Hearing (all about) Me Speak

Published on by D. G. Hart

As Zrim has already indicated, pronunciations matter. If you say the word evangelical with a long e in the first syllable, as in “egads,” then according to popular wisdom you are one, that is, a born-again Protestant. If you pronounce it with the short e in “whatever,” then you aren’t ehvangelical.

The same goes for conservatism. If you slip in an extra syllable, as in “conservativism,” then you are likely unfamiliar with the discussions about what it means to be a conservative. But if you say the real word, “conservatism,” then you’re in the ball park of knowing something about the American Right even if you are not a card-carrier.

A twist on correct pronunciation came for me as my wife and I were driving to Washington, D.C. last week for the Round Table on the future of evangelical politics hosted by Brian Lee and the saints at Christ Reformed Church (URC). Scanning the dial in hopes of finding a voice different from Sean’s, we stumbled upon the local affiliate of the EWTN radio network which broadcasts the Al Kresta show weekdays at 4:00. This particular day found the host away at a conference and the show re-airing the “best of” Al Kresta. Imagine my (all about me) surprise when my wife and I heard Al introduce the hour-long interview I did about From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin on September 20, live in the Ann Arbor studio. Imagine my (all about me) further surprise to hear me babble on like a surfer dude. Which raises the question, if you sound goofy, can you really call yourself a confessional Protestant or a political conservative?

But misgivings about my voice and diction did not prevent a thoroughly enjoyable event with Michael Gerson and Terry Eastland thanks to the great hospitality and event planning of Brian and Sara Lee. The audio for the event is here (though you will need Quick Time to listen). Future events still include David VanDrunen this Thursday night (October 20), and Dave Coffin preaching(Sunday, October 23).

I believe the biggest difference to surface between Mike Gerson and me was his willingness to appeal to higher law (justice and human dignity) in thinking about a Christian understanding of politics and my reluctance to jump over existing laws, institutions, and powers for the sake of a higher good. I also believe this is one of the most profound difference between evangelicals and confessional Protestants in the sphere of religion, and between evangelicals and conservatives in matters political.

Consider, for instance, the willingness of revivalists to circumvent ordained clergy in order to bring the gospel to people (some of whom are already church members). George Whitefield and Gilbert Tennent did this. The Gospel Coalition is still doing it. Think too of the way that evangelicals will appeal to the Bible to circumvent the authority of creeds or confessions with Scripture functioning as a higher law above man-made doctrines.

In politics evangelicals will appeal to Christian morality usually without considering such matters of state sovereignty. This happens when evangelicals look to the federal government to implement laws that state or local governments have not adopted, or when born-again Protestants seek to intervene internationally without doing justice to the existing governments in place. I know, I know, these matters are difficult and the complexity of the situation can lead to pacifism or even indifference. I also concede that folks like Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King, Jr., neither of whom used a long e when saying the word evangelical, also appealed to the higher law for the Declaration of Independence and Civil Rights. Still, evangelicals appear to me to be largely indifferent to existing governmental structures and laws when political forms get in the way of eternal truths. And every conservative (both religious and political) knows that this is a recipe for revolution.

This is not to say that Gerson espouses such radicalism, but only to point out that implicit in the appeal to a higher law is an impulse that makes evangelicals insufficiently aware of the restraint and stability that conservatives hope to preserve.

38 thoughts on “Hearing (all about) Me Speak”

  3. *In politics evangelicals will appeal to Christian morality usually without considering such matters of state sovereignty. This happens when evangelicals look to the federal government to implement laws that state or local governments have not adopted, or when born-again Protestants seek to intervene internationally without doing justice to the existing governments in place.*

    For example, Roe vs. Wade is objected to (rightly) as a usurpation of the right of the state to legislate abortion. Thus we have the Tea Party concern with big federal government and the U.S. Supreme Court overstepping its authority. But then there is a push for a federal constitutional amendment to protect heterosexual marriage, which would involve the U.S. Supreme court again ruling on matters internal to the states. On the whole, my impression is that evangelicals are not as zealous for the basics of our system as much as they are interested in ad hoc victories, which are their perceived moral improvements on the status quo.

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  4. But the greedy and violent state and federal (and “church”) institutions which now exist are themselves the result of ad hoc victories. There is nothing secular (now) which is NOT ad hoc.

    Only the Lord Jesus Christ shall bring the needed discontinuity (something more than regret and hope), and when we know that, we can have the patience not to idealize the past and thus moderate our enthusiasms for the political illusions of the present.

    Walter Benjamin: “Only a redeemed people receives the fullness of its past..in all its moments”.

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  6. I appreciate the point about not considering issues like state sovereignty. I’d never thought of that before, thanks.

    And, regarding sounding like a surfer dude, it could be much worse…

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  7. Surfer Dude? That reminds me of Craig Parton who seems to lose his grip when he thinks about the super cool surfer dude evangelical leaders with earings, other bling and pony tails. You definitely don’t fit that bill- although MM might. He still fantasizes about Miami Vice theme songs.

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  8. (Heavens, I haven’t heard the name Al Kresta since I was a budding evangie on campus in A-squared in the early 90s. Al and Rush. Those were the days.)

    MM, I tend to think that to the extent that abortion is the signature politics of rightist evangelicalism, the way it handles RvW is a helpful way to distinguish between conservatism and conservativism (Google Chrome underscores the latter term as incorrect).

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  9. Dr Hart.

    It seems as though sounding like the Dude might be a better strategy for you. It might also help to show up for the future conferences with a bathrobe, slipper, and bowling bag. I think a Dude makeover could help you with the hippies, though I’m not sure you have a home with the conservativists. (Google chrome also says that word is incorrect. 😥 )

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  10. I don’t follow you, MMc. The constitution was not adhoc. Our separation of powers is not ad hoc. The question is whether one basically likes this inheritance, wishing to promote and preserve it. I think the genuine conservativw does like this inheritance, and cringes when it is violated. The e-politicals talk like they are the true conservatives, but I don’t think they appreciate the genius of our inheritance as much as they want to be victorious on certain social issues.

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  15. mm to mmc:”The constitution was not adhoc. Our separation of powers is not ad hoc. The question is whether one basically likes this inheritance, wishing to promote and preserve it.”

    mark: I would like to understand the “difference” between that which has come about with the passing of time and proposed discontinuities. I understand the conservative preference for the past, but I do not understand how you can say that the Constitution’s protection of slavery was somehow less “ad hoc” than current gestures to make abortion illegal.

    Theodore D. Bozeman, “Inductive and Deductive Polities”, Journal of American History, December 1977, p722–Materially comfortable and conspicuously toward the leading groups in society, the old school carried forward traditional Calvinist support for business and professional vocations….Having supported from the beginning a version of Protestantism supportive of property consciousness, the Old School leadership had incentive enough for worry about social instability…
    Old School contributions to social analysis may be viewed as a sustained attempt to defend the inherited social structure…The General Assembly found it necessary to lament the practice of those who ‘question and unsettle practice which have received the enlightened sanction of centuries’…
    Social naturalists assumed that the laws of society were not merely true, that is, given in the scheme of nature. They bore too the humbling force of prescription; they demanded compliance.
    The desire was to draw the ought out of the is…to make facts serve a normative purpose.”

    But mm wrote:” I think the genuine conservative does like this inheritance, and cringes when it is violated.”

    And Mark McCulley responds: I always disliked the status quo enough to never want to conserve it, and therefore have no interest in deciding who’s a “genuine” conservative. I was merely pointing out that the future is no less ordained by God than the status quo. You can’t get to “inherent and intrinsic” inductively.

    If the Reformed can quote Romanists to support “natural law”, let an anabaptist quote a theonomist:

    Otto Scott, Chalcedon Report 195—“One of the great lures of totalitarianism is that it promises to put an end to change, a stop in history. This false promise has fooled millions anxious for security and stability.”

    I write as one who does NOT appreciate “the genius of our inheritance”. I deny that “society as it is, in its configuration as of any moment in time, is possessed of an inviolably self-evidence. One reason to learn history is to repudiate it. I say these things not because I want to be victorious on certain social issues. I say these things in hope of apocalypse, resurrection and Christ’s coming.

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  16. MMc:
    You are pretty straight-forward in your repudiation of the principles of this country. Most evangoliticals try to claim they are the true lovers of our constitution. Do you have a better plan, or is it too insigificant in light of eternity?

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  17. No, I don’t have a plan for Satan. Satan is going to lose. Nor do I have a proposal for which parts of the ad hoc inheritance to conserve and which to “demonize”. Most “evangelicals” have not read the Constitution. And I don’t want to be an “evangelical”.

    I Corinthians 1:18– For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:

    “ I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
    And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”

    20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom…

    I do not believe in the spirituality of most organized religion, but I do believe that God uses the gospel as the power of His effectual call.

    23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

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  18. MMc:
    So [the civil government = satan]? You sound pretty absolute. Does anything during our days on the earth matter?

    You also sound like an anarchist as regards both the state and the church. But you are to submit to God both in the civil government he has instituted and in the church he has instituted. Wisdom, in part, consists in simple submission to his institutions.

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  20. Zrim and MM,

    MMc has a reformed soteriology (he agrees with Horton) but an anabaptist ecclesiology and, as evidenced in some of his posts, he has severe problems with 2K cultural thinking. He is not to privy with lots of Lutheran beliefs either. He does know his stuff though and is not shy about telling you when he thinks you are wrong. But I should let MMc speak for himself.

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  21. There are different “theologies of the cross”. There is the kind pushed by Gerhard Forde which makes the cross all about the existential impact of the sermon. But there is another kind which speak of the objective reconciliation obtained by Christ in His obedience to death and imputed by God to the elect. This second kind is the gospel revealed in the Bible.

    1. I was not making a statement about the power of the gospel as a means to saying something else about state and religious institutions. I was really (sincerely, I thought) saying something about the limits of state and church in order to say something about the power of God in the gospel.

    2. I did not say that the nation-state (or any specific nation-state) was Satan. Nor did I equate the entirety of our cultural/ civilization inheritance with the nation state. My point is that I don’t have to have a plan of reform to say no to something, be that something the constitution or a proposal to disregard the constitution. Sometimes being a conservative requires the patience to do nothing when anything else would be counterproductive.

    3. When I am told that we are going to make progress, I do not have to agree with that conclusion by giving my own suggestions for how that progress shall be made.

    4. There’s a difference between submitting to a specific regime and collaborating with it and/or proposing reforms for that regime. I am not against all institutions. I am suspicious of folks who talk about “the church” as if there were only one. And if by “the church”, you mean generically “any church” anywhere is better than “churches” (sects!), then Luther and Calvin were wrong to not to submit to the pope.

    I can see how this might be reading into your “the church” way more than you intended. But then again, I think you have read into my suspicion of “most organized religion” some kind of unwillingness to submit to any institution. If you are not yourself disdainful of most religious institutions, then you should be. Don’t be like Ike who said: we need these mediating structures, and “I don’t care what they are”….

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  22. John, I would suggest a difference between knowing what Lutherans say and agreeing with them. Even though I also know what theonomists say, I still remain a non-Constantinian. That makes me more of an ally of 2k than I am of the Reformed enemies of 2k.

    Mr. Lincoln thought the Constitution needed to be rescued by Yankees coming to its rescue who would-once for all time-determine the future authority of the Constitution. But when the USA has perished from the earth, some will have died and killed in vanity.

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  23. I am still thinking about the difference between Hart and Gerson. Hart pointed to the reality of existing state sovereignty. But Gerson did public relations for an adminstration which took upon itself to decide reality.

    John Howard Yoder: “Render to each his due” cannot be assumed to mean ‘render everything to the nation-state.’ The elect are to refuse to give the nation-state certain types of “honor” or “fear”. The place of the nation-state in the providential designs of God is not such that our duty would be to simply do whatever it says.”

    Romans 13:8 says “nothing is DUE to anyone except love.” Thus the claims of Caesar are to be measured by what the magistrate claims is due to him as part of the obligation of love. Love in turn is defined (verse 10) by the fact that it does no harm. In this context it becomes impossible to maintain that the subjection referred to in verses 1-7 can include a duty under certain circumstances to do harm to others at the order of the nation-state.

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  24. MMc, I agree that one doesn’t have to have a plan of reform to reject something; I also agree that sometimes being a conservative requires the patience to do nothing when anything else would be counterproductive (like Mr. Han said, being still and doing nothing are two very different things). In fact, that kind of conservatism gets me in lots of trouble with the devotees of conservativism. Isn’t abstaining a perfectly legitimate way of participating?

    But when you interrupt Paul’s theology of the cross to remind readers that you “doesn’t believe in the spirituality of most organized religion” and go on to chide that they “should be disdainful of most religious institutions,” I have to wonder if the conservatism goes all the way down or not. After all, patience also means one endures the imperfections of perfectly good (and ordained, I might add) institutions. It’s just curious to me how one can be rightly skeptical of progressive ideals on the one hand, but then when it comes to the church turn on the progressivism in order to be skeptical of her institutional nature.

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  26. Zrim: being still and doing nothing are two very different things.

    mark: I think I can do both at once, all the while deconstructing the difference. But I am glad that we agree on the need for patience..

    Zrim: isn’t abstaining a perfectly legitimate way of participating?

    mark: well, according to the brothers Niebuhr, abstaining from violence is either being “against culture”, or not “taking responsibility” for the culture. But they were wrong. Culture does not come out of the barrel of a gun. And there is no one monolithic “the culture”, just as there now no one visible church. We can participate in the discipline of a local church without participating in a “coalition”.

    Zrim: But when you interrupt Paul’s theology of the cross to remind readers that you “doesn’t believe in the spirituality of most organized religion” and go on to chide that they “should be disdainful of most religious institutions,” I have to wonder if the conservatism goes all the way down or not.

    mark: You are right to see that there’s a lot I don’t want to conserve, but wrong to think I am a perfectionist about it. I agree with Leonard Cohen that there’s a crack in (most) everything. But abstaining from and separating from the Romanist organization is not perfectionism. I agree with Thornwell on that….

    I would like to think that it’s the resurrection of Christ and His bearing the sins of the elect that goes all the way down with me. Since I believe in the forgiveness of sins, I believe in the erasure of history, so that I am no longer identical with my past. But the remission of even our future sins does not eliminate the need for us to be discerning when it comes to structures of religion.

    The Mormons also are organized into a stable culture which influences our cultures. It is not “progressivism” for me to oppose their satanic counterfeit.

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  27. Everyone seems to have their own “theology of the cross”. I already quoted I Corinthians 1.
    But I can agree to stipulate that I mean the “Heidelberg Disputation”, and in particular the first ten theses. For the regulation of our historiography, attend to numbers 3 and 7.

    1.The law of God, the most salutary doctrine of life, cannot advance man on his way to righteousness, but rather hinders him.
    2.Much less can human works, which are done over and over again with the aid of natural precepts, so to speak, lead to that end.
    3.Although the works of man always seem attractive and good, they are nevertheless likely to be mortal sins.
    4.Although the works of God are always unattractive and appear evil, they are nevertheless really eternal merits.
    5.The works of men are thus not mortal sins (we speak of works which are apparently good), as though they were crimes.
    6.The works of God (we speak of those which he does through man) are thus not merits, as though they were sinless.
    7.The works of the righteous would be mortal sins if they would not be feared as mortal sins by the righteous themselves out of pious fear of God.
    8.By so much more are the works of man mortal sins when they are done without fear and in unadulterated, evil self-security.
    9.To say that works without Christ are dead, but not mortal, appears to constitute a perilous surrender of the fear of God.
    10.Indeed, it is very difficult to see how a work can be dead and at the same time not a harmful and mortal sin.

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  28. “That makes me more of an ally of 2k than I am of the Reformed enemies of 2k.”

    MMc, but the 2k of which I am familiar has authority structures in each of the kingdoms. To the State, which bears the sword of justice, we owe obedience unless obedience would be sin. Then the gospel-bearing church also has structure, accountability, and authority. Your position may be anti-Constantinianism (did I put enough suffixes there?) but within your two “k’s” the structures seem closer to social clubs than divine institutions. You seem to yearn for freedom and chafe against giving substantial roles to the state and church.But I’m having some difficulty synthesizing your various statements, so tell me where I misunderstand.

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  29. Gary, if “Caucasians” was on a flash card, I could only blurt out “Larry Bird…s.” I’ll have to look it up.

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  30. MMc, I have no qualms with separating from the Roman church, in fact I highly encourage it. But I hardly see how a repudiation of Rome translates into having disdain for institutional religion. I know the Radical Reformation didn’t think the Protestant Reformation went far enough, but Reformed Christianity never disagreed with Roman Christianity about having a high view of the church in the first place, but rather an infallible view. And it parted ways with Radical Reformation for having much too low a view.

    And from a semi-eschatological perspective, I think you over-realize what it means to be justified. It doesn’t mean one’s history is erased, at least not yet. A time is coming when we will remember no more, but in the inter-advental age it’s actually pretty crucial that we retain our memories so we can confess our sins and experience forgiveness. For all your professed desire to be patient, etc. it sure sounds like you’re immanentizing the eschaton in a personal way even if not socially.

    I don’t know how you oppose heterodoxy with such a low view of institutional religion. I suppose one way is to get all lathered up and call it a “satanic counterfeit” (my, such over wrought language for such a conservative fellow), but institutional orthodoxy has a way of doing the hard work slander just can’t. Plus, it’s much more comported about it.

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  31. MMc,

    I may not have been following your train of thought as I should, but I would like to comment on HD #3, #7. Here it is good to remember that we are being pointed towards not falling into snares like trusting in or becoming puffed-up by our good works, for they are but filthy rags. Hence, Lutherans repent even of their good works. It’s more of a matter of remembering that the cross of Christ is central to everything else, IMO.

    You speak well that we are to be aware of bad theology and bad practices, yet we cannot make the twin error of not subscribing to and submitting to the ancient wisdom of the church and respecting her historic traditions. That means being part of the body of Christ as a member of a church and submitting to her confession of faith and her discipline. I do not know of any denomination that is not struggling with internal strife and sorrow from liberalism and other ilk. We need to submit to the church in our respective confessions and work towards the good we can in conserving and sustaining good orthodoxy and orthopraxy. The church is his body and we are not to become cut off because of our own chaffing at all the nonsense that goes on within her and our repulsion at her warts. Until we settle down into a church, we are like prodigals in need of returning home.

    P.S. IMO, it takes a lifetime living under the cross to begin to appreciate it’s depth and breadth. It is our Master and we are not our own. I like how Hermann Sasse put it:

    “Tis a remarkable fact that the doctrine according to which the death of Christ is the satisfaction for the sins of the world is the only doctrine of the Middle Ages which eventually found general assent. The medieval doctrines of sin and grace have remained in dispute. The dogma of transubstantiation has been limited to the Roman Church. AIl doctrines developed in the 16th century are limited to certain sections of Christendom. But the doctrine of the satisfactio vicaria has been dogmatized by the Lutheran, the Reformed, the Anglican, and the Roman Churches independently in their respective confessions.”

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  32. Michael Mann: “the structures seem closer to social clubs than divine institutions.”

    mark: I am wondering if some you folks have a “baptist stereotype” which you are now using to locate me on your various grids. Is the “difference” between “a divine institution” and “a social club” the idea that the one has a “sacrament” which is NOT the Christian’s act of remembrance and thanksgiving but rather the work of God which can and does kill people? If that’s the difference, then you are correct that I have a different ecclesiology. Perhaps from your magisterial point of view this looks like no ecclesiology at all.

    But can it be true that you never a baptist who believed in the sovereignty of God but who also denied that water baptism and the Lord’s Supper were God doing something? No, we baptists are not “ancient” in the way you would like us to be, but that does not mean that we do not have confessions and organized institutions. Or it my lack of patriotism which tells you that I am suspect even for a baptist?

    Lily, I doubt that anybody who reads this blog believes more than I do in a strict substitutionary satisfaction by Christ for the elect. If it puzzles you that I do that without being a Lutheran, then I can only say that it baffles me that Lutherans can teach that Christ died for those who will perish.

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  33. I wasn’t particularly thinking about the sacraments, MMc. How about elders and ministers ruling in individual churches? Members need that. Or ministers examining, then approving and sharing authority with other ministers in a regional church? It can do a lot of good, with the Mahaney fallout being a good example of the lack thereof.

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  34. Zrim: “And it parted ways with Radical Reformation for having much too low a view.”

    mark: It would be a mistake to think there is one and only one “radical reformation”. Meno Simons had a Roman Catholic soteriology; Roger Williams did not. But the relativism of “high and low” is not going to be very helpful to any of us. if the goal is to get just the right “middle way” in how we think about God in the bread killing certain people, then it would be better to talk about specifics, for example the boundaries of the “half-way covenant”. Is it “high or low” to think of the “sacraments” as a means of converting the lost?

    Zrin:”I think you over-realize what it means to be justified. It doesn’t mean one’s history is erased, at least not yet.”

    mark: Even though I think the justified have the verdict now, and that there is no second justification, I do believe in the not yet. That’s why I am waiting for Jesus Christ to come. Hebrews 11:40–“And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God has provided something better for us, that apart from they shall not be made perfect.

    I specifically wrote that the forgiveness of sins did not eliminate our need to be discerning and to make judgments in history. But waiting for Jesus to come is not “conservative”. It does betray a certain discontent. We are strangers here, still in diaspora.

    Zrim: sure sounds like you’re immanentizing the eschaton in a personal way even if not socially.

    mark: I sincerely don’t understand this. I have been married to the same wife for 32 years. I teach in an educational institution. I don’t move around a lot. I know the place I will likely be buried. Is it something I said, or is it the old “wonderer” stereotype that’s been used for about 500 years now? (See the Reformers and Their Stepchildren, by Leonard Verduin). Really, this is not about me, or was not supposed to be, but if I said something that showed that I personally was not “comported enough”, please enlighten….

    I don’t apologize for saying that the Mormon organization is a demonic counterfeit. That is not slander. Did you ever read Calvin’s sermons on Galatians? Methinks you would find him quite overwrought—oh the unkind things he says about the papists. Perhaps Calvin should not have gotten so heated up. Didn’t he know that his counter-institution would do the hard work?

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  35. MMc,

    My last comment wasn’t very clear and I apologize. May I plead tuckeredness? Anywho, I never thought you might think I questioned your belief, what struck me as important with the quote was that this is the dogma the true church believes and had hoped it to show how it fit with the theology of the cross. I’m too tuckered to get my brain to work and explain my thoughts better on this right now.

    In reading your comments, I am concerned that the times we live in seems to have caused so much cynicism and I would like to offer a defense of the church of which we speak here (the Bride of Christ) and a concept you seem to still be wrestling with. Below I offer food for thought that was shamelessly cribbed from one of my favorite pastors – I hope you find it as beneficial as I do and begin to see the importance of her and our place in her:

    The one Church may be regarded under different aspects:

    1. As invisible
    a. insofar as she always encompasses the total number of elect, some of whom are already gathered into the heavenly Kingdom and some of whom have not yet been born, so that she will only “appear” at the Last Day;
    b. insofar as human eyes cannot distinguish in the visible assemblies of the church those who are saints from the non-saints, but who will be finally separated on the Last Day.

    2. As visible
    a. insofar as the elect are invariably found in the assembly of the called and gathered.
    b. insofar as there are certainly times when the visible church is blessed with a pure doctrine, a faithful ministry, and godly divine worship, even in this age; but that this is not always the case.

    Further, when dealing with the Church we may note the distinction between triumphant and militant; and when dealing with the militant between particular churches in specific places which are either pure or corrupted (though in corrupted churches God is also at work to save insofar as they retain enough of the Gospel to bestow faith and so unite poor sinners to the Blessed Trinity) as regards their teaching; yet it is possible for EVERY visible church to be corrupted, as will no doubt happen in the Great Apostasy foretold in Scripture.

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  36. Mark, there may have been different branches of the Radical Reformation, but there was just one Protestant Reformation and it confesses that there is such a thing as the visible church and that outside her there is no ordinary possibility of salvation. In a word, there is simply nothing within confessional Protestantism that props up your professed disdain for the spirituality of institutional religion.

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  38. “Aron, any further references to Keanu Reeves will leave you on the outside looking in at Oldlife. Consider yourself warned.”

    …not even Shakespearean Keanu Reeves? Come on!

    Fine. Noted.

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