“A brave man is a man who dares to look the Devil in the face and tell him he is a Devil.”
— James A. Garfield
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“Life’s tough. It’s even tougher when you’re stupid.”
— John Wayne
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“The key to compounding is continual reinvestment. It does not matter how low the rate of growth is; if this growth continues through time long enough, it will eventually swallow up everything in the environment that feeds it. This is the message of Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and the hare. The hare achieves a rapid conquest over space, but he does not sustain it. The tortoise can achieve only a slow conquest of space, but he never quits moving forward. The tortoise eventually overtakes the sleeping hare. “Slowly but surely” is a familiar folk phrase that illustrates this principle of comparative growth. So is “little by little.” Isaiah wrote: “But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken” (Isa. 28:13).
God cuts off the growth of covenant-breaking societies. They grow only until their iniquity becomes full. Then they either fall or are converted to faith in God. Their growth ceases if they continue to reject God. They experience setbacks. Meanwhile, the compounding process goes on for covenant-keeping societies. Even if it is reversed temporarily, it returns.
The church is the heir of God’s covenantal promise of growth. It survives all setbacks. Its growth may slow down for a time. Covenant-breaking organizations and even whole societies may outrun the church for a time. But the church is never stopped. It is like the tortoise in the fable.
Biblical principles of limited civil government, free trade, thrift, and freedom of contract produce compound economic growth. As the West has applied these principles, it has grown rich. Another major factor was confidence in the possibility of long-term economic growth. This was an implication of postmillennialism, which was rediscovered in Holland and Scotland in the seventeenth century. Then there was the issue of the legitimacy of profit-seeking. That, too, was acknowledged by the Dutch in the seventeenth century. The idea spread to the British Isles in the eighteenth century.
All other social orders fell behind the West in this regard. The lure of wealth is universal. The West’s principles of economics arenow being adopted by societies in Asia. The economic results of this adoption have been spectacular since the end of World War II in 1945. But these principles of economic development have been secularized by their expositors. These principles have been explained as contract-based, not covenant-based. No sovereign, personal God is said to sustain the growth process. In fact, economists have been more ready than any other academic group to dismiss God as irrelevant to theory. They were the first academic profession to secularize their discussions: in the late seventeenth century.
The growth of economic output has led to the growth of population. All over the non-industrial world, populations are growing as never before in man’s history. In the wealthy West, however, reproduction rates are falling. Were it not for immigration, these rates would be much lower. After two centuries of compound economic growth, Europe has lost its faith in the God of the Bible and its faith in the future. No European nation is reproducing itself biologically; all are below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman. Most of these nations are inviting Muslims to come and live, to do the low-paying jobs that the domestic populations refuse to do at the wages offered. Muslims have large families, although this is beginning to change in Western Europe, and has dramatically changed in Iran. They are steadily replacing the indigenous populations. The same attitude regarding family size has appeared in the United States. In 1957, the average American family produced almost four children. By 1971, this had fallen to two children, where it remains. Immigrant families, especially from Latin America, were the main exceptions. The West’s inheritance is steadily being transferred to residents and citizens whose cultural roots are in the southern latitudes.
Today, we see the covenantal realm of Satan expanding. The West has generally abandoned Christianity, and the Third World has yet to adopt it, although there are revivals going on in sub-Sahara Africa, Latin America, and China. But the growth in the number of covenant-breakers is dwarfing the growth of covenant-keepers. This has put the church on the defensive.
If widespread revival does not come before the end of time, and if compound economic growth nevertheless continues, then the covenantal social theory implied by the Book of Deuteronomy can be said to have been annulled at some time prior to the twentieth century, presumably by the New Covenant. If Mosaic social theory is no longer in effect, then there can be no social theory that is explicitly based on the Bible. If there is no predictability between corporate covenant-breaking and God’s corporate negative sanctions, then biblical social theory is not possible. This would place Christians permanently at the mercy of covenant-breaking social philosophers. The wisdom of covenant-breaking man would triumph: one or another of the competing, irreconcilable systems of social cause and effect would triumph. Christians would be asked to baptize the reigning social theories of their nation.
No doubt they would do so. They have done so ever since the days of the early church, when Christian apologists adopted Greek categories of philosophy in the name of Christ. They have done so in the name of epistemological neutrality and, in modern times, political pluralism. But this would not solve the problem of discovering what God has spoken authoritatively in New Covenant history.”
— Gary North
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The state can never regulate belief, religious or otherwise. But it can and must regulate practice, including practices that might be done in the name of religion.
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Oliver O’Donnovan says the task of political theology today is to remind the West of the Christian roots of most fundamental concepts.
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The strength of a person’s opinion on a subject should never exceed their knowledge of that subject. Many people have strong opinions on things they know very little about.
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Revivalism in a nutshell: Moody Bible Institute produced a tract in the format of a ballot. God has cast His vote for man’s salvation, Satan against, and man is given the deciding vote. What could be more American than that?
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The two biggest “contributions” of the American church are revivalism and dispensationalism. I have with both recently: dispensationalism in my 1/25/26 sermon and revivalism in my 2/8/26 sermon.
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“We are the ‘posterity’ of the preamble to the Constitution.”
— Bryan Dawson
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An old X post with an addendum:
A few thoughts on this….
I certainly agree with @PerfInjust that his Christian nationalism project is distinct from theonomy, Christian reconstruction, and so forth. There are significant differences there that warrant ongoing discussion.
But I also see why a lot of people are going to lump us all together. For one thing, Wolfe’s book was published by Canon. Canon’s penumbra has always been theonomic. @douglaswils and many associated with him ARE theonomists/reconstructionists. I don’t know where else Wolfe might have shopped his book in terms of publishers, but the fact that Canon picked it up created certain associations (in both directions) that everyone involved needs to reckon with, even if its awkward. Wolfe and Wilson obviously do not agree on everything, but there is also some broad family resemblance in their positions. Canon played a huge role in morphing the theonomy discussion into the Christian Nationalism discussion. It’s really just new label for a new phase in an going discussion. Are there new wrinkles in Christian nationalism compared to theonomy? Yes, most especially the role that some want race to play in American nationhood. But there is also a lot of overlap.
Second, the theonomists and reconstructionists were VERY interested in historic Reformed political theology. They interacted extensively with the primary sources. The Journal of Reconstruction republished Mather’s An Abstract of the Laws of New England around 1979. A lot of JCR essays over the years were historical in nature, aiming to show that theonomy had at least broad precedent in the Reformed tradition. A 1991 Biblical Horizons Conference on Calvinism and Theocracy included detailed lectures on Althusius’ Politica — many of us have been familiar with Althusius for over 30 years. Gary North complained way back then that Banner of Truth was creating an entirely inaccurate picture of Puritanism by republishing their works on piety but not politics. North himself had a hand in getting some of Calvin’s more intensely political sermons republished in the book The Covenant Enforced. Rushdoony and North both published detailed studies of America’s political origins and the role of Christian faith in shaping our nation (and came to very different conclusions). Doug Kelly was closely associated with theonomy and reconstructionism, and he published one of the best *historical* studies of Calvinist politics, The Emergence of Liberty in the Modern World, a book I’d still heartily recommend. David Chilton’s work often made sweeping and historically insightful claims about the influence of Christian faith on Western civilization, from the medieval period through the Reformers. And so on. Reading “old books” is not a new development. Whatever it’s flaws, reconstructionism at its most vital was an intellectual powerhouse.
Third, when contemporary Christian Nationalists critique modern liberalism, 90% of what they say sounds almost exactly like what theonomists of various stripes were saying back in the 1980s and 1990s. The critique of liberalism from the Christian right is nothing new. Yes, some recons (and their heirs) have been (or have become) staunch defenders of *classical* liberalism — but what do they by “classical liberalism”? It’s certainly distinguishable from modern liberalism, and does not seem incompatible with the Christian Nationalism project since at the time of America’s founding, numerous states had established churches and religious tests for office, sodomy and blasphemy were criminalized, etc. — basically, at the time of American’s founding, Christians norms normed society as a whole.
And it seems to me that’s the deep commonality between these various approaches to Christian nationhood, whether of the theonomic, Jordanite/theocratic, or Wolfite variety — they all want Christian norms to norm the nation’s politics and culture. They all want some version of Christendom. They want everyone to live under the Christian gaze. Again, I admit there are differences (e.g., the role of natural law, the place of free markets, perhaps even the way a Christian nation would handle immigration, and so on). But there is an unmistakable family resemblance too. The Reformed pietists (for lack of a better label) in NAPARC who are soteriology-only Calvinists, and who think a “neutral,” pluralistic “marketplace of ideas” public square is the ideal are going to undoubtedly lump us all together. They see us all a threat. Reformed history is one our side, but getting the present day Reformed church on our side may be a different matter.
Sidenote: Since Wolfe mentions FV, I should point out that many of the same claims can be made there. FV was always a “treasures old, treasures new” kind of discussion. But it was definitely a “Reformed catholic” thing from the start — it most certainly grew out of the Reformed tradition at its best and the work that many of us did associated with FV was historical in nature. A great deal work I did that came to be associated with FV was deeply historical in nature, so much so that I’ve said (tongue-in-cheek, of course), “To be deep in Reformed history is to be FV.” I first wrote on the efficacy of baptism in the Reformed tradition around the year 2000, in papers loaded with historical quotations and citations from Protestant history. Just as with traditional Reformed political theology, so with Reformed baptismal theology — most pastors and seminary profs in the ostensibly conservative Reformed denominations just weren’t interested, or weren’t knowledgeable enough to have a worthwhile discussion. But FVers cared about the history and often made appeal to it. Most of the FV guys were considered a “menace” 20+ years ago not only because of their sacramental theology but also because everyone knew they wanted a public and political version of the Reformed faith to dominate. (There’s actually a deep link between a strong doctrine of baptismal efficacy and public/political theology, e.g., in the medieval period, a doctrine of civil resistance grew out of baptismal theology.) For those who were not involved in what went on in the theonomic controversy of the 80s/90s or the FV controversy of the early 2000s, it may seem like the current Christian Nationalism controversy is genuinely new — but it really isn’t. It’s just another iteration of a longstanding split in the Reformed world. Yes, there are subsplits on each side too, but the major fault line is not hard to find. Many of the same characters (on both sides) are involved and many of the issues overlap. During FV, there were only a small handful of NAPARC men really capable of engaging the issues intelligently, and most men who got involved just embarrassed themselves. It seems history is very likely to repeat itself with the NAPARC Christian Nationalism discussion, study reports, etc. The same men who are not classical Protestants on baptismal efficacy are not really classical Protestants on politics either. God have mercy.
ADDENDUM: A feature of some quarters of the current Christian nationalism movement is questioning the Holocaust narrative. There are varying versions of this, some denying altogether, others suspicious of the “6 million Jews killed” figure. Christian Reconstructionist R. J. Rushdoony was not a “Holocaust denier” as such, but he did question the 6 million figure. This is another link between the older Reconstructionist movment and the current Christian nationalism discussion. See:
https://reformation21.org/rushdoony-historical-incompete-php/
https://reformation21.org/rushdoony-once-again-for-the-l-php/
https://reformation21.org/rushdoony-a-final-clarificatio-php/
I am not saying this connection is a good thing. Just pointing out it is yet another connection.
Also, note that the “Moral Majority”/”Religious Right” was sometimes referred to as the “New Christian Right” and “rightwing” back in the 1980s. The Reconstructionist project was very different from the Religious Right, but in the mainstream media, they often got lumped together. See pages 1ff and 47ff in “The Failure of American Baptist Culture, available here: https://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/docs/pdf/the_failure_of_american_baptist_culture.pdf
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“Our children’s inheritance will be won or lost in the culture war.”
— Bryan Dawson
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“If you are nice to progressives today, you are mean to your children and grandchildren.”
— Bryan Dawson
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Faithful political preaching created the United States, and it will take faithful political preaching to keep the United States.
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Some pastors brag that they preach in such a way that their congregations cannot figure out their politics – as if being politically vague was a virtue. But remember Conquest’s Second Law: any institution that is not explicitly rightwing will eventually become leftwing. Not speaking the truth is as destructive as telling an outright lie. Pastors who are vague about politics are leftwing, whether they think they are or not.
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We become what we sing.
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Pastors who refuse to preach politically outsource the political discipleship of their congregations to CNN and TikTok and who knows what else.
A pastor who refuses to disciple his people politically loses all right to complain about the results.
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“Let the name of Whitefield perish, but Christ be glorified. Let my name die everywhere, let even my friends forget me, if by that means the cause of the blessed Jesus may be promoted. . . . I am content to wait till the judgement day for the clearing up of my reputation; and after I am dead I desire no other epitaph than this, “Here lies G. W. What sort of man he was the great day will discover.””
— George Whitefield
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“Brethren, you are able to control this nation, if you please, and will do your duty…
But alas! how often do we go on Monday to the lustings, after having appeared on the Sabbath as servants of the Prince of Peace and brethren of all his servants, and in our political action forget that we are Christians?
Here, then, is our first need, if we would save our country: that we shall carry our citizenship in the kingdom of heaven everywhere, and make it dominate over every public act. And next, the Christians of this country must sternly claim, that wicked men shall no longer hold the helm of state; that party fidelity shall no longer atone for that worst crime against citizenship, a wicked life.”
— R. L. Dabney
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“Next to God’s work and his blessing, I believe that Birmingham has taught me that friendship is one of the greates things in life. It is the sweetest, holiest, and most far-reaching agency on earth. Friendship is based upon unselfishness and a desire to help someone – a trust in others more than in self. I accept the love of my friends not as a gift, but as a sacred trust imposed upon me. My friends keep me healthy, sound, and able with their love. They are my eyes with which I see, my ears with which I hear, my mouth with which I speak, my heart with which I love – they are my inspiration.”
— Brother Bryan
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Repenting of what didn’t do and should have is just as important as repenting of what you did and shouldn’t have. Sins of omission are as serious as sins of commission.
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Charles Spurgeon on community and church membership:
“I believe that every Christian ought to be joined to some visible church; that is his plain duty, according to the Scriptures. God’s people are not dogs, else they might go about one by one; but they are sheep, and therefore they should be in flocks.”
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“Christian political activity is to be nothing more and nothing less than the declaration, “Jesus is Lord,” the most basic of all Christian declarations.”
— George Grant
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Thornwell proposed adding an explicitly Christian preamble to the Constitution of the Confederacy, which would have made the CSA a Christocratic (and some would say theonomic) republic. The proposal failed. It’s still worth noting its content for the sake of historical understanding:
“Nevertheless we, the people of the Confederate States, directly acknowledge our responsibility to God, and the supremacy of His Son, Jesus Christ, as King of kings and Lord of lords; and hereby ordain that no law shall be passed by the Congress of these Confederate States inconsistent with the will of God, AS REVEALED IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES”
From James H. Thornwell 1812-1862, Petition to C.S.A from the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church
In the early 19th century, the Presbyterian church in America was a cultural force. She was not an established church, obviously, but she was a public church, highly respected and highly influential on society at large. Charles Beecher says that in the early 1800s, the Presbyterian General Assembly was”one of the most impressive as well as bodies in the world” with “a power rivaling if not really surpassing that of Congress,” impacting “not merely the religious but the civil interests of the nation.” Bradley J. Longfield says, “Indeed, by the mid-1830s the Presbyterian General Assembly rivaled the federal government for popular influence and esteem.”
The Presbyterian church split north and south in the lead up to the War Between the States. When Thornwell’s proposal to make the Confederacy a theonomic Christocracy failed, it signaled the end of the Presbyterian church’s public role in American history. After the war, the Presbyterian church in the north rapidly drifted into liberalism, in the South it fell into irrelevance. In the north, the church was worldly, in the South it was withdrawn from the world. The Presbyterian in the north was completely captured by modernity; Machen was forced out of Princeton, leading to the formation of Westminster and the OPC. But those institutions never had the public sway of the old Presbyterian church and Princeton. In the South, fundamentalism came to dominate; conservative Christians withdrew from cultural engagement and politics was secularized by default.
There is a book about the “great retreat” of evangelicals from cultural life in the second half of the 19th century and into the 20th century entitled “Less Than Conquerors,” and that about sums it up. Secularism won the public square largely by default. Christians assumed the way things are is the way they will always be; there was no need to be culturally engaged, no need to defend what had been built, no need to take stands on public and political issues. We squandered our influences and inheritance.
The National Association of Evangelicals tried to get a Christian amendment in the 1940s and 1950s, acknowledging the lordship of Jesus over America. But this was more of a Cold War measure than anything else. It was an attempt to solidify “good” Christian American against “evil” Soviet Russia. While noble and well intended, the project did not get much traction.
It was not until the Roe vs. Wade decision in 1973 that Christians began to awaken from their cultural slumber and engage in the culture war. This ramped up with Christians, especially in the South switching over to the Republican party and voting for pro-life Reagan in 1980.
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Pastors hide behind excuses to cloak their cowardice and refusal to engage the culture war.
“Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world.” True, we do not identify Jesus’ kingdom with any earthly kingdom. But we do expect Jesus’ kingdom to have an influence on the kingdoms of the world, and that influence comes to pass at least in part through preaching Jesus’ will for the state.
“We do not worship the donkey or elephant, we worship the lamb.” Sure, that’s great. We do not worship political parties or candidates. But it is idiotic to accuse any pastor who is expressing support for particular positions on abortion, sodomy, transgenderism, etc., of idolatry. Taking a moral stand is not idolatry. Desiring to see the state fulfill its Romans 13 obligations is not idolatry. If you worship the lamb, what does he want you to say about atrocities going on all around you in the culture in which you live?
“We are prophetic, not partisan.” Ok, but the prophets were highly partisan and certainly spoke to cultural sins. If you are prophetic, do what the prophets did and attack the sins of your culture relentlessly.
“We believe in the spirituality of the church.” Ok, but the spirituality of the church arose among Southern Presbyterian to excuse pastors from speaking to the issues of race and slavery in the early 19th century. Are you saying they should not have spoken up? And if the “spirituality of the church” prevents the church from addressing earthly, temporal, cultural concerns, it’s really the “gnosticism of the church.”
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How did Armenia become the first Christian nation?
Grok answers:
Armenia became the first nation in the world to officially adopt Christianity as its state religion in the early 4th century AD, traditionally dated to 301 AD (though some modern scholars suggest a slightly later date around 314 AD).
Christianity had early roots in Armenia, with tradition holding that the apostles Thaddeus (Jude) and Bartholomew preached there in the 1st century AD, laying the groundwork for the faith. However, the decisive moment came through the efforts of Saint Gregory the Illuminator (also known as Grigor Lusavorich), who is venerated as the patron saint and “Enlightener” of Armenia.
According to historical accounts and Armenian tradition:
- Gregory, a Christian of Parthian noble descent educated in Cappadocia, returned to Armenia and served in the court of King Tiridates III (also spelled Trdat or Tiridates the Great, who ruled c. 298–330 AD).
- Tiridates III was initially a persecutor of Christians and adherent to pagan (and Zoroastrian-influenced) traditions.
- Gregory refused to participate in pagan rituals (such as offering to the goddess Anahit), leading to his imprisonment in a deep pit (Khor Virap, “deep dungeon”) for about 13 years.
- During this time, a plague or madness afflicted the king (legend describes him transforming into a boar-like state as divine punishment).
- Gregory was released after reportedly healing the king through prayer and faith in Christ.
- The king converted, was baptized, and—transformed by the experience—proclaimed Christianity the official religion of the kingdom around 301 AD.
- He ordered the baptism of the royal court, army, and much of the population (some sources claim up to four million people were baptized).
- Gregory became the first head (Catholicos) of the Armenian Apostolic Church, organizing the church with influences from Syriac and Greek traditions.
This made Armenia’s adoption of Christianity as a state religion precede the Roman Empire’s Edict of Milan (313 AD, which tolerated Christianity) and Theodosius I’s later declaration (380 AD) making it the empire’s official religion.
The move helped unify the Armenian people, distinguish them from neighboring Zoroastrian Persia and the pagan Roman world, and forge a distinct national Christian identity that has endured for over 1,700 years—celebrated in 2001 as the 1,700th anniversary.
The Armenian Apostolic Church (an Oriental Orthodox tradition) remains the national church today, with Gregory’s legacy central to Armenian history and faith.
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Moses told the people of Israel the kind of civil leaders to choose in Deuteronomy 1:13:
“Choose for your tribes wise, understanding, and experienced men, and I will appoint them as your heads.”
Moses was right: The people of God should do all they can to select civil rulers who are righteous. That is to say, men who understand justice, men who will serve the common good, men with integrity. Electing civil rulers who can be bribed or blackmailed is always disastrous.
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The case for paedobaptism does not rest entirely on the circumcision/baptism link. That link is real. Paul tells the Colossians they do not need to be circumcised because they have been baptized. Both circumcision and baptism are tied to the cross:
“In him also you were circumcised…having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised…” (Colossians 2:11-12).
But there are many other lines of argument. Many of these lines of argument are typological, eg, Noah’s household was baptized on the ark and the Israelite children were baptized in the Red Sea crossing. Paul’s analogy and warning in 1 Corinthians 10:1ff make no sense if children were not being baptized (and included at the Lord’s table) in the Corinthian church. Children were included in the sacramental life of Israel including the washings and feasts – in other words, children were already receiving various baptisms under the old covenant (cf. Hebrews 9:10), and those various baptisms are all fulfilled in the one baptism Christ gave to his new covenant people.
We see the inclusion of children in other ways. Acts confirms the household principle is still in force; Israel was a patriarchal society and no one doubted that fathers would have authority to bring their children for baptism. Numerous OT texts prophesying the new covenant specifically include children (Joel 2, Psalm 103, Isaiah 59, Jeremiah 31, Luke 1, etc.). Jesus included the children of believers in his kingdom and made them the model of kingdom entrance (Matthew 18-19). The faith of parents can procure blessings for their children (eg, Matthew 15). The Psalter teaches that infant faith for children born in the covenant community was normative (eg, Psalm 22). Children are regarded as church members and are to be raised “in the Lord” (Ephesians 6). Peter affirms that the promise of forgiveness and the Holy Spirit is “for you and for your children.” There is no indication in the NT that children should be excluded in the new covenant – and to exclude them would have created some kind of controversy and required some kind of explicit mention, on par with the termination of animal sacrifices, since their inclusion had been the standard practice for millennia. The covenant tree of Romans 11 suggests that the children of believers are branches on the tree. Etc.
There are broader theological considerations that underwrite the practice of infant baptism. If grace restores nature, grace restores the family and that means children should be included in the covenant.
Further, the nature of baptism shows that it is properly given to our children. This is the real watershed (pun intended) in the debate over baptism: Is baptism God’s work or man’s work? Scripture is clear: Baptism is the sacramental answer to original sin, which our children inherit. Baptism is God’s work and God’s gift, an effectual means of salvation – and God can certainly give gifts to infants. He can certainly save infants. He can have a relationship with infants. He can fill infants even in the womb with his Spirit (cf. John the Baptizer). Bringing children for baptism is simply bringing them to Jesus for blessing. And so on. Baptists are not wrong to link baptism to faith, but that’s no hindrance to children being baptized (again, cf. Psalm 22).
Because some paedobaptists have improperly made the whole argument for baptism rest on circumcision (eg, Warfield), it’s understandable that Baptists focus their energy there and think that if they can break that link, they win the debate. But the circumcision/baptism link is far from the only, or even the most significant, line of argument in favor of paedobaptism. Likewise, simply focusing on a handful of NT texts that explicitly mention baptism is not sufficient. The case for paedobaptism is drawn from Scripture as a whole.
ADDENDUM: Believing the covenant has “conditions” is fully Reformed and Calvinistic. There is nothing novel about it. And it’s fully biblical – just look at how many “if” statements Paul makes, for starters.
In fact, I’d say denying covenant conditionality is the hallmark of “Reformed” Baptists. You can read Calvin himself – or check out something like Peter Lillback’s magnificent book The Binding of God. Here is Peter Wallace summarizing Turretin on covenant conditionality:
“The covenant of grace is both unconditional and conditional, depending whether it is viewed antecedently or consequently. Considered antecedently in the light of the meritorious cause, it is wholly gratuitous and depends solely upon God’s good pleasure. Considered consequently in light of the instrumental cause, it is undeniably conditional, depending upon the condition of faith….Faith and obedience are causally separate in the covenant of grace, faith alone being efficacious as the “means and instrument of our union with Christ which reconciles him to us.” Responding to an intramural debate within the Reformed community, Turretin asserts that properly speaking, faith is the sole causal condition of the covenant of grace, but at the same time, taken “broadly and improperly” the conditions of the covenant of grace may be said to include “repentance and the obedience of the new life…because they are reckoned among the duties of the covenant (Jn. 13:17; 2 Cor. 5:17; Rom. 8:13).”
See also WSC 85.
Even someone like Mike Horton (who would take issue with me on many things) admits there are conditions:
“The New Testament lays before us a vast array of conditions for final salvation. Not only initial repentance and faith, but perseverance in both, demonstrated in love toward God and neighbor are part of that holiness without which no one shall see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14) Such holiness is not simply definitive– that is, it not only belongs to our justification, which is rather an imputed than imparted righteousness, but to our sanctification, that inner renewal by the Spirit.
Jesus made it amply clear that the sheep will be distinguished from the goats on the last day by marks of their profession…
Holiness, which is defined by love of God and neighbor…is the indispensable condition of our glorification: no one will be seated at the heavenly banquet who has not begun, however imperfectly, in new obedience…
Too often we use justification and salvation interchangeably so that the suggestion we are justified without any other condition other than faith leads some to conclude that it is the only condition of salvation. However, salvation is understood broadly that encompasses the whole work of God.”
As for “conditional election” – I really don’t know what that means, but I agree with Calvin’s disctinction between special and general election.
Everyone I know of involved in this conversation would agree that we fulfill the conditions by grace, as God works in us faith, repentance, obedience, perseverance, etc. God gives what he commands.
ADDENDUM: Jewish Christians continued to practice circumcision even after the Jerusalem Council. They just couldn’t require the circumcision of Gentile believers. The verdict of the council was that Gentiles did not need to become Jews in order to become Christians. The council said nothing about Jews being forbidden from continuing to practice circumcision.
The issue was not, “Must Jews stop circumcising since they are baptized?,” but “Must Gentiles get circumcised and become Jewish in order to be saved?” It’s as if some Jewish believers wanted Gentiles to get circumcised as a prerequisite for getting baptized and the Council rejected that view.
Interestingly, I’d argue Paul does answer your question in Galatians 3. The whole chapter deals with the question, “Who are the children of Abraham?” And Paul answers not “the circumcised” but “the baptized.” See 3:27-29: All those who are baptized have put on Christ and belong to him; and if you belong to Christ, you are Abraham’s children.
Going back to Acts 15, it has bothered me that the Council did not tell Jews to stop circumcising altogether since circumcision no longer marks out the covenant community. Why continue using a bloody sign after the cross? But the apostles (wisely) determined that if Jewish believers wanted to continue circumcising as a cultural/ethnic thing, they were free to do so. They just couldn’t make it a test of fellowship for Gentile believers.
ADDENDUM: I live in the heart of the “Bible belt.” A profession of faith does not mean someone is actually elect or regenerate.
I would respond to your question in several ways, including
- circumcision was the sign of the righteousness that comes by faith, but that did not prevent infants from receiving it.
- Psalm 22:9-10 indicates that the normative pattern for covenant children is to have faith from the womb and to grow up never remembering a day when they did not trust the Lord.
- The requirement of faith to receive the blessings promised to Abraham’s children is not a new covenant thing — faith has always been required. And yet that requirement did not mean children were excluded.
- I develop arguments for the faith of covenant children in much more detail in my book Paedofaith.
ADDENDUM: I think God is merciful to the children of Baptists who should have been baptized and weren’t. They are covenant children in spite of the fact that their parents and pastors don’t recognize that fact about them. But they still miss out, as do their parents.
When a child is baptized that child enters into the kingdom, household, and family of God. The child is given the Holy Spirit and the promise of forgiveness. The child is united with Christ, publicly and formally. The child is given a Christian identity. The child is given (or should be given) access to the Lord’s table.
It’s no small thing.
ADDENDUM: Baptism as covenant sign is a matter of good and necessary consequence, a plain inference. Baptism is our e trance into the covenant community, the visible church.
The argument for paedobaptism does not rest on the circumcision/baptism link, but the link is there in Colossians 2.
ADDENDUM: I think the issues addressed in Galatians and Colossians are similar. And Paul does exactly what you say – he says baptism has replaced circumcision: “in him you were circumcised, having been baptized.”
ADDENDUM: Colossians 2 certainly has the old covenant sign of circumcision in view and explains (against the Judaizers) why believers do not need to be circumcised now. Circumcision was fulfilled in the crucifixion. Besides, they’ve been baptized, which is a sufficient sign of their covenant membership: “In him also you were circumcised…having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.”
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What is the circumcision made without hands in Colossians 2? How does it relate to circumcision as the sign of the Abrahamic covenant? How does it relate to baptism?
“[11] In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, [12] having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.”
— Colossians 2:11-12
Paul’s grammar and theology are both complex but we can untangle what he says. Each phrase is full of meaning, but if we unpack them carefully, we can make sense of the text as a whole.
The “circumcision made without hands” is a reference to Jesus’ death on the cross. Circumcision was instituted as a sign of God’s promise to send the promised seed of the woman/seed of Abraham (Gen. 17) who would be sacrificed and raised again for his people (Gen. 22). The cross fulfills circumcision – just as it fulfills the other bloody sacrifices of the old covenant system.
It’s important to understand that circumcision was a kind of sacrificial ritual. Circumcision cut the one circumcised in two – a big piece and a small piece, but it was a tearing nonetheless. Circumcision shed blood, just like the animal sacrifices. And that blood brought cleaning, after a fashion. Circumcision reduced a mother’s time of uncleanliness (Lev. 12). Circumcision granted access to the Passover meal. (Gentile God-fearers were welcome to the other feasts, but not Passover.)
The sacrifice of circumcision, the cleansing it brought, and the covenant meal to which it granted access, all come to fulfillment at the cross. Jesus was circumcised in his infancy, of course (Luke 2), but that circumcision pointed ahead to the true circumcision of the cross. A little blood was shed on the 8th day of his life, foreshadowing the total blood-letting that would happen in his 33rd year. After the cross, circumcision as a covenant sign (like the animal sacrifices) began to fade away. God no longer requires blood.
All of this undergirds Paul’s point in Colossians 2:11-12. Those who are in Christ (including Gentiles, who are especially in view – note Paul says “you,” not “we”) do not need to be circumcised to be in covenant with God, to be children of Abraham, because “in him you were circumcised.” Contrary to the Judaizers, Gentile believers do not need to be circumcised because they already have been circumcised in union with Christ. In union with Christ, Gentile believers are true Jews, the true Israel, the true circumcision. To apply the physical sign of circumcision would be redundant since they have already posses what circumcision pointed to in Christ. To go on practicing circumcision as a means of covenant entrance or a sign of covenant membership would be to effectively deny what Christ, as the promised seed, accomplished on the cross. Again, God no longer requires blood. The promise of the coming seed has been fulfilled. Salvation has been accomplished.
But that does that mean there is no longer a sacramental means of entrance into the covenant. The question is how we come to be united to The Circumcised One, the Lord Jesus. Paul answers in two ways, objectively and subjectively. Objectively, the answer is given in the first part of verse 12: “having been buried with him in baptism.” In Colossians 2, as in Romans 6, Paul teaches we are united to Christ in baptism. In the waters of baptism, we are joined to Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. We do not need to be circumcised because we have already been baptized into the circumcision that is Christ’s death. Christ’s circumcision is the only circumcision we need.
All who are united to Christ are the true and new Israel. He is the ultimate (and in a sense, final) Israelite. All the promises of God are yes and Amen in Jesus, and so those in union with him are the recipients of the promises made to the patriarchs. Gentiles who are united to Jesus are incorporated into Israel. But they are incorporated into Israel now without being circumcised. Baptism into Christ suffices. We are unified to the Circumcised One, the one who was cut off once and for all at the cross, the true Isaac, who fulfilled the meaning of Passover and brought cleansing – and this is all we need.
Paul also shows how we are united to Christ subjectively in the second part of verse 12: “raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God.” The union with Christ offered to us in baptism has to be received by faith. By faith in God’s resurrection working/power, we come to share in Christ’s new life. We share in his resurrection status and glory.
One more phrase needs explaining, from verse 11: “by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ.” Putting off the body of flesh is what happens as a result of our co-crucifixion (which is co-circumcision) with Christ. We have died to sin. The old Adam was nailed to the cross. The body of flesh (flesh here representing not the physical aspect of who we are, per se, but the fallen aspect) has been killed and put away so that we can become a new creation in Christ Jesus. Again, this is much like Romans 6 – in our baptismal union with Christ, we died to sin and rose to new life in righteousness. “Putting off the body of flesh” in baptism does mean we no longer sin, for as Luther said, “the old Adam swims well.” But it does mean we are able to fight sin, we are no longer slaves to sin, and we can defeat sin.
So now we can succinctly answer our original questions:
What is the circumcision made without hands in Colossians 2? The circumcision made without hands is Christ’s sacrificial offering of himself on the cross as the seed of the woman and the new Isaac. In his death he fulfills what circumcision pointed to. Whereas circumcision could bring ceremonial cleanness, Christ’s death brings permanent moral and spiritual cleanness before God. Just as circumcision granted access to Passover, so baptism grants access to the Lord’s Supper.
How does this “circumcision without hands” relate to circumcision as the sign of the Abrahamic covenant? Now that the Abrahamic covenant is fulfilled in Christ, the bloody rite of circumcision, which separated out the nation of Israel as the people through whom the seed would come, has been fulfilled and abrogated. It no longer functions as a sign of the covenant or as the badge of membership in Abraham’s family. If circumcision separated out Israel, and Christ has now united Jew and Gentile in his death, circumcision can no longer function as the badge of membership in God’s covenant family because that would exclude Gentiles (cf. Acts 15). Note that in Galatians, Paul lumps circumcision in with the law of Moses, even though it was given long before to Abraham, because circumcision, like the law, erected the Jew/Gentile barrier.
How does circumcision relate to new covenant baptism? It is not precise enough to say that baptism “replaces” circumcision since that sidesteps the actual argument Paul makes. It’s closer to the truth to say baptism fulfills circumcision, and it does so because both circumcision and baptism are linked to the cross. We who are baptized are circumcised – but we were circumcised in union with Jesus at the cross. We enter into union with The Circumcised One via baptism (objectively) and faith (subjectively), as we receive by what God offers us in the sacrament, namely Christ and all his benefits. But note that there are significant difference between circumcision and baptism: circumcision pointed ahead to the coming seed, baptism unites us to the seed who has come; circumcision was bloody, baptism is watery, since a bloody sign would not be fitting for the new covenant, but water fits with the cleansing blood of Christ and the outpoured Spirit; circumcision divided Jew and Gentile, whereas baptism unites Jew and Gentile.
We can paraphrase Colossians 2:11-12 this way:
“You Gentile believers are being pressured by the Judaizers to be circumcised, but you do not need to be circumcised because you were already circumcised covenantally by a circumcision performed without human hands in your union with Christ. He fulfilled the meaning of circumcision, not only in that he was circumcised as an infant, but especially in his death on the cross, where he offered the final blood sacrifice. The meaning of circumcision – salvation through the promised seed of the woman and seed of Abraham – was fulfilled in his crucifixion, so even as you were co-crucified with him, so you were co-circumcised in him. To receive circumcision would be redundant and would be an insult to Jesus who shed his bleed for you. In his circumcision-death, your body of flesh – your fallenness – has been cut off, even as Christ was cut off at the cross. Your flesh died in Jesus’ death on the cross. All of this became yours in baptism, when you were united to Christ, and thus buried with him and raised with him. What God accomplished in your baptism, uniting you to Christ in his death, burial and resurrection, is now yours by faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Jesus from the dead.”
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In general, I really don’t want AI to take anyone’s job. But there’s one exception — if AI put Hollywood out of business, I’d be ok with that.
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Parents should leave an inheritance to their children and grandchildren. This inheritance is spiritual, financial, and civilizational.
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Barclay on sorcery/witchcraft in Galatians 5:20:
“Witchcraft: this literally means the use of drugs. It can mean the healing use of drugs by a doctor; but it can also mean poisoning, and it came to be especially connected with the use of drugs for sorcery, of which the ancient world was full.”
— William Barclay, The New Daily Study Bible: The Letters To The Galatians And Ephesians
J. T. Noonan makes an interesting point:
“Paul’s usage here cannot be restricted to abortion, but the term he chose is comprehensive enough to include the use of abortifacient drugs.”
Walter Martin defines a sorcerer as “one who practices the induction of formulas, potions, or incantations to assist in gaining power over a person or an event. In the New Testament, this is referenced by Paul in Galatians 5: 22 by the Greek word pharmakia, which includes illicit drugs for spiritual awareness, promoted by the infamous Timothy Leary and others. Richard N. Longnecker points out that pharmakia “also acquired two negative connotations: the use of drugs to poison people and the use of drugs in sorcery or Witchcraft.””
Dave Hunt on sorcery/witchcraft and drugs:
“Sorcerers and sorceries are condemned in the Old Testament (Exodus 7; Isaiah 47; Jeremiah 27; Malachi 3). In the New Testament sorcery and sorcerers are again denounced (Acts 13:6, 8; Revelation 9:21; 18:23; 21:8; 22:15). Today’s word for sorcerer is shaman; and the Greek word translated sorcery in the New Testament is pharmakeia. The shaman must enter an altered state of consciousness to obtain his spirit guide and effect his sorcery, and often the means of doing so is through mind-altering drugs…. Already two generations of youth have been led unwittingly into sorcery. They thought they were just having fun on “recreational” drugs, only to be ushered seductively into the sorcerer’s world. As a result, they developed a basically Hindu philosophy of life that totally transformed them. We have already quoted Terence McKenna that the entities one meets on drug trips “are trying to teach us something.” Brad Green is only one of multitudes who stepped into the occult through the psychedelic door. His experience is typical of many which have been related to the author in interviews around the world. Here are his own words: When I first took acid [LSD], I took weak enough doses just to have fun and see colors and psychedelic patterns … but when I started taking really heavy doses … I got a spirit guide. After that, whenever I took psychedelic drugs, I was always guided by spirit beings. I had spirit teachers showing me lessons, making diagrams right in front of me. … One of the first times I took a strong dose of LSD, I had a lesson in astrology. … I saw all the signs of the zodiac … the whole thing was laid out in living color, big charts … information being printed right in front of me by spirit beings. … I heard their voices, but I didn’t see any of them at that time. On another LSD trip, the spirit guides taught me about Hinduism. … They taught me the highest Hindu vibration, OM [pronounced AUM]. I saw the whole universe dissolve into vibrations and started seeing vibrations of energy coming out of phone wires … and the spirits showed me that everything came down to one basic vibration, the OM. I saw “vibes” in people. … I had quit high school and devoted my life to taking drugs. … With spirits teaching me, I thought I’d entered into a higher education … more worthwhile than just dull stuff in school. One of my friends was taught Transcendental Meditation by spirits on an LSD trip. He never had any teaching from Maharishi. By the time he was 18, just following what the spirits had taught him … he had reached Cosmic-consciousness. Later on we were heavily influenced by the Beatles. They had a record called “Revolver” that I’d heard but didn’t understand until I heard it again … when I was stoned. The song was teaching meditation. It said, “Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream, listen to the voices, are they not speaking …!” It was about spirit beings guiding you into Cosmic-consciousness. A lot of stuff the Beatles put into their albums … had all kinds of enticement to get kids into LSD … then later they advocated Maharishi Mahesh Yogi after they’d … gotten into TM. The Beatles, I think, were largely responsible for initiat ing hundreds of thousands of kids … into the Eastern way of thinking. … I accepted everything the spirits taught me because it had to be truth coming from the Universal Self. I began to believe that was what God was. I started to believe that God was the OM and that the universe was just maya, an illusion. … [Later] I began to realize that the spirits had been teaching me Hinduism. I accepted it as truth—I didn’t care what it was called. 15 Such experiences cannot be attributed to imagination or coincidence. There is a very clear purpose and a unity to what is taught to those who enter the sorcerers’ world. It is the same worldwide in all cultures and in all periods of history. Unquestionably, contact has been made with nonhuman intelligences that have a definite agenda.”
I don’t necessarily agree with everything Hunt says, or those whose experiences he cites, but it is certainly interesting.
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“Drug abuse is not ONLY a physiological issue; but may definitely involve in some way, shape, or fashion a level of spiritual warfare that we as Christians need to be engaging in even as we minister to our loved ones who are addicts.
Addicts will often need medical help, as their bodies often become chemically dependent. The Bible has always authorized and approved the use of legitimate medicinal use (cf. Isaiah 38:21; Luke 10:34; Colossians 4:14). As Christians, let us minister not only to the bodies of our friends who struggle with addiction; let us minister spiritually to them as well. This will include studying the Word of God with them (1 Peter 3:15; Matthew 28:19-20), bearing their burdens (Galatians 6:1-2), and even being willing to pray and fast for them as well (assuming we are medically able to fast-see Mark 9:29). God has promised us in His Word: “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7)…
We must always remember that while the abuse of drugs is sinful and may open one up to demonic influence, there is still a place in Scripture for the appropriate use of drugs. This is shown in many passages:
Isaiah 38:21-Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a lump of figs, and apply it as a poultice on the boil, and he shall recover.”
Luke 10:34-So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
Colossians 4:14-Luke the beloved physician and Demas greet you.
This passage from the Apocrypha well represents how the Jewish people (and many in the early church) looked upon the proper use of drugs:
Sirach 38:1-2, 4-8, 12-15-““Honor the physician with the honor due him, according to your need of him, for the Lord created him; for healing comes from the Most High, and he will receive a gift from the king… The Lord created medicines from the earth, and a sensible man will not despise them. Was not water made sweet with a tree in order that his power might be known? And he gave skill to men that he might be glorified in his marvelous works. By them he heals and takes away pain; the pharmacist makes of them a compound. His works will never be finished; and from him health is upon the face of the earth… And give the physician his place, for the Lord created him; let him not leave you, for there is need of him. There is a time when success lies in the hands of physicians, for they too will pray to the Lord that he should grant them success in diagnosis and in healing, for the sake of preserving life. He who sins before his Maker, may he fall into the care of a physician.”
Let us not forget that God has provided a place for the legitimate use of drugs in this world.”
— Mark Tabata (https://marktabata.com/2022/01/03/1940/)
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“Attempts to interact with demons are growing across the West as formerly Christian nations apostasize and invite mass immigration of peoples who worship gods that the Bible says are demons. The Wall Street Journal recently published a feature about the increase in especially Gen Zers purchasing spells from witches on Etsy.
Brazilians pay witches to brew potions over relationship troubles, and Haitians murder over their culture’s widespread voodoo practices. The increasing use of psychedelics also promises extraterrestrial encounters. Many Muslims believe in good and evil spirits, spiritual possession, and magic charms…people professionally dedicated to hating Jesus Christ are often more outspoken than Christians about the spiritual dimensions of our culture wars. For example, many of the growing number of “witches” today openly declare that their LGBT sexual choices correlate with Satanism.
An early transgender activist proclaimed in an “academic paper” that his choice to fake a female body was a deliberate act of rebellion against God and a declaration of allegiance to Lucifer. (Lucifer is the Bible’s name for the chief fallen angel; it means “angel of light.”) The “Church of Satan” in the United States is majority-queer and manipulates the United States’ historic legal protections for freedom of Christian worship to force anti-Christian blasphemy into public displays.
Many Christians, including pastors, are far more delicate and ashamed than Satanists to say what the Bible says about these spiritual matters. This leaves God’s Word poorly defended by many who are duty-bound to proclaim it in the public square….
Humans have a vast capacity for evil that doesn’t require external influence. But engaging in evil certainly seems to invite external forces to amplify its effects. Ristau says that sexual sins, participating in false religions, and drug abuse especially tend to invite demonic oppression. All these are dramatically expanding within Western countries.”
— Joy Pullman (https://thefederalist.com/2025/08/01/how-christians-can-engage-in-the-spiritual-warfare-that-drives-the-culture-wars/)
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““Sorcerer” is a general term for any occult practice. It may include drug use , meditation , or both, but it always has some method to cause an altered state of consciousness…”
— Ken Johnson
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What’s the best thing the pope has ever done with his ex catheda powers?
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When the church is faithful in fulfilling the Great Commission, the graph moves in the other direction and society comes to be more and more aligned with the Bible (think of the church “taming” and transforming ancient Greco-Roman society)
When the salt loses the saltiness, the gap grows in the other direction and society rots (like we are seeing all around us)
Every society is either being discipled or de-discipled all the time
Or to put it another, every society is being discipled, either in the ways of the true God or the ways of an idol
Our society is now deep in the grip of idolatry
But there are still quite a few who have not bowed the knee to Baal…
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Some question the authenticity of this Thomas Jefferson story, but if it didn’t happen, it should have:
“…with his large red prayer book under his arm when a friend querying him after their mutual good morning said which way are you walking Mr. Jefferson. To which he replied to Church Sir. You going to church Mr. J. You do not believe a word in it. Sir said Mr. J. No nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man and I as chief Magistrate of this nation am bound to give it the sanction of my example. Good morning Sir.”
The story is cited in Ethan Allen’s Papers 1856-1874.
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Secularism lives on borrowed values – borrowed from Christian faith. Secularism is a cut flower.
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Trying to stay neutral in the culture war is losing by forfeit.
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“A strong presumption is furnished against the modern Puritan doctrine as compared with the Calvinistic or Reformed in the fact that the first may be said to be of yesterday only in the history of the Church, while the last, so far is the difference in question is concerned, has been the faith of nearly the whole Christian world from the beginning. It included indeed a protest against the errors with which the truth had been over laid in the Church of Rome. It rejected transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the mass; and refused to go with Luther and his dogma of the local presence. But in all this it formed no rupture with the original doctrine of the Church. That which had constituted the central idea of this doctrine from the first, and which appears even under the perversions that have just been named, it still continued to hold with a firm grasp. It is this central idea, the true and proper substance of the ancient church faith precisely, that created the difference between the Reformed doctrine and the modern Puritan. In the Reformed system it is present in all its force; in the other it is wanting. The voice of antiquity is all on the side of the 16th century, in its high view of the sacrament. To the low view, which has since come to prevail, it lends no support whatever.”
— Nevin
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“Modern Christianity, whether modernist or evangelical, is essentially centered on the individual, his experience, decision, or action, whether social or personal. It is essentially related to the Romantic movement with its priority on human experience and action. Within the evangelical community, this meant revivalism, with its emphasis on personal decision making. Within the openly modernist churches, this has led to the social gospel and its stress on remaking the social order. This has usually meant political action, but not necessarily so. Now, it is clearly true that conversion is necessary as the beginning of the Christian life, and equally true that faith will express itself in society. The emphasis, however, cannot be on the individual nor on society; both stresses are alike humanistic. Our Lord says plainly that priority must be given to the Kingdom of God and to God’s righteousness or justice (Matt. 6:33).”
— R.J. Rushdoony
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J. D. Greear said, “I would loved to have read Paul’s prescription for a new and better Rome. But his focus was on witness to Jesus, church-building, and making disciples.”
This is a false dichotomy. It is total accommodation to liberalism. It is culture war surrender. It effeminate and stupid. It is a failure to understand the Bible as a basic level.
First, what Greear outlines could easily be considered “a prescription for a better Rome” since Paul expected church building and discipleship to have cultural effects.
Second, Paul was very concerned about bearing witness to Jesus specifically before kings, including Caesar.
Third, Paul did give an explicit prescription for a better Rome in Romans 13, where he gives the magistrate his God-authorized, God-ordained job description.
Fourth, Paul regularly critiques the “Gentile” (Roman) way of life in passages like Romans 1 and Ephesians 4.
Fifth, this completely misses the deeply political language and categories used in the NT – Jesus is called a king and announced a kingdom, words like “gospel,” “church,” and “justice” were politically loaded, etc.
Sixth, if Greear was consistent with his own program, he’d have to criticize everyone from Wilberforce to MLK to the pro-life movement for mixing the Christian and the political.
Finally, Jesus commissioned his church to teach the nations “everything he commanded” – and that includes commands about marriage, life, sex and the sexes, the purpose of civil government, life in the womb, borders, rules about immigration, etc. Greear has unhitched himself not only from the OT but a lot of the NT with his approach.
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Civil law has a didactic function in calibrating the consciences of the citizenry.
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Socialism is just safetyism in the economic sphere – it’s protecting people from themselves, protecting them from failure and risk, protecting them from the consequences of bad decisions, etc. It’s a trade off – freedom and responsibility are exchanged for a nanny state that smothers people with “care” and “help.”
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We’re running out of names to call things.
“Progressivism” is synonymous with modern liberalism and leftism today, but it’s been used many times in history for movements that were far less radical.
The term “nationalism” has certainly changed. “Christian nationalism” is essentially a Christian-shaped form of patriotism, but nationalism has meant something far more sinister in the past.
If you around in the 1980s, you might remember when Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority were referred to as the “new Christian right” and “right wing.” Those labels mean something different today.
The term “reconstruction” had one meaning after the Civil War, and a quite different meaning in the “Christian Reconstructionist” movement.
Etc.
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Jon Harris on Russel Moore and immigration:
“Most Christians who support Trump’s immigration policies agree that people should be treated as human beings, but they do not believe that a broad and abstract understanding of loving others can be applied to open borders while ignoring the social boundaries that define a people. Moore has nothing to say about loving proximate neighbors first, or about how Old Testament laws limited sojourners from permanently owning land (Leviticus 25:23) and becoming rulers or religious leaders (Deuteronomy 17:15, Numbers 18:7). According to God’s law, foreigners, unlike Israelites, could also be perpetual slaves (Leviticus 25:44-46). Plus, they did not come at the same scale as compared with modern immigration. Israel had walls around their cities to protect them when that many foreigners showed up all at once. How this fits with Moore’s version of treating others as human remains unexplained.
The ancient world did not face the problems of mass transit or expansive social welfare systems, but it still maintained social barriers that clearly distinguished insiders from outsiders. Yet Moore does not appear willing to approach the policy question using biblical categories. Such an approach would likely yield a conservative application. Instead, he seeks to employ personal charity in the service of liberal policy outcomes.”
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People are complaining that ICE agents are a terror to illegal immigrants. But this is a good thing. Romans 13 says the magistrate is supposed to be a terror to those who break the law.
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Think how arrogant you’d have to be to interrupt a worship service in order to make a political point – as if your protest is more important the worshipping the Living and Eternal God, the Creator, Ruler, and Redeemer. The only kind of person who interrupts the worship of God is a person who thinks of himself as god.
Think how arrogant you’d have to be to consider your political chants as more important than a sermon preached from God’s inspired, infallible, inerrant, life-giving Word. The only kind of person who does that is a person who thinks his word is more important than God’s Word.
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Islam – a religion so great that Muslims can’t wait to leave the countries it built and go to countries Christians built.
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In our day, Satan’s strategy is to defeat the cultural mandate – and so we have men who don’t want to work and women who don’t want to be mothers. We have plummeting marriage rates and birth rates. We have sodomy, a form of sterile sex, and transgenderism, which sterilizes the sexes. Satan is seeking to upend the created order. God gave man the creation mandate; Satan has his anti-creation mandate.
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Progressives are triggered by reality.
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The First Great Awkening lost covenant succession, replacing covenant nurture with a conversion experience.
The Second Great Awakening lost Calvinism, replacing it with Arminianism, and liturgy, replacing it revivalistic para-church meetings.
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“I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially to the extent to which it has been applied, will be one of the greatest jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity it has.”
— Malcolm Muggeridge
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This article from a few years back explains why we must have Christian nationalism and why liberalism, which its supposedly neutral commitment to pluralism, simply cannot solve our problems:
David French wants a culture truce instead of a culture war. He wants a neutral public square, with no winners or losers. The absurdity and impossibility of this should be obvious.
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“What could be more full of meaning?—for the pulpit is ever this earth’s foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God’s quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favourable winds. Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow.”
— Herman Melville
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It’s like the Democrats read Romans 1:18-32 as a prescription for their party platform instead of a description of the judgment of God. The Democrats are the Romans 1 party.
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If Christians stay out of politics, Satan has the field to himself.
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Our society looks like a lot Romans 1:18-32. In fact, the Epstein files make the evil of Romans 1 look like child’s play. We are a perverse people ruled by even more perverse “elites.”
What does this mean? The biggest threat to America is not the progressives, or Israel, or China, or the Democratic Party, or a secret cabal that runs everything from behind the scenes. The biggest threat to America is Jesus and his rod of iron (Psalm 2). Jesus blessed us and Jesus can curse us.
We will not vote our way out of this. We need an exorcism. We should not abandon the political sphere, but our problems run much deeper than just electing this candidate or passing that law. Politics can solve political problems, but there is no political solution to spiritual problems.
God really does judge nations over time in history. See Deuteronomy 27-28, Jeremiah 18:7-10 and Proverbs 14:34. God is patient but eventually gives a people over to what they have chosen.
When a people experience the judgment of God, the only real answer is repentance. Think of Ninevah in Jonah’s day: Ninevah was ripe for judgment, Jonah announced it, the king and people repented, and judgment was averted.
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We are not as amazed as we should be that the Christian church conquered the Roman Empire without lifting a sword (other than the sword of the Spirit). The peaceable Christianization of the Empire is one of the most astounding facts of history.
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We have to come to grips with the fact that secularism has failed. The secular project has been a complete disaster.
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Only sanctified men can sanctify culture.
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Every Christian congregation is political. Politics is inescapable. If a pastor does not disciple his people politically, he leaves a void to be filled by CNN, or Joe Rogan, or AOC, or some other source. Political discipleship is always taking place; it’s just a question who is doing the discipling.
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Nations that will not have as Christ as their king will face him as their Judge.
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Capitalism, unlike socialism, takes seriously the evil in man incentivizes the good – hard work, service, innovation, ingenuity, creativity, grit, etc.
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The Bible never commands us to show empathy (the closest would be Romans 12:15). Instead it commands us to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). Empathy feels what another feels; love seeks the good of the other, as defined by God’s law.
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A lot of the current rise of Jew hate is due to viewing Jews as the architects of the Neo-con movement, which shaped American foreign policy for both parties for a long time. Yes, many Jews were a driving force behind Neo-con policies — but quite a few Gentiles were involved as well.
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The culture war is the spiritual war. It’s been that way for a while now, but the Epstein files prove just how demonic many of the global “elites” are.
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“Paradox sits by the springs of truth. This, the more hopeless the situation is, the more hopeful I must be; the more faithless an age becomes the more faith is demanded of the faithful.”
— G.K. Chesterton
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Some forms of ecclesiocentrism are about retreating from the culture into the enclave of the church and (very oddly) end up functioning like R2K (radical two kingdom theology).
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Jesus did not teach we are the salt of the church or the light of the church. He said we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Our pursuit of righteousness is not confined to our personal lives or the four walls of the church; it is to spill over into the culture.
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Men, if you won’t lead your families, Satan will. That’s what happens in Genesis 3. It’s either patriarchy or Satanarchy.
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Ecclesiastes teaches us we cannot script our lives. It’s like trying to shepherd the wind. Everything is vapor. Any illusion of control we have is just that – an illusion.
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“It is God’s purpose to set up one kingdom and demolish the other, not only in the hearts of particular men, but in kingdoms and nations and public societies. Jesus Christ was appointed to be not only ‘king of saints’ (Rev. 15:3), but ‘king of nations’ (Jer. 10:7); and therefore not only to erect Himself a throne and a government in the hearts of His people, but to have His religion owned and countenanced, and supported by nations and kingdoms and public societies of men.”
— Thomas Manton, Works, Vol. 18, p. 34
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An old X thread on Christian nations and nationalism:
The gospel creates unity amongst all believers; the gospel unites all who are in Christ into one people, one family, one nation. Jesus prays for the unity of his people to be manifested in the world (John 17), and that oneness is always a spiritual reality, even if our sin sometimes obscures it. There is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, as the creed says. This oneness means all believers are part of the same body; catholicity means this one church is universal, embracing all believers in all times and places. The gospel includes the reconciliation of different nations and people groups in Christ (Eph. 2:11ff), with the result that nations can beat their swords into plowshares (Isa. 2). 1/7
We must also affirm that the gospel does not annihilate creational or providential structures like distinct families and nations, but rather sanctifies them. The gospel does not obliterate the distinction between my household and the other households that make up the membership of my local church. The gospel links us together in Christ but does not negate the integrity of each natural family. My household continues to be a real household, even as my household is incorporated into the larger household of God. 2/7
Likewise, the gospel does not negate nationalities. Nations in a group of Christianized nations would each retain their own unique identity (language, borders, culture), even as those nations are linked together in a wider network of nations we’d call Christendom. Yes, a group of Christianized and discipled nations will share many things in common because of their common submission to Christ, but they will also bring their *peculiar* treasures into Christ’s kingdom (Isa. 60). 3/7
In other words, Christendom – a collection of Christian nations – is not the same kind of program we see with secular globalism today. Indeed, it is fundamentally antithetical to it. The gospel does not destroy cultures but sanctifies and transforms them. Globalism dehumanizes; the gospel rehumanizes. Globalism destroys diversity for the sake of unity; the gospel sanctifies diversity for the sake of unity. Globalism is totalitarian; the gospel is liberating. 4/7
Within a Christian nation, the gospel will serve as the foundation of civil unity. A Christian nation, after all, is a people who seek to share not just temporal goods but the eternal good of Christ’s kingdom. A Christian nation is not a nation in which every individual is a Christian, but a nation that is committed to conforming its corporate life, it social customs, its laws and culture, to the rule of Christ as much as possible, recognizing that civil government, the church, and the family each have their own spheres and their own roles to play. But this does not mean that two Christian nations will become identical any more than two Christian families are identical. The same principles and truths can be worked out and applied in various ways. A Christian nation is simply a nation that recognizes the truths that Christ is Lord, the church is his bride, and the Bible is his Word. 5/7
Note that Pentecost in Acts 2 is not the reversal of Babel but the sanctification of Babel. At Pentecost, the various ethnicities do not revert to speaking one language (= Babelic globalism) but rather each hears the gospel in his own tongue (= distinct Christian nations). The point of Pentecost is not to recreate the Babelic situation, where all of humanity is smushed together into one people with one language. Rather, the point of Pentecost is to bring about the transformation of those nations downstream from Babel. History never goes backwards, it only goes forwards, and Petencost does not undo Babel but take the gospel to the nations formed in the aftermath of a Babel. The point is not for all of humanity to speak one language again, but for the gospel to be spoken in a multitude of languages. 6/7
There is a kind of global oneness promised in the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 12) and reiterated in other texts (Isaiah 2, Psalm 2, Daniel 4, etc.), and of course these promises undergird the church’s Great Commission. But the discipling of the nations does not eradicate nations, it just transforms and sanctifies them. The Great Commission does not make us faceless, placeless “global citizens.” Rather, the it makes each nation Christian in a distinctive way. Thus: the Christianization of China makes the Chinese more fully and uniquely Chinese; the Christianization of Brazil will make Brazilians more fully and uniquely Brazilian; the Christianization of Canada will make Canadians more fully and uniquely Canadian; etc. The eschatological vision for the nations is one of unity *and* diversity, of many unique people groups joined together as one in Christ, with the oneness and manyness equally ultimate. 7/7
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An old X post on nations, races, and ethnicity:
The Bible has very little to say about races and a lot to say about ethnicities/nations. While there is overlap between race and ethnicity, they are not identical and the distinctions are important (I have addressed this elsewhere).
People of all races bear God’s image. They all descend from one man. They are all fallen in one man. They can all be redeemed in One Man.
Because all individuals bear the image of God, there is a sense in which we can speak of the equality of all people. But this kind of equality does not imply egalitarianism. Individuals vary widely in gifts and talents. They vary widely in degrees of sinfulness (though all are totally depraved and thus unable to please God in the flesh). If they are believers they can reach varying levels of personal holiness. Some Christians make more progress in discipleship and grow to greater maturity than other Christians. Of course, all progress and maturation in righteousness is by grace, so those Christians who grow to a greater degree have nothing to boast about. Indeed, boasting in oneself is a sign that one does not understand the grace of the gospel at all. Everything is a gift, including natural endowments (intelligence, athletic ability, creativity, etc.) and salvific endowments (faith, repentance, etc.).
When we consider the same issues at the ethnic/national level, we must say that all cultures show the effects of the fall. Every people group has been guilty of horrific atrocities at various times in history. Widespread ignorance of history sometimes blinds us to this reality, but it most certainly true. We can also say that God’s plan is for each nation to be discipled and brought into his kingdom en masse over the course of history. This is what the Great Commission requires (and as a postmillennialist, I believe that Great Commission will be fulfilled — I make the case for that elsewhere).
We are not required to say that each nation, or the culture of each nation, is equal. We must reject cultural egalitarianism. We must reject so-called multiculturalism. Over time, across history, as God’s plan unfolds, each nation will reflect both the effects of the fall and the effects of redemption. And of course, nations and their cultures are not static — a nation that might be horrifically wicked at one point in history might be very righteous, relatively speaking, at another time in history. Nations rise and fall. Nations repent and later apostatize. Nations are blessed and cursed and blessed again over the course of history. Some nations go out of existence altogether and new nations form. But all nations have a role to play in God’s plan for history. When a nation and its culture show signs of progress and maturing in God’s truth, goodness, and beauty, we must attribute this to grace.
A Christian nation will not boast in its accomplishments, but give thanks to God for his tender mercies. A boastful nation is not a properly Christian nation. We must boast only in what God’s grace has done among us — and the way we boast in grace is by giving thanks. Even the so-called natural endowments of a nation are bestowed by grace. Everything good in any nation comes from divine grace.
Nations, and the cultures that develop within each nation, will have diverse strengths and weaknesses, diverse gifts and talents. Obviously, different nations have different endowments, apportioned by God as he sees fit. As every nation is discipled, every nation will ultimately bring its treasures into the kingdom of God (Isaiah60:11), but nothing in Scripture suggests that every nation and culture will bring *equally* glorious treasures into the kingdom of God. Just as individual Christians will have varying levels of glory and reward in the resurrection, so different nations will contribute varying levels of treasure to the kingdom.
We can certainly make judgments about which nations (and their cultures) have been superior to this point in history. There should be no question, at least for Christians, that the nations that belong to what we call Western Civilization (or Western Christendom) have been the high water mark to this point in history. But that does not mean Western Civilization can never be surpassed by any other nation or group of nations. It is impossible to say which national culture will be the most glorious over the course of history until history is complete. Thus claims that this or that nation is *intrinsically* superior to all other nations are premature. We do not know what the future holds, and we do not know how the leaven of the gospel might permeate and transform other nations and cultures in the millennia to come.
One thing is certain: Nations and cultures that become arrogant and boastful will be judged; and nations and cultures that are humbly receptive to the gospel and grateful for its transforming power will be blessed.
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What would Aristotle have said about the situation described in Acts 13:1?
“Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.”
At the very least, this is a mix of Jewish and Gentile men who have become Christians and who are now fellow teachers in the church.
The church is not a democracy but presumably these men all had the approval of the church.
I don’t think Aristotle could have imagined such a thing – but the gospel created it.
This is Gill’s comment:
“As Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger; the former of these was a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus, who sold his land and brought the money to the apostles; and who was first sent hither by the church at Jerusalem, upon hearing that many in this place believed, and turned to the Lord, Acts 4:36 but of the latter no mention is made elsewhere; by his first name he appears to be a Jew, who by the Romans was called Niger; very likely from the blackness of his complexion, for that word signifies “black”: and so the Ethiopic version interprets it…”
The gospel did not negate in group preferences (see Paul’s love for his kinsmen in Romans. 9) but it did create a previously unknown love for the out group (eg, Ephesians 2:11ff).
In group absolutism cannot be squared with the gospel any more than out group absolutism.
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Acts 2 reinforces both patriarchy and paedobaptism.
Peter addresses his sermon to the “men on Judea,” “men of Israel,” and “brothers” in 2:14, 22, 30. Then he says in 2:39 the promise is “for you” and “for your children.” Whose children? The children of the men he’s been addressing.
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What Don Lemon and his fellow agitators did in the church in Minneapolis was wrong, not because the church is a private association meeting on private property, but because the church is a public assembly, the body and bride of Christ, the new Israel, and as such is entitled to public protection. An attack on the church is an attack on Christ himself. It is an attack on the embassy of another nation, a holy nation, the visible manifestation of God’s kingdom on earth.
The civil magistrate should prosecute Lemon because the magistrate has a duty to protect the church as a “nursing father” (Isaiah 49), ensuring Christians can gather peaceably and live quiet lives of godliness (1 Timothy 2). The civil magistrate should prosecute Lemon and the other mobsters because the magistrate is God’s deacon, entrusted with the sword of God’s vengeance, to terrorize the evil doer and protect the righteous (Romans 13). A faithful magistrate would terrorize Lemon and the protestors, while praising the congregation of Cities Church for their wise and tempered response.
Ironically, Lemon and his fellow protestors did what they did to provide cover for law breakers – illegal immigrants who have trespassed into the USA. They broke the law in support of lawbreakers. But by invading a church to terrify and mock its members, they trespassed into the new Israel, violating the law of God (and in this case, also American law). The protestors’ presence inside the church was just as criminal as the presence of illegal aliens on American soil – only more so because while America is an ordinary nation, the church is a holy nation. Lemon has attacked the kingdom, house, and family of God. He should be dealt with accordingly.
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Pastors should be trusted to call balls and strikes according to the Word of God. Scripture gives us the strike zone. But if you go to a baseball game, you’ll notice that fans yell at the umps as much as they yell for their own team. There’s a lesson in there.
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Courage is rightly ordered fear: it is putting fear of God above fear of men.
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“Why have we let the Democrat Party become controlled by people who don’t have children? And why is this just a normal fact of American life? That the leaders of our country should be people who don’t have a personal and direct stake in it via their own offspring, via their own children and grandchildren?”
— J. D. Vance
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Whites today blaming Jews is really no different than blacks blaming whites. Everyone is looking for a scapegoat to alleviate responsibility.
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The left favors as welfare state and socialism not out of some kind of misguided compassion but as a way bribing voters. They started this strategy especially with blacks during LBJ’s “war on poverty” but it has greatly expanded now to include immigrants and other groups.
Of course, it helps when you control the money bag (like Judas) because you can skim off the top for you and your friends. And this is what the left has done, using NGOs and government programs to enrich their friends. It becomes a massive money-laundering scheme, as those who receive the funds receive them in the form of campaign contributions.
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“Anti-Semitism” is a sloppy category. The discussion is not about all Semites (descendants from Shem).
But “anti-Jewish” is not much better. Jews are all over the place. Some are Christians (indeed, the very first Christians were Jews). Some are atheists. Some are Talmudists. Some are secular progressives, some are secular conservatives.
The issue is not really racial. The problem is not that Jews have uniquely corrupted DNA. The issue is spiritual and religious; secondarily, it is ethnic.
There is also confusion over Zionism. “Zionism” is Jewish nationalism; it is the view that Jews have an inalienable right to the land that was granted to them in 1948. But it must be understood that many Zionists are not Jews — and some Jews are not Zionists. Dispensationalists are, on the whole, Zionists but for very different reasons than non-Christian Jews. Dispensationalists see the formation of modern Israel as connected to biblical prophecy, especially end times prophecy. Most Jewish Zionists see the formation of the nation-state of Israel as an historical right; Jewish Zionists stress the self-determination of the Israeli state. The modern nation-state of Israel is not a Christian state or a Jewish state in the religious sense; it is a secular state.
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When God is not God of the state, the state becomes god – which means politics becomes religion, campaigning becomes evangelism, politicians become saviors, rallies become liturgies.
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Israel’s “holy war” conquest of the Canaanites under Joshua was (1) historical/literal, (2) justified, (3) rather unique, (4) not genocidal, and (5) typological.
For the arguments, go here:
trinity-pres.net/pastor/essays/…
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Joshua’s conquest of Canaan included destroying children, even infants, which raises ethical questions. The conquest presupposes (a) original sin, meaning children are guilty and depraved because all of humanity fell in our first father Adam, and (b) covenant theology, meaning children belong to the gods of their fathers, whether the true God or idols. Further, God was patient with the Canaanites, delaying the conquest until their iniquity had reached its full measure. God wanted the land completely purged of demon worshippers so it could become his holy sanctuary and so Israel would not be drawn to worship the gods of the Canaanites. Sadly, as Israel’s later history showed, their failure to complete the conquest came back to haunt them, as they fell into idolatry again and again.
There was nothing unjust or unfair about Joshua’s conquest of the land. Obviously the kind of herem warfare (“holy war”) Joshua was called to wage is distinct from normal warfare (cf. Deuteronomy 20), and it was rare for God to command such warfare in the old covenant. But there was nothing in it inconsistent with the picture of God we get in the rest of Scripture, including Jesus’ teachings. (Remember, Jesus waged his own herem warfare against apostate Israel in 70ad). God is a God of perfect justice.
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An old X post:
Most of these rules for warfare below would be addressed in passages like Deuteronomy 20, which puts a pretty tight restraint on how godly men conduct war.
The one exception, I think, is a kind of assassination, like we see with Ehud in Judges 3.
“Crushing the head” of the opposing army would seem to be a way to save many lives and hold those most responsible for war (the rulers of nations) accountable.
Ehud was a judge, not a private person, and that is significant, to his assassination of Eglon, of course. But the principle could hold wider application.
I think rulers would be significantly less likely to get their nations into war if they knew they’d be treated as prime military targets. This would be even more true if rulers were going to be expected to fight one another on behalf of their people (cf 1 Samuel 17).
I should add: “Herem warfare,” or “holy war,” like what we see with Israel’s conquest of Canaan is unique, and must be distinguished from other forms of warfare.
Deuteronomy 20 gives rules for normal warfare, not having to do specifically with Canaanites in the land of promise.
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The church does not replace old covenant Israel; the completes old covenant Israel.
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Progressives persecute the church, do not please God, and are enemies of all mankind.
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My friend Will Spencer has written a great article on the psychology of conspiracy theories and scapegoating:
https://www.willspencer.blog/p/the-eight-steps-to-scapegoating
This article is very “fair and balanced” as they say.
The psychology of scapegoating is really a flight from responsibility. It’s easier to blame Jews, or some other group, than to repent and fix your own life. Will does a good job uncovering the way scapegoating conspiracy theories work and why lots of very smart people fall for them.
Will’s article reminds me of David Azerrad’s article on the Jewish Question:
https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-return-of-the-jewish-question/
The fact that Jews are a high achieving people makes them an easy target, but you really have to play fast and lose with the facts to conclude the Jews are omnipotent, omniscient group who secretly control everything. And yet I know smart people who fall for it.
There’s a deep connection between conspiracy theories, identity politics, and anti-semitism.
It’s important to stress: Western civilization was not murdered by outsiders; we committed suicide via insiders. We did this to ourselves. We have no one to blame but ourselves.
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Basically, no matter what Jews (or any other group) have done to subvert Western civilization, it’s still our fault for letting it happen. Western civilization did not get murdered; we committed suicide.
Conspiracy theories and scapegoating are often just a way to escape responsibility.
Blaming “the Jews” is easier than repenting.
None of that denies the role various individual Jews many have played in spreading corruption – but they were hardly alone, and those corruptions would never had gotten traction unless people wanted to be corrupted.
If you misdiagnose the problem you will mis-prescribe the solution.
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In Kruptos’ article on why there are no evangelical elites, he pointed to the fact that all evangelical political theology is borrowed.
I think he’s right about that.
The Reformed, unlike evangelicals, don’t have to borrow. We have a tradition with a strong political theology. But unfortunately, few know what it is – and even among those who do have some idea of what it is, many aspects of it are contested. Our confessions address the political and the purpose of civil government, but most Reformed people don’t believe their own confessions on this point.
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Jon Harris, echoing my own thoughts on the problem with scapegoating vs taking responsibility for our nation’s problems:
“There are two broad ways in Right leaning political circles for understanding where things went wrong.
One starts with the assumption that America was fine until foreign ideas and influence were impressed upon her by an elite class through money and manipulation.
Boomers and Xers thought Russia and China. Millenials and Zoomers think in a flipped Cold War narrative that it’s Israel & Jews.
The other starts with the assumption that Americans, because of their own sin, have succumbed to modern liberal notions as Christianity waned. Whatever foreign forces are at play, have been allowed entry through our own perilous desires.
They focus less on money and more on why destructive ideas are enticing to us to begin with.
I have been surrounded by Cold Warriors and now their grandchildren who preach the same message while rearranging villain categories, my whole life.
Is it Soros or Netanyahu who made things bad?
Maybe it’s us. Maybe we have collectively left our first love. Maybe we have succumbed to modern speculations instead of trusting time tested truths. Maybe we have believed lies about gender, family, nationality, etc. because we wanted to believe them?
None of this discounts outside influence, but it puts it in its proper place—subservient to our own wills and loves.
There is no restoration without a sense of identity and virtue. Only then can we fully cast off compromising external influences.”
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Prayer and psalms are crucial to spiritual and cultural warfare. But they do not substitute for political action – rather, they ground and guide our political action.
The church is political and should a t like it. Pastors are counselors to kings, like prophets in ancient Israel.
This is counter to many who want the church to play no role in public life (eg, pastors should not preach political sermons). They view the church as private and not political. But this denies what the church is as a holy nation, the kingdom of Christ, and a new Israel.
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Josh Abbotoy on the need for the church to have confidence in the face of cultural degradation:
“American Evangelicalism, for all its spiritual vitality and its ample resources, has failed to replicate what the mainlines once achieved. On the whole, Evangelicals tend to build megachurches, not cathedrals; conferences, not elite colleges; platforms, not domains.
There are many explanations offered for this state of affairs. Some point to evangelical theology, where an emphasis on personal conversion deemphasizes institution building. Others cite class, noting that evangelicalism has historically been a middle-class movement rather than an elite-forming one. Still others blame broader cultural forces—expressive individualism, consumerism, and short-termism—that shape all American institutions, religious or otherwise.
Each of these explanations captures something true, but none fully accounts for the deeper failure. Evangelical Christianity has become uncertain—often self-consciously so—about whether its moral vision is good for the nation as a whole. In retreating from claims about the public good of Christian norms, evangelicals have also retreated from the responsibility to build institutions that embody them.
Civilizational Protestantism rested on a confidence that Christian faith was no mere private consolation or a sectarian preference, but a moral inheritance capable of ordering the common life. Its builders believed that Christianity could produce better leaders, more humane institutions, and a more just society. This confidence did not require perfection or coercion. It required the conviction that Christianity, rightly lived, was a blessing to the nation—and therefore something that ought to be publicly expressed, publicly defended, and publicly institutionalized.
By contrast, much of contemporary evangelicalism oscillates between withdrawal and reaction. It resists public responsibility out of fear of overreach, then lashes out when its influence wanes. What it lacks is not passion or conviction in the abstract, but confidence in the legitimacy of its own civilizational project. Without that confidence, institution-building appears either unnecessary or presumptuous.
This is why the question of renewal cannot be answered merely by appeals to faithfulness or growth. It must answer a more basic question: Do we believe evangelical Christianity is good for America? Not just true in the abstract, but formative of citizens, elevating of culture, and worthy of public trust.
So if one were asked what national renewal should actually look like—what a confident, public-minded American Christianity might produce—one could give worse answers than this: a Christianity once again capable of building institutions like the University of the South. Not as relics of a lost establishment, but as expressions of a faith that understands itself as a public good.
Recovering civilizational Protestantism ultimately means recovering the courage to act as though Christianity belongs not only in hearts and homes, but in shared civic life. The question is not whether evangelicals have the resources to do this. It is whether they are prepared to believe, once again, that they should.”
See: https://americanreformer.org/2025/12/recovering-civilizational-protestantism/
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The modern nation state of Israel is not a Christian nation. In fact, it’s not even a Jewish nation in a religious sense. It is secular, progressive state.
We do not owe any nation, including our own, or Israel, unconditional support.
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The re-establishment of the nation of Israel in 1948 was not a fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Any biblical prophecy concerning Israel’s restoration is going to be tied to their conversion to Jesus. He is new David and they still reject his rule ( Jeremiah 30:9, 33:14f).
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There are 4 issues we must sort out regarding Israel:
- What does the Bible say about Israel?
- What does this mean for the modern nation-state of Israel?
- If the prophecies suggest that restored Israel will be complete (including Ephraim and the “lost” northern tribes), what do we do with the fact that those tribes have long since disappeared (cf. Jeremiah 30-31, 34; cf. Acts 26:27)?
- What about anti-semitism?
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Are Jews still special in any sense after 70AD?
Abraham’s genetic descendants are beloved even as they enemies of the gospel, according to Romans 11. This does not mean the broken out branches are saved – obviously not. In Christian theology, salvation is only found by faith in Christ.
It’s interesting how many theologies and cultural analyses revolve around the Jews. Wilson and many Puritans make their conversion the key to the Great Commission. Dispensationalists make them the key to end times prophecy. Groypers makes their malevolence the reason for the downfall of the West.
But what if Jews are not any different than everyone else after 70AD? The only thing different about them (assuming a futurist reading of Romans 11) is they will be the last people group to be fully converted.
We can say the Jews have played a major role in wrecking the West – the cultural Narxism, leftwing politics, Hollywood, etc. But the reality is that plenty of Gentile progressives have also played a role as well. It is really progressivism, not a particular ethnicity, that has wrecked the West. If we try to catch all the “bad guys” using a racial/ethnic net, we will catch many good people, and not catch many of the bad. There will be more collateral damage. But if we use a worldview net, we catch all the bad guys and only the bad guys.
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How do we view modern day unbelieving Jews? As beloved enemies.
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“It it is worse than useless for Christians to talk about the importance of Christian morality, unless they are prepared to take their stand upon the fundamentals of Christian theology.”
— Dorothy Sayers
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Sola Scriptura means two things:
- The Bible is our only inspired, infallible and inerrant authority.
- The Bible is our highest standard above which there is no appeal.
This means that there are other authorities outside the Scriptures. In fact, Scripture establishes the authority of parents, pastors and secular power.
But all these authorities are subject to scripture because they can be wrong. On the other hand, the authority of the Scripture is identical to that of God.
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This article by Dodson makes a lot of great points:
I agree that theonomy and libertarianism make an odd pairing. But I do not think all theonomists were economic libertarians.
A lot of the reconstructionists were drawn to Austrian economics because they thought it closely approximated a biblical view (based on the 8th commandment, 1 Samuel 8, etc.). The law gives liberty, and all that. But they were never pure libertarians imo. I recall Bahnsen saying a properly constituted economy is one in which all *lawful* goods and services are freely exchanged. But the qualifier would seem to carry a lot of the content Dodson is getting at with a “morally activist state,” which reduces the tension between theonomy and the free market. For example, abortion services, LSD, and prostitution could not be freely exchanged in a theonomic free market.
But Dodson does raise the question just how much the state’s role is to protect us from ourselves. How much state interference in the market is warranted, and what biblical or prudential principles guide the state’s management of the market? Are we going to end up with a horseshoe, where right wing Christian nationalists end up advocating for Bernie Sanders’ style economic policies “for the common good”?
One area where I think the theinomists had a good point (possibly derived from the Austrian school) is their critique of fractional reserve banking and the federal reserve. It seems to me this gets at the heart of our house-of-cards debt based economy. North’s book Honest Money is a good assessment of the fed.
I think Dodson is right to point to JBJ as the way the forward. He showed the exegetical/hermeneutical problems with Bahnsen and RJR. He showed the Torah was never intended to function as a complete law code (eg, doesn’t address water pollution) and the penology of Torah had a built in flexibility (except for murder; Numbers 35). I think most people who call themselves theonomic today are general equity theonomists, who believe the Torah (and the rest of Scripture) gives certain basic principles which must be prudentially applied in the new age. Poythress would be an example of someone who has wrestled these issues (in even greater detail than Jordan). His discussion of Deuteronomy 13 in his book The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses is particularly perceptive.
There’s no question biblical law had a deep shaping impact on Western civilization, most especially British common law, tracing back most especially to King Alfred.
Finally, Dodson mentions ecclesiocentrism. There is definitely a form of ecclesiocentrism that is a form of retreat from politics and culture: We just pray and psalm sing our way to cultural change. There is a core truth in this view – I do think the church is the engine that drives cultural change, and I think Jordan demonstrated that exegetically. Judgment begins with the house of God, and reformation does as well. But it’s never exclusively about the church. The state and family have roles to play as well. Prayer is not a substitute for faithful action in other domains. Psalm-singing does not replace political activism but grounds and guides it. Preaching is not an end in itself or a change agent in itself; it is always supposed to lead to action.
There is a kind of ecclesiocentrism that amounts to pietistic retreat and withdrawal, an excuse for not actively working in other spheres. But there is also a kind of ecclesiocentrism that empowers change in the other spheres as the church seeks to disciple them with Word and sacrament. The latter kind of ecclesiocentrism is the need of the hour. As Dodson says, the church’s teaching and sacramental practice can reshape our political and sacramental imagination. But we have to recover what it means for the church to be a holy nation, a body politic, a new Israel.
the church, by being the church in all her fullness, can shape the political and cultural soul of the nation. The church becomes the model of the new humanity for all other spheres, not by usurping the other spheres but by discipling them with Word and sacrament.
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A critique of Jordan’s critique of theonomy:
It seems to me that Jordan created an impossible dilemma – on the one hand showing that Torah is not a complete law code (eg, doesn’t deal with water pollution) while on the other hand completely rejecting natural law (which would allow prudence to fill in the gaps Torah” leaves us with). Jordan’s critique of theonomy helped push me to a “general equity” + “wisdom from nature” position.
I never understood why Jim didn’t land there himself. It seems he continued to hold to Rushdoony’s bad arguments against nature/natural law.
He was a biblicist who admitted we need more than the Bible but didn’t quite fill in the missing piece.
I think Jim’s critique of natural law stands in tension with his understanding of the office of king, which is all about wisdom.
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Charlie Kirk broke third-wayism.
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The first rule for a Christian nationalist program is that it be, well, Christian.
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“We must preach to our age, but woe to us if it is our age we preach, and only hold up the mirror of our time.”
— P. T. Forsyth
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“The church will not transform American society primarily by political or legal action. The church will have its most profound impact on the world by faithfully performing its distinctive tasks of sacramental worship, teaching the whole Word of God, evangelism, discipline, and mercy … These have always been the chief concerns of the church, and, regardless of the condition of the social world, they remain the chief concerns of the church today, the chief means by which the world will be transformed into an image of the coming kingdom.”
— Peter Leithart
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This is something I wrote several months ago which never made it to the blog:
Let’s discuss NETTR — “no enemies to the right.” This topic has gotten a lot of discussion the last few years and I doubt I can add much new to it, so this is really just a matter of putting down a few thoughts for my own benefit.
NETTR gets at something true — the left is much better at staying unified as a power bloc than the right. I addressed this in my essay on Obergefell back in 2015, before I had even heard of NETTR. The right has often been guilty of unnecessary and unproductive infighting, and this has weakened the right’s political prospects. With so much at stake in our current political battles, its not a bad time to rethink the way we have done things. We can learn something from the left and it’s united front (though it seems to me that united front is not as united as it might seem — the left has its own forms of internal bickering).
NETTR is a spin off from Carl Schmitt’s work. I have dipped into Schmitt and while there are some interesting ideas there, I have not found him worth the time. According to Schmitt, politics is not about civil justice. It is not about the magistrate bearing the sword as an avenger of God’s wrath. Politics is about rewarding friends and punishing enemies. We must gain power and then use it to suppress those who threaten us and our way of life.
NETTR advocates often seem to think the right loses because we “play by the rules” and we are more concerned with sticking to our principles than actually winning. That might be the case is some instances. But it seems to me that the right has been weak in recent years mainly because so many on the right are not principled enough — we do not have the courage of our convictions. Too many on the right have been steered by toxic empathy. Or have been manipulated by name calling/slanders. Or live under the progressive gaze. The left is more committed to its lies than we are to truth. We are seeing Conquest’s Second Law play out — it is easier for the left to destroy than it is for the right to build. Deconstruction is always easier than reconstruction.
But I think there’s a deeper issue with NETTR. Every movement simply must police its own if it is to have any long term integrity. We have to draw a line somewhere. We have to have a limiting principle. We can only let the tent get so big before it no longer stands for anything meaningfully rightwing or conservative — much less Christian.
Indeed, that’s really the core issue here. If we are building a “Christian nationalist” movement of some sort, then it has to be recognizably Christian. It has to be informed by and shaped by Christian principles and Christian truth. It cannot be a lowest common denominator approach. It cannot be reducible to pragmatism. It must have a moral compass. It cannot give bad character a pass.
Admittedly, it is easier for the left to get power because the left wants nothing but power. The right is supposed to be about more than that — power exercised in service of truth and virtue; power gained by righteous means and used for righteous ends. The tactics and strategies must be consistent with the end goal.
So my question for NETTR proponents is this: Where would you draw the line? Does NETTR mean including those who call themselves “gay conservatives”? Libertarians who are fine with a libertine drug culture? What about a group of “America first” pedophiles? What about supposed pro-lifers who believe the woman is always a “second victim” in abortion and/or want rape and incest carve outs? I’ve seen men who are supposedly “rightwing” who advocate for socialized health care, government funded daycare for working moms, and the cancellation of college debt — where does that fit in? We cannot criticize any of it?
To say we cannot have any enemies on the right still requires us to know who is on the right — and we cannot do that without some kind of boundary. I’m certainly in favor of building a political coalition with people who think differently than I do on some issues. I’m willing to vote for candidates who do not align 100% with my own positions. I’m not a purist. I recognize that coalition building is the only way to get anything done in the system we have and with the size nation we are. But a political party or movement still has to have some kind of definition. It has to have a boundary. All NETTR really does is back things up one step — if I cannot have any enemies on the right, why can’t I simply say my enemy is not *really* on the right? Whose to say what counts as an “enemy” on the right unless we have a sharply defined understanding of what it means to be on the right? Why can’t I gerrymander what it means to be “rightwing” around my own feet?
Further, just criticizing someone on “our side” is not the same as kicking them out of a movement. A father can correct his children without kicking them out of the family. If a coach corrects one of his players, he is not helping the other team win – he’s helping his own team get better.
But the real issue is never left vs right. It’s biblical vs unbiblical. Or Christian vs unChristian. The Scripture is the standard, not some view of what it means to be rightwing. When we make our view of the right the standard, rather than the Bible, it becomes a race to see who can be more “based” — and this quickly becomes a race to the bottom. I am all in favor of being wise so we can do as much good for our churches and our culture as possible. Maybe God will judge us, maybe he will spare us, but our calling is to serve him and his kingdom. Whatever else we do, seeking first the kingdom is paramount. To reframe this: as i have said before, the biggest threat to America is not the progressive left. The biggest threat to America is King Jesus and his rod of iron. If we are facing judgment, fighting the left is not going to fix anything. Only repentance can save us.
It’s not surprising NETTR arose in the Trump era — an era in which Christians on the right have had to compromise on standards to get “their” candidate into power. I get it — I voted for Trump in ’20 and ’24 because I believe he was better than the alternative. I think it was the wisest course of action, and I still think that. But Trump was never anything more than an emergency measure in an effort to stop the bleeding. He is not a solution, but a stopgap. Trump has bought us some time — but to this point, we have not used that time well. Further, how does NETTR relate to Trump (assuming Trump is on the right). Does the NETTR principle require me to oblivious to Trump’s obvious flaws? Am I conceding too much to the left if I express disagreement with some of Trump’s policies or point out an obvious character defect?
The core of the issue is that the right does not have a defined political philosophy at this point. The left does not either — it’s just a patchwork quilt of depraved “victim” classes and identity groups organized solely for political purposes. But the right can and should do better if we want to bring real change to our nation. The problem in America today goes much deeper than a failure of policy — the moral fiber of our nation is weak. We are a people under judgment, and we do not have the will, courage, or conviction needed to preserve our historic way of life. At this point, we need repentance more than we need a NETTR program.
Traditionally, to be right wing meant things like limited government that encourages responsibility and entrepreneurship; a moral stand on issues like abortion and sodomy; and a strong national defense (presumably including borders) that serves national interests. Today, it’s hard to tell exactly what it means. For the younger generation, it means a moratorium on immigration along with as many deportations as possible (good ideas after 4 years of open borders under Biden), disassociation with Israel (understandable given how much our foreign policy in the Middle East has cost us), and some kind of white identity politics (which acknowledges a real problem but does not aim to rectify it in the most helpful way, as I have written about elsewhere). But what about the traditional conservative/rightwing concerns? They fallen far down the list of priorities — if they continue to exist on the right at all. I suppose the one thing that right stands for today is “America first” — but we still have to have a vision of what is good for America.
Many on the right will now say things like, “I want a government that cares for me.” But what exactly does that mean? Traditionally, conservatives and Christians have said that government’s purpose is not to take care of us in the way that a welfare state would; that gives government far more power over our lives than it should have. Conservatives have traditionally looked at government more as problem than as solution. Or to out it another way: The purpose of the state is not to punish MY enemies and reward MY friends. The purpose of the state is justice — punishing God’s enemies and rewarding those who are righteous by God’s standard. Many on the right are looking for the state to solve their problems — something that just a few years ago would have considered statist idolatry by most on the Christian right.
When the right is cut loose from a coherent and biblical moral framework, it reveals its own form of depravity — and in some respects, it becomes a horseshoe with leftwing depravity. They have their forms of sexual license, we have ours. They have their version of statism, we have ours. And so on. A rightwing movement cut loose from the moral demands of God’s law might gain power, but it will not be “Christian nationalism.” This is why I think Fuentes is unhelpful — he may say a lot of things that are true, but too much that is vile and arrogant gets mixed in. Whatever project Fuentes is working on, it cannot honestly be considered “Christian nationalism.” In do not like Fuentes because I am a Christian nationalist. I want to live in a Christian nation, and that means the character of the people and its culture is recognizably Christian.
One further issue: NETTR leaves God and his blessing out of the equation. If we really believe that God governs history according to a pattern, blessing righteous nations and judging wicked nations, then we cannot leave ethics out of the political equation. We need policies that serve the American people to be sure — but above that, we need policies that conform to God’s moral law and his design for human life. Obviously, these coincide, but I’m afraid the former is all too often being divorced from the latter. It’s not just about refusing to criticize others who are on my side — it’s about doing what God says is right and pleasing him. As Doug Wilson puts it, we have been making God angry and we need to repent. I certainly do not want to make unnecessary enemies on the right — but more than that, I do not want to become an enemy of the God above. Maybe NETTR needs to give way to NEIHA — “no enemies in heaven above.”
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Unfortunately, some pastors, even those concerned about wokeness, are reluctant to talk about it from the pulpit. They think they should keep culture and politics out of their sermons. They don’t want to be too controversial. I know church members, at conservative churches, who want it that way. They don’t agree with what’s happening in the culture, but they think sermons (and Wed. night series, etc.) should stick to expository preaching, keeping cultural and political references to a bare minimum or avoiding them altogether. What would you say to them? I’m asking because I’d like to become better at explaining why I think pastors and other church leaders should be talking about these topics at church. I know there are others like me who are frustrated with those we consider too pietistic.
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“One of the unhealthy effects of living in a prolonged era of relative comfort, convenience, and acceptance is that it curbs our appetite for heaven. When the sailing is smooth, heaven loses some of its luster. People who are satisfied by temporal things and content with the here and now don’t find the glories of heaven very compelling. While we are right to preach against the prosperity gospel and the ‘your best life now’ philosophy of Joel Osteen and others like him, believers sometimes slip into a similar mindset that views political, social, and economic stability as rights guaranteed by God, expecting nothing less than heaven on earth. But by His grace, God is using these unprecedented circumstances to correct and sanctify people’s thinking. As the moral decline of our culture accelerates, political foundations crumble, the fleeting nature of material wealth becomes more apparent, and cultural and social pressures against true Christianity mount, the world is losing its allure and heaven is becoming more and more appealing. If the trials of the past year accomplish nothing else in believers except to redirect our affections and hopes toward the eternal home God is preparing for us—and preparing us for—we should consider them a profound blessing.”
—John MacArthur
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“About 1820 what developed was that great preachers or famous preachers began to dominate the church and the people became spectators going to listen to a star who was a preacher. And this is what we have today, and the hard working pastor in those circumstances who is trying to educate the people to become responsible working Christians is not a successful one when the star mentality prevails among the people. Their idea of Christianity is to sit in the pew and let the minister and maybe the church officers do all the application of Christianity…Now, when you have the star system, whether it is politics or in the church, you have a power structure, a power system, because you concentrate action and power on a focal point. And you create a spectator people, whether in politics or in the church.”
–Rushdoony, “Biblical Basis For Decentralism”
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Mark Twain, ever the cynic, once said, “The worst advice you can give someone is ‘Be yourself.’”
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Peter calls the church a holy nation, which means she is the new Israel. This has all kinds of overlooked implications.
One thing it means is the church includes children in her heavenly citizenship. The children are church members are to be counted as citizens of the heavenly kingdom. Every nation includes children and grants them basic citizenship rights; this is as true of the church as any other nation.
Another thing it means is that the church is intrinsically political. The church does not take her place among the nations of the world in the ordinary way; but she is a nation. She is public. She has her own story, her own way of life, her own symbols. She manifests a kingdom that other nations should recognize.
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Baptists often say they read the Bible literally but, oddly enough, where they most fail to do so is those NT texts that speak of baptism.
“Baptism now saves you”
“As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ”
“Be baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins”
“Be baptized and wash away your sins”
“In one Spirit we were all baptized into one body”
Etc.
Baptists do not read any of these baptismal efficacy texts literally. They read them metaphorically – the baptism in view is not with water; it is a spiritual baptism. But this is simply wrong. I am a strict literalist when it comes to these texts. Baptism means baptism.
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“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.”
— Elton Trueblood
Christians are people who build for the future. We invest in the rising generation. We leave a legacy and an inheritance. We make sacrifices for those who will come after us. We fight battles now in the hope that our children will not have to fight them in the future.
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