He knew even better than she did that you could never predict, any more than you could completely understand, what human beings were capable of. Before an overwhelming temptation everything went down, all the moral and legal sanctions, the privileged education, even religious belief. The act of murder could surprise even the murderer. She had seen, in the faces of men and women, astonishment at what they had done.
The Murder Room, by P.D. James, p. 219
Tag: theology
“He’s learnt better”
[Tally needs to pick up her young handman, Ryan, who might be in trouble. She is giving him directions on the phone.]
“There’s a church, Ryan, All Saints, Margaret Street. Walk up Great Portland Street towards the BBC and Margaret Street is on the right. You can sit quietly in the church until I come. No one will worry or interfere with you. Or you can kneel. No one will speak to you then.”
“Like I’m praying? God’ll strike me dead!”
“Of course He won’t, Ryan. He doesn’t do things like that.”
“He does! Terry — my mum’s last bloke — he told me. It’s in the Bible.”
“Well He doesn’t do things like that now.”
Oh dear, she thought. I’ve made it sound as if He’s learnt better.
The Murder Room, by P.D. James, pp. 237 – 238
Misanthropic Quote of the Week from Garrison Keillor
In the Sanctified Brethren church, a tiny fundamentalist bunch who we were in, there was a spirit of self-righteous pissery and B.S.ification among certain elders that defied peacemaking. They were given to disputing small points of doctrine that to them seemed the very fulcrum of the faith. We were cursed with a surplus of scholars and a deficit of peacemakers, and so we tended to be divisive and split into factions. One dispute when I was a boy had to do with the question of hospitality towards those in error, whether kindness shown to one who holds false doctrine implicates you in his wrongdoing.
Uncle Al had family and friends on both sides of the so-called Cup of Cold Water debate, and it broke his heart.
Leaving Home, Garrison Keillor, p. 155
Good thing this never happens outside of tiny fundamentalist Christian churches.
Becoming Free Indeed: My story of disentangling faith from fear, by Jinger Duggar Vuolo: A Review
Wow. This was devastating. It shows exactly how, not only the weird Christian subculture created by Bill Gothard, but the patriarchy and Christianity itself, which supports it, create an environment where sexual abuse and cover-ups are rampant.
Just kidding. That’s what the media desperately wanted this book to say. And because it doesn’t, that’s why they are going to call this book just another cover-up. In a moment, I’ll address the claims in the paragraph above. But first, what is this book actually?
A Memoir and A False Teacher
I would say the book has two goals. One, it’s a memoir. Two, it tackles head-on the false teaching offered by Bill Gothard’s Institute in Basic Life Principles, and distinguishes it from the true Gospel. These two purposes are woven together in a very natural way in this book.
In case you didn’t know, Jinger was one of the Duggar family. They were a Christian family who, partly because of the teachings of Bill Gothard, came to the conviction that it is wrong to use birth control of any kind. Now, some families who make this decision only end up with a few children. But the Duggars ended up having nineteen. Later, they were approached about making their family the subject of a reality show, and after praying about it, decided to do it. They did not expect that the show would continue for ten years. Part of their rationale for agreeing to do the show was that they believed their family could be an example to the watching world of how following Gothard’s teachings leads to happiness.
Unfortunately, Gothard was, in retrospect, an obvious false teacher.
In the late 1960s, Gothard started teaching his seminars at churches, Christian schools, camps, and youth programs around the country. His timing could not have been better. For Bible-believing Christians, [the 1960s] were a scary, uncertain time. Parents feared losing their children to sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Bill Gothard offered parents confidence. In his lectures, he claimed that he had discovered the key to a successful Christian life. According to Gothard, to enjoy God’s blessing, a Christian should closely follow the seven principles he laid out in his seminars.
ibid, p. 26
Right away, Gothard displays several marks of a false teacher. The number one red flag is that he made himself indispensable to living the Christian life. He would find secret principles in the Bible that no one else had, and would identify unintentional sins that a person could commit that could wreck their entire life. Like a classic cult leader, he created fear in his followers (in this case, fear of accidentally displeasing God, which could lead to any number of bad consequences including death). Then, he offered himself as the solution to that fear. In other words, he was trying to take the place of Christ, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit.
I shouldn’t need to point this out, but Gothard was teaching what the Apostle Paul would have called “a different gospel.” In this case, it was the hoary old heresy of works righteousness, whereby a person can save themselves simply by following the right rules. Gothard didn’t seem to understand that sin nature is far too powerful to be restrained by rules. Nor did he understand the need for the new birth. It was a new insight to Jinger to realize:
Contrary to what I grew up believing, the ultimate threat to you and me is not the world. Instead, the ultimate threat to me is … me. I need freedom not from the influence of world, not even from a religious system, but from myself. I am born enslaved by my own sin.
ibid, p. 130
(Reformed folks call this idea “total depravity,” and it’s the first of the five theses in the TULIP acronym. Needless to say, Bill Gothard’s teaching was far from Reformed.)
Gothard also didn’t seem to think that God has revealed His plan of salvation clearly in the Bible, implying instead that God was a trickster who hides His will from people. Jinger gives many examples in this book of how Gothard would cherry-pick proof texts to support whatever point he was trying to make, but never taught straight through a long passage of the Bible, following the flow of thought. Finally, Gothard appears to have added a little “health and wealth” heresy to his teaching: follow these rules, and you will be blessed in every way.
Interestingly, Jinger remembers having an overall positive experience as she grew up in the Duggar household. Her parents did actually understand the Gospel and teach it to her, so she got that alongside Gothard’s harmful false teaching. However, Gothard’s false teaching seriously stunted her spiritual growth, causing her to live with an attitude that was simultaneously fearful and Pharisaical. It wasn’t until she met her future husband that she was exposed to better, more solid biblical teaching and was encouraged to study the Bible on her own, looking at what the passages were actually saying, not through the lens of Gothard. She left his false teaching in order to step in to a truer, richer understanding of the Gospel. I think it’s entirely appropriate that she share her story in a memoir that also examines Gothard’s false teachings. Through no choice of her own, as a Duggar she has been made a minor public figure and a representative of Christianity (not to be confused with Gothard’s teachings).
However, not everyone who grew up in a Gothard community was so fortunate. Gothard himself, who never married even though he gave lots of marriage and parenting advice (think that’s a red flag???), for years flirted with and sexually abused young women in his community. And Jinger’s older brother, Josh, became a sexual predator who ended up going to jail for possession of child pornography. As Paul points out about rules like Gothard’s, “Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility, and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.” (Col. 2:23)
However, instead of seeing these sexual sins as an indictment of false teaching like Gothard’s, many people will see them as the natural outcome of Christianity. They will hold Jinger, as it were, responsible for these things unless she also rejects Christ. So, let’s look at the claims in my intro paragraph.
A Series of Theses About Sexual Abuse in the Church
- Claim: Sexual abuse in any church, anywhere, proves that Christianity is harmful and false. Reality: By some estimates, 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are sexually molested. Some people think this sounds high, but I have found it to be true. Any time I am in a group of three to five women, it invariably comes out that one of them was molested. This is true in all kinds of different contexts. What this tells me is that the human heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Another lesson: Any group of, say, twenty or more people is going to have a molester in it, whether that group is a public school, a private school, a camp, a church, or yes, a large family. Every institution that involves people and lasts more than a year or two is going to have to deal with a molester. I’m not happy about this, but it is better to face this reality.
- Claim: Anything short of immediate jail time is a cover-up. Reality: Sadly, most institutions don’t know what to do with cases of abuse, especially with young offenders. This requires a lot of wisdom, which many leaders don’t have. Some institutions do, indeed, cover things up, and protect and keep moving their offenders. Others don’t do this, but nevertheless don’t handle the situation perfectly (which is very hard to do). Even if there is not an actual cover-up, the victims often feel that there has been, or that they have been blamed (often because the abuser has told them they will be blamed). This, too, is a less than ideal situation. Acknowledging reality #1 would help mitigate this somewhat.
- Claim: Sexual abuse is caused by Christianity, because it is sexist, or by the patriarchy, which Christianity supports. Reality: Sexual abuse is caused by the depraved human heart. Not every religion acknowledges that the human heart is “deceitful and desperately wicked.” Christianity does, so Christians at least start out in a better position to tackle this issue. (Note, again, that Gothard’s teaching was subChristian, and did not recognize human depravity or the need for a new birth). Regarding the alleged sexism of Christianity, see Nancy Pearcy’s book Love Thy Body, which points out that the most reliable historical index for the spread of Christianity in the ancient world, was the outlawing of sex slavery. As for “the patriarchy” causing sexual abuse, this is true only if by “the patriarchy” we mean “human sinful nature and a fallen world.” Men are more powerful than women; in a fallen world, men and women are both sinful; therefore, in a fallen world, the powerful sinners tend to exploit the less powerful ones. This the world into which Christ came to redeem it. It is foolish to look only at the exploitation that has happened during Christian history, without looking at the much worse exploitation that happened before Christ came, and still happens in many places that have not been deeply Christianized.
- Claim: Christians are in favor of sexual abuse, because they think women are inferior to men. Reality: Give me a break. That is slander.
- Claim: Cover-ups are more common in religious institutions, because of concern about looking righteous at all times. Reality: Most human institutions are concerned with looking righteous at all times, and therefore are tempted to engage in cover-ups. This is true whether or not they are overtly religious in the sense of talking about a God or gods. I give you Exhibit A: Loudon County School district.
- Claim: Jinger Duggar Vuolo should have written this book denouncing her brother, not telling her own story. Reality: Reader, have you ever been in a workplace, school, church, or family where sexual abuse occurred? Did you therefore condone it? Should you not be allowed to talk about any topic without first mentioning and denouncing that incident?
A Wrong ‘Un
After a minute or two, while [the two men] stood watching Lombard’s progress [climbing down the cliff on a rope], Blore said:
“Climbs like a cat, doesn’t he?”
There was something odd in his voice.
Dr. Armstrong said:
“I should think he must have done some mountaineering in his time.”
“Maybe.”
There was a silence and then the ex-Inspector said:
“Funny sort of cove altogether. D’you know what I think?”
“What?”
“He’s a wrong ‘un!”
Armstrong said doubtfully:
“In what way?”
Blore grunted. Then he said:
“I don’t know — exactly. But I wouldn’t trust him a yard.”
And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie, pp. 107 – 108
This is a very tense book. I was planning to dedicate an entire Friday post to it, but being short on time, I’m just using this quote from it on Quote Wednesday.
This bit of dialogue really shows the atmosphere of the book, and how the atmosphere is coming from the theme. In most Christie murder mysteries, there is one murderer among a group of people who are not murderers (even if they are not innocent in other ways). In this book, ten people are trapped together on a small island. None of them knows the others very well, and so they don’t trust each other either. As the book unfolds, it becomes clear that this lack of trust is well founded. Every single guest on the island has committed a murder in the past. They are all capable of killing. As Christie says in her other books, once a murderer has killed, they will do it again. So, any one of them could be “the murderer” who is picking off the guests one by one. In a sense, they are all “the murderer.” They are all a “wrong ‘un.”
I didn’t much enjoy this book the first time I read it, because it so disorienting (one point of the book was to create “an impossible puzzle”). The second time through, I was of course less confused, but I also didn’t enjoy it much because there is no character we can sympathize with. The one who comes closest, Vera, turns out to have been responsible for the death of a child. She, too, is a wrong ‘un.
The third time, this summer, I appreciate that this book is a sort of exaggerated picture of our predicament as human beings. We are trapped in this world (the island) surrounded by people, including ourselves, who are all totally depraved, who are all “wrong ‘uns.”
I’m Worried about Andrew Klavan
I made this video in two parts and I don’t have a video editor that allows me to merge them. If you don’t know who Andrew Klavan is or who I am, watch the first video first.
How to Be Free
I just read John 18:1 – 19:16. It’s really pathetic, in these chapters, to watch Pilate try to avoid crucifying Jesus but still placate the Jewish officials.
He says to Jesus, “Don’t you realize that I have the power either to free you or to crucify you?” (John 19:10), but in fact, Pilate doesn’t have any power at all.
The book Who Moved the Stone? makes a strong case, from hints in the text and other historical evidence, that Pilate had received an emergency visit from someone, perhaps the High Priest himself, the night before. The priests had just arrested Jesus, and the meeting went something like this: “We have this criminal whom we really need condemned. If we bring him to you tomorrow morning, before Passover, will you just quickly condemn him for us so we can get that out of the way? In exchange, of course, for our ongoing support.”
Pilate had agreed to this reasonable request. But the next morning, things started to go off. Pilate’s wife, who perhaps was there for the 11 p.m. meeting, had a nightmare about Jesus which she took as prophetic, and sent her husband a note saying, “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man.” (Matt. 27:19) Also, the Jews hadn’t brought any clear charge against Jesus for which Pilate could execute him.
Pilate tried to get rid of the problem by sending Jesus to Herod (Luke 23:5 – 12), but to his dismay, the problem came right back to him. He then tried to placate the council by having Jesus flogged. He kept arguing with them, saying, “I find him not guilty.” They were shocked and dismayed that he was going back on his word of the night before (John 18:29 – 31). They started threatening that if Pilate did not condemn Jesus to death, they would turn him in as being in rebellion against Caesar (John 19:12). Things had not been going great politically for Pilate. If there were a riot, or if he were accused of being anti-Caesar, it would be the end for him. Best case scenario, he would lose his job, but more probably he would lose his life.
In short, Pilate could not avoid crucifying Jesus without losing everything. He was trapped.
Jesus, of course, was trapped too, but the difference was that He had walked into the trap. More accurately, Jesus was not trapped. He could have summoned twelve legions of angels (Matt. 26:53) at any moment to vindicate and free Him. He was going to His death freely. He was not trapped by His own fears and desires. Pilate, on the other hand, was trapped by his own fears and desires. His options were extremely limited because he was not willing to lose everything.
Consider, then these two men, as they stand in the palace looking at each other. One is a governor, wearing the robe of a governor, standing in his own palace, making what should be a routine decision about what to do with a prisoner. “Don’t you realize that I have the power?” he says, but in fact this man has no power or agency in this situation. This man is terrified.
The other has been up all night. He has been interrogated at least three times. He has already been beaten once by the high priest’s guards, again by Herod’s guards, and he has just been flogged by Pilate’s guards. His back is flayed. His nose may be broken. When he speaks, he cannot manage very long sentences. “My kingdom is not of this world,” he says. “Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” This is the man who is actually in charge of the situation. Despite appearances, this man is truly free.
In Luke 9:23 – 24, Jesus said, “If anyone wants to be my disciple, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.” This sounds like a hard saying – and it is—but what Jesus was giving us here was the secret of how to be free. If Pilate had been willing to lose everything, he would have had more options. Jesus was willing to lose everything, which allowed him to do exactly what, on a deeper level, he wanted to do, which was to work the Father’s plan.
Kind of Disorganized Over Here
… my thoughts, I mean.
This post might be a little … rambling. A poorly thought-out combination of recent events in my life, vague political implications, and nostalgic revisiting of old favorite fantasy novels. You know, the way blogs used to be back in the day. Because I am just so dedicated to bringing you, my faithful Internet friends, content, even if it is crummy content.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve done a couple of knitting marathons (about which, more in the near future). I like having something to watch while knitting, and the least repellant thing on Netflix was The Lord of the Rings, so I have recently watched through all three movies. I enjoyed the movies mostly because they reminded me of the books, which I haven’t read in a long time. Yeah, I’m a purist. I couldn’t believe they left out Old Man Willow, Tom Bombadil, the Barrow Wights, and they completely messed up the scene in Bree, and they Hollywooded up Gandalf’s confrontation with Saruman and with Theoden, and they destroyed Faramir … but even so, even so, they kept enough of the original plot that watching the movies was edifying.
The theme that jumped out to me this time — well, there were a couple. One was the way that every single member of the party pays a high cost in the service of the quest. Even people with fairly minor roles, such as Merry and Pippin, suffer greatly – Merry from stabbing the Witch King, and Pippin has to deal with Denethor’s madness. Multiple people had to be willing to pour out their lives. Not just Gandalf, and not just Frodo. This rings true to me. Whether we are fighting the good fight by building a family, a school, or a local church, everyone feels like they are giving 110%, and then the job just barely gets done.
The other theme that I noticed this time was that of despair. Denethor succumbs to despair, kills himself, and nearly kills Faramir. Well before that, he essentially abandoned his duty to the people of Minas Tirith because he believed the cause was lost. And it turns out, this was a stratagem of the enemy, who had been showing him misleading things in the Palantir.
Meanwhile, over in Rohan, Wormtongue has gotten Theoden to abandon his duties to his people by convincing him that he’s old and tired and the heroic age has ended. Wormtongue gets inside Eowyn’s head, getting her to see Edoras, the glorious hall of her ancestors, as a stupid redneck hovel, and her own role in it as boring and stultifying. She ends up, essentially, suicidal, but luckily the presence of Aragorn has turned her suicidal impulses in the direction of brave self-sacrifice, rather than foolish action like Denethor’s. But this is another case where despair doesn’t just happen, it is a direct, intentional action of the enemy.
Other characters suffer feelings of, or temptations to, despair, pretty much in direct proportion as they come in contact with the enemy. Physical contact with the Ringwraiths pulls a personal partially into their world, as happens to Frodo at Weathertop, and the Eowyn and to Merry, who says to Pippin, “Are you going to bury me?” Victims don’t just despair of victory, but they doubt their own judgment, their own senses, even their own existence. It’s at times like these that we need the shoulder of a friend.
James Lindsay has posted recently about how modern-day deceivers will try to induce despair by robbing us of epistemic authority (“you don’t know what you are talking about.” “Do you have a degree?”), psychological authority (“you are crazy/phobic”), and moral authority (“you are a bigot/oppressor” “It’s so heartless/insensitive to say that”). The goal is to get their interlocutor to stop trusting their own mind and conscience, and just accept the new system of thought they are being offered. Perhaps this podcast of his was the thing that caused me to notice this dynamic happening in Middle Earth.
Anyway, you can make your own applications. Don’t despair. Your mind is probably working OK. You are probably not a crazy bigot oppressor who doesn’t have a working conscience. You are not the only one who has questions. There are friendly shoulders to lean on.
I was going to call this post “Don’t Despair,” but I thought that would sound too cliched and I wasn’t sure I could follow through on the promise of such a title.
I was just reading … a scary book
(In case you are not familiar, Shrek was just caught reading the old childhood diary of his now-wife, Fiona. This clip should help you imagine the title of this blog post being delivered in a Scottish accent.)
But, here is the actual book that skeered everybody real bad:
BEHOLD!
And … behold! I have posed it with my scary black nail polish.
In my experience so far, the people who are most alarmed by this book are just reacting to the title. And it is a scary title, because Wolfe is trying to do something that many people try to do, which is take a derogatory term and own it, while of course redefining it somewhat or at least clarifying the definition. In fact, this book is nothing more nor less than one big, extended definition/explanation of what Wolfe means by the term, and what he thinks Christians should mean by it.
Most of the people who reacted to the publication of this book as if their hair were on fire, apparently did not read it, because their definitions of Christian Nationalism are very different and, in many cases, the opposite of the extended definition found in this book. I will demonstrate this with quotations from the book, below.
(To be fair: the other possible problem is that they did try to read it, or else they listened to an interview with Wolfe trying to explain it. I have heard a few such interviews, and I cannot say that Wolfe is the clearest at expressing himself in person. The book, too, is … dry. It sounds like it was written by a lawyer, or a more-than-usually-dry theologian. Combine this with the fact that many of the concepts in this book are entirely foreign to modern Americans, especially those who have not been raised Presbyterian, and I can easily imagine that someone could dip in, get dizzy, and quickly flee … or else fix on a phrase or two and completely misconstrue them. If you want to hear Wolfe’s ideas expressed in a vivid, accessible, and much clearer way, seek out the blog posts of Douglas Wilson.)
But anyway, here are a few of the assumptions people often make when they hear the phrase Christian nationalism, and quotes from the book that show Wolfe’s actual take on the topic:
Here’s what the scared people are saying:
“Nationalism means imperialism or jingoism“
Several ethnicities can share the same language, of course. But since language is a particular and is necessary for civil fellowship, it follows that at least some particularity is a prerequisite for civil fellowship. Hence, sharing only what is universal — viz., common humanity — is wholly inadequate for a complete social bond. And even a cursory reflection on one’s daily habits and everyday life reveals that more extensive unity in particulars is necessary for living well. We do not, and indeed cannot, live (let alone live well) according to universal rules. Nor can we live well among contrary particulars; there must be a normal to which all conform or assimilate, at least in order for people to live well together. Thus, an instinct for a suitable normal is a good instinct; so too is the moral expectation that people conform to that normal or else face some degree of social separation.
Exclusion [of out-group members] follows not necessarily from maliciousness or from the absence universal benevolence, but from a natural principle of difference that recognizes for oneself and for others the goods provided by similarity and solidarity in that similarity. To exclude an out-group is to recognize a universal good for man — a good made possible only by respecting and conserving difference. Since it is a universal good, you and your people are entitled by nature to a right of difference. This is a natural right, because particularity is necessary to live well according to the nature of man.
pp. 144 – 145
The principle of exclusion does not preclude the reception of foreigners absolutely. Nations ought to be hospitable. At the individual and family levels, hospitality demands generosity to strangers, especially to those in need. A nation, as a sort of corporate person, can and ought to be hospitable as well. But hospitality is subordinate to higher duties: no individual, family, or nation is duty-bound to welcome strangers to the detriment of the good of those most near and bound to it. Furthermore, guests have duties toward their hosts.
p. 167
“Christian nationalism is a code phrase for wanting an all-white America (a.k.a. White Supreme Pizza)“
Nations express Christianity like they express gender through dress — a universal is expressed in a particular way. Christianity perfects the whole not by eliminating earthly particularity, just as any man who comes to Christ does not lose his personality and other unique characteristics. The Christian nation is still a nation as described in the previous chapter, having intergenerational memory and love, degrees and types of loves, and a delight in people and place. Grace sanctifies sinners, but it does homogenize personality; likewise, Christ sanctifies nations but does not eliminate national distinctness.
p. 175
“Christians should not have any loyalty to any particular country or family, because ‘all are one in Christ.'”
Man’s limitedness is expressed in the natural need for a sort of directed gregariousness. That is, he is close at heart with a particular, bounded people, who ground and confirm his way of life in the world and who provide for him his most cherished goods. [Even] Unfallen man is benevolent to all but can only be beneficent (i.e., act for the good of) to some, and this limitation is based not merely in geographic closeness but in shared understanding, expectations, and culture.
Cultural diversity is, therefore, a necessary consequence of human nature, and so it is good for us. It is good that particular practices are made habitual by localized socialization and are “owned” in a sense by a particular place and people. It is good that the particularity of each community distinguishes it from the others. Man’s limitedness was not a divine mistake; neither is cultural diversity, separated geographically, an error. It was God’s design for man and thus a necessary feature of his good.
p. 65
“Christian nationalism” mean getting rid of the First Amendment, and establishing a national church to which every citizen is required to belong.
Althuis states, “Franz Burckhard therefore errs, and the Jesuits with him, who think that the magistrate is not able to tolerate diverse religions.” Burckhard, a Roman Catholic professor at Ingolstadt, is reported to have said, “What more just than to cut off the heads of all these villains of Lutherans!” Burckhard … called for Roman Catholics to rescind the Peace of Passau (1552), which granted religious freedom to Lutherans within the Holy Roman Empire.
This rigid position is natural enough for Roman Catholic theology, which asserted that it is the one true visible church … But in Protestantism the church is essentially invisible and composed of the elect by faith, and belonging to that church is not conditioned on or grounded in one’s outward belonging to a visible, centralized communion. Thus, Protestants of different doctrinal persuasions can mutually recognize their shared faith. This is the basis for principled toleration and religious liberty in Protestant commonwealths. Indeed, the unfolding of Protestant principles — not Enlightenment or Roman Catholic “doctrinal development” — is what led Americans to affirm religious liberty in the 18th century, which I demonstrate in the next chapter. The point here is that a Protestant people have principled flexibility when faced with religious diversity. How a Christian magistrate navigates this complexity requires wisdom, prudence, and resolve.
p.375
The political status of non-Christians in a Christian commonwealth is a matter of prudence. Since civil society is a human institution, it must guarantee equal protection and due process with regard to human things for all people. That is, it must guarantee justice and secure natural rights. But this does not entail equal participation, status, and standing in political, social, and cultural institutions. Thus, they are guaranteed a basic right to life and and property (the absence of which would harm the common good), but they may be denied by law to conduct certain activities that could exploit or harm Christians or the Christian religion.
This position, though fairly standard in the Christian tradition until recently, will be received with controversy today, and few would stomach any legal discrimination on the basis of religion. But even in the absence of legal distinctions, the cultural norms of a Christian nation will require non-Christians to be the exception to the norm.
pp. 392 – 393
“It means that the same person is the leader both of the church and of the country in a civil sense.”
I think that a strictly indirect role for civil leaders in intra-ecclesial affairs is both preferable and most consistent with Protestant principles. There is, I admit, a natural fittingness to Christian nationalism and the [civil leader] as the “head of the Church.” But granting the leader this title would be, in my view, an abuse of power and constitute the usurpation of Christ’s kingship over the church. I offer my reasoning below.
p. 300
It means giving church leaders political power.
God does not (ordinarily) declare by special revelation that this or that person has civil power. Rather, it is “a characteristic property resulting from nature,” writes Suarez. He continues:
‘This [civil power] does not emerge in human nature until men gather in one perfect community and unite politically … Once constituted, this body is at once, and by force of natural reason, the site of this [civil] power.’
The people possess civil power as a necessary and natural consequence of their combination.
One important corollary is that recognizing the true God (or Christ) is unnecessary to possess this power, for having this power is simply a natural consequence of the people’s combination into human society. And they can likewise devolve this power upon those who do not recognize the true God. Hence, true civil authority does not depend on true religion, though certainly in failing to acknowledge the divine source of civil authority, the people and civil ruler are in a perilous situation. It doesn’t bode well for them, but being godless or idolatrous does not itself preclude true political order. Hence, Peter instructs his recipients to “honor the [Roman] emperor.”
pp. 283 – 284
Though we can in principle disobey unjust laws, we should recognize the difficulty in determining whether a law is unjust. It one thing for a law to be unjust and another for you to know that it is unjust. Civil magistrates are necessary, as I’ve said, because of natural epistemic limitations in individuals to determine expedient actions for the common good. … [M]any or perhaps most laws evade a simple evaluation, mainly because civil authorities are typically in a better position than private persons to make judgments about what serves the common good.
Pastors can admonish erring magistrates to correct injustice in the law, but pastors must not mistake their theological training or scriptural knowledge for expertise in jurisprudence. Pastors as pastors are no more competent to analyze or make civil law than any other private person.
p. 274, 275
“People who advocate Christian nationalism think that they can use outer means, such as laws, to compel people to believe.”
Civil power cannot legislate or coerce people into belief; it can only command outward things — to outwardly do this or not do that. No classical Protestant has ever claimed that civil action can itself bring about assent to, let alone true faith in, the Gospel. Though the ultimate purpose of civil action can be the spiritual good of the people, the direct object cannot be the conscience. Spiritual good is a matter of the heart before God in Christ. Thus, civil action for the advancement of the Gospel only indirectly operates to that end.
p.182
As for power over conscience, implicit power can influence beliefs, such as assent to Christian truth, but civil law cannot command belief. It can only direct bodies. It orders outward action. Civil power cannot touch the conscience. Why? Because the conscience is a forum of persuasion and civil power is the power of command. The civil command “believe in Christ” violates a necessary condition of belief, namely, that belief is a matter of persuasion.
p. 253
It means that the entire Mosaic law, including the ceremonial laws, would become the legal code of the land.
[W]hether any civil law is good depends on the circumstances, which requires the discernment of a prudent man. Calvin writes, “[E]ach nation has been left at liberty to enact the laws which it judges as beneficial.” Nothing about this disparages the Mosaic law — a law of God. It is a perfect example of law. But it is not a universal body of law.
Some civil laws in the Mosaic law are universal in a way. But they are universal because they are necessary for any just and commodious human society.
Though not universally suitable, the civil laws of Scripture provide certainty as to their inherent righteousness. They are, therefore, morally permissible in civil law, and the closeness of the circumstances aid in determining whether any of them is suitable.
pp. 267 – 268
We can just have a neutral, secular nation, with no national religion at all.
This “neutral” or “common” space lasted only about twenty years, which shouldn’t surprise us: the most common human arrangements in history for public space are decidedly not neutral. It is a shame that we treated this neutral world as normal and universal.
Experience over the last decades has made evident that there are two options: Christian nationalism or pagan nationalism. The totality of national action will be either Christian, and thus ordered to the complete good, or pagan — ordered to the celebration of degeneracy, child sacrifice (e.g., abortion), mental illness, and idolatry. Neutrality, even if it was real for a time, will never hold, because man by his nature infuses his transcendent concerns into his way of life and into the place of that life. The pagan nationalist rejection of neutrality is correct in principle …
p. 381
For decades, theologians have developed theologies that exclude Christianity from public institutions but require Christians to affirm the language of universal dignity, tolerance, human rights, anti-nationalism, anti-nativism, multiculturalism, social justice, and equality, and they ostracize from their own ranks any Christian who deviates from these social dogmas. They’ve effectively Christianized the modern West’s social creed. The Christian leaders most immersed in the modern West’s [actual] civil religion are those who loudly denounce the “civil religion” of “Christian nationalism.”
p. 5
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