The Nine Choirs of Politics

An Overview of Every Possible Relationship between Church and State

Jan Provoost, Santa Elisabetta d'Ungheria (detail)

G.K. Chesterton was once invited to give an after-dinner speech, but as he stood up to begin, his host passed him a discreet message, asking that he “avoid religion and politics.” He told his hearers what had just happened, then remarked that as far as he was aware, there are no other subjects; and then he promptly sat down again.

He had a point. These two topics treat, respectively, of man’s eternal and his temporal life, and we have no third life to live.

It’s not surprising, then, that the relation of politics and religion is one of perennial interest. In recent years, the question of the attitude that laws, or governments, should adopt toward religion has again been keenly, even heatedly, debated, not least in Catholic circles.

What are the different attitudes that earthly societies may take toward divine truth? We may summarise them under three headings: Opposition, Neutrality, and Welcome.

Of course, this is a simplification. After all, a given society may lack any coherent attitude toward revealed truth. Thus, in my country, there is an established Church whose distinctive statement of faith, the Thirty-Nine Articles, describes the Roman Mass as a blasphemous fable.¹ This being the official doctrine of the country, it would make sense for all Catholics priests to be arrested; but fortunately, this is no longer done.

Within each of these three divisions, I propose to set out three different possibilities. We thus shall reach a ninefold division of societies, which may remind us of the nine choirs of the angels, divided as they also are into their three hierarchies.² Although such a schema remains a simplification, it may perhaps assist thought.

Chinese commemorative medal for joining Communist Party (source)

The Attitude of Opposition

Let’s start from the bottom and work our way up.