The UK recently elected a new government in the General Election, raising the question of what, from a Christian perspective, governments are for. What is their purpose?

On the basis of two key New Testament passages on this subject, Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-17, the answer which the Christian faith has given over the centuries is first of all that the role of government is not to do everything in society, as totalitarian regimes of both the left and the right have been tempted to think. The reason that this is the case is because individuals, families and other social organizations (including the Christian Church) each have their own proper role to play in enabling the well-being of society.

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church notes, governments are called to follow the example of God, the supreme governing power, in this respect. As the Catechism puts it:

'God has not willed to reserve to himself all exercise of power. He entrusts to every creature the functions it is capable of performing, according to the capacities of its own nature. This mode of governance ought to be followed in social life. The way God acts in governing the world, which bears witness to such great regard for human freedom, should inspire the wisdom of those who govern human communities.'

Rather than trying to do everything, the proper role of government is to promote the well-being of human societies under God by performing acts of judgement in response to wrongdoing. The final coming of God's kingdom for which Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord's Prayer will bring about a state of perfect justice through an act of judgement in which all wrongs are put right, and the role of government is provisionally to anticipate that final state of justice by acts of judgement in the here and now.

Such acts of judgement can be either reactive or proactive. They are reactive when they are a response to acts of wrongdoing that have already been committed: as when someone commits a crime, such as dangerous driving, theft or assault, and is punished by the state with an appropriate penalty such as a fine or a period of imprisonment.

They are proactive when they are intended to prevent forms of wrongdoing that are foreseen. These proactive acts of judgement can either be direct prohibitions of certain forms of action or they can be ways of encouraging activity that will prevent a wrong occurring. For example, a government could tackle a problem of drug addiction by banning certain drugs, but it could also run an education campaign to persuade people that not taking drugs was a good idea. For another example, the payment of unemployment benefit is a way of preventing the wrong that would occur if people had nothing to live on while they are looking for work, and government financed job training is a way of preventing the wrong of people lacking the skills to engage in productive work.

If they are to carry out their God given role, governments need money. That is the primary reason why governments need to impose taxes and why, as Jesus (Matthew 22:15-22) and Paul (Romans 13:7) both made clear, Christians have an obligation to pay them.

However, taxes also have a role to play in acts of proactive judgement. This is because governments can use taxes to discourage people from engaging in certain activities, and tax incentives to encourage them to engage in others. For example, if it was judged that excessive use of private cars should be discouraged because it was damaging to the environment a government could decide to raise taxes on private motoring as a deterrent. Alternatively, it could give tax incentives to encourage people to use public transport instead.

A corollary of this understanding of government and taxation is that, from a Christian perspective, taxes are only legitimate if they are needed in order to achieve the legitimate purposes of government. Imposing taxes for the personal benefit of those in government, or in order to ensure party political advantage, would not be legitimate.

The overall purpose of governments' acts of reactive and proactive judgement is to promote what Christian political thought has come to call the 'common good,' a term which the Catechism of the Catholic Church helpfully defines as 'the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or individuals, to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily.'

The common good can be seen to possess a number of different aspects:

• In order to live rightly before God, people need the ability to exist ('the right to life') and therefore they need food and drink, clothing, shelter and medical care, and this is why abortion and euthanasia are vital political issues.

• In order to develop emotionally and to learn to exercise their God-given abilities, people need loving and supportive families (which from a Christian perspective are best headed by two parents of the opposite sex who are married to each other) and they require education so as to be able to understand and appreciate the world in which they live and to cultivate their intellectual and physical skills. They also require access to religious education and freedom of worship in order to understand and respond to who God is and what he has done for them.

• In order to act as responsible stewards of God's creation, using their God given abilities to provide for their own well-being and those of their families and neighbours, people need the opportunity to undertake fulfilling work.

• In order to exercise their responsibility for the welfare of their neighbours and of God's non-human creation, people need the ability to participate in decisions which affect the way in which their society operates and how it relates to the natural world. This in turn means that they need to be able to participate in the political system at all levels and also need freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.

• In order for all the above to happen and for people to be able to relate to each other over distances a framework of transport and communication is also required.

• In order for people to live rightly together there needs to be a framework of law and order in which those things that are contrary to the common good are prevented or discouraged and those things which are conducive to the common good are supported and affirmed. In order to put such laws into effect and to protect people from those who want to do people harm, there needs to be a police force, a justice system and finally armed forces.

The Bible and the Christian tradition do not provide direct guidance about specific political decisions or for example, whether Britain should move to a system of proportional representation in national elections, what the proper level of income tax is, or whether a new stretch of railway should be built. That is because such specific decisions have to be decided in the light of the particular circumstances that apply today and in the light of local tradition and established practice and these may differ from the circumstances, traditions and practices referred to in the biblical material or in subsequent Christian tradition.

Nevertheless, the overarching moral principles taken from the Bible and the Christian tradition do give us guidance for making such decisions. Because they set out for us what is required for the common good, they tell us about the essential conditions for reflecting God's ultimate justice, to which local tradition and established practice must be held answerable.

For instance, it would be against the common good if a government was to take so much money in taxation that individuals and families no longer had enough money for their own legitimate needs. Conversely, a refusal to raise taxes needed to finance activity in support of the common good would also be wrong from a Christian perspective. From a Christian viewpoint the political debate about taxation needs to be about how to avoid these two opposite errors.

A further point to note is that, as the Bible makes clear (Acts 17:26-27), God has placed human beings not just within the human race as a whole, but within specific localities and nations, each with their own histories and cultures, and they have the particular responsibility to seek to promote the well-being and well-doing of those who live within their localities and nations. They are called to love these near neighbours 'the brother whom he has seen' (1 John 4:20), but without forgetting the needs of those who live in different localities and nations. This means that those in government in one country need to work with those in government in other countries to perform actions of judgement to promote the common good of humanity as whole.

Today we live in a time in which we live in an age in which many people are distrustful of governments and cynical about those who are engaged in governing. From a Christian perspective, however, although the exercise of government authority is something that can go horribly wrong, and although politicians, just like the rest of us, can be sinful and corrupt, nevertheless governmental authority is something that is God- given. We should therefore see involvement in government as a legitimate Christian calling. We should honour those in government (1 Peter 2:17), we should pray for them (1 Timothy 2:2), we should submit to their judgements, and we should be willing to pay our taxes (Romans 13:1-7).

Nevertheless, precisely because governments have their authority from God there are limits to what they can rightly do. The Christian faith teaches us they do not have the authority to do whatever they feel like doing or simply what will make them popular. Like everyone else, those with governmental authority are subject to the reign of Christ and they should make acts of judgement that reflect the coming of the kingdom of God. Government is not, and cannot be, a 'God free zone.' Christians are called to remind those in government of this fact. In extreme circumstances this calling may take the form of refusing to obey specific decisions by government that are contrary to God's will and then being willing to pay the price of this disobedience. As the apostles declared, if there is a contest 'We must obey God rather than men' (Acts 5:29).