Friday, December 12, 2014

Adventures in Logical Malfeasance

Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world. But just you wait Pilate because one day in a land called America my Kingdom will be manifested when my people become sufficiently politically active and seize the reins of civil power!" John 18:36 CNV (Contemporary Theonomy Version)

Doug Wilson has himself in something of a tizzy over the rather sudden if predictable and (in my eyes) proper groundswell of Christian leaders who are advocating a sudden divorce from Caesar over the issue of marriage, in essence taking our religious seal of approval and going home. This is somewhat awkward given Doug's apparent love affair with some sort of weird postmillenial theonomy or whatever he calls it where Christians who fail to be sufficiently activist in politics are letting down the team or something. Now Doug is a pretty bright guy and says some pretty deep and correct stuff on many occassions but on a regular basis goes completely off the rails. His post, TheYarn in the Public Sweater, is an example of the latter. Apparently even a guy who advocates stridently for smaller government and rails against the government in general simultaneously sees political libertarianism as a philosophy to be an existential threat and a forbidden system of thought for any real, red-blooded Christian. I thought I would do a little dissection of some choice sections for my amusement and yours. This is gonna be a long one....let's get started.

" So that which is a distinctively Christian political theory (i.e. a theocratic approach) resembles libertarianism in a number of striking ways. "

So the only possible distinctively Christian political theory is a theocratic one. That particular model of civil government has worked out pretty well in the past, hasn't it? As a reminder, here is a quick definition from our friends at Wiktionary on the word theocracy:

theocracy (plural theocracies)
  1. Government under the control of a state-sponsored religion.
  2. Rule by a god
As an interesting side note: " theo- +‎ -cracy, originally from Ancient Greek θεοκρατία (theokratía, “rule of (a) God”), a term coined in the 1st century by Josephus (Against Apion 2.17) in reference to the kingdom of Israel."

So having a theocracy means either direct rule by God (assuming monotheism) or a government run by a state-sponsored religion. The first (and only) example occurred in ancient Israel under the Old Covenant with kings and prophets through whom God directly directed the affairs of His people. Of course Hebrews 1: 1-2 speaks of the office of prophet as God's chosen spokesmen in the past tense and I have found that any contemporary religious figure who claims a unique prophetic authority and mantle to speak for God to universally be a crank, crackpot, heretic or some combination thereof. So that leaves us with government under the control of a state sponsored religion. Now we have a new problem: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ". Oopsie. There is also part deux of the problem, namely that theocracy even in Israel didn't exactly turn out well as a theocracy made up of believers and unbelievers inevitably went haywire, something that subsequent attempts at theocracy have substantiated.

"In other words, a consistent Christian political theory is not libertarian, but it will in fact be accused by statists (including those Christians compromised by the idolatries of statism) of being libertarian. Just as a preacher who preaches free grace will never be antinomian, so a Christian political theorist will never be an anarchist or a libertarian. But it is equally true that any preacher worth his salt who preaches free grace will be accused of antinomianism (Rom. 6:1). It is the same kind of thing here."

So Christian political theory (a confusing and problematic term in and of itself) looks like libertarianism, talks like libertarianism, is often mistaken for libertarianism and indeed will be accused of being libertarianism but it of course never can be libertarianism because....marriage and divorce. Confused yet? If you aren't, you aren't paying attention. Keep going....

"So for the Christian political theorist, the integration point of all things is Jesus Christ Himself (Col. 1:18). Christ is the center, and must be the center. He cannot be the one before whom every knee bows and every tongue confesses, while at the same time being kept in the shadows. He is the integration point of all things, and cannot be the secret integration point. We must confess Christ, and we must do so in our collective capacity as a civil order. The Great Commission said to disciple all the nations, and this includes the Americans."

We are sorta OK here up to the point where Wilson assumes the false dichotomy of either subscribing to theocracy or keeping Christ in the shadows. Is there no other way? Preaching Christ to the lost, feeding the poor, visiting the widow, caring for the orphan, loving our brother. Are all of these only possible or only legitimate or even more likely in a theocracy? Hardly. I mean this line: "We must confess Christ, and we must do so in our collective capacity as a civil order." is so divorced from any Biblical foundation that is boggles the mind that someone who studies as seriously as Wilson can think it does.

I am going to skip the middle but feel free to read it because once again Wilson seems to base his argument on why the church needs to stay in the civil marriage business because we need to have someone to force the parties in divorce to do so amicably and to use the sword to make deadbeat dads pay child-support. No, I am being serious, go ahead and read it. Maybe it is just too intellectually high-falutin' for a fella from Indiana or maybe it is just a dumb argument. I did want to point out one part here that I found interesting, although the example of an ex-husband who won't leave the house and who should make him just weird ( emphasis mine):

"The answer ought not to be friends and family of the ex-wife, because that would be spiraling downward into tribalism. He has friends and family also, and they have guns too. The answer ought not to be the church, because the church is not authorized by Christ to use force. When force is necessary, the civil magistrate is the one who bears the sword, and he bears the sword so that recalcitrant ex-husbands will agree to leave the house (Rom. 13:4)."

Quite right at least in that one part, the church is not authorized to use force and bear the sword. I wish he would flesh that out because the thing about a theocracy is that in order to keep the heathen in line, the church (which is the state and vice versa) by definition will have to use the sword and that is forbidden so we have a quandary don't we? If the church and state are one then the state is necessarily taking on those things that are reserved for the church and the church is taking on things that are reserved for the state and in fact are forbidden for the church. This is a glaring logical conundrum that he just skips over. We continue.....

"But coercion is always a big deal, and those who are entrusted with coercive powers must always be required to use those powers of coercion sparingly and justly."

Sure. But. Show me an example anywhere, anytime in human history when this has occurred at any scale. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely and all of that. Here we see the continuation of Wilson's enormous logical conundrum. How do we have a government composed of nothing but Christians in a mixed society that is at the same time a free one? Will not those who are not Christians inherently be less free? More....

"A free republic, with every man under his own fig tree, is not going to come until a free republic arises in the hearts of the citizenry. And that means Jesus. A free society will be one where the populace streams to churches every Lord’s Day in order to worship the Father, through Jesus, in the power of the Spirit. In big cities, there will be extra traffic helicopters out, telling the Presbyterians that they had better take Exit 28A if they want to make it on time."

Guess what Doug, that is never going to happen and even in times and places when everyone did "go to church" it was hardly a just and equitable society. In fact throughout much of Western civilization up until recent time people were compelled by force or by cultural pressure (blue laws, etc.) to "stream to church every Lord's Day" while during the rest of  the week going to war with other people who also "stream to church every Lord's Day" or enslaving people for profit or persecuting those who dared dissent from the cultural religious orthodoxy. Notice we have that use of coercion again and it was abusive and counter-productive. See a pattern here?

"More discussion is needed on this last point, I understand, but I trust the marriage issue is settled (at least for Christians)."

Well there we have it again. Doug has declared from his Protestant seat of Peter in Idaho what the only possible Christian response can be. All that remains now is to kiss his ring. Sorry to say but like many men before me I am afraid that I don't render the required obsequiousness to Doug on this matter. So that was snarky but wow what a pompous statement to make in closing an incredibly weak argument with holes in his logic you could fly a zeppelin through sideways.

All snarkiness aside, this sort of religious political eisegesis combined with sweeping generalizations and thinly veiled accusations is a serious distraction to the mission of the church which has nothing to do with seizing power and forcing the unregenerate to act like they are regenerate. To argue that the most compelling reason for the church to continue to serve as an agent of Caesar in officiating civil marriage is that we need someone to bring down the hammer when couples split and we aren't able to do it is the weakest argument I have come across on any topic in a very long time. More thoughts.....

In Romans 12 and 13 we have two sides of the same coin at play. On one side we have the church, called to be peacemakers who do not seek vengeance and leave the resolution of injustice to the Lord, overcoming evil not by conquering evil and bending it to do our will but by overcoming evil with good. On the other we have a call to submit to Caesar who has received authority from God including the authority to use the sword. It is important to note for the ten thousandth time what is not found in Romans 13. One, there is no call for Christians to cooperate and participate with Caesar, just to submit to and not rebel against him even when that would be the natural response. In fact history has taught us the painful lesson that it is nigh impossible and certainly unwise for the church to try to cooperate with Caesar, a far more pertinent application of 2 Corinthians 6:14 than marrying unbelievers (which is also unwise and for the same reason as the church trying to be buddies with Caesar). Second, there is not a clause in Romans 13 implying that it only applies when the Caesar or Caesar-esque stand-in is a just one. You cannot divorce the reading of Romans 13 with the setting and audience of Romans 13. It was not written for, at least not exclusively for, Americans living in the 1950's where everyone went to church and was nice to each other (except blacks but we don't talk about that). It was written to the church in Rome under the rule of Caesar, an oppressive government where public crucifixions were part of the criminal justice system. There would arguably not be an even semi-just, liberal (in the classical sense, not the modern theft funded state that murders babies sense) Caesar/state for more than a millennium so if the assumed clause was there most of the church would have missed it for a long time.

The sort of theocratic society Doug pines for and in turn lambastes others for not embracing has not and never will exist on this side of the Resurrection and Judgment precisely because the only One who could make that happen, Christ Jesus the Lord, has not ordained it to be so. It is amazing that people who talk so glowingly of sovereignty when it comes to soteriology in the abstract seem to be practical Arminians when it comes to social issues. God helps those who help themselves go to the ballot box and etc. I trust that God's will is being done even with a miscreant and wannabe tyrant like our current President in the Oval Office. God handles the "big picture", we are called to the simpler tasks because we are barely capable of doing those and generally have failed anyway.

Jesus taught that His Kingdom was not of this world, that His people are strangers and sojourners in this world, that we are citizens of His Kingdom and ambassadors to the unbelieving world, that we are wheat among the tares. It is a tension to be sure but a necessary and intentional one. Had Christ chosen to do so He could have come in power and ruled the world by force, either in Person or through a designated mediatorial ruler. Instead He founded His church among the outcasts, the powerless, the foolish of the world. We should not ignore that inconvenient setting as a historical anomaly but rather as a very intentional act on the part of God.

We do not have, never have had and never will have the numbers to live in an idyllic Christian theocracy and that is kind of the point. We operate in the Gospel from a stance of weakness, of foolishness. We represent Christ not by standing in the halls of power but by kneeling at the feet of others, not with the sword or the Presidential pen but with the towel and basin. Paul taught it well when he wrote:

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor 12:9-10)

It is nigh impossible to reconcile calls for seizing earthly power in a misguided and doomed desire to coerce what Christ alone can provide. If we are strongest when we are weak then it follows that the opposite is true and we are weakest when we think we are strong. Wilson's argument fails in the same way that a lot of libertarian thought fails, namely that it operates in a theoretical model divorced from messy reality. The difference is that when Doug Wilson makes his claims he drags the church into it and in doing so threatens to distract an already highly distracted church from our actual mission which has nothing to do with being yoked to Caesar so he will pummel dead beat dads. 

6 comments:

Ben Carmack said...

Hi Arthur,

I understand completely where you're coming from on this. In my younger years (not that long ago; I'm only 26) I was something of a raging libertarian with strong Anabaptist leanings. Running into Doug Wilson was, understandably, something of a culture shock.

I get why his argument rubs you the wrong way. The Lord deals with us in His time, and it seems to me (though I don't know you personally) that you love Jesus with great evangelical passion and you love the doctrines of Grace.

Having said all that to establish some common ground between us, I'd ask that you read Wilson more charitably, as I have tried to read your criticisms charitably.

I'll zero in on something in particular in your piece. You accuse Wilson of a glaring inconsistency...that he states (correctly) that the church is not to bear the sword, only the state. Yet at the same time, because Wilson uses the word "theocratic" in a positive sense, you write that this *must* mean that Wilson believes the church and state should be unified.

I understand that *for you* "theocracy" means "church and state are mingled together, like in the worst excesses of medieval Roman Catholicism." However, that can't be what Wilson means by the term because Wilson expressly stated that the church may not bear the sword. Wilson's Christian political theory makes a distinction between the Two Kingdoms. The burden of his posts on marriage and divorce is to show that the church cannot be a "replacement polity" of sorts for the civil polity, from which Christians must withdraw, because God defines different roles for both polities. Church and state have different responsibilities. We actually agree on more than you realize.

You have to let Wilson's writings define Wilson's terms. That's simply being charitable to him in argument.

Since I agree with Wilson on these points, let me re-state what Doug and I both agree on. We don't want to repristinate medieval Romanism. We don't want the Pope leading armies into battle, deposing kings or engaging in international financial chicanery. We believe that one of the great contributions of the Reformation was to de-sacralize the state, make a distinction between the two kingdoms and set men free. At the same time, the visible church and the state are part of Christ's temporal kingdom--Jesus reigns over them in some sense. Morality and goodness are also not value-neutral, but must be defined by someone or something outside of ourselves. The foundations for law and civil order are religious because the Triune God is sovereign over everything (yep, just used some Calvinistic lingo there). He's involved in everything. His Word is comprehensive, leaving no subject untouched. He raises kings up and brings them down. The king is a minister to us for our good, punishing the evildoer. Love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.

Finally, Arthur, you appear to have a concern that Christendom has tended to produce lots of nominal believers without true conversion. I agree with your concern and so does Doug, who has been writing much lately on the subject of conversion. Doug agrees with you on the important evangelical distinctives, and he also believes those distinctives should lead us to apply Scripture in all spheres of life, including the civil sphere. He believes that *because* he is an evangelical. It isn't a coincidence that the most formal of the formalists and the most high of the high churchmen tend to be as culturally disengaged and world-denying as the staunchest of Anabaptists.

Arthur Sido said...

Hi Ben

At 26 you haven't really had enough time to have younger years! :)

I am coming at this from a different direction, I spent many years in the strict Reformed camp alongside a robust culture warrior credo. What I knew of the Anabaptists came largely from hostile sources in the Reformed camp, places like the White Horse Inn (never missed a broadcast). If you peruse some of my older posts you will find many posts that would be very sympathetic to Wilson-type teaching outside of infant "baptism" which I have always rejected. I came to a far more sympathetic view of the Anabaptists over the last few years while retaining a borderline obnoxious agreement with Calvinstic soteriology. As I have done so and studied the Scriptures, along with observing the Religious Right foolishness and other historical manifestations of church-state yoking I have come to a realization that we have often attempted to co-opt and utilize the means of the world to accomplish the mission of the church.

I see the use of the sword to mean more than merely active warfare (although certainly prohibiting that) and extending into all areas of coercive behavior. Trying to use the means of the state and the methods of the world to force men into the behavior expected of the regenerate does nothing to advance the Kingdom. That does not mean laws are unnecessary or that they are even value neutral (see: http://thesidos.blogspot.com/2013/12/why-worry-about-things-that-dont-matter.html ). It just means that how the church is called to influence the world is more typically from a stance of weakness and powerlessness rather than a stance of worldly authority and influence.

I absolutely agree that distinctives do matter. I often agree with Wilson on matter of theology proper while disagreeing with him on issues like ecclesiology and the proper recipients of baptism. I don't read him for fodder to blog about why he is wrong, as I said I often agree with him. On this issue however I find his argument weak, counter-productive and misguided. Let me also say that I appreciate your reasoned and sober response, a rarity in the internet.

Ben Carmack said...

Arthur,

If we insist woodenly that the church must always relate to the social order from a position of weakness/powerlessness, that will work only as long as Christians are outsiders, lunatics, nutjobs and exiles. In short, it will work pretty well for us if the current trends continue.

However, I'd rather not see those trends continue. No sane Christian wants persecution. Richard Wurmbrand writes about this in the famous book "Tortured for Christ." He writes that Christians in restricted nations should hope for the conversion of the leaders of those countries, for when the leaders convert, that is the only real way the Gospel can get out to the masses. In other words, we should pray that persecution is a temporary hardship that God will use for greater glory down the road.

The Cross was extreme suffering. The Cross was agony. Jesus was powerless. The second part of the story is that God raised Him and vindicated Him. Jesus is now seated at the right hand of the Father. He has been given all power and authority; He is reigning now. That fact is a great comfort to me. The bad guys didn't win. Jesus is alive.

Christians are in the business of resurrection. The wicked culture of ancient Rome was brought down by the humble witness of the early church, and when the early church had won, they proceeded to do things--they made things better. They did not insist on the persecution continuing. They didn't meekly step back and say, "Oh no, not us. We're supposed to be perpetually powerless and weak. Constantine, go convert to some other religion, and burn a few more of us at the stake while you're at it."

The danger of this theology of perpetual weakness is that when men in government convert, be they policemen, bureaucrats, legislators, governors, and they come to church and they seek guidance for how to live out their Christian vocation--we have nothing to say to them. We have nothing to teach them and grow them in their sanctification. All we can tell them is that they must quit their jobs and be powerless like us. Step back and let the gladitorial games continue, let the unborn get slaughtered, let the widows get thrown on funeral pyres, let the slaves continue to be traded. Then we huff and puff about how much more holy and smart we are, not like those yahoos who stand outside abortion clinics, serve on the city council, serve in the military, or police a neighborhood.

This theology tells me that Daniel was wrong, Joseph was wrong, Cornelius was a big sinner--all served in government, and were of high rank. The examples of faithfulness Scripture gives me really aren't faithful, but were for another time, another dispensation, which means all of Scripture really isn't so profitable for instruction in righteousness after all. And a lot of Proverbs start to seem fishy--you know like "When the righteous rule, the people rejoice; when the wicked rule the people groan."

Since I'm a good evangelical like you, and Doug Wilson, I want to keep the Bible relevant. I want people in evangelical churches to be fruitful in their vocations, and want their souls tended and cared for. I want them to be willing to suffer, and also to see what the end of that suffering is--resurrection, victory, vindication, discipling all the nations.

Grace and Peace,

Arthur Sido said...

Hi Ben

I didn't forget about you, just been busy. I think there are some serious problems with the statement you made so I want to highlight them individually.

"If we insist woodenly that the church must always relate to the social order from a position of weakness/powerlessness, that will work only as long as Christians are outsiders, lunatics, nutjobs and exiles. In short, it will work pretty well for us if the current trends continue."

That is kind of what the Bible teaches. We read that when we are weak we are really strong, we read that when we are abused we respond in love, we read that the humblest will be exalted and of course we worship a God who became weak for us and that we are to follow Him, taking up our cross rather than the sword and preach a message that seems weak and foolish to the world. In fact if the world sees us as something other than oddballs and outsiders we are doing something wrong.

Of course we also see the practical ramifications of trying to do it the world's way, namely the reality that without exception when the church tries to use the coercive methods of the world conversion certainly occurs but it is not the unregenerate that are converted but the visible Body of Christ and always away from the Word of God.

"No sane Christian wants persecution."

Of course not but the problem is that we are told to expect it. Jesus warned us so many times that the world will hate us and persecute us but that we should see that as affirmation and even a blessing.

"Richard Wurmbrand writes about this in the famous book "Tortured for Christ." He writes that Christians in restricted nations should hope for the conversion of the leaders of those countries, for when the leaders convert, that is the only real way the Gospel can get out to the masses."

With all due respect to that brother, that is nonsense. We ought to pray for the conversion of our leaders for certain but the Gospel has always been spreading and rarely have leaders been regenerate believers. The Gospel spread amidst intense persecution in the first century, it spread during the time of the Reformation (both magisterial and radical) in spite of persecution, it spreads even today in places like China. Meanwhile in ostensibly "Christian" nations under allegedly Christian leaders the Gospel has been neutered and the faith perverted. Tertullian is correct in that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church".

"Christians are in the business of resurrection. The wicked culture of ancient Rome was brought down by the humble witness of the early church, and when the early church had won, they proceeded to do things--they made things better. They did not insist on the persecution continuing. They didn't meekly step back and say, "Oh no, not us. We're supposed to be perpetually powerless and weak. Constantine, go convert to some other religion, and burn a few more of us at the stake while you're at it.""

Even if I grant that Constantine was genuinely converted, something I think is more the stuff of legend than fact, what resulted from his "conversion" was not an improvement. Was the church better off holding to the truth amidst persecution or in spending the next thousand years teaching error and persecuting actual Christians who dared deviate from Romanism? If I am to choose between being faithful to the point of persecution or being comfortable in the midst of damnable error, I will choose the former every time.

(cont.)

Arthur Sido said...

(cont.)

"The danger of this theology of perpetual weakness is that when men in government convert, be they policemen, bureaucrats, legislators, governors, and they come to church and they seek guidance for how to live out their Christian vocation--we have nothing to say to them. We have nothing to teach them and grow them in their sanctification. All we can tell them is that they must quit their jobs and be powerless like us."

What of an abortionist who comes to faith? What is a guard in a North Korean prison camp comes to faith? What of a member of the Gestapo? Do we have nothing to say to them? Or do we call them to drop their fishing nets and follow Christ? I am not saying and never have said that one cannot be a magistrate and a Christian but I do say that one ought not be a magistrate and also a Christian. Your argument suffers from an Americanized view of the faith and the culture.

"Step back and let the gladitorial games continue, let the unborn get slaughtered, let the widows get thrown on funeral pyres, let the slaves continue to be traded. Then we huff and puff about how much more holy and smart we are, not like those yahoos who stand outside abortion clinics, serve on the city council, serve in the military, or police a neighborhood."

You present a false dichotomy here, either one is willing to kill for Caesar or one doesn't care for injustice. That is patently untrue. I can and have ministered for the cause of the unborn without trying to get the "right" politician elected or holding a sign outside of an abortion clinic (which is not the same thing as seeking to seize the coercive power of the sword).

"This theology tells me that Daniel was wrong, Joseph was wrong, Cornelius was a big sinner--all served in government, and were of high rank. The examples of faithfulness Scripture gives me really aren't faithful, but were for another time, another dispensation, which means all of Scripture really isn't so profitable for instruction in righteousness after all. And a lot of Proverbs start to seem fishy--you know like "When the righteous rule, the people rejoice; when the wicked rule the people groan.""

In spite of your decisiveness, it does help to recognize the settings. David was a king of a theocratic empire ordered and administered under God's direction and rule. America is nothing like that and Christ never called for His people to seek to reinstitute a theocracy like national Israel. Joseph was a ruler of a largely unbelieving state, one that turned on the Israelites leading to their enslavement (which should serve as a warning against seeking to merge the Gospel and the government rather than an encouragement to do so). What of Cornelius, the only one of your examples to occur under the New Covenant? What happened to him after Acts 10? Did he continue to serve in the armies of Caesar? We don't know and therein we see the problem of making arguments from silence, just as we see when people use the centurion of Matthew 8 as an excuse for serving in the military rather than turning to the actual, explicit teaching of Christ and the apostles. The Scriptures are absolutely profitable but it helps to read them in context.

(cont.)

Arthur Sido said...

(cont.)

"Since I'm a good evangelical like you, and Doug Wilson, I want to keep the Bible relevant. I want people in evangelical churches to be fruitful in their vocations, and want their souls tended and cared for. I want them to be willing to suffer, and also to see what the end of that suffering is--resurrection, victory, vindication, discipling all the nations."

Amen to that but the relevance of the Bible is not determined by how many people in power quote it in campaign speeches and sit in pews on Sunday to show the voters how pious they are. Of course "discipline the nations" means what Christ meant in the Great Commission, not what Constantine meant when he made the cross the symbol of his earthly conquests.

Constantinianism is not the way forward for the church, it is what got us into the mess we find ourselves in. We need to reach back to the Scriptures to see how we are to minister as aliens and sojourners, ministering from a position of weakness rather than from a false posture of strength.