Category: Are They On Their Meds?

If You're Not Butch, You're Not Much

Published on by D. G. Hart29 Comments

The good Rabbi proved once again the appeal of Rush Limbaugh-style arguments to the cultural transformers. His couple of recent blasts at Old Life may have made him feel especially masculine, but I don’t think he advanced the discussion. Wait. This isn’t a discussion. It is arm wrestling (or some body part.)

But while Brett thinks that spirituality of the church Christianity “is no Christianity” because it fails to confess Jesus before men in a manly way — I guess only women read Old Life — what are we to make of his failure to be as critical of the Christian Reformed Church as he is of two-kingdom folks? Judging by his blog, he is as silent about the quirks of the CRC as I apparently am of U.S. secularizers and sodomites. Does that make him an effeminate minister (wouldn’t be a problem in the CRC, right?)?

Of course, he may not think the CRC is worthy of critique, though his comments on ordination and reception indicate ambivalence:

Today I underwent examination and passed unanimously and so I am now officially what I have been unofficially for the past 13 years, to wit, an ordained minister in good standing in the Christian Reformed Church. It seems the only minor issue was my strong rejection of open theism. I think I said that it was heresy and a canker that needed to be ripped out of the Church. I never would have imagined that sentiment could have been controversial in the least. There were also some questions about my rejection of women to hold ordained positions but apparently I convinced them that such a position isn’t akin to being a knuckle scraping troglodyte who habitually grabs and drags stray women by their hair. I probably should have worked harder to convince people that my position is the position that esteems women and reflects godly compassion for women while the contrary position in reality does just the opposite but I think most of the people in Classis’s position on that is pretty much set in concrete and not even my eloquence could have changed that.

I have mixed thoughts and emotions about my newly minted status with the CRC. First, I realize that the CRC is not a perfect denomination and has some challenges before it but as I map out the Reformed denominational landscape I do not see a denomination that isn’t without its substantial issues. In the end I think all of us, who are trying to be epistemologically self conscious about being Reformed, are, in many respects, in the same boat together, and together, regardless of what Reformed denomination we are in, we are either going to survive together or we are going to capsize together.

It does make you wonder if Rabbi Brett can be so patient with the CRC, why can’t he do the same with others with whom he so violently disagrees. Is it that neo-Calvinism of the Left is better than spirituality of the church? But if effeminate spirituality is an indication of no Christianity, what does it mean when the Rabbi apparently fails to live up to his own words within his own communion? (I qualify this because I am judging only by his blog.)

Why Fox News Isn't the Best Judge of Religion in Public Life

Published on by D. G. Hart169 Comments

First the story:

In mid-December, six-year-old Isaiah Martinez brought a box of candy canes to his public elementary school. Affixed to each cane was a legend explaining the manner in which the candy symbolizes the life and death of Jesus. Isaiah’s first-grade teacher took possession of the candy and asked her supervising principal whether it would be permissible for Isaiah to distribute to his classmates. The teacher was informed that, while the candy itself might be distributed, the attached religious message could not. She is then reported to have told Isaiah that “Jesus is not allowed at school,” to have torn the legends from the candy, and to have thrown them in the trash.

Such is the account of Robert Tyler of Advocates for Faith & Freedom, who is serving as media spokesman for the Martinez family. Organizations such as Fox News and Glenn Beck’s The Blaze latched onto the story with purple prose and pointed commentary to rally the base. The Daily Caller described the teacher as having “snatched” the candy from Isaiah’s hands, “and then—right in front of his little six-year-old eyes—ripped the religious messages from each candy cane.” Fox News said “it takes a special kind of evil to confiscate a six-year-old child’s Christmas gifts.”

Turns out the teacher in question is a Christian and her former pastor explains what may have happened:

Such behavior would be entirely unbecoming of Christians even if the teacher in question were all the things she has been called. In fact, she is herself a pious and confessional Christian, though it would be impossible to discern as much from the coverage of much Christian media.

I know this because I was present at her baptism; I participated in the catechesis leading to her reception into the theologically (and, overwhelmingly, politically) conservative Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod; I preached at her wedding; my wife and I are godparents to her children, as she and her husband (who is himself on the faculty of a Christian university) are to our youngest. Needless to say, I have complete confidence that her far less dramatic version of events is much the more accurate account.

Some will say that precisely as a Christian she should have had the courage of her convictions and allowed the distribution of a Christian message in her classroom. And yet, precisely because she is a catechized Christian, perhaps she understands that in her vocation she serves under the authority of others.

Perhaps it was wise in the litigious context of America’s public schools to confer with and defer to the supervising principal. Indeed, a lawsuit arising from virtually identical circumstances is still, ten years on, bogged down in the courts. If the answers to the pertinent legal questions are not immediately obvious to the dozens of lawyers and judges involved in this previous case, one can hardly expect them to be self-evident even to an intelligent primary school teacher. Thus, those critics who have dismissively counseled her simply to “read the Constitution” betray (in addition to a lack of charity) either an unhelpful naivety or a willful ignorance.

Of course, if you want to score points in some sort of publicity competition, demonizing this woman is not a bad strategy, though why Reformed Protestants also resort to such behavior (yes, I’m thinking the BeeBees and Rabbi Bret) is another question. But if you want to think through the layers of significance in such occurrences, maybe it’s better to check if as in this case the teacher belongs to a church and what her pastor thinks.

Who Made Doug Wilson Judge and General?

Published on by D. G. Hart29 Comments

I suppose Doug Wilson thinks he won a battle since one of his posts about Duck Dynasty made it on the radar of Rush Limbaugh. The gist of it — as we’ve heard so many times from the BeeBee’s — is that if you’re not fighting the culture war the way Doug Wilson does, you’re gutless, have let your education run rough shod of your love of Jesus, and have taken vows to the church of respectability.

The need of the hour is Christian leadership that is willing to show some intelligent fight. As Chocolate Knox put it in a recent tweet, “Homo’s know what Christians believe there’s no secret, yet they get surprised every time they hear us say it. Time to lean in.”

Time to lean in. This is why I want to come back to the third point I made about this imbroglio yesterday. This whole thing makes me think it is some kind of reprise of the Chick Fil A uproar. Somebody strayed from the Appointed Way, the homolobby flexed in order to shut up a critic, middle America responded by buying so many metric tons of chicken sandwiches, and then sophisticated Christians sneered at this inadequate and “entirely predictable” and “red statey” response. . . .

So what do we need? We don’t need generals. We have that. We need generals who fight. We don’t need leadership councils. We have those. We need national leaders who fight. We don’t need pretty boy preachers. We have those. We need preachers who fight. We don’t need evangelical regiments of pajamaboys. We have that. We need fight, and we need to fight with everything we have — heart, strength, and brains. All in.

Show me your forearms. Unless there are scars all over them, then I honestly don’t want to hear your views of the inadequacy of these cultural clashes (Gal. 6:17). When the barbarians are throwing their scaling ladders against the city walls, if the only defenders at the top of those walls are Chick Fil A employees in paper hats and hot grease from the deep fryer, and rednecks with their beards and shotguns, and nobody at all there from Red Brick Memorial Reformed, Rev. Forsythe P. Snodgrass, D.Min, minister, then let us be frank. We shouldn’t blame the folks who are there.

This is, by the way, the same tactic used by the left. Unless you conceive of a woman’s freedom, or race relations, or global warming the way we do, you are a mysoginist, racist, and ignorant. Fundamentalism is the word often used to describe this kind of all-or-nothing w-w. But I think, having been reared by two of them, fundamentalists were smarter than this. At least my parents didn’t blog.

What Doug Wilson fails to see is that many other believers do fight but some of us don’t evaluate the enemies the way Wilson does. Some us actually contend with our own demons — we struggle against the flesh. Some of us also fight the principalities of this age by supporting the Christian ministry. Some of us also think that a cable television show and the star’s contract is going to amount to a hill of beans in six months, let alone two millennia.

So go ahead, Doug. Fight your battle. It’s a free country (irony noted). And I’m going to fight your inadequacy to discern the times and your capacity to distract your followers from the less obvious but more serious battles that confront the gospel. And please note. I am not fighting Phil Robertson. From some 700 miles away and not having cable television (boo hoo), I don’t know enough to evaluate Phil’s situation. (Not sure you do either.)

Postscript: Geography and denomination alert!

Wilson adds:

The contrast must not be between how unsophisticated Christians fight and how sophisticated Christians . . . what do they do? At most, they demur, with a throat-clearing caveat or two. Theologians and ecclesiastical eggheads can make merry over this kind of pop culture melee if they like. The material is there — “look at those rubes, standing against the principalities and powers with their duck calls, zz top beards, and chicken sammich haute cuisine, hold the mayo.”

But the lack of self-awareness in this criticism is staggering. These are shepherds who feed only themselves (Ezek. 34:2). When shepherds have neglected the flock for so long, and the wolves are ravaging them, and the sheep come up with some kind of strategy to defend themselves, and the shepherds sit up on the ridge, laughing at the tactical inadequacy of what the sheep are attempting, what shall we call that?

Is Doug Wilson, a CREC minister in Moscow, Idaho, feeding Phil Robertson, a professing Christian in Louisiana who attends White’s Ferry Church of Christ? Talk about self-aware.

Not Papal but 2k Supremacy

Published on by D. G. Hart19 Comments

I have to chuckle whenever I hear 2k critics assert that 2kers are silencing the church such as R C Sproul Jr. has (thanks to Erik C.):

At their worst, however, R2K theology can silence the prophetic voice of the church. While many R2K advocates would be comfortable with individual Christians speaking to the great moral issues of our day, the church is forbidden to do so. When the state punishes a landlord for refusing to rent to fornicators, the church cannot speak. When the state engages in empire building, waging unjust wars across the globe, the church cannot speak. Worst of all, when the state uses its God-given sword to protect those who murder the unborn, the church cannot speak.

What RC fails to mention is what the church is called to say. That is always the question that critics of 2k skirt with haste on their way to placing the doctrines and commandments of men ahead of God’s word.

But if he really fears being silenced, he should see how the young left does it. In point of fact, most 2kers are simply asking for the rank and file to have a listen while critics are using different tactics.

Do the BeeBees Read American Conservative?

Published on by D. G. Hart8 Comments

From Daniel McCarthy, “Why the Tea Party Can’t Govern,” American Conservative, Nov/Dec 2013

There was an absolutely natural backlash in the late 1970s against the hasty push from the left for further sexual revolutions. Contraception, abortion, and homosexuality had all gone from being little spoken of and sometimes restricted by law to becoming “rights.” Many Americans, particularly Christians, felt disenfranchised. So they voted. But they did so in reaction: what they were against was always more clear than how they could create an alternative— a modern alternative, not simply a return to an idealized past. Because the emphasis was on negation rather than a creative agenda, the question of what compromises power must make with imperfect reality could be avoided. In “principle,” divorced from practice, one can outlaw every abortion without exception and send homosexuals back to the closet.

Christian conservatives are as well-adjusted as anyone else on these questions in their own lives. But the Christian conservative who accepts sinfulness in reality cannot accept it in theory, and one who tries is liable to be trumped within the community by someone who asserts a harder line. Religious right activists thus radicalize one another and continually refine their ideology—then demand professions of principle from candidates. . . .

From the Moral Majority to the Tea Party, a right forged in opposition offers only images of a mythic past in place of present economic and cultural realities. Instead of a modern conservatism competing against what is in fact a creaky liberalism—whose corporate cronyism and cultural atomism have engendered wide dissatisfaction—we have only the conservatism of what was versus the liberalism of what is. This accounts for why the Republican Party, even as it has grown more right-leaning and “extreme,” has failed for 25 years to nominate a conservative for president. No one can take the no-compromise ideology of libertarianism or Christian conservatism and make it electorally viable, let alone a philosophy of government. Rather than find leaders who can build plausible resumes in elected office before running for president, the activists of the right lend their support to symbolic candidacies that represent negative ideals—the ideals not of government but of protest. Because ideological conservatives cannot accept the compromising complexities of a positive philosophy, the Republican old guard wins every time. The result is doubly perverse: instead of a serious conservative who speaks softly, Republicans wind up with unprincipled figures who become shrill in attempting to appeal to the right.

I guess the problem may be in wanting to be not conservative but Christian. Then when will the critics of 2k ever orm a Christian Political Party that eschews any pretense with compromise?

Feeling Smug and Secure

Published on by D. G. Hart27 Comments

Bryan Cross is the gift that keeps on giving:

. . . the term ‘conservative Catholic’ is a misleading and inaccurate term, because it imports a political concept into a theological realm, as though it is just as permissible to be a “liberal Catholic” as a “conservative Catholic.” In actuality, there are those Catholics who “believe and profess all that the holy Catholic Church believes, teaches and proclaims to be revealed by God,” and those who don’t. The former are orthodox Catholics, and the latter are either material or formal heretics. This is why you won’t find the term “conservative Catholic” in the Catechism or any other Church document. Of course there is a sense in which an orthodox Catholic is conserving the faith handed down from the Apostles. But that’s not the primary connotation of the term “conservative Catholic.” The term is derived from politics, and when applied to the Catholic Church, it implicitly connotes theological relativism, which is part of the heresy of modernism.

(funny how when you apply such literalism to the Catechism on the doctrine/discipline difference, you find nothing)

Bryan continuuuuuuues:

we Catholics are in the same Church that Christ founded and which was born on Pentecost, under the same magisterium that has extended down unbroken from the Apostles, using the same canon used by the Church for her first 1500 years, and affirming the same Apostolic Tradition that all the Catholics before us have lived and died upholding. You, however, are on the outside, not even having a bishop, something that no Christian could have imagined for the first fifteen hundred years of Church history, and yet you deign to tell us that our standard of authority has no clear precedent in the early Church? We are the same Church that held the Nicene Council in AD 325, where three hundred and eighteen bishops were present. We are the Church of St. Justin Martyr, of St. Athanasius, of St. Irenaeus, St. Cyril, St. Chryostom and St. Augustine. St. Paul wrote his letter (Romans) to our principal Church, and his bones, as well as those of St. Peter, are buried in Rome, St. Peter’s being under the high altar of St. Peter’s Basilica. You have no Apostolic letters written to your congregation in Texas, or your PCA denomination founded in 1973. You have no bones of the Apostles. You have not a single bishop and no priests, because Protestantism abandoned apostolic succession four hundred and ninety three years ago. And this is why you have no Eucharist, by which agape is nourished in the soul.

And yet, such certainty may trouble other Roman Catholics:

“Students at some small Catholic colleges are being taught to feel that as Catholics living in America they are members of an alienated, aggrieved, morally superior minority,” says John Zmirak, who was writer-inresidence at Thomas More College in Merrimack, New Hampshire until resigning in 2012. “They are learning that they owe no loyalty to our institutions, but should be working to replace them with an aggressive, intolerant Catholic regime. In other words, they are being taught to think and act like radical Muslims living in France.” (Rod Dreher, “Benedict Option,” American Conservative, Nov/Dec 2013)

One other point, Bryan made this claim about the people in his communion:

I’m much more concerned that they are true. As the latest Pew study shows, if you want to know the truth about the Catholic Church, it is not a good idea to ask the average Catholic, since so many have been so poorly catechized. So, your method of determining what is the truth about what the Catholic Church believes and teaches, is flawed, because you are drawing from people who are not sufficiently catechized.

He did write this before the recent Vatican questionnaire distributed to the well and poorly catechized, but I do wonder if Bryan’s certainty could explain the meaning of this survey for the those who are confused:

Nearly a week after news that the Vatican has asked for the world’s bishops to distribute among Catholics a questionnaire on issues like contraception, same-sex marriage and divorce “immediately” and “as widely as possible,” there is no consensus on what that direction means.
Moreover, comparing notes from recent Vatican statements, it is hard to decipher whether the call for consultation is unprecedented or something that’s happened for decades.

The Vatican’s chief spokesman said in an interview over the weekend that the Vatican’s request for the world’s bishops to survey Catholics on how certain topics affect their lives was part of a habitual “praxis.”

Yet the official who sent the questionnaire said Tuesday it is part of a wide-ranging project to reform how the Vatican reaches out to bishops and faithful around the world.

The questionnaire was sent Oct. 18 by the Vatican’s Synod of Bishops, which is preparing a global meeting of prelates for next October. Called by Pope Francis last month, the Oct. 5-19, 2014, meeting is to focus on the theme “Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization.”

If You're the One Throwing Stones, Can You Still be a Martyr?

Published on by D. G. Hart10 Comments

The BeeBee’s latest swipe at 2k involves a couple of oddities. The first is their identification with Deacon Stephen, arguably the first Christian martyr:

Hart and VanDrunnen are identical in their commitment to avoid the slightest appearance of triumphalism. You need know nothing more about the R2K error than that. And nothing more about true Christian faith than that, in the pursuit of the triumph of the Cross of Jesus Christ, millions of men and women of God across two millenia have been martyred for their public witness to the holiness of God, the conviction of sin and righteousness and judgment of the Holy Spirit, and the universal Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Starting with our beloved Deacon, Stephen.

It sure seems to me that Tim Bee is doing a better impersonation of the persecutor Saul than Stephen. I mean, the aggression he dishes out is always going in one direction, with sweeping condemnations not only of 2k ideas but also of 2kers’ character and motives. Tim and David are hardly suffering from 2kers attacking them. And if Tim Bee wants to identify with triumphalism, then he has not listened very carefully to the guy who went from Saul, the guy holding the coats of stone throwers, to Paul, the martyr:

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1 Cor 1:22-25)

The BeeBees seem to think that public life, where the power is, is also a sign of the gospel’s power. No Christian witness before the magistrate, no triumph. It does explain their fondness for Doug Wilson who pines for a Christian society (Constantinianism) where faith came by conquest. I wonder if the Bee Bees are Christian enough to call for another round of Crusades.

The second oddity involves the Moscow Muhammad himself. I did listen to Doug Wilson and Dave VanDrunen’s lectures from last weekend at Covenant Presbyterian Church on Christ and culture. I was disappointed that recordings of the question and answer session were not available. But Wilson out of the blue in an entirely unrelated kerfuffle reported on a part of those exchanges which became fodder for the BeeBees:

This last weekend… I asked David VanDrunen …what God would think of a nation whose magistrate and people had become overwhelmingly (and sincerely) Christian, and who decided to confess Christ in the common realm, in the formerly secular realm. I asked if God would be displeased with that, and VanDrunen said yes, he thought God would be displeased with that.

When asked about VanDrunen’s follow up, Wilson replied:

. . . he said that it was because he wanted minorities (in this case, non-believers) to not be mistreated. The assumption behind that is that the secular state is more to be trusted with treating people right than Christians would be. But of course, Christians were the ones who invented civil liberties for all.

And with that, BeeBees and their minions are satisfied with Christian superiority, 2ker cluselessness, and the world’s debauchery. Never once did they consider, or Wilson with them, how silly such triumphalism is. I understand Wilson is a bit touchy about slavery, but he did bring the subject up once. At the conference in Vandalia, OH he also brought up segregation and how Christians were wrong to accept or defend the division of the races into separate public schools under Jim Crow. Perhaps he also knows something of the way that European Christians treated Jews, what Protestant magistrates did to Anabaptists, or what Constantine’s enforcers did to Arians. All of that goes away with an assertion that Christians invented civil rights? Did he learn nothing about rhetorical excess from his debates with Chris Hitchens?

Such dishonesty seems to go with the territory of thinking yourself a victim when you are really a bully.

Differentiation of Ecclesiastical and Civil, Differentiation of Ecclesiastical and Civil (rinse, chant, and repeat)!

Published on by D. G. Hart8 Comments

Tim Bayly is at it again with a post containing his talk at a CREC gathering. It is another instance of that Framean habit of mind which blurs categories simply because topics sort of sound or look alike. In this case, he is for integration — as in integrating faith and politics, faith and learning. But he also believes he can score points against 2kers by upholding the integration of races. So bringing up the racism of Southern Presbyterians who affirmed and taught the spirituality of the church is another way of making the point that 2kers are against integration — that is, we split church and state, faith and learning, whites and blacks.

The problem is that Tim can’t quite stay on track. He brings up his father’s decision to start a Christian school in the 1940s located in the suburbs of Philadelphia. The integration here is faith and learning, and racial, since well before the Civil Rights movement Tim’s dad founded a school that welcomed blacks and whites. But what proves integration also proves separation. The Baylys school was not part of the public school system. It segregated Christians from non-Christians (and even other Christians) in the public schools. You can’t have integration all the time in a neo-Calvinist world that runs on the fuel of anti-thesis. In fact, the Bayly’s MO is largely one of underscoring the difference between true Christians and fake ones, between people who are good for America (Christians) and those who aren’t (professors at Covenant Seminary and gays). Integration can’t quite circle the square. But that’s okay. It allows Tim to feel superior in an integrated way.

The difficulties in Tim’s assessment also lead to such woppers as this:

Who is the Reformed group who is whole-hog into patriotism today? Which men are wrapping themselves in the flag, crying out “my country, right or wrong?” Who are the Reformed men who are zealous to gag God’s prophets of righteousness, instead casting their lot in with the ACLU, the powers that be inside the Beltway, and the chattering classes up and down the seaboards, Eastern and Western as they all chant: “Separation of church and state! Separation of church and state!”

I think the answer is supposed to be 2kers, but last time I checked, it was 2kers who actually wonder out loud about the propriety of patriotism in Christian circles, such as the display of the U.S. flag in churches. 2kers have also been known to avoid commenting on politics, thus leaving the subject to the deliriums of folks like the Baylys and other neo-Calvinists. Try telling these guys that Christ’s kingdom transcends the politics of any nation and see who starts bellyaching about “my country.”

Even so, Tim goes to Cornel Venema for apparent help to undermine any sense that the 2k position enjoys some kind of standing historically among the Reformed churches:

…the two kingdoms doctrine is alleged to be the venerable, original position of the Reformed churches. …(This) historical claim on the part of two kingdoms advocates… represents a tendentious reading of the historical record.

The difficulty for Venema and Bayly is that the Reformed churches have historically affirmed a differentiation between the civil and ecclesiastical spheres.

God, the supreme Lord and King of all the world, hath ordained civil magistrates, to be, under him, over the people, for his own glory, and the public good: and, to this end, hath armed them with the power of the sword, for the defense and encouragement of them that are good, and for the punishment of evildoers. (WCF 23.1)

That’s the magistrate’s duty. It is hardly the same or comparable to the church’s:

Unto this catholic visible church Christ hath given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God, for the gathering and perfecting of the saints, in this life, to the end of the world: and doth, by his own presence and Spirit, according to his promise, make them effectual thereunto. (25.3)

And that has something to do with what synods may or may not do:

Synods and councils are to handle, or conclude nothing, but that which is ecclesiastical: and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth, unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary; or, by way of advice, for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate. (31.4)

This may not be exactly an endorsement of the separation of church and state, but the distinction between civil and ecclesiastical spheres is certainly more in the 2k ballpark than one where integration rules, which means it is far more venerable and original that Venema indicates. I mean, if you want the integration of church and state, you likely don’t distinguish overly precisely the work of the church from the task of the magistrate, which is exactly what is missing in those who advocate a Christian America or Christian schools. Introduce the distinction between the civil/temporal and ecclesiastical/heavenly and these folks think you are a bastard child of Thomas Jefferson.

And then if you question whether the church or Christians or both should be inaugurating God’s kingdom, the way Calvin did, then you are definitely a blasphemer. And yet, those early Reformed Protestants seemed to be able to keep their wits about the direction of history and not trying to associate cultural or political advances or set backs with God’s divine plan:

THE SECTS. We therefore condemn all who deny a real resurrection of the flesh (II Tim. 2:18), or who with John of Jerusalem, against whom Jerome wrote, do not have a correct view of the glorification of bodies. We also condemn those who thought that the devil and all the ungodly would at some time be saved, and that there would be an end to punishments. For the Lord has plainly declared: “Their fire is not quenched, and their worm does not die” (Mark 9:44). We further condemn Jewish dreams that there will be a golden age on earth before the Day of Judgment, and that the pious, having subdued all their godless enemies, will possess all the kingdoms of the earth. For evangelical truth in Matt., chs. 24 and 25, and Luke, ch. 18, and apostolic teaching in II Thess., ch. 2, and II Tim., chs. 3 and 4, present something quite different.

I have no doubt that being a confessional Reformed Protestant is hard. It is easier to look at big churches, celebrity pastors, and religiously boisterous politicos as bearing the marks of the coming kingdom. Seeing the world through the eyes of faith, and not being duped by externals or cultural decay requires sobriety, restraint, and patience in ways that conflict with our own desire for either justice to prevail or self to be vindicated. But if Calvin could summon up such discipline even in the glory days of Reformed Geneva, surely Tim Bayly can do the same in the face of Obamacare:

We must, therefore, know that the happiness which is promised to us in Christ does not consist in external advantages—such as leading a joyful and tranquil life, abounding in wealth, being secure against all injury, and having an affluence of delights, such as the flesh is wont to long for—but properly belongs to the heavenly life. As in the world the prosperous and desirable condition of a people consists partly in the abundance of temporal good and domestic peace, and partly in the strong protection which gives security against external violence; so Christ also enriches his people with all things necessary to the eternal salvation of their souls and fortifies them with courage to stand unassailable by all the attacks of spiritual foes. Whence we infer, that he reigns more for us than for himself, and that both within us and without us; that being replenished, in so far as God knows to be expedient, with the gifts of the Spirit, of which we are naturally destitute, we may feel from their first fruits, that we are truly united to God for perfect blessedness; and then trusting to the power of the same Spirit, may not doubt that we shall always be victorious against the devil, the world, and every thing that can do us harm. To this effect was our Saviour’s reply to the Pharisees, “The kingdom of God is within you.” “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation,” (Luke 17:21, 22). It is probable that on his declaring himself to be that King under whom the highest blessing of God was to be expected, they had in derision asked him to produce his insignia. But to prevent those who were already more than enough inclined to the earth from dwelling on its pomp, he bids them enter into their consciences, for “the kingdom of God” is “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost,” (Rom. 14:17). These words briefly teach what the kingdom of Christ bestows upon us. Not being earthly or carnal, and so subject to corruption, but spiritual, it raises us even to eternal life, so that we can patiently live at present under toil, hunger, cold, contempt, disgrace, and other annoyances; contented with this, that our King will never abandon us, but will supply our necessities until our warfare is ended, and we are called to triumph: such being the nature of his kingdom, that he communicates to us whatever he received of his Father. Since then he arms and equips us by his power, adorns us with splendour and magnificence, enriches us with wealth, we here find most abundant cause of glorying, and also are inspired with boldness, so that we can contend intrepidly with the devil, sin, and death. In fine, clothed with his righteousness, we can bravely surmount all the insults of the world: and as he replenishes us liberally with his gifts, so we can in our turn bring forth fruit unto his glory. (Institutes, II.15.4)

Has This Guy Been Reading the BeeBees?

Published on by D. G. Hart6 Comments

A little dated but still fresh:

Indeed, many describe the Republican political faith as “American Calvinism.” It borrows several notions from the sixteenth century French theologian: the Bible is infallible; the “law” is driven by the Ten Commandments, rather than the teachings of Jesus; humans are totally depraved; and God has predestined who will be saved.

Despite its austere nature, Calvinism strongly influenced the original American settlers — many of who were Presbyterians. One historian noted, “in England and America the great struggles for civil and religious liberty were nursed in Calvinism, inspired by Calvinism, and carried out largely by men who were Calvinists.”

During the ’80s American Calvinism morphed into a conservative political ideology with the formation of the Christian Right. James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson, and others preached on political subjects and touted conservative “Christian” candidates.

In Republican hands, contemporary Calvinism has had two thrusts. It fomented the culture wars and accused Democrats, and non-believers, of advocating “sixties values” that would destroy home and community. The Christian Right was against abortion, same-sex marriage, the teaching of evolution, and the separation of church and state; they were for homeschooling, limited Federal government, and Reaganomics.

The second Calvinist thrust promoted capitalism. In his classic, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, German sociologist Max Weber observed that not only did the protestant work ethic promote capitalism but also worldly success became a measure of the likelihood of one’s salvation. “He who has the most toys, wins.”

Given the strong influence of Calvinism on Republican politics, it’s not surprising the GOP favors the rich, opposes new taxes, and continues to support Reaganomics with its myths of “trickle down economics” and “self-regulating markets.”

Safe to say, he hasn’t been reading Oldlife. But it goes to show why Calvinism continues to be iconic.

Slippery Christendom, Theonomic Patriotism

Published on by D. G. Hart27 Comments

The Baylys once again tightened my jaws by asserting that spirituality of the church folks don’t choose Jesus when the choice is between Jesus and the U.S. This is pretty nutty since, one, the Baylys choose the U.S. all the time when they fashion their message, rather than limiting it to what Jesus revealed; and, two, they constantly complain that spirituality of the church men won’t choose the U.S. and fight secularism, immorality, feminization. Damned if we do or don’t. That is life in a theocracy. See the Old Testament.

The BeeBees (brothers B for those who can’t remember the Brothers Gibb) take their cue this time from Doug Wilson who says rightly that American Christians need to be Christians first and give up American exceptionalism:

So when the decree comes down and we are told — as we are now being prepared to be told — that we cannot oppose same sex mirage and be good Americans, our first reply ought to be “very well then, have it your way. We shall be bad Americans.”

My citizenship, my affections, my loyalties whether national or regional, my manner of expression, my lever-action Winchester, my language, my love of pie, my Americanism . . . these are all contingent things. They are all creatures, because they are attributes of my life and existence, and I am a creature. Our nation, and all its pleasant things, is a creature. The grass withers, and the flower fades.

The purveyors of soft despotism want to arrange things so that we conform fully to their agenda, or consign ourselves to their idea of the outer darkness, which turns out to be the same kind of place as Stalin’s.

Because I think like a Christian, I don’t necessarily think it is a necessary choice at all. But it is only not necessary in a nation that is not despotic — and ours is metastasizing into despotism. So under their terms, under their rule, such a choice is mandatory — because in times of persecution, they will make it necessary — which means that I will swallow the reductio. Force me to choose between Jesus and America, and then watch me choose Jesus.

Wilson is clever but his cleverness is always tinged with hysteria — as in, we are about to be persecuted just like the early Christians were, because they would not bow to the emperor who claimed to be divine. Try to convince Wilson that Obama lacks divine pretensions and he can point to all the soft despotism that nurtures a reverence for the president akin to emperor worship (and forget all the freedoms Christians still enjoy — and for which they should not have a chip on their shoulder — that allow them to worship every Sunday and in most cases have the entire day off). It is never lines of demarcations but shades that blur from 21st-century U.S. to first century Jerusalem. A tax that is objectionable, becomes a tax that is unjust, becomes theft, becomes policy that nurtures disrespect for life, becomes murder. Forget distinctions, feel the similarities. (Or a New Mexico court ruling becomes a noose around Christians’ necks.)

The problem in part is that Wilson also traffics in an unspecified patriotism. Most of the viewers of Fox News and readers of World magazine distinguish between the U.S. as a government and America as a land, country, or people. So it is easy for Wilson to gain a following among these folks when he denounces Obamacare as sin, or Federal Treasury policy as abomination. Does he issue similar condemnations when George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan is in office? I doubt if Wilson was blogging during the Reagan years. (A quick search for Bush at his blog revealed this: “Because of the Incarnation, the bias of particularity in politics favors the anti-ideological, which is to say, it is a bias against idolatry. And that describes historic conservatism very well. At the same time, I grant that it does not describe George W. Bush’s spending habits very well — there the resemblance would be more like a pack of simians that got into an Congo merchant’s storehouse of trade gin.” Wow, the doctrine of the second person of the Trinity used to justify paleo-conservatism. What would Michael Oakeshott do?)

Most paleo-conservatives distinguish the U.S. from the national government. For them, patriotism is love of the people (Americans) who live in a particular place (the U.S.A.). Does Wilson actually look at the U.S. this way? I suspect he loves the land south of the Canadian border in a way differently from the way he might appreciate Europe or Palestine. But does he love the American people which includes a diverse lot of believers and non-believers, gays and straights, feminists and Sarah Palin? This isn’t a trick question, insinuating that Wilson hates non-Christians. It is though a question about Wilson’s love of country. Does he love America when populated only by Christians? Or can he love America when it includes idolaters (Mormons) and blasphemers (Jehovah’s Witnesses)?

The bigger problem is Wilson’s commitment to Christendom. Is Wilson willing to say of Christendom what he says of America?

My citizenship, my affections, my loyalties whether national or regional, my manner of expression, my lever-action Winchester, my language, my love of pie, my Americanism Christendom . . . these are all contingent things. They are all creatures, because they are attributes of my life and existence, and I am a creature. Our nation, and all its pleasant things, is a creature. The grass withers, and the flower fades.

In other words, is Christendom a creation or is it heaven on earth? Does Wilson violate every canon of Christian and conservative conviction by immanentizing the eschaton? It sure looks like his postmillenniaism and repeated briefs on behalf of Christendom has a lot of immanentizing going on. Then again, it’s a slippery Christendom and a libertarian theocracy he advocates (oxymoron intended).

In point of fact, Wilson does not acknowledge that Christians are aliens and strangers. His model for Christian political and cultural engagement is Christendom (minus the Crusades, papacy, Index of Books, Jewish ghettos). It is not the Israelites in exile who went along with regimes that were suffused with assertions of pagan gods and did not whine, except to long for their homeland. Nor is it the early Christians who tried to fit in and honor the emperor but refused to worship him, and suffered the consequences. (I can’t imagine Paul blogging about Nero the way Wilson or the BeeBees do about Obama.)

Of course, the image of Christians as persecuted and martyrs doesn’t play well among folks who like to hurl “sissy” as an epithet. Turning the other cheek is not a model for cultural domination or for Mere Christendom — not sure it works for cultural engagement, actually. (And Wilson and others need to be clear that turning the other cheek is not what turned around the empire — the emperor, Constantine did; go figure.) Nor did turning the other cheek inspire political revolutions like the Dutch, the English, or the American. So alienated spirituality of the church men are not only strange but pansies in the eyes of the soft theonomists. I understand the stereotyping. I’m having trouble finding the proof text.