Tag: Stephen Wolfe

The Twists and Turns of Doing the Reading (Part One)

Published on by D. G. Hart1 Comment

Christian nationalists (hereafter ChristNats) tell us that the modern church has lost its way, not on the gospel or worship (though I wish they’d pay attention to the songs Protestants sing). Contemporary Presbyterians, ChristNats tell us, have lost the teaching of the Reformed churches on politics. Dating the instance of this loss can be tricky.

Did it happen with the American Founding, which many scholars associate with Lockean liberalism? Even if the American instance of political liberalism was a break with Christendom, ChristNats insist that the Founders were aggressively Protestant. That means that for most of the nineteenth century America still had a Christian government even though Covenanters were dissatisfied and wanted an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to make it truly Christian.

Sometimes ChristNats say positive things about Progressives, mainline Protestants, and the Social Gospel because those Americans were still trying for a Christian government.

This chronology leads many ChristNats to locate the origins of American Presbyterians’ loss of political moxie in the period after World War II, the so-called POSTWAR consensus (“postwar” capitalized because the United States has been involved in many wars resulting in many “POSTWAR!!!” eras).

Whatever the timing, ChristNats insist that contemporary Presbyterians “do the reading” of older Protestant theologians on politics and government. Such immersion in the sources will awaken people in the churches to a truly Christian understanding of government and ideally lead to a healthier society. Substituting Christian politics for POSTWAR liberalism will restore order, decency, and stability at least to the United States if not to all countries where Protestantism was the dominant faith.

This way of framing of Christian Nationalism – as the product of having done did the reading – could well confuse readers of Stephen Wolfe who was the first out of the blocks with a case for a recovery of Christian politics. His 2022 book, The Case for Christian Nationalism ignited discussions that prompted the PCA to commission a report on Christian nationalism. In the run-up to the 2026 General Assembly, Wolfe along with Zachary Garris and Sean McGowan wrote Report on Reformed Christian Politics in which the authors provided greater precision and historical examples in support of Wolfe’s 2022 book. Both of these publications promise instruction about a proper understanding of government based on Protestant sources older than the corruptions introduced by twentieth-century Presbyterians cooking, like frogs in the kettle, of American liberalism.

What is striking about this recent explanation of traditional Protestant politics is how difficult it is to understand. If someone wanted a guide to an unfamiliar subject, the teacher might use a primer or basic guide that walked a student through the elementary categories before subsequent lessons handling conceptually challenging material.

This relatively simple approach is exactly what readers find in the Westminster Confession chapter twenty-three on the civil magistrate, whether the 1646 original or the 1788 revision. The four paragraphs outline the foundational truths of Reformed politics as follows:

  1. 23.1 – God ordains civil government and gives it the means of enforcing law.
  2. 23.2 – Christians may lawfully serve as civil magistrates.
  3. 23.3 – Civil magistrates may not conduct religious activities but should protect the church or churches.
  4. 23.4 – Christians are obligated to pray for and submit to civil magistrates even if officials do not profess Christianity.

Each of the confession’s paragraphs say more, but the basic outline is straightforward. It explains where the authority of civil government comes from (God), reassures that Christians may actually bear the sword if called to serve in government, distinguishes the godly origins of the magistrate from the church’s spiritual responsibilities, and calls for Christians to be good subjects. In other words, God grants the sword, Christians may wield the sword, the sword is not redemptive, and believers are obligated to submit to the sword.

Some political theorists may quibble with the outline. But it is clear. And it represents the way seventeenth-century English and Scottish Protestants distilled their thoughts about government when speaking to fellow Christians in the pews and in Parliament. It is, in other words, a decent introduction for those who have not done the reading.

Compare this outline then to what Stephen Wolfe produced in the 2026 Report on Christian Politics. Keep in mind that in the book’s first chapter, Wolfe tries to clarify his argument from the 2022 Case for Christian Nationalism. As the introduction to Report explains, this “chapter, in part, is a philosophical argument for our main proposition: that civil government must promote true religion. The author grounds this claim in nature and follows the proper principia of practical philosophy (viz., nature and reason) while also demonstrating how revealed theology further specifies political conclusions, making possible a distinctly Christian politics that promotes the Christian religion.”

That is quite a wind up.

Here is the pitch, or the subheadings of the first chapter, “Reformed Political Theory”:

I. Distinguishing Theology, Ethics, Politics

II. The Definition of Politics

III. The Fundamental Principles of Civil Order and Common and Natural
A. Commonness
B. Nature and Grace
C. Natural Religion as Necessary to Commonwealths
D. The Magistrate’s Cognizance of True Religion
E. Civil Powers over Pastors
F. The Magistrate as Mediator
G. Civil Law

IV. Natural Affection
A. Affection, Duty, Action
B. Does Grace Relativize Nature?
C. Brothers and Sisters in Christ
D. How Grace Does Not Relativize Nature

V. Civil Power is Granted to Rulers Solely by the Consent of the People
A. Consent
B. Nations are Real
C. Nationalism

VI. Civil Politics as a Prudential Art
A. Religious Toleration
B. Christian America

That, as the kids used to say, is a mouthful.

Wolfe’s outline is also several steps removed from the basic categories of seventeenth-century Protestants. That could sound like a gotcha – see! SEE??!! – Wolfe is not a confessional Protestant. Since he is not an officer of a Reformed communion, we have no reason to expect him to hold to the Westminster Standards or Three Forms of Unity.

But what we might reasonably expect is for a recovery of Protestant politics to start with Reformed Politics 101, not with a seminar in political philosophy with flourishes of theological reflections on nature and grace, creation and redemption.

Perhaps the Westminster Divines were thinking all of Wolfe’s thoughts before him when they came up with the basic categories on the civil magistrate to be subscribed by church officers. Perhaps they would agree with Wolfe on “Commonness” or the “Magistrate’s Cognizance of True Religion” before then boiling down ideas about civil government for a confession of faith.

But chances are that Wolfe may be guilty of imbibing too much of the POSTWAR!!! consensus that he laments. If so, the cause of such error stems from spending too much time in graduate school and learning the ways that political theorists, steeped in the ways of American higher education downstream from the POSTWAR!!! consensus.

Wolfe was not wrong to go to graduate school. He is certainly not wrong to bring his training to bear on debates about Christian government and social decay. But his proposals are hardly thinking political thoughts after Althusius and Rutherford. The Case for Christian Nationalism and the Report on Christian Politics have a lot of twenty-first-century fingerprints on them. If Wolfe and other ChristNats want to recover the sources, then why not try to figure out why the Westminster Divines ordered their thoughts about the civil magistrate the way that they did?

Christian Church (not Christian Nation) even in the Psalms?

Published on by D. G. HartLeave a comment

After listening to Chris Gordon and Brad Isbell talk about Christian nationalism and two-kingdoms theology (where it did sound like Chris said “R two Gay” instead of “R two K”), I was surprised to read Martin Luther this morning on Psalm 87. That Psalm reads:

1 On the holy mount stands the city he founded;
2     the Lord loves the gates of Zion
    more than all the dwelling places of Jacob.
3 Glorious things of you are spoken,
    O city of God. Selah

4 Among those who know me I mention Rahab and Babylon;
    behold, Philistia and Tyre, with Cush —
    “This one was born there,” they say.
5 And of Zion it shall be said,
    “This one and that one were born in her”;
    for the Most High himself will establish her.
6 The Lord records as he registers the peoples,
    “This one was born there.” Selah

7 Singers and dancers alike say,
    “All my springs are in you.”

Here is how the two-kingdom Luther introduced the Psalm:

The 87th psalm is a prophecy of the Holy Christian Church, that it shall be a city as wide as the earth is, and in it shall be born Ethiopians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Philistines, residents of Tyre, and people of other lands and tongues. This shall all happen through the Gospel, which shall preach marvelous things of God, namely the knowledge of God, how one may come to God, be freed from sin, and be saved from death, through Christ. And the worship of God in this city shall also be singing and dancing, that is, they will proclaim, praise, and thank God’s grace with joy. In that city, no Moses shall plague and torment us with his Law.

Here is a sixteenth-century two-kingdom advocate, not someone from the 1990s reacting to theonomy, reading the city of God in the Old Testament and identifying it not with empire, kingdom, or nation but with the church. Of course, Luther needed a Christian magistrate (a Roman Catholic one, to boot). Without one he would have been executed. But his thoughts were on matters other than a Christian politics when looking for the kingdom of God.

What may be especially upsetting to those who subscribe recent versions of Christian nationalism is Luther’s throwing down a welcome mat at the door of the church to all tribes and ethnicities. It sure must seem odd to think of the Christian church as multi-ethnic and multi-racial when some insist that ethnic homogeneity is necessary for a Christian nation.

The jab at Moses’ law could, however, confirm the anti-nominan reputation of two-kingdom proponents. No one’s perfect.

Does Cultural Christianity Advance the Gospel?

Published on by D. G. Hart14 Comments

Missionaries tell us no. Convincing indigenous peoples that they don’t need to become western or American in order to trust Christ has been a chief insight of modern missions at least since 1900. But for some of the younger Calvinistically inclined folks, the push back against liberalism also now includes a defense of cultural Christianity.

Picking your spots for such a faith surely requires discretion since the riots in Philadelphia between nativist Protestants and Irish Roman Catholics had all the earmarks of cultural Christianity. Protestants expected the public schools to use the Bible to reinforce republican norms but Roman Catholics objected that the Protestant Bible was not neutral — it was not even the right one — the Douay version. Those riots were far more about politics and culture, but defenses of cultural Christianity tread gingerly around such episodes.

What is especially perplexing about Stephen Wolfe’s defense of cultural Christianity is not simply how he might make sense of its darker moments in the past, but even how it measures up to the New Testament. For instance, he starts with this assumption:

We should first acknowledge that the civil recognition, establishment, and privileging of Christianity was the received and standard view for most of Christian history, amongst most major Christian traditions, including many Protestants, and only recently has it been rejected by a majority of western Christians.

That may be true after 350 AD, but imagine Peter and Paul thinking the privileging of Christianity was the air they breathed when they were receiving inspired and infallible revelations from the Holy Spirit.

Wolfe later asserts in a way that would have left Paul scratching his head:

Put differently, the civil and ecclesiastical are the twin species of the same genus, Christian communion. The people of God submit to these mutually supporting, separate and independent administrations because Christ is both the Creator and Ruler of creation and the Mediator of eternal life. The Christian communion is not coterminous with ecclesiastical membership, but is rather the same people submitted to both the civil and ecclesiastical.

Again, that might describe Christendom at some point, but how does it make sense of the apostle’s warning to Corinthians against going to court:

If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people? 2 Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! 4 Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned in the church? 5 I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? 6 But instead, one brother takes another to court—and this in front of unbelievers! 7 The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. (1 Cor. 6)

If the civil and ecclesiastical are mutually supporting, why is Paul so incensed with the Corinthians for going to court? Might it be that Paul and the early church had no idea about the state reinforcing Christian norms? That’s what persecution means, I believe.

Calvin’s commentary on this epistle also suggests that he, even though living at a time before 1789 when expectations for Christendom were still in place for all Christians except the Anabaptists, was not as convinced of the easy harmony between church and state. The reason is that the magistrate is an avenger and the church is an instrument of God’s love and mercy:

Those who aim at greater clearness in their statements tell us that we must distinguish between public and private revenge; for while the magistrate’s vengeance is appointed by God, those who have recourse to it do not rashly take vengeance at their own hand, but have recourse to God as an Avenger. This, it is true, is said judiciously and appropriately; but we must go a step farther; for if it be not allowable even to desire vengeance from God, then, on the same principle, it were not allowable to have recourse to the magistrate for vengeance.

I acknowledge, then, that a Christian man is altogether prohibited from revenge, so that he must not exercise it, either by himself, or by means of the magistrate, nor even desire it. If, therefore, a Christian man wishes to prosecute his rights at law, so as not to offend God, he must, above all things, take heed that he does not bring into court any desire of revenge, any corrupt affection of the mind, or anger, or, in fine, any other poison. In this matter love will be the best regulator.

Of course, Calvin is no Anabaptist. He knows the legitimacy of the magistrate and even the competency of unbelieving civil authorities. But he also senses in ways that critics of modern secular liberalism do not seem to that the purposes of church and state are distinct. One implication is that they are not necessarily harmonious. Especially if upholding the Christian ideal of love.

Perhaps cultural Christianity aspires to such an ideal. But chances are what Christian societies produce when the church is established is more on the order of manners or politeness than the spiritual fruit that comes with sanctification.

Piling On

Published on by D. G. Hart51 Comments

So thanks to Matt Tuininga’s critique of Scott Clark and mmmmmeeeEEEEEE, Stephen Wolfe adds to Clark’s and my misery:

I think that Matthew Tuininga has made a valuable correction to D.G. Hart and R. Scott Clark who seem to find no social value in Christian sanctification. Would not our conformity to the image of the Last Adam have social implications? Of course, it would. The fundamental problem with the Hart-Clark 2k theology is their failure to recognize that the Gospel, which includes sanctification, restores the Adamic dominian. As J Peter Escalante and Steven Wedgeworth have made abundantly clear, “man’s Adamic dominion has been in principle restored in Christ.” This means, so it seems to me, that sanctification includes a conformity to the original Edenic order and a restoration toward the original mandate to bring, through human creativity and work, creation to its potential maturity. This has nothing to do with immanentizing the eschaton, as Eric Voegelin warned against. It means rather that the Gospel empowers Christians to work toward the realization of a mature natural order.

But just when Mike Horton and Dave VanDrunen thought they were on comfortable chairs in the bus terminal (oxymoron alert), a quick google search reveals that they are just as bad — maybe worse:

VanDrunen contends that the cultural mandate was given as a condition through which Adam would inherit eternal life for himself and his offspring. This activity of Adam was temporal, only given by God in preparation for the Sabbath rest in which he would partake through his obedience. He purports that because Christ is the last Adam, such a cultural mandate is no longer a necessity for those who are in Christ. He argues: “To understand our own cultural work as picking up and finishing Adam’s original task is, however unwittingly, to compromise the sufficiency of Christ’s work” (Living in God’s Two Kingdoms, 50). To be clear, VanDrunen emphasizes the importance of the Christian’s vocation in the secular realm, but views it as only temporary, and he disconnects it from the mandate given to Adam.

What VanDrunen fails to recognize is that God created humankind to live within two particular sets of relationships: to God, and to creation. In his approach, for Adam, the cultural mandate has coram deo implications. Adam’s standing before God prior to the fall was not based on grace and faith, but instead upon his obedience in fulfilling the God-given mandate. This is, of course, based upon VanDrunen’s commitment to the Reformed concept of the covenant of works in the Garden of Eden (an idea that I have critiqued here). The problem is that the text of Genesis never makes such a connection. Nowhere in the creation account is Adam told that his standing before God could somehow be merited by obedience to this mandate. Rather, Adam’s creation was an act of grace. His relationship to God was always based on God’s action and his reception. Sure, he could lose his righteous standing before God, but he couldn’t gain it by merit.

The implications of this difference of perspective are important. If Adam’s relationship before God has always been by grace, and man’s relationship to creation has always been determined by the mandate of Genesis 1:28, then the cultural mandate is no longer simply part of the Adamic administration, but is essential to who the human creature is.

So I wonder how widely Matt has read VanDrunen and Horton. The more people under the bus, the more misery.