RSSThrowing Down the Gauntlet
When I entered seminary in 1979, American evangelicals were still fighting over inerrancy. But then Ronald Reagan happened. The GOP figured a way to capitalize on the God vote, and evangelicals gave up the Battle for the Bible to fight the culture wars.
As A Secular Faith argues in the introduction, the surge of believers into the naked public square raised a host of constitutional questions about the separation of church and state. Journalists and academics were squeamish about the influence of religion on politics. But that initial wariness quickly changed into an open embrace of faith-based politics. For some it was simply a case of “things go better with God.” For others it was a fact beyond dispute that the Constitution did not exclude religious voices from the electoral process.
Pretty much ignored in the constitutional discussions was the Christian one: What does the Lord require politically of his followers? The prevailing assumption since 1990 has been that believers have a duty to be involved in American politics, and if they don’t they will be guilty of abandoning public life to the godless.
What A Secular Faith proposes to do is examine a set of assumptions about religion and American politics held primarily by Protestants. The book examines eight of these assumptions, identifies them with important historical figures, from John Winthrop and John Witherspoon to Martin Luther King, Jr., and George W. Bush, and shows how they developed among American Protestants as these believers tried to defend and maintain a Christian America.
The first chapter accordingly begins with John Winthrop’s appeal to the biblical refrain of a “city on a hill” and examines the eschatology that has informed American Protestant appeals to their nation’s providential role in human history. The problem, as I see it, is that a flawed eschatology has resulted in two significant errors. The first is an identification of God’s redemptive purposes with the U.S.A. Although many Reformed Christians know better than to equate the U.S.A. with Israel, many Presbyterians do think of America in religious categories that fail to do justice to sovereignty and legitimacy of other nation-states, as if America were better because of its Christian heritage. A second and more important error has been to undervalue the institutional church as the locus of God’s saving work. Because of sufficiency of Christ’s ministry, God’s redemptive purposes are now being carried out not by Israel (or any nation) but by the church, a trans-national and spiritual institution.
This does not appear to me to be a very controversial argument for anyone who has imbibed the redemptive historical insights of a Geerhardus Vos or a John Murray. And yet, recognizing that God’s saving work is now spiritual and not physical, ecclesiological and not civil, is a proposition that does not sit well with Protestants who continue to think in some way of America as a Christian nation. (I’d prefer that we not get too hung up on the spiritual-physical distinction, as if I’m a gnostic. I do believe in the importance and goodness of the physical world and the human body, and do recognize that the church has physical dimensions such as bread and wine, baptismal water, pages of the Word, and diaconal ministry, not to mention state laws that allow churches in America not to pay taxes.)
So one important question to consider at the outset of this diablog is this: to what extent does eschatology determine one’s understanding of the relationship between church and state? Is the idea of a Christian America a hangover of postmillennial optimism (with premillennialism being the pessimistic flipside)? In other words, is the spirituality of the church (a topic to be discussed more fully in later weeks) merely the logical consequence of amillennialism?
W.H. Chellis
March 19th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
The question of eschatology is important. I suspect, as you frame things in your book much of the Protestant Christian America position has been rooted in a postmillenial eschatology. This explains, in some part, why Protestants so often ended up supporting “progressive” and liberal social policies. The historical response (prior to 1979) was a premillenial dropping out of the discussion.
Still, I think that the categories are not going to explain our differences. For instances, I am not postmillenial in the way you are using the term. Of course, I believe Christ returns at the end of the millenium (which I define as the whole period between the 1st and 2nd Advent). Therefore, in a sense, I am postmillenial. Yet, I do not affirm a golden age prior to Christ’s return and so would properly be defined a amillenial.
At the same time R.L. Dabney and J.H. Thornwell were both classical postmillenial thinkers and you would agree strong defenders of the spirituality of the church.
Further, Postmillenialism (in its golden age variety) played no role in the founding of Western Christendom. By the standards we are using we would judge the Augustinian mind of the early middle ages and high Christendom to have been amillenial. So we would judge Calvin and (more interestingly maybe) Martin Bucer who wrote the original De Regno Christi.
As to defending the spirituality of the church, who denies it among defenders of Christ’s Kingship over the nations. Bucer and the covenanter theologian William Symington defend the idea at length.
I have not answered the question but raised further questions. In fact, maybe we will end up condemning the same errors and finding that we agree about much. But I do not want to betray a postmillenial optimism just yet.
Bill Edgar
March 19th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
I am a little older than Darryl Hart. I entered Seminary in 1968, visited L’Abri that summer and again in 1970 and remember well the huge influence of Francis Schaeffer on young evangelicals in the 1968-80 period. Schaeffer and Dr. Koop put out a film in the late 1970’s that galvanized the evangelical world to action on abortion. Billy Graham through his wife got behind the Christian Action Council which aimed to amend the constitution to reverse Roe vs. Wade. Evangelicals and conservative Catholics discovered that on ethical matters at least we are on the same page. Then came parallel political developments. The Republican Party adopted a pro-life platform and the Democratic Party purged pro-life politicians from their ranks. So an issue which until 1980 had both parties on both sides of the abortion debate became a party issue.
Millenial views had almost nothing to do with the reactivation of Evangelicals in politics. It was a cultural defensive action fueled by outrage at mass murder, outrage at Supreme Court usurpation of politics, and an awareness that God is the judge of nations and of our nation also, where the cry of innocent blood ascends on high. To turn these developments into evangelicals as dupes of Ron Reagan and the GOP figuring out how to get the God vote may say something about the GOP, but it says very little about evangelical motivation for becoming involved (again) in politics.
Caleb Stegall
March 19th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
The constant here is not eschatology, but Protestantism.
W.H. Chellis
March 20th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
All that said, since at least the Puritans, eschatology has played a big role in the discussion.
I think the eschatological issues help clarify Darryl’s position and what sympathy I have with the book. Protestants, egged on by an ideology of progress fed by postmillenial visions, have often allowed the gospel be confused with “liberal” social policies.
The problem with Darryl’s position is that the abuse of a thing does not imply that the things itself is bad. Scripture is clear, so is the orthodox Christian tradition, Christianity has major implications for culture and politics. What we need to repent of is poor application not Christ’s Lordship.
W.H. Chellis
March 20th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Caleb, true but Roman Catholicism has not been exactly united in its approach to the social Kingship of Christ.
Bill Edgar
March 20th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
I agree with Caleb, the constant is Protestantism — in the United States. But not because it is Protestantism but because it is Christianity, and even until now Protestantism is the dominant expression of Christian faith in the U.S. Schaeffer was a pre-mil, but the issue of abortion drove him to political action. In general, I think American Protestants have reacted to specific evils in society, such as slavery or drunkenness in the 19th century, not so much out of a millenial ideology as out of a Christian conscience. Seeing progress on one or another evil gave impetus to a postmillinial outlook, which perhaps gave some encouragement to try harder on these things and put more stock in them than would otherwise have been the case. The aberration of the Social Gospel was precisely that it gave up a genuine eschatology for a fully immanent hope. It may have thought of itself as a natural development of postmil theology, but by giving up a genuine Son of God, Second Person of the Trinity, who will return as King to judge the world, it gave up any real eschatology. So they became closer in outlook to Marxists than to Christians, hence the sympathy of so many liberal American Protestants in the 1930’s to the Soviet Union.
Caleb Stegall
March 21st, 2007 at 7:29 am
Bill C, I was merely making an observation. Bill E’s point is another good observation. However, I do think that Protestant cultures tend towards an over-realized eschatology via an under-realized ecclesiology.
Most progressive efforts partake in one way or another of the psycho-spiritual need to restore post-medieval society to the high civilizational purpose which was stripped from it via reformational/revolutionary waves.
Bill E, I think that specific evils did generally draw Evangelicals into the political fray, however, their action once there typically became very muddled and has remained so due to the pluralistic state of affairs and liberalized rules of the game. The question seems to me to be: is there a way to argue against abortion without making assumptions that will inexorably lead one in a gnostic/progressive direction? I think there is, but it has not generally been the Protestant way, especially since Protestants gave in to modernity on the issue of birth control.
Here are some thoughts to add to the discussion, for way they are worth:
http://japery.newpantagruel.com/2006/06/07/party_of_death.php
http://japery.newpantagruel.com/2005/07/20/against_progressives_and_progressivisms.php
http://japery.newpantagruel.com/2005/11/25/the_contagion_of_girardianism.php
http://www.newpantagruel.com/issues/1.1/a_continuing_survey_of_the_far.php?page=all
Peter
March 21st, 2007 at 8:23 am
I have a lot of sympathy with some of Darryl’s points, particularly his opposition to the tendency of American Protestants to dislodge the church from the center of God’s concern, and the danger of Christians being coopted because of what Wordsworth called “abject sympathy for power.”
But I also have some questions and objections. Darryl wrote: “And yet, recognizing that God’s saving work is now spiritual and not physical, ecclesiological and not civil, is a proposition that does not sit well with Protestants who continue to think in some way of America as a Christian nation.”
Darryl doesn’t want to get involved in a debate about spiritual/physical, but that pre-emptive strike would remove a central issue in the discussion. After all, as Darryl noted, the church is in some sense a “physical” reality, with bodied people and sacraments and institutional structures. Given that, doesn’t the mere existence of the church (even, using Darryl’s language, assuming the church is characterized by “spirituality”) have civil impact? As soon as there’s a church within a polity, there’s a group of people serving another King, one Jesus. How can that fail to be civilly disruptive?
I’m also wondering what Darryl makes about the quite common political language used to describe the gospel - Jesus announces the gospel as the coming of the “kingdom,” Paul applies the imperial title “Lord” to Jesus and makes Jesus’ Lordship a central Christian confession, and even the Greek word “church” has a civic ring to it in many contexts. What is Psalm 2 telling kings when it warns them to “kiss the Son”? What is it telling the church?
Finally, what is the objection to saying that America is (or was) “in some way . . . a Christian nation”? Is that because Christian nations are impossible?
Peter
March 21st, 2007 at 8:36 am
Since Darryl has had the courtesy to ask a specific question, I suppose I should have the courtesy of addressing it more directly.
I agree with Darryl that eschatology is an important factor here, but the crux is not one’s millennial views but a set of background issues that come to expression, more or less clearly, in millennial views (background issues like spiritual/physical). One can be “officially” amillennial but still believe American was/is a Christian nation, or that it should be. So, I don’t see that the spirituality doctrine is necessarily a function of millennial issues, though it is perhaps a function of “eschatological” beliefs more broadly conceived.
(The historical question is another matter; on that point, the “Redeemer Nation” mentality might well be a secularization of specifically postmillennial optimism.)
Caleb Stegall
March 21st, 2007 at 9:10 am
One more point to consider that I often think goes missing. I think simple questions of power and the use of history to amass, consolidate, and/or weild power has more explanatory power when analyzing these phenomena than does any theological/eschatological position.
For example, I think understanding the “whiggish” rise to power in the 18th Century and its particular historical understanding makes for a clearer-eyed understanding of the current situation than does any analysis of various eschatologies which rarely play significant roles in the basic questions of power–who has it and how it gets used.
One more link, an important one I think:
http://japery.newpantagruel.com/2005/06/10/whiggish_histories_and_historians.php
Michael Walker
March 21st, 2007 at 9:47 am
I’ve not read Secular Faith yet, but on the connection between millenial positions and views about the redemptive role of America as a nation, I think the connection is less intuitive that we might at first think. One thing we must contend with is the fact that some of the most over-the-top “Christian America” folks are also hard core dispensational premillennialists. Historically, I think the connection between postmill theology and Christian America ideals are irrefutable (as James Moorhead’s work helps to establish). But the “Jeremiad” has been taken over by premillennialists in the last couple decades. There does seem to be some cognitive dissonance here, but it at least would seem to indicate that there is a less-than-direct connection between millennial theology and one’s conception of the role of America — or any nation — in redemptive history.
On another note, I do think we need to allow for more categories than the old “spirituality of the church” position on the one hand, or “Christian America” on the other. While the church and not the nation is God’s primary agent in carrying out his redemptive purposes in the world, this does not mean that God may not use our widespread and distinctively Christian engagement in politics for the purposes of helping human cultures reflect Kingdom life more rather than less. This does, of course, all depend on one’s view of the value of culture today, especially in relation to the eschatological vision of the new heavens and the new earth.
D Hart
March 21st, 2007 at 5:26 pm
So much to which to respond, so little time. (I apologize for being a slacker but I’ve been at work in denominational committee meetings.)
First a historical point. I may be wrong, but I do think evangelicals were involved in politics before Roe. My parents who were as fundie as they come having graduated from Bob Jones (I hear all sorts of minds clicking here — so that explains Hart) and they regularly followed elections and cast their ballots. The moral evil of abortion was clearly a catalyst and still is to evangelical voters. But evangelicals as a block of the electorate did not really exist until the Moral Majority, until the GOP tried to cultivate such voters, and until spokesmen emerged who would try to speak for evangelical voters — Falwell, Dobson and Robertson.
Next a biblical point — and this is scary terrain for a historian. Contrary to Bill C., I don’t think the Bible and Christianity are clear that our faith has major implications for politics. Peter certainly thought they did in the garden until our Lord told him to put the sword away. And of course, Christianity had real repurcussions for the state of Israel. But where it took Christians in the New Testament is not at all clear. They were to submit to rulers and to live quiet and peaceable lives.
This relates to Peter’s question about the civil impact of Jesus’ kingdom. I don’t see how the New Testament indicates that Christianity is going to be civilly disruptive. Of course, I know the work of Wright and others but I am respectfully not buying because it seems thoroughly possible to render unto Caeser and unto God, unless you’re preaching the gospel contrary to the order of the state. Then you take your lumps but you don’t disrupt the political order.
In spite of the comments suggesting eschatology may not be as important as I assert, I still think it is on the simple level of the difference between Israel which bore the sword and the church which bears a double-edged one that comes between two covers. The coming of Christ’s kingdom in the church — which is what the WCF teaches when it says that the visible church is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ — is what I take to be what allows Augustine to explain the difference between the two cities. In the age of the church, God’s saving purposes are not bound up with any state. That’s why you can’t look at the fortunes of the Roman or American empires and try to chart God’s revealed purposes.
And to Bill W.’s point about anti-slavery and anti-abortion stemming not from eschatology but from a concern for basic justice and morality, I appreciate that and generally sympathize. But I still don’t know why Christians would expect a civil order that is not theirs any more than it is their unbelieving neighbors’ to conform to Christian standards of morality. Yes, I see that the church needs to conform to God’s revealed will but why the state? So I could also see a Christian standing by and allowing the civil realm to follow a different moral standard the way any of us do with the families we see around us and let their kids do things we as parents would never tolerate. Granted, slavery and abortion are not be the best examples. I think a case could be made that they exceptions to the rule. But my point remains that many Protestants historically have intervened in the public realm (smoking and drinking come to mind) to make a nation conform to their church’s morality. I still believe the reason has to do with an assumption that America stands in some special place in God’s saving designs. (Premillennialists also believe this. They are simply post-mills having a bad day.)
Bill Edgar
March 21st, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Did the Christian church have designs on the civil order of Rome? The Book of Acts is constructed to begin in Jerusalem, takes its outline from Ac 1:8, and then ends with Paul preaching in Rome. Along the way there are several themes repeated, for example, the general rejection of the Gospel by the synagogue and the receptiveness of the Gentiles. Here’s another theme: the conversion of government officials, for example 1) centurion at the cross Lu 23:47, 2) Cornelius, 3) Ethiopian eunuch, 4) Governor of Cyprus, 5) Philippian jailer, 6) “those of Caesar’s household” (Phil 4:22). They form a substantial portion of the individual conversions narrated in the NT and suggest that the early church and the Holy Spirit were particularly interested in the addition to the City of God of men from the City of Man. Furthermore, these men were all left in place in the Roman government, presumably there to serve their new lord and king while serving Caesar. Every time Roman officials show favor to Paul, the fact is noted — in Corinth, Ephesus, Jerusalem, Caeserea, on board ship as a prisoner, in Malta.
And suppose Caesar were converted? Does the doctrine of the spirituality of the church allow for a converted Caesar to serve the Lord as Caesar, perhaps taking his cue from Israel where the law and the prophets instructed not just Israel but also the nations to do righteousness? God’s Word dealt with Syria and Philistia as well as Israel. “For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment.” “Yet forty days and Ninevah shall be destroyed.” What does the spirituality of the church tell a believing Caesar to do? Where does it tell him to turn for guidance in ruling his land?
Caleb Stegall
March 21st, 2007 at 10:13 pm
It seems to me that another way to frame the debate is over the assumption that seems implicit in the position Hart is critisizing that conversion to Christianity gives one special access to a unique kind of guidance for political rule. Hart suggests that this is not the case. I think he is right on that score, but that begs the more important question about what kind of polis is best. And Hart’s position seems to discount the ways in which the Christian tradition has engaged as a participant in the struggle for a good answer to that question.
Consider the following (from Voegelin, CW Vol. 11):
Plato and Aristotle did not create “ideal states” (the very word ideal has no equivalent in Greek) but developed imaginative paradigms, models of the best polis. What is “best” again has nothing to do with “ideals” but will be decided by the pragmatic suitability of the model to provide an environment for the “best” or “happiest life”; and the criterion of the best or happiest life in its turn will be established by the science of philosophical anthropology.
The best life, according to the various formulations, is the life that leads to the unfolding of the dianoetic excellences, to one’s existence as philosopher, to the bios theoretikos , or to the cultivation of the noetic self. The models, thus, are based on a theory of the nature of man, which claims to be a science.
Nobody, of course, will today unreservedly agree with the results of the Platonic-Aristotelian analysis of human nature; for in order to agree he would have to ignore the advances of philosophical anthropology that we owe to the Fathers and scholastics, as well as to such contemporary thinkers as Bergson, Gilson, Jaspers, Lubac, or Balthasar; and as far as the classical models are concerned, our pragmatic interest in them will be mild, since we have little use for Greek poleis at present.
Such restrictions, however, do not affect the principle established by the classic philosophers that a philosophy of politics must rest on a theory of the nature of man, and that philosophical anthropology is a science—not an occasion for idealistic tantrums.
The liberal interpretation cavalierly disregards the explicit content of the Platonic-Aristotelian work; and we conclude, therefore, that it cannot be used for disposing of this problem of the philosophia perennis. If there should exist any doubt about Lindsay’s intention when he uses it nevertheless, it will be removed when we see him classify Aristotle’s concept of the “good life” as one of the ideals that vary with time. The classification emasculates the concept by denying that it has a theoretical basis. This is a radical attack on philosophy as the science of order in the soul and society. As to Lindsay’s intention we conclude, therefore, that he wanted to avoid the classic tension in which the philosopher opposes his authority to that of the civil theology under which he lives; he wanted to be a theologian, and in order to act his part in good conscience he had to annihilate the uncomfortable authority of the philosopher—a procedure that casts a further interesting light on the intricate problems of freedom and conscience.
[end quote]
I suggest that the problems inherent in this discussion are the problem the theologian has with the philosopher. This argument seems implicit in Hart’s critique (which admittedly I am only passingly familiar with) but he appears to neglect the offerings of the tradition of Christian philosophical speculation as it has built upon and participated with more ancient such speculations.
Caleb Stegall
March 21st, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Another way of putting that is that the Church is not just pneumatic, ie., spiritual (Hebrew), but noetic (Greek).
Hart’s problem is best understood as a confusion in the church between these two experiences. When Hart looks for a return to the spirituality of the church he means (perhaps, I realize I’m sticking words in his mouth) for theologians to quit mistaking their pneumatic experience for a noetic one.
See Voegelin again:
“However, it is nowhere written that in the various historical situations church personnel are particularly suitable guardians of the natural law. For all the propositions of the natural law derive from the noetic experience, whereas within the church the noetic experience is not the primary source of experience and truth for clerics and theologians, but is replaced by the pneumatic experience of revelation. Thus there is a very considerable stock of knowledge of order coming from philosophy that is denatured and deformed in the theological field, because it had to be inserted into a complex of pneumatic symbols of revelation not intended to establish the order of temporal society.”
Here is one explanation of the function of these terms in Voegelin’s thought:
“In the Greek orbit, the central symbol for this divine-human reality is, as we have seen, nous, usually translated ‘intellect’ or ‘reason’; while in Israel and in Christian culture it is ruach (the Hebrew term) or pneuma (its Greek translation), usually translated ’spirit.’ While the symbol pneuma may not be said to be synonymous with the symbol nous, they are functionally equivalent insofar as they both indicate the site where transcendent divine and human consciousness enjoy the intimacy of participation. Voegelin’s interpretation of the degree of equivalence between these two terms, and the specific characters of the distinct experiences to which they refer, is one of the more intriguing aspects of his work. To put his conclusions very simply, one might say that the respective terms differ with respect to the ‘location’ in consciousness that they emphasize: the ‘noetic experience’ centers in the area where questioning, reasoning, and judging perform their operations, whereas the ‘pneumatic experience,’ as a ‘divine irruption which constitutes [a] new existential consciousness,’ takes place at the axial depth of the personality out of which reason and its structures arise. In the noetic experience, as Eugene Webb has summarized it, ‘focal awareness … is directed to the Nous, the questioning consciousness, while the pneumatic center, that level of reality in the depths of the soul at which it is experientially united with being itself, remains in comparative obscurity.’ Thus the philosophers are led to explore the structure of questioning consciousness itself, as well as the structure of reality that ‘becomes luminous through the noetic theophany’; while exegetes of the pneumatic experience such as St. Paul concentrate upon ‘the intensely articulate experience of loving-divine action’ at work in the unplumbed depths of the soul.” Glen Hughes, Mystery and Myth in the Philosophy of Eric Voegelin. (I am not entirely satisfied with Hughes’ summary, but it will do for now)
The difficulty in all this for the Christian, I think, is that it forces him, when considering temporal arrangements, to the ordinary noetic work of openness to the truth of the cosmos through proper orientation of the spirit to the divine via the disciplines of virtue; and as such it denies him any special place or leg-up in this work.
MarkPele
March 22nd, 2007 at 7:48 pm
I just don’t see the case for neutrality. You can’t put Christianity in a box within the world. Psalm 19:1-2 says “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, And night to night reveals knowledge.” Suffice it to say that you cannot study the heavens _properly_ without studying about God. The existence of God so permeates our lives that it is impossible to be neutral towards God. The non-Christian hates God and if he denies God, he has merely “suppressed the truth in unrighteousness.”
So, the state university either acknowledges Jesus, the God of the Bible, or it is suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Since the object of the university is the study of the truth, the attempt of public education to remain neutral to religion is a blatant self-contradiction.
What about the state? Again, the state must pass laws based on morality. The TRUTH about morality is the Ten Commandments, of which the first four are explicitly about our relationship with the Christian God. Thus a state cannot be moral which does not punish wrongdoers. In Israel, idolators, sorcerers and mediums were to be put to death by the state as a clear implementation of the first table. Jehu’s example of purging the Baal worshipers (for which he was subsequently blessed by God) is no example of modern religious tolerance.
Now we as Christians know that only a Spirit-changed heart is acceptable before God, but that doesn’t mean that the state shouldn’t favor Christianity. On the other hand, there is a boundary to state encouragement of Christianity. Should the state burn heretics? I’m not so sure about that, but there’s definitely no place for neutrality.
Bill Edgar
March 22nd, 2007 at 7:55 pm
I agree with Caleb concerning the necessity of asking, What sort of polis do we wish to construct? That question concerned not just the classical Greek world, but also the founders of the varied American colonies and then of the United States. I heard a fascinating degate some years ago between De Klerk and Mandela about South Africa, where they asked the fundamental questions about what sort of society is a good one and how can South Africans move their country toward that society.
Christians rightly share in that discussion: we are in the world, as Jesus said. Do we bring anything to this discussion that unbelievers do not? Yes. We bring two things: a correct view of man as noble, fallen, and some of them redeemed in Christ, and the knowledge that God and his law reign supreme in the cosmos. We also bear the sure hope of the Resurrection at Christ’s Return, which relativizes the importance of any relationship in this life and allows us to absorb defeats without despair, accept imperfection without fury, and strive for goals without humorless fanaticism.
Christians do not make all the best fathers and mothers, but we bring to family life certain true understandings that not all share, for example, the God-given permanence of marriage in this life, a commitment which makes for sounder families than the “as long as we both shall love” folly. Likewise, Christians may in practice often make poor rulers, but the Christian mind of the centuries knows certain fundamental truths that make for wise governance.
Jody Morris
March 23rd, 2007 at 11:49 am
This is my first post to deregnochristi.org. I recently learned that Dr. Hart posts here occasionally. He was my professor at Westminster in California. I’m a minister in the OPC Carlisle, PA. I have not read Darryl’s latest book but I do know his position well and stand by it. I’ll attempt to contribute to the task of defining terms and also make a comment about Christian Caesar and Hart’s title “A Secular Faith†because I think both phrases carry the kind of rhetorical force that gets to heart of things. Please consider 3 sets of terms: spiritual/earthly, holy/common and cult/culture(see “Kingdom Prologue” M.G. Kline). I’m convinced that when the Bible describes something as spiritual, i.e. God (John 4:24; 1 Cor. 10:3, 4), the church (John 4:24; 1 Pet. 2:5), the individual (1 Cor. 2:15) gifts/ethics (1 Cor. 14:1; Gal. 5:22, 23) the resurrection body (1 Cor. 15:44), it is describing what is imperishable and heavenly. I would say that spiritual and imperishable, on one level, are synonyms. This is an important point because it limits what one may properly call “Christian”. On this definition there cannot be a Christian nation, or university or culture anymore than there can be a Christian coffee mug or t-shirt because culture is perishing just like the t-shirt that “moth destroysâ€. That which is Christian is by definition eternal. Nations with land borders; nation states, universities, economies, etc. are intrinsically non-Christian specifically because they will not survive the fire (2 Peter 3:10). That leads to the second set of terms, holy and common. Saints are holy because they have been set apart from the common. More specifically saints are holy because they partake of the heavenly and eternal blessings of Christ (Eph. 2:6). In contrast, the common is earthly and temporary. It serves a legitimate purpose (2 Pet 3:9), but remains temporary nonetheless (2 Pet. 3:10). A distinction between holy and common gives me a context for a distinction between cult and culture. The cult or Christianity is heavenly because it is the only institution in this world that is connected to the risen Christ. The church is acceptable to God “through Jesus Christ†and therefore called “sojourners†in this earthly habitation(1 Peter 2:5, 11). Culture in contrast is not heavenly because it is not united to the risen Christ. She is, no matter how useful to God now, Babylon the harlot who will perish in the fire (Rev, 18:21 –24 notice the culture categories). I hope I’m not being pedantic, especially on a blog. I am defining terms because I believe this directly addresses the common discussions we have about various Christian Caesar models. I am arguing that we carefully distinguish between what is spiritual and imperishable –namely Caesar’s Christian soul and what is earthly and perishing –his status as Caesar. We must distinguish between what is holy –his status as saint or Christian, and what is common –his vocation as Caesar. We must distinguish between the man’s cult –Christianity and his culture –Rome. When we do this, I think we have already begun to address the question of why and how faith meets the secular world. I like to think, though Hart likely doesn’t, that the title “A Secular Faith” is a rhetorical poke at the foolishness of trying to bring to life what is secular and perishing, to sanctify what is secular and common and trying to give the secular/cultural institution heavenly cultic status. I do agree, a man can be Christian and Caesar at the same time. We all have our vocations in the culture. That’s part of the tension we experience in this world. “In pain you shall eat of it†(Gen. 3:17). But I have a hard time understanding why anyone would want to secularize the faith. It seems to me that’s making temporary what God has deemed eternal. I prefer Abraham’s faith model Hebrews 11:8 –10.
W.H. Chellis
March 23rd, 2007 at 1:18 pm
One would think that the holy/common, secular/sacred distinctions had been discovered by the 20th Century Reformed Churches. Rather, they are a the heart of the common experience of Western Christendom.
While neo-kuyperians may fail to distinguish between the eternal and temporal by obscuring these distinctions the same cannot be said for Augustine, Bonaventure, Thomas, Calvin, Melville, Dabney, or Hodge. These men understood that the church was a unique and holy theocracy. The only redemptive nation in the New Covenant.
Rev. Morris suggests that individuals can be Christian but what of families? If families why not tribes? If tribes why not cultures? Why not nations? Was cult not the foundation of culture amidst the tribe of Abraham? Was Abraham’s tribe not an ethnos? Are you really so sure that geography is the only thing that defines a nation? I detect the ghost of Ockham?
At any rate, I don’t buy it. Neither does the Western Christian tradition, Romanist, Anglican, or Reformed. O.k. those who wish to radically divorce cult from culture can claim the anabaptists, some methodists and baptists… but you can have them!
But be warned. Ideas have consequences (as Weaver’s publisher reminds us) and the unexpected consequences for the West could be catastrophic.
W.H. Chellis
March 23rd, 2007 at 1:46 pm
By the way, I also think Caleb hits the nail properly when he compares the spirituality of the Church to Voegelin’s point about the spiritual and noetic sides of the church. I think this helps fit the spirituality of the church into its proper perspective and roots it within the broader framework of Western Christendom.
Bill Edgar
March 23rd, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Is Jody ready to give up “Christian family?” All families are temporary. “For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven.” (Mk 12:25) And children leave their families of origin when they marry. Nevertheless, the marriage bed is undefiled (Hb 13:4), elders are to have “faithful” children (Ti 1:6), and indeed the children of believers are “holy.” (I Co 7:14) Indeed, a man is to lead his family in the service of God, raising his children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. (Ep 6:4) It is not all left to the church. “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua) Temporary equals imperishable or heavenly, as Jody offers, excludes families from being “spiritual” and means that references to Christian families are in error. That’s individualism on an extreme scale even for Americans.
Jody Morris
March 23rd, 2007 at 7:36 pm
The most useful part of Rev. Chellis’ post was the argument that says if there are Christian individuals then by simple progression there can also be Christian nations; Abraham warranting the case. I appreciate this argument. God called Abraham, an individual and gave him a family that became an independent culture, an ethnos, living distinctly from the surrounding cultures. At times they even warred against other cultures. Abraham’s family also originated the nation Israel. So we can, in a simple line of progression, easily move from individual Abraham to Christian nation. I see at least one basic problem with this argument. Abraham’s family was spiritual, holy and cultic. They were the covenant culture of God. If we are going to use Abraham’s family as the starting point, then what ever we end with must also be deemed spiritual holy and cultic, the covenant community of God. Isn’t this precisely where redemptive history leads, to the holy nation Israel and then to the church? The argument defeats itself unless one says that Christian nations are spiritual, holy and cultic. I don’t think Rev. Chellis would say that. I argued above that individuals are holy and that is what makes them Christian. I also agree that, in a qualified sense, that families are holy and so Christian (1 Cor. 7). The progression from Abraham to family, then to culture and Christian nation seems to work but it sacrifices to much. Abraham was father to a holy nation, something no Christian person, no matter how influential he might be, could ever claim again. I am fully committed to Christian involvement and influence in culture. I’m only asking that we make good distinctions. I do not think the line of progression argued above makes a case for calling a nation Christian, not even were Caesar himself a Christian.
MarkPele
March 24th, 2007 at 8:33 am
Jody, your own claim betrays you. You refer to nations as lifeless - like a coffee mug, but then you say that nations are part of Babylon. This is what the Bible says about Babylon: “I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.” How can a coffee mug sin? Sin is necessarily spiritual because it is rebellion against God Himself, thus nations (represented in your words by Babylon) are in spiritual opposition to God and your whole claim is self-contradictory.
Whether “calling a nation Christian” is okay is another interesting subject. Jesus says, “If you love me keep my commandments.” So, if a nation is capable of sinning, it is, by definition capable of not sinning. A nation that does not sin obeys the first table of the law, which places God first in everything. Thus it is possible for there to be a Christian nation. A Christian nation is no more (and no less) than a nation that obeys God’s law by making Christ preeminent in everything.
Jody Morris
March 24th, 2007 at 9:12 am
Bill wonders if I’m ready to give up the Christian family, saying all families are temporary but children are “holy”. He is challenging my definitions. He says, “Temporary (I think he meant “spiritualâ€) equals imperishable or heavenly, as Jody offers, excludes families from being “spiritual†and means that references to Christian families are in error.†I see the logic. If I’ve made it sound like everything “holy” cannot be temporary then I need to make another distinction. I’m not ready to give up the Christian family. Our common covenant theology connects families to the church making them an integral part of God’s purpose for the church. My response is that holy things are not always permanent. The temple and its priests were holy but they no longer exist. The entire system of typology is built on a holy but fading glory. I say that, not because families are typological, but to point out that some things can be holy and not eternal. And since Paul says children of at least one believing parent are “holy” then even though families are temporary, they are “holy†and so also Christian. They are in the covenant. That is what makes them holy and so we call them Christian. I still maintain the need to distinguish Christian individual/Christian family/covenant community from culture/nation/ethnos. We are in the culture, but that does not mean the culture is Christian. Christian families do not make Christian nations. They did in the Old Covenant but not in the New. I’ve deviated from Hart’s original question so if anyone cares to respond, they have the last word.
W.H. Chellis
March 24th, 2007 at 10:36 am
What if all those living together in a community are Christians? What if they all worship together in the same cult? What if they corporately confess Christ? These are the issues of De Regno but do not really move the book discussion forward.
Jody is correct that we have strayed far from Darryl’s original question which was based on eschatology. The question is an interesting one and I am pretty sure we have not come to a conclusion.
Maybe the question actually betrays his own thought process. Maybe Darryl’s thesis is a reaction to liberal postmillenialism and Protestant progressivism. Here we find common cause with Darryl and will, I suspect, find much to agree about as the discussion progresses.
Finally, as for me, I contend that my committments to Christendom are based more on the history of what God has done in the West than it is on a fuzzy hope of what he will do. I will look backward for light rather than forward.
Politeuma · A Secular Faith
March 24th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
[...] Saturday, March 24th, 2007 So one important question to consider at the outset of this diablog is this: to what extent does eschatology determine one’s understanding of the relationship between church and state? Is the idea of a Christian America a hangover of postmillennial optimism (with premillennialism being the pessimistic flipside)? In other words, is the spirituality of the church (a topic to be discussed more fully in later weeks) merely the logical consequence of amillennialism? ~ D.G. Hart [...]