The vast literature on religion and politics summons up Qoheleth’s oft-quoted remark, “Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body” (Eccl. 12:12). Remarkable indeed is the amount of published material on questions surrounding church and state, at least in the United States. For instance, in 1960, when despite strong anti-Catholic prejudice John F. Kennedy prevailed over Richard Nixon as the first Roman Catholic president, the number of books published on church and state ran to eighteen, up from five titles during the previous year. Figures returned to 1950s levels until 1976 when the bicentennial primed the pump of scholarly output. In 1976 publishers produced seventeen books. The presidency of Ronald Reagan and the presence of the Moral Majority would help to sustain the market: in 1980 eighteen and in 1981 fifteen books were devoted to church and state themes. By 1984 when the critique of secularism was taking hold, the number of books rose to thirty. Since then the numbers have only escalated: forty-seven in 1990, seventy-four in 1996; forty-four in 2000; eighty-one in 2004, and 188 in 2008. Obviously, if dinner conversations unravel when interlocutors introduce religion and politics, and if controversy sells, then publishers hoping to generate a return on their investment in an author, paper, cover art, and advertizing might look to religion and politics as a valuable topic. Still, doesn’t Qoheleth have a point? Hasn’t all this publishing wearied the subject, if not the readers?

The good news is that the titles under review demonstrate that more can be said, even if readers debate whether it needed to be. (For what it’s worth, these were two of sixty books published in 2010 on religion and politics.) Wayne Grudem’s Politics According to the Bible is textbook in size and arrangement of material, running from basic principles (about one-quarter of the book), to specific issues (about two-thirds) ranging from American foreign relations with Israel to farm subsidies, and concluding observations (one-eighth). Peter Leithart’s Defending Constantine is part biography of the first Christian emperor, assessment of his policies, and apology for Constantinianism (more below). Leithart is specifically intent to defend Constantine from the sort of criticisms leveled and made popular by John Howard Yoder, the Anabaptist ethicist who coined the term Constantinianism to highlight the ways in which the church’s entanglement with the state leads to unfaithfulness and even apostasy.

The cover art for each book is revealing. For Leithart’s the image from a reproduction of Constantine in an act of worship tells readers where the book is headed—a portrait of the emperor as a Christian one. Grudem’s book features the dome of the U.S. Capital building with a U.S. flag flying in front. What each author ends up doing is baptizing his subject. In Leithart’s case, Constantine is a model for Christian politics. For Grudem, the United States and its ideals of freedom and democracy are fundamentally Christian versions of civil polity; he even includes the full text of the Declaration of Independence in the chapter on biblical principles of government. The result is two books, published in the same year, written by two white men of conservative Protestant backgrounds in the United States, equipped with biblical and theological arguments, both making a case for Christian politics from wildly different political orders—one a Roman emperor, the other a federal republic. Readers may reasonably wonder if these authors are letting their subjects—the United States and Constantine’s empire—determine Christian politics or are basing their arguments on biblical teaching and theological reflection.

Since a worldview is such an acquired taste, I have found it unendingly odd to see people without a Reformed world-and-life-view defending those political candidates and their intellectual influences who possess a Reformed world-and-life-view. I find this particularly odd since the proponents of worldview would typically regard those without a worldview as being at odds with their understanding of total truth. I am referring in particular to recent posts by journalists and religious historians who discount the dominionist spin that is still being put to Michele Bachmann and Francis Schaeffer. (Truth be told, I talked to one of these authors – Charlotte Allen – for the better part of an hour while she was preparing her column. And I was frustrated to see that the illumination I may have offered did not make a dent in her aim of discrediting the bias of liberal journalists. She even took down the exact title of my recent book to include in her column. Oh, the missed fame! Oh, the loss of royalties!!!!!!!)

No matter what the folks without a correct worldview make of Francis Schaeffer’s ties to dominionism, it is hard to read his account of the antithesis and find trustworthy people like Ross Douthat, Charlotte Allen, and Matt Sutton who apparently do not have either the faith or the theological and philosophical training to attain to a worldview.

Here’s one example from How Should We Then Live?

. . . in contrast to the Renaissance humanists, [the Reformers] refused to accept the autonomy of human reason, which acts as though the human mind is infinite, with all knowledge within its realm. Rather, they took seriously the Bible’s own claim for itself – that it is the only final authority. And they took seriously that man needs the answers given by God in the Bible to have adequate answers not only for how to be in an open relationship with God, but also for how to know the present meaning of life and how to have final answers in distinguishing between right and wrong. That is, man needs not only a God who exists, but a God who has spoken in a way that can be understood. [81]

I wonder what Douthat, Allen, and Sutton think about the power of their own intellects as they survey the reactions to Bachmann and Schaeffer. Or have they been checking their perceptions against the pages of holy writ?

But if the non-worldviewers are a little uncomfortable with Schaeffer’s distinction between the Bible and autonomous reason, they might experience real pain when reading his application of the antithesis to the American experiment. About the Moral Majority he wrote in A Christian Manifesto:

The Moral Majority has drawn a line between one total view of reality and the other total view of reality and the results this brings forth in government and law. And if you personally do not like some of the details of what they have done, do it better. But you must understand that all Christians have got to do the same kind of think or you are simply not showing the Lordship of Christ in the totality of life. [61-62]

It does seem strange that a Reformed world-and-life-view would find its fulfillment in a political organization comprised of Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Jews, and headed by a fundamentalist Baptist. But we are talking about the United States, which H. L. Mencken called “the greatest show on earth.”

Schaeffer did not stop there. He also argued that the United States was the fruition of the gospel:

The people in the United States have lived under the Judeo-Christian consensus for so long that now we take it for granted. We seem to forget how completely unique what we have had is a result of the gospel. The gospel indeed is, “accept Christ, the Messiah, as Savior and have your guilt removed on the basis of His death.” But the good news includes many resulting blessings. We have forgotten why we have a high view of life, and why we have a positive balance between form and freedom in government, and the fact that we have such tremendous freedoms without these freedoms leading to chaos. Most of all, we have forgotten that none of these is natural in the world. They are unique, based on the fact that the consensus was the biblical consensus. And these things will be even further lost if this other total view, the materialistic view, takes over thoroughly. We can be certain that what we so carelessly take for granted will be lost. [70-71]

Again, I wonder where Schaeffer’s defenders fall on the spectrum of the two competing worldviews, and how much they actually embrace the biblical consensus that allegedly informed the work of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Ben Franklin.

The problem here is not that people should consider Schaeffer to be scary. Like many of his defenders have said, either explicitly or implicitly, he really didn’t mean what he seemed to say. He was not really so intolerant as his antithetical outlook demonstrated. He did not want a theocracy. But if that is so, then just how important is this worldview thing? If it results in high-falutin’ rhetoric and pragmatic reality, then what is the point of promoting all of those books and institutions that teach a worldview?

The problem that really needs some ‘splaining is not whether Schaeffer is scary but the strange disparity between the deep-down diving nature of worldview – it is part and parcel of new life in Christ – and how easily accessible it is, and even attractive, to those without such a worldview. A high octane version of worldview should reveal and make poignant the discrepancies between the lost and the saved, between the philosophically initiated and the believing simpletons. But it does not. A worldview, even of the antitheticial variety taught by Schaeffer, is for non-worldviewers like a puppy mutt – maybe not the first choice to take home from the pound but still a cute dog. Was the antithesis really supposed to be so easily domesticated?

Of course, I understand the angles that historians and journalists have in this contretemps over Bachmann. A writer like Douthat – whom I admire greatly and read for profit – may not qualify as a Kuyperian or neo-Calvinist-lite – but he can see the value of evangelical readers of Schaeffer to electoral politics in the United States. He also sees a way to point out the bias of liberal journalists, such as when they score points against Bachmann’s spiritual influences but not against Obama’s. All is fair in the coverage of religion and politics.

But the reception of Schaeffer and the watering down of worldview sure does cheapen what was supposed to be such a distinct and unique part of Reformed Protestantism. I wonder why more worldviewers are not objecting to the debasement of their valuable coin.

Here is the Divines’ statement on Christian liberty:

The liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers under the gospel consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the curse of the moral law; and, in their being delivered from this present evil world, bondage to Satan, and dominion of sin; from the evil of afflictions, the sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation; as also, in their free access to God, and their yielding obedience unto him, not out of slavish fear, but a childlike love and willing mind. All which were common also to believers under the law. But, under the new testament, the liberty of Christians is further enlarged, in their freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law, to which the Jewish church was subjected; and in greater boldness of access to the throne of grace, and in fuller communications of the free Spirit of God, than believers under the law did ordinarily partake of. (20.1)

According to this teaching, British tyrants, loyalists who ran for cover to Canada, and American patriots to the extent that they trusted in Christ enjoyed the same liberty no matter where they stood on the matter of political independence.

In fact, the Divines go on to teach that Christian liberty has nothing to do with forms of political authority.

. . . because the powers which God hath ordained, and the liberty which Christ hath purchased, are not intended by God to destroy, but mutually to uphold and preserve one another, they who, upon pretense of Christian liberty, shall oppose any lawful power, or the lawful exercise of it, whether it be civil or ecclesiastical, resist the ordinance of God. (20.4)

That doubleness of mind — affirming both spiritual liberty and political submission — is one of the better expressions of two kingdom theology to exist. Of course, it is a hard truth to assimilate if one is committed to the singleness of mind that goes with pietistic notions of Christ’s Lordship. Saying that someone is free while also enslaved or oppressed appears to be illogical — sort of like saying someone is both a sinner and a saint. But it is a truth capable of affirmation if you don’t calculate the progress of the spiritual kingdom according to the arrangements of this world’s kingdoms.

Will 2k ever be the same?

Early returns suggest, yes. Here are a few of the responses to Taylor’s recent post on VanDrunen’s latest:

I’ve read VanDrunen’s book and I am surprised that you came to such positive conclusions about it. He makes a few valuable critiques of those who disagree with him, but the overall thrust of his thesis is, quite frankly, unbiblical. His exegesis is shoddy and he makes very dramatic assumptions about his theology’s continuity with historical figures. VanDrunen’s (and to a greater extent, D.G. Hart’s) iteration of two-kingdom theology does not cooperate well with Augustine’s, Calvin’s, or even Luther’s understanding of the Church’s call in the world. Reading this book can be valuable for a number of reasons, but please exercise careful discernment and wisdom before taking his claims too seriously.

John Frame’s book review on his prior book seems to suggest VanDrunen’s 2 kingdom view is unbiblical. I am thinking this book might be a waste of time.

I’m not sure which is worse. Unbiblical or waste of time. But acquiring a taste for 2k will clearly take some work.

I don’t actually believe VanDrunen will be visiting a Gospel Coalition conference soon as a plenary speaker. His arguments about “redeeming culture” and the nature of redemption will not go down easily with word-and-deed-based ministries or churches in pursuit of social justice (no matter how generous). But he has moved 2k from the sidelines to a seat at the mainstream born-again Baptyterian table. Maybe this book will turn out to be as momentous as the original Super Bowl, which brought the AFL and the NFL together for an annual game that led to the joining-and-receiving of leagues that had been previously at odds. Maybe too, in reverse of professional football’s expansion, VanDrunen’s sighting on the Gospel Coalition’s radar will prompt the allies in the Gospel Coalition to go back to church on Sunday evenings for a second service.

But our good Dr. Kloosterman, the keeper of the neo-Calvinist flame (he likely prefers Calvinettes to GEMS as the name for Christian Reformed girls clubs), will have none of such a conventional understanding of Luther. In the third installment of his review of VanDrunen’s book on natural law and the two kingdoms (the second was on VanDrunen’s handling of Augustine), Kloosterman takes issue with VanDrunen on Luther. VanDrunen’s presentation is hardly controversial; he links Luther to previous developments stemming from Augustine’s doctrine of the two cities, and Gelasius’ teaching on the two swords. VanDrunen doesn’t even try to claim Luther as a proto-Reformed theologian.

But Kloosterman is so opposed to VanDrunen’s project that he will not even let VanDrunen’s discussion of Luther stand. For instance, Kloosterman accuses VanDrunen of a selective reading and quotes from the 1523 essay, “Temporal Authority,” where Luther writes of the Christian prince:

What, then, is a prince to do if he lacks the requisite wisdom and has to be guided by the jurists and the lawbooks? Answer: This is why I said that the princely estate is a perilous one. If he be not wise enough himself to master both his laws and his advisers, then the maxim of Solomon applies, ‘Woe to the land whose prince is a child’ (Eccles. 10:16). Solomon recognized this too. This is why he despaired of all law-even of that which Moses through God had prescribed for him-and of all his princes and counselors. He turned to God himself and besought him for an understanding heart to govern the people (I Kings 3:9). A prince must follow this example and proceed in fear; he must depend neither upon the dead books nor living heads, but cling solely to God, and be at him constantly, praying for a right understanding, beyond that of all books and teachers, to rule his subjects wisely. For this reason I know of no law to prescribe for a prince; instead, I will simply instruct his heart and mind on what his attitude should be toward all laws, counsels, judgments, and actions. If he governs himself accordingly, God will surely grant him the ability to carry out all laws, counsels, and actions in a proper and godly way.

Kloosterman seems to think that this adds up to a brief for his own position – namely, that special revelation must interpret natural revelation. On this basis Kloosterman has argued that a magistrate needs to take his cues from Scripture to rule in a truly just manner. Curiously enough, Luther did not answer his question – where should the prince look for wisdom? – as Kloosterman would, by pointing the prince to the Bible. The archetypal Lutheran in good 2k fashion merely speaks of the prince’s need for a godly attitude in discerning his duties.

This misinterpretation of Luther extends throughout Kloosterman’s installment and it is particularly ironic since Kloosterman’s point is that VanDrunen misinterprets Luther. Be that as it may, Kloosterman insists that Luther must not be chalked up on the side of dualism:

Our point is simple: When one surveys the breadth of Luther’s voluminous writings, the overwhelming impression is that for Luther, the Christian faith and the Christian religion did not exist alongside public life, but came to expression and functioned within public life. Whether speaking at the Diet of Worms or serving as mediator among the German princes, whether opposing public unrest and public heresy or defending good quality education, whether commenting on war and peace or on trade and money—in all of these roles, we meet Luther the preacher of the gospel and pastor of the German people. Yes, Luther knew how to distinguish the “spiritual” regiment from the “temporal” regiment, but he never separated them, nor did he retreat from entering the world’s domain in the name of God, with the Word of God.

There we have it – Luther the proto-Kuyperian. This surely will be news to the historians, theologians, Lutherans, and Reformed Protestants, who knew and know Luther to be 2k. Kloosterman’s reading is not at all unusual for a Kuyperian since neo-Calvinists, from Kuyper to the present, have a habit of reading the past in a way that always vindicates them and their world-and-life-view. Even so, his review suggests less a stroke of genius than a move of desperation to save the neo-Calvinist movement that used to have a monopoly – world dominators that they were – on what it means to be Reformed.

. . . the disagreement—let this be clear from the outset—has never been about the existence of natural law or of two modes of divine rule in the world. In our current context, and in this ongoing discussion, that has never been the disagreement. The disagreement has involved, and continues to involve, the authority of Scripture, the authority of Jesus Christ, and the responsibility of Christians in the world. How is the Bible relevant to Christian living in today’s world? How is the lordship of Jesus Christ relevant to Christian living in today’s world? These have been, and remain, the questions that define the disagreement. Contemporary advocates of a certain construal of natural law and two kingdoms are unable to explain how either the Bible or the lordship of Jesus Christ are normative for Christians in their cultural life in today’s world. By contrast, contemporary advocates of Reformed worldview Christianity insist that the principles of God’s inscripturated revelation and of the lordship of King Jesus are normative for Christians in their cultural life in today’s world.

This is a helpful statement of what it is that troubles Kloosterman. But he has left out an important matter for Reformed Protestants, namely, what do our churches confess? Here the answer is not in Kloosterman’s favor since the Reformed Confessions say nothing about a Christian worldview as an article of the Christian faith. Nor has the notion of worldview been a consideration for determining churches of like faith and practice.

That puts Kloosterman in the awkward position of implicitly binding the conscience of VanDrunen and all those who don’t accept Dr. K’s version of Christian worldviewism. By making worldview the basis for his approval of other believers and their ideas, Kloosterman is establishing his own opinion and interpretation of the Bible as the criterion for unity in the faith. But let it be clear that he has no confessional basis for making a Christian worldview a requirement of authentic and faithful Christianity.

But when you consdier the way the Dutch Reformed and the English Anglicans (I know it’s redundant but you need a place and a tradition and the English made the mistake of confusing the two) related in colonial New Netherland (later New York), you may understand why the Reformed churches were not wild about the English or the way they ran their church. The following is an excerpt that should point Reformed Christians away from the Canterbury Trail (high church Calvinism doesn’t need a bishop):

Dutch Calvinists had brought this notion with them to the New World. Writing in 1628, Dominie Jonas Michaelius, the first clergyman in New Netherland, conceded that although “political and ecclesiastical persons can greatly assist each other, nevertheless the matters and offices belinging together must not be mixed but kept separate, in order to prevent all confusion and disorder.” Indeed, quite often throughout the New Netherland period the clergy and the West India Company directors-general found themselves at odds; the most notorious such conflict occurred between Domine Everardus Bogardus and Director-General Willem Kieft, who battled each other so fiercely that they sailed together back to Holland for arbitration only to be shipwrecked and perish off the coast of Wales.

This adversarial relationship of church and state was foreign to Restoration Englishmen, however. Building on the writings of Thomas Erastus, a sixteenth-century political theorist, Anglicans believed that the church should be subject to the powers of the state. Richard Hooker, apologist for the Church of England, wrote that “there is not any restraint or limitation of matter for regal authority and power to be conversant in, but of religion whole, and of whatsoever cause thereto appertaineth, kings may lawfully have charge, they lawfully may therein exercise dominion, and use the temporal sword.” (Randall Balmer, A Perfect Babel of Confusion: Dutch Religion and English Culture in the Middle Colonies, pp. 20-21)

It does seem that most of the Reformed leaning folks today who advocate that magistrates get the true religion and enforce it (good and hard) are largely Erastian, while the 2k position is deeply rooted in those Reformed theologians and pastors that were always opposing Erastus and the magistrates who appealed to him. I guess another option is out there. Theonomy.

One of the casualties of the Massacre was Gaspard de Coligny, a military leader by most accounts of remarkable ability and courage. During Henry II’s reign, Coligny was a friend and close ally of the king. Once Coligny converted to Protestantism, he lost such access but did emerge as a patron and strategist for the Reformed cause. He even supported the establishment in 1557, of an ill-fated French colony in Brazil, complete with ministers supplied by the Company of Pastors in Geneva. On August 24, 1572 Coligny lost his life to an assassin’s sword. His death was the opening act in the subsequent massacre of Huguenots.

As much as the courage and conviction of Coligny and the Huguenots inspire today — and possibly provoke severe cases of head shaking at the thought of a Roman Catholic presiding over a Protestant college — the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre also teaches important lessons about the virtue of distinguishing the affairs of the civil polity from those of the church. Although Paul taught that “to die is gain,” he also counseled Christians to seek quiet and peaceful lives. In which case, secular regimes that are neutral to religion (as opposed to the ones that are explicitly anti-clerical) are far preferable to the confusion of kingdoms that was at least partly responsible for the good Admiral’s death.

In other words, the advocates of 2k insist that Christ’s kingdom cannot be located in temporal politics; 2k critics argue that Christ’s kingdom is in fact everywhere and that the church implements some, the state and families the rest.

What ends this contest, game, set, and match, for 2k proponents is the spirituality of the church.

Here is Calvin on the nature of Christ’s kingship:

I come now to kingship. It would be pointless to speak of this without first warning my readers that it is spiritual in nature. For from this we infer its efficacy and benefit for us, as well as its whole force and eternity. . . . For we see that whatever is earthly is of this world and of time, and is indeed fleeting. Therefore Christ, to lift our hope to heaven, declares that his “kingship is not of this world” [John 18:36]. In short, when any one of us hears that Christ’s kingship is spiritual, aroused by this word, let him attain to the hope of a better life; and since it is now protected by Christ’s hand, let him await the full fruit of this grace in the age to come. (Institutes, II. xv. 3)

Here is Calvin on the second petition of the Lord’s prayer (“thy kingdom come,” for the catechetically challenged):

God reigns where men, both by denial of themselves and by contempt of the world and of earthly life, pledge themselves to his righteousness in order to aspire to a heavenly life. Thus there are two parts to this Kingdom: first, that God by the power of his Spirit correct all the desires of the flesh which by squadrons war against him; second, that he shape all our thoughts in obedience to his rule. . . . Now because the word of God is like a royal scepter, we are bidden here to entreat him to bring all mens’ minds and hearts into voluntary obedience to it. This happens when he manifests the working of his word through the secret inspiration of his Spirit in order that it may stand forth in the degree of honor that it deserves. (III. xx. 42)

And finally, Calvin on the magistrate:

But whoever knows how to distinguish between body and soul, between this present fleeting life and that future eternal life, will without difficulty know that Christ’s spiritual Kingdom and the civil jurisdiction are things completely distinct. Since, then, it is a Jewish vanity to seek and enclose Christ’s Kingdom within the elements of this world, let us rather ponder that what Scripture clearly teaches is a spiritual fruit, which we gather from Christ’s grace; and let us remember to keep within its own limits all that freedom which is promised and offered to us in him. (IV.xx.1)

For anyone wondering why this matter is so decisive, consider the following: if Calvin is right about the spiritual nature of Christ’s kingdom, then the state’s establishment of righteousness, no matter how beneficial or comprehensive, is always outward and temporal. The state does not deal with the spiritual or eternal realities because it lacks the means to do so. And if an institution ordained by God to punish wickedness cannot advance the kingdom, how much less the media or environment?

This means that 2k advocates have no trouble explaining Calvin’s instructions to magistrates about the need for a Christian order. For starters, he didn’t know any better; he was a man of his time and regarded the religious duties of magistrates the way we take usury in the form of credit cards for granted. For the main course, Calvin wasn’t stupid; to advocate a separation between the Christian and temporal authorities was to be a radical. Calvin needed Reformed magistrates if he and others were not to wind up like Huss and Wycliffe.

But if Calvin believed, as Federal Visionists, neo-Calvinists, and various theonomists do, that temporal institutions other than the church, or cultural activities usher in the kingdom, you would think he would gut the spirituality of the church from his text. He didn’t. That would apparently mean that while outward order and righteousness is desirable and God’s providential intention for this world, it is not a blueprint for a theology of glory where supposedly more faith and morality will resurrect Christendom. Calvin was emphatic that the way of Christ’s kingdom was the path of suffering. The second petition of the Lord’s Prayer, he argued:

ought to kindle zeal for mortification of the flesh; finally, it ought to instruct us in bearing the cross. For it is in this way that God wills to spread his Kingdom. But we should not take it ill that the outward man is in decay, provided the inner man is renewed [II Cor. 4:16]. For this is the condition of God’s Kingdom: that while we submit to his righteousness, he makes us sharers in his glory. (III. xx. 42)

What 2k critics cannot fathom is Calvin’s argument that the fruit of grace is spiritual. The fiercest critics of 2k are basically Corinthian; they associate the coming of the kingdom with redeemed television, better health care, a larger GDP, decrease in crime and secularization, and faith-based policy (especially regulating sex). In which case, neo-Calvinists and theonomists cannot agree with what the Westminster Divines taught about the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, namely, that it is the visible church outside of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation. Why do theonomists keep telling us about the saving ways of sanctified laws for the polity or neo-Calvinists about the redemptive capacities of a health environment? Have they never read Calvin on the spirituality of the church or Paul on the theology of glory? The answer, apparently, is a big NO.

Seldom conceded in this argument is that 2k critics are also a long way from the Reformers. To be consistent with the joys of a magisterial reformation, the critics should be calling for President Obama and Governor Rendell, among others, to reform the churches, call the right ministers, approve the proper liturgies, establish the right forms of church government. Well, the problem here is that Obama might appoint Jeremiah Wright to be his Archbishop Laud. Doh (I)!

That possibility should be a reminder that state-run churches have never preserved Reformed Protestantism (or any religion, for that matter). Even when the covenants with the king were long and exacting, the magistrates only made life more difficult for the good guys in the church and regularly backed the bad guys. This is why the good guys in church history, from Calvin, to the Contra-Remonstrants, to the Covenanters, to the PCUSA, to the Free Church of Scotland, wanted autonomy of the church from state-control in order to govern the church properly (and they argued, biblically).

So if anti-2kers want to be as consistent in their doing as they think they are in their saying, they need to persuade James Jordan, the Godfather of things Federal Vision, to run for the presidency. I assume he will need to run on a political platform very much contrary to the policies and laws that guided Geneva’s magistrates in their oversight of a reformed church. Small government, reduced taxes, vouchers for religious schools, maybe even reduction of the U.S.’s superpower footprint could Jordan’s candidacy off the runway. And then once in office, Jordan can implement the suppression of heresy, the closing of synagogues, mosques, and cathedrals, and the prohibition of usury. Politicians lie through their teeth all the time on the campaign trail. What would be the problem with one more? Wait a minute. Jordan believes in the law. Doh (II)!