I participated yesterday in my first interview on my new book (all about me, remember), From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin, yesterday on a local Detroit Christian radio station. The host was gracious but unfortunately we talked much less about the book than about his and my own differences over theology and politics. One take-away from the exchange was that many evangelicals, if this host is representative, think they are political conservatives simply because they are conservative Christians. No matter that American conservatives have been discussing the boundaries of the Right for over fifty years in such outlets as the National Review, Modern Age, or the American Conservative, a conversation led initially by the likes of William F. Buckley, Jr. and Russell Kirk. I actually invoked Michigan’s own Kirk yesterday, twice. And I don’t think it had any effect. Evangelicals seem to believe they are conservative because they follow the Bible and it doesn’t faze them that folks like Kirk and Buckley let the Bible seldom if ever enter into their considerations of conservatism.
The most frustrating part of the interview was the phenomenon I have repeatedly observed here and at other blogs — the appeal to Scripture selectively. As readers might well imagine, the interviewer was opposed to abortion and gay marriage, as am I, and believed that biblical teaching should be followed by the U.S.A. I responded with a question about the commandments that precede the sixth and seventh (fifth and sixth for the Protestant-challenged) and the answer distinguished between America as a republic and not a theocracy. Evangelicals believe that their designs have nothing to do with theocracy even when they follow a book that does describe a polity that at the very least had theocratic aspects.
The frustration escalated when I brought up the example of Michele Bachmann who is receiving questions about the place of her husband in the White House should she win the election. Biblical teaching does require women to submit to their husbands and so journalists, whether for gotcha reasons or not, do have plausible reasons for asking how Bachman’s evangelical faith would square her political power with the Bible’s call for wifely submission. (This is the same kind of question, by the way, that journalists put to Morman and Roman Catholic politicians who seemed to be under obligation to authorities in competition with the U.S. Constitution.) The response, quite sensible, was to distinguish the spiritual aspects of Bachman’s life from her political responsibilities. But if you can do that with Bachmann’s marriage, why can’t you do so with the civil institution of marriage more generally? After all, if biblical teaching demands that marriage be between a man and a woman (which it does lest anyone think I’ve gone soft), why aren’t evangelicals also calling for policy and legislation that would enforce biblical teaching about divorce, or about the way Paul describes the relationship between a husband and a wife? Also, if you are going to appeal to the Bible for certain aspects of public policy, is it really bad form for journalists to inspect Scripture to see how far such appeal will take a candidate? Saying that suggestions that evangelicals are theocrats is silly just isn’t much of a defense.
But if you believe in natural law or that the light of nature does reveal certain ethical norms, then it is possible for evangelicals to oppose gay marriage and abortion without appealing to Scripture and bringing up that unfortunate business about women wearing hats.
During the interview I did think that theonomists are more consistent than your average evangelical. Theonomists want all of the Bible to inform public policy, and I also suspect that theonomy gained a hearing in the 1980s as the more consistent, philosophically and theologically compelling, critique of secular politics and secular humanism than what folks like Jerry Falwell and Francis Schaeffer were offering.
And then I actually picked up a book by Greg Bahnsen and had to scratch my head about such consistency. For some reason, Bahnsen was eager to follow Old Testament teaching but drew the line at jihad. Not even general equity could prompt him to embrace God’s reasons for the Israelites purging the promised land of the pagan tribes. “The command to go to war and gain the land of Palestine by the sword,” Bahnsen wrote, “is not an enduring requirement for us today.” How this squares with Bahnsen’s earlier assertion that “God’s law as it touches upon the duty of civil magistrates has not been altered in any systematic or fundamental way in the New Testament,” is a mystery. [By This Standard, pp. 5, 3] After all, the command to go to war against the pagan tribes was hardly a local circumstance but a reflection of God’s holy and righteous opposition to sin and unbelief and a revelation of how he will punish it.
The take away is that the world of biblical politics is filled with inconsistencies. Of course, we all have our problems. But evangelical politicians should at some point not be surprised but expect to receive questions about where the appeal to the Bible begins and ends, that is, in which areas they are prepared to be 1k and in which domains they will follow 2k teaching. Until both Christians and secularists receive such an explanation, political biblicists will continue to be exasperated and exasperating.
Old Life 
I’m Mr. Typo, but I know you have higher standards. So, “faze,” not “phase.” Unless ou were referring to (Captain) Kirk’s phaser.
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MM, how about a taser? It doesn’t “tase” evangelicals . . .
Thanks for the catch (the book is in the mail, finally).
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I’m enjoying and benefiting from A Secular Faith.
This is what I appreciate about the Anabaptists: they recognize the folly and impossibility of a church/state marriage.
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Tase? Did someone say tase?
(ST. ELMO, Ala.) – The Mobile County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a bizarre case out of St. Elmo, after a church pastor was tased, and a woman was stabbed during a fight.
It happened at the New Welcome Baptist Church after Sunday service.
Simone Moore is a self proclaimed R&B artist, he ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate, and he’s a teacher in Mobile County. Now, Moore is wanted by the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office after authorities say he tased Rev. Daryl Riley.
Deputies say it all started when Moore, who worked as the Minister of Music was handed his last paycheck, and told by Rev. Riley that his services were no longer needed. Investigators say that’s when Moore tased the pastor.
A fight ensued, and deputies say Harvey Hunt, a deacon at the church, pulled out a pocket knife and began stabbing Moore’s mother, Agolia, in the arm.
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PS: And that’s why you shouldn’t hire a minister of music.
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MM, you should hire ministers named Daryl either.
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The novelized version: “St. Elmo’s Firing (Adventures of Harvey Hunt: Deacon at Arms)”
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Any hopes of a link to said interview?
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Matthew, I think it went the way of most hot air.
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DG,
Do you know if there is substantial difference Bahnsen’s “By This Standard” and “Theonomy In Christian Ethics”? I’m trudging through the latter, and after I go through DVD’s Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, I was considering waffling back to another book on theonomy.
I find it frustrating the way many evangelical conservatives I know focus much more on the sin of sinners in the world than the sins and inconsistencies found in the church that the world sees. Christ addressed this when he said “take the log out of your own eye”, but I always forget that applies to “other people”.
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While picking on dead Theonomists might be great fun, your claim that Dr. Bahnsen was not consistent about jihad is, well, silly.
The command for Israel to invade the Promised Land was a specific command about a specific land at a specific time in history. It was not a free pass for Ancient Israel to simply invade whomever they wanted to. One doesn’t even have to consider the question of continuity and discontinuity between the Mosaic and New Covenants. Joshua was commanded to conquer the Promised Land. He wasn’t free to keep pressing on until there were no more lands to conquer.
This means that “Bahnsen’s earlier assertion that ‘God’s law as it touches upon the duty of civil magistrates has not been altered in any systematic or fundamental way in the New Testament,’…” isn’t a mystery. God commanded Israel to do something that, apart from God’s command, they had no right to do. God hasn’t commanded modern nations to engage in such holy war. Therefore it is wrong for us to do so. The consistency is found simply in obedience to the commands of God.
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Biut David, why have theonomists accused me of hating God’s law if I don’t favor the execution of adulterers? If jihad was given specifically and locally to Israel, why not many of the crimes considered capital offenses?
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I heard Byron York ask Bachman that question about submission in the debate, and she did not answer it well. She basically redefined “submission” by saying it meant respect. I thought it was a great question, and I don’t think she has thought through it well.
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Since it’s so wrong, as you assert, for Christian conservatives to appeal selectively to Scripture, was it likewise wrong for the deistic and unitarian Founders to selectively appeal to Scripture and the benefits of public expression of religious discourse, even if only for the promotion of civil morality? I agree that there are good natural law arguments to be appealed to on issues like abortion and the nature of marriage, but…
I admit I’m a newcomer to all of these 2K ramifications on Christian expression in public affairs, and I haven’t read your book on separation of church and state, but it sounds a little too much to my ears that you agree with the notion that the public square should be free from all religion, rather than promoting free exercise of religion even in civil discourse on pertinent issues that affect us all.
Fill me in on this.
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John DC, yes, it was wrong for the founders, especially as deists and unitarians, to appeal to Scripture. I’m not sure if it was “so” wrong. But because the Bible does not address matters like constitutions, republics, and federalism, I’m not sure why the need for Scripture.
As for religion in public debates today, obviously the level of religious discourse is not subsiding. It is a free country and believers of various kinds may appeal to their convictions if they want. The question for me is two-fold: Are Christians required to appeal to Scripture or religious truth in the public square? I don’t think so, but 2k looks radical to those who believe either that Scripture is the only source of truth or that believers are unfaithful if they do not make such an appeal. The other question is whether an appeal to Scripture will be persuasive or effective. I don’t see how it could be. If we still lived in the 1780s, it might be. But obviously we’re not there.
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Hi Darryl,
I suspect that Greg Bahnsen would have marked the distinction between a once off command (Conquer the Promised Land!) and laws that had abiding and broad applicability (at least during the time of the Mosaic Covenant) such as executing adulterers.
Since I’m not a Theonomist I will let them speak for themselves.
Best wishes,
David
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What do confessionalists and reconstructionists make of Titus 2? How consistent there?
In 2008, the Calvinist Baptist Voddie Baucham (neither of the above) was interviewed on CNN and spoke against women ruling over men. Period. The issue then, Sarah Palin.
Why not?
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