As regular readers have likely noticed, I've been writing about more directly political concepts this year, and in the process of doing so I have arrived at questions about monarchy. Is monarchy sinful? Since the Israelites had monarchs and they were a people chosen by God, is monarchy the only legitimate way to govern a nation? A monarchy is a system of government where a monarch, often a king or queen, reigns. The Biblical stance towards monarchy is rather simple. But first, I want to address an objection to monarchy that I've heard.
Monarchy is often thought of as hereditary, with a throne being passed down to the monarch's children, but monarchy itself is not necessarily hereditary and could be based on something other than bloodline and family ties. I understand why some would find a hereditary monarchy displeasing, as the role of king or queen is passed on to children who may or may not be worthy of the title simply because of their family name. But it needs to be noted that this is not the only form of monarchy (and that depraved royal offspring are not guaranteed). There are quite a few other possible ways to choose a king or queen.
In Deuteronomy 17, which is set chronologically before Israel even had a king, one can find ethical limitations placed on monarchies. For instance, a king is explicitly told not to pull a Solomon and marry many wives (17:17), accumulate large quantities of silver or gold (17:17), or think that he is above the rest of Mosaic Law (17:18-20). Each of these principles, inverted in the case of the principle about mass polygamy, would apply by logical extension to queens as well. While God allowed for monarchs to eventually rule Israel, he was not unclear about the moral expectations his people should have for them.
Biblically speaking, monarchy--like polygamy (and by logical extension polyandry), corporal punishment, and capital punishment--is not evil within certain ethical parameters. If it was sinful, then God could not have codified laws about monarchy into Deuteronomy 17, but would have condemned the system outright (James 1:13). Monarchy is also clearly not mandatory, since, although in Deuteronomy God allowed for a future monarch, God never demanded that Israel have one to begin with. He merely predicted that the Israelites would eventually ask for a king.
Deuteronomy 17:14-15 reads as follows: "When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, 'Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,' be sure to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses." It was the people who asked that God give them a king like that of other nations (1 Samuel 8). And God gave them one. Monarchy itself is neither good nor evil, and the Bible makes this clear through what it does and does not say about the concept. The moral obligations of a monarch are also clear.
Now, there is nothing about monarchy in itself that contradicts Christian libertarianism [1], since the presence of a monarch does not mean that the monarch is micromanaging the lives of citizens beyond the laws of justice that God has prescribed (Deuteronomy 4:2). Although the concept of a libertarian monarchy may be foreign to the minds of some, there is no logical incompatibility between the concepts in themselves, though I cannot presently think of any historical monarchies that fit this model. A king or queen could govern in a way that is limited mostly or only to protecting citizens via enforcing just punishments for sins that have the metaphysical status of crimes and by fighting foreign invaders.
Monarchy is not something to dread or universally reject, nor is it some intrinsic good. It is a tool that God can use and also something that can be used in an illegitimate manner that contradicts God's instructions. And Christian libertarians have no reason to automatically view a monarchy as incompatible with theonomist libertarianism.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/02/secular-and-christian-libertarianism.html
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