, because they dishonestly betray the freedom of their people, of which they know that they have been appointed protectors by God’s ordinance.” [1]

1 - The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, ch. 20, section 31.