In that light, I hope you will be encouraged that the Second Circuit on Friday issued a permanent injunction favoring the church to which I belong in our 17-year-long First Amendment battle against the City of New York, Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education of the City of New York. The ruling will allow some 60 or more religious groups–not all churches–to continue meeting, as some have since 2002, in unused space in public schools after hours, having found the Board of Ed’s long-standing, explicit restriction against “religious worship” incompatible with First Amendment protections, its defense of abhorring a perception of aiding Establishment both unfounded and voided by its practice of inhibiting Free Exercise:

Having considered the latest evidence and the parties’ respective arguments, the Court determines that its reasons for granting Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction were sound and that implementation of Ch. Reg. D-180 violates both the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause…
Defendants are permanently enjoined from enforcing Ch. Reg. D180 so as to deny Plaintiffs’ application or the application of any similarly-situated individual or entity to rent space in the Board’s public schools for meetings that include religious worship.

Apart from its positive implications for–among others–church plants here in New York, where renting has long been the only option to provide meeting space when congregations have outgrown an apartment and before they are able to purchase a facility of their own–there being no equivalent option here, as in much of the heartland, to Deacon Wilbert’s selling the church a half-acre of the North Forty at an agreeable price–Bronx Household‘s many twists and turns have also caught the attention of the SCOTUS, and may do so yet again if the Board chooses to fight the injunction.

Judge Loretta Preska’s decision is refreshing in the context of her having overturned, in our favor in 2002, an earlier ruling of her own after having taken seriously remarks by Justice Thomas in a 2001 SCOTUS ruling. If you have been inclined to totally discount the possibility of anything good coming out of Nazareth the liberal Northeast, please keep her in your sights as someone who clearly values at least the First (and if you have Mitt’s ear, he should start reading her work as well). Here for your enjoyment are a few snippets in which she freely lambasted City’s counsel:

In this regard, the remainder of the quote that Defendants cite, with all due respect, is stale
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Defendants’ attempt to marshal the Church’s resources and dictate how those resources should be deployed gives the Court great concern because it suggests that Defendants believe they know best how the Church should conduct its religious affairs. But only Plaintiffs may “decide for themselves, free from state interference, [such] matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine.” Kedroff v. St. Nicholas Cathedral of Russian Orthodox Church in N. Am., 344 U.S. 94, 116 (1952). Certainly Plaintiffs’ assessment of what qualifies as sufficient space to conduct the Church’s worship services is an “internal church decision,” which is outside Defendants’ regulatory authority. Hosanna-Tabor, 132 S. Ct. at 706-07.
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But even putting aside Defendants’ mischaracterization of the posture of the “school prayer” cases, it is important to note that those cases did not involve competing Free Exercise Clause claims.
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Indeed, the Court of Appeals in Bronx Appeal III believed that any form of exclusion would only “aggravate[] the potential Establishment Clause problems the Board seeks to avoid.” 650 F.3d at 43. Were Plaintiffs to exclude anyone from its Sunday meetings, no doubt Defendants would point to that in support of their antiestablishment interest. Defendants cannot have it both ways.
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Finally, Defendants point out that, contrary to the Court’s finding in 2002 that there was no evidence children are in the school on Sunday mornings while the Church conducts its services, “sports programs, literacy enrichment programs, test preparation programs, and other activities for children and families have taken place in schools at the same time as religious organizations have held their worship services in the schools.” (Def. Mem. at 18.) But this evidence cuts both ways. Defendants cannot argue domination on the one hand—i.e., that the worship services so dominate the schools on Sunday mornings that Defendants’ Establishment Clause concern is heightened—and then also point to simultaneous non-worship Sunday activities that involve students to prove the same. The fact that a youth basketball program holds tournaments in a school at the same time that a church holds Sunday services there, both pursuant to a neutral policy that promotes the general welfare of the community, does not suggest to the informed objective observer that the school is endorsing religion just as it does not suggest the school is endorsing basketball.
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First, the Court does not see how Defendants can possibly prove their assertion that “the two provisions of Ch. Reg. D-180 . . . reach all forms of worship” in light of their refusal to define either provision.
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The following colloquy at oral argument highlights the problem of excessive entanglement that results from Defendants’ verification process:

COURT: If there is no definition in [Ch. Reg. D-180] of [religious] worship service or . . . house of worship, how can the regulation be enforced and how will folks know whether they are in or out?
DEFENDANTS: Well, your Honor, the plaintiffs themselves in their 56.1 statement make that argument for us, because they say it is only the religious worshiper who knows what worship is. . . . The definition [of “religious worship services” or “house of worship”] is what the religious organization believes it to be.

(Summ. J. Hr’g Tr. at 44-45, 60 (emphasis added [per injunction]).) If it is true that only a religious organization can define for itself what it means to conduct “religious worship services” or to use a building as a “house of worship,” it is equally true that an outsider has no insight into whether that organization is acting consistently with its own religious beliefs. Defendants’ attempts to do so in this case only serve to illustrate the constitutional impropriety of such a task.
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Defendants are not immune from excessive entanglement once they begin to verify the qualitative nature of specific religious practices.26
26 Defendants even seemed to recognize as much at oral argument. (See Summ. J. Hr’g Tr. at 39 (“I think we sketched out—I mean, look, the plaintiffs have cited some e-mails or other communication[s] that said, you know, tell me in detail everything you’re doing. I’m not going to say that was what we intended that they do. Rolling out a policy of this difficulty to 1500 schools, you may find somebody asking questions that might not be the way you would want to frame them.” (emphasis added [per injunction])).)

Above all, for those among us who are known by Him to whom all authority in heaven and earth has been given, be encouraged by this clear outworking of what you know to be true–and which remains true even given Thursday’s news–that “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.” (Proverbs 4:21, ESV)

Men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but it is every man’s duty to endeavour to repent of his particular sins, particularly. (WCF* XV:5 Of Repentance unto Life)

Little children, keep yourselves from idols. (1 John 5:21, ESV)

As the nomination of a Republican candidate has millimetered nearer over recent months, the volume of commentary–in both senses–on every aspect of process and participants has risen as impossibly high as the lethal wave which crested the Vaiont Dam before swallowing sleeping villages. History may provide some perspective for judging the persuasive efficacy of the deluge as a whole; my concern is a particular current in that torrent–a set of views which, against all wisdom, are expressed by some evangelical Christians attempting conservative political discourse.

The errant views swirl around a tempting, yet idolatrous, notion: that the United States of America as a body politic is covenantally bound to the living God of the Lord Jesus Christ in a way that other nations of the world are not. As heretical as it may sound to evangelical ears in such stark terms, there is simply no Scriptural warrant for, and every Scriptural and historical warrant against, heirs of the Reformation hewing to an idea which has been proven wrong every time it has come to birth.

At the root of the Scriptural error is a confusion of the administration of covenants in our own chapter of redemptive history. In simplest terms, God’s relationship with humanity is always bounded by covenantal terms of his own. At creation he bound all mankind to a covenant of works, the terms of which hold to the present:

1. The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him, as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescencion on God’s part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.

2. The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam, and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience. (WCF VII, Of God’s Covenant with Man)

1. God gave to Adam a law, as a covenant of works, by which he bound him and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience; promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened death upon the breach of it; and endued him with power and ability to keep it.

2. This law, after his Fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness; and, as such, was delivered by God upon mount Sinai in ten commandments, and written in two tables; the first four commandments containing our duty toward God, and the other six our duty to man.(WCF XIX, Of the Law of God)

While a new covenant of grace has indeed been revealed,

wherein he freely offered unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto life, his Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe[,] (WCF VII:3)

its promises are guaranteed only to those found under its terms of divine election, regeneration, godly repentance and faith in Christ. Until one is brought under those terms, he remains under the sentence of death threatened in the first:

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (John 3:18, ESV)

The Mayflower Compact, Declaration of Independence and Contract with America notwithstanding, no divine covenant has ever been extended to any body politic other than Israel, and the civil code of even that covenant has now been completely fulfilled in Christ and made obsolete–per Hebrews 8, 9–binding God to no other temporal nation under its unique terms. One may ask, “You don’t believe the national promises, then? What about Psalm 33:12, 2 Chronicles 7:14?” Yes, with all my heart, but the context applies all of those to Israel alone among temporal nations, and that to foreshadow the eternal kingdom of Christ. Do you really want Deuteronomy 28′s curses for disobedience to fall on America as they did upon Israel at the end of her long unfaithfulness? Have we as a nation a better claim to divine favor than she? Not in light of Romans 3 (for starters).

Neither does history cast an unalloyed beam on those who have confused the temporal and eternal kingdoms. Protestants have long noted flaws in the Pharisees’ attitude toward the Roman occupation, the Constantinian experiment, Charlemagne’s bright idea, and certain high-medieval, long-term kinetic actions. But our past is pocked with failed attempts at the union as well–the stern impassioned stress of my own New England Congregationalist forbears beat not only a wilderness thoroughfare but the occasional Baptist as well; some of the latter, though staunchly holding the fort against theological liberalism, found it difficult to renounce cultural norms which divided them–inexcusably–from certain of their redeemed siblings. Sadly, not all such cases ended with a return to righteousness, but in those which did, the return was accompanied by the realization that a former mindset was Scripturally unsound and in need of renunciation.

Manifestations of idolizing America’s “most (graciously) favored nation status” range from the silly to the harmful. Frequently, a scripture will be brandished out of all historical-redemptive, Christocentric context and  piped through a s/(Israel|My people)/USA/g filter. The perennial example–I’ve seen it twice here already this season, but then I don’t read every thread–is the appeal to 1 Samuel 8 to prove that Jehovah is necessarily anti-monarchy and perhaps anti-tax. The New Testament becomes fair game as well, when precious promises made by Christ might be ripped from his Bride and thrown around pieces of temporal policy as fine linen around a rotting fish. A constant reference to political foes–including intra-party!–as mere objects of wrath rather than divine image-bearers and potential recipients of grace is not only highly unlikely to produce a positive movement of thought, it denigrates the gospel of Christ by implying that the divine curses and blessings are tied to ideological, party, or national status rather than God’s free and sovereign will: “So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.” (Romans 9:13, ESV)

“But the stinking liberals do it too!”, I hear. Indeed. And how did they end up there? They are largely the spiritual heirs of mostly-orthodox Christians who, especially during our first 100 years as a nation, decided that the old ways of sound teaching, catechesis, Word and sacrament, discipline, costly discipleship, missionary fervor and God-glorifying, neighbor-serving vocation–all under the banner of the reality of the doctrines of sovereign grace–paled in light of the much more immediate and practical (not to mention self-gratifying) goals of personal and societal transformation–and much of today’s evangelical church is once again far down that same vacuous, deadly, moralistic path.

A repentance is in order: we must return, continually, to the truth that our nation, as dear and special as she is–and in so many remarkable ways, she is!–is not, has never been, and will never be, even a faint imitation of the kingdom of God on Earth: she cannot be, and must never attempt to be, God’s minister of dispensing the forgiveness of sins and the life everlasting. But since we who have tasted of that eternal life through a living faith in Christ are blessed to see the temporal breakthroughs of that kingdom at times in her midst, let us continue with all that is in own power to see Christ proclaimed more and more, to Republican and Democrat, to 1% and 99%, to conservative and liberal, to every nation and tribe and language and people, until the end.

I leave you in the sane security of quiet–and deep–waters with Michael Horton’s most recent post at Out of the Horse’s Mouth (The White Horse Inn Blog):

On Electing a Shepherd of the National Soul (excerpted)

Every national election cycle in the US affords fresh opportunities for speeches calculated to assure us that our president will not only be a capable executive and commander-in-chief but will be our philosopher-in-residence and faithful high priest of the civil religion. The President has become the shepherd of the national soul.

In the UK, the head of church and state (the monarch) is a different person from the head of government (the prime minister). However, in the US we combine these offices in one. Maybe that’s one reason, historically, why we place so much weight on our presidents to embody our own spiritual aspirations and convictions. Yet since the Constitution distinguishes clearly between civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions (shaped by Madison’s training under Princeton Presbyterian’s John Witherspoon as well as American Baptists), that sacred trust cannot favor any particular confession. Hence the tightrope one must walk: required to steward a broad civil religion (basically, a morality grounded in a Supreme Being who has a special place for America in his plan), displaying some personal commitment to a particular Judeo-Christian community, while not giving preference to his own denomination in making policy.

Quite a number of past presidents would not have made it across that tightrope today. In terms of personal beliefs and commitments, George Washington seems to have been a more faithful Mason than a Christian. One thinks of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who quite publicly revealed their profound disagreement with orthodox Christian beliefs such as the Trinity and the deity of Christ. By the best accounts, Abraham Lincoln was a very nominal Baptist—probably Unitarian in his views—who nevertheless shared the public sense of belonging to a chosen nation, favored by Providence yet for that very reason subject to the judgment of Providence for failing to fulfill its sacred mandate.

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The real issue is whether the confusion of kingdoms (which can only lead to a bland civil religion) is creating an atmosphere that brings harm to the cause of Christ and the common good of our society.

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Yet believers also must stop expecting politicians to double as high priests of a false religion, an idolatrous religion, that substitutes real confessional communities for a generic moralism. Even where a candidate’s confession differs from our own, we have to ask what we’re looking for in our political leaders. Are we seeking an icon who will reassure us that even in a wildly pluralistic and relativistic society we are the ones in the right, safely ensconced in the walls of absolute truth? Or do we have the more modest goal of electing presidents who will eschew any messianic mantle and pursue policies that we believe are more likely to do more good than harm to the republic’s common good and the Constitution that they swear to uphold?

* References to the Westminster Confession of Faith (1648) are intended to indicate consent among the orthodox, evangelical branches of the Reformation. Although Presbyterian in polity, its doctrine is faithfully echoed in the Congregational Savoy Declaration of Faith and Practice (1658) and the Baptist London Baptist Confession of Faith (1677); the wonderfully organized Tabular Comparison of the 3 seminal confessions is worth many a perusal. Lutheran and Continental Reformed foundational documents, although structured and worded differently, are in substantial agreement with the principles illustrated above.

Presidential candidates produce their own sets of references as well, crafting mental atlases and timelines in which prospective voters may locate them. While the histories ultimately turn on a comparison of the passing and coming four years, the geographies define five distinct regions: in the candidate’s voice these are My Place, Your Place, Our Place, Their Place, and The Other Place. The first four are now the obligatory scrim for every epiphany. My Place is the locus of his hard-won victories; Your Place, of his hearers’ deepest concerns as they sit around kitchen table–or drum circle; Our Place is the brighter future to which he alone is anointed to lead; and Their Place–whether Beltway or Bible Belt, the hatchery of wretched spawn–looms over all: “Down in the great state of My Place I … and you all want the same for Your Place … and together we’ll restore this great land of Our Place … after I chase all the varmints out of Their Place … “.

The Other Place, however, is now off the map of most Conservative candidates; its disappearance signals a collective weakness which cries out for restoration of both character and expression.

Before being torn from the discursive atlas, The Other Place was ideally those parts of Our Place not already assigned to the remaining Places. Of course the ideal was never fully realized, but no matter: even those who never visited had at least heard of someone who did. For it was the home of the Neighbor who was neither covenantally bonded to us nor demonically opposed; and even if the latter, by virtue of residual imago Dei and Dominical commands, deserving of full dignity, and capable, against all hope, of eventual persuasion. For intrepid Hobbits, it encompassed most of the wide lands between the Shire and Mordor, and while it could never really be home, the certainty of its belonging to Our Place was enough to merit some regard of kinship for its denizens; the lesson came less quickly to the lesser-travelled Eomer of Rohan:

“It is hard to be sure of anything among so many marvels. The world is all grown strange. Elf and Dwarf in company walk in our daily fields; and folk speak with the Lady of the Wood and yet live … How shall a man judge what to do in such times?”

“As he ever has judged,” said Aragorn. “Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

If it has never been a place of comfort, neither could it be a place for the man of discernment to comfortably avoid. For all the flaws of the main shapers of our national identity, at their best moments they trod into The Other Place, perhaps offending friend more than foe, but certain that they could not stay back and be counted true men:

“[I]t is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the Palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion, that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.”

George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, 1865

“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”

Martin Luther King, Lincoln Memorial Address, 1963

The Other Place has not vanished merely due to the cowardice of complacence, however; it shrinks at the same rate that Their Place is allowed to grow. Much of the Conservative movement, as if determined to replay the tragedy of ten doubting spies, has been grotesquely and unnecessarily consumed by its magnification of the opposition, finding it more profitable, apparently, to create an audience of Ditto-birds than a generation to whom the word “intellectual” would be counted a high vocation and “elite” a mark of honor rather than contempt. But those who see Their Place encroaching on the entire map can hardly expect to be surprised if The Other Place–for it does re-appear, as Brigadoon out of the mists, for a single day every four years–pays them no heed at all.

The character necessary to rediscover and fearlessly tread the paths of The Other Place is not to be attained by reading a website, even one as well-intentioned and -moderated as RedState. But I submit that a discussion of its expression in the discourse of our candidates could be profitable. For starters, I propose that the objection “but it won’t create votes where needed” misses the huge fact that the country is more inter-connected than ever before, and the focus-grouper/spot-producers condescendingly ignore at their candidate’s peril that the long-term unemployed in Madison or Blandinsville might very well be quite capable of simultaneously thinking beyond themselves of the well-being of a daughter in New York or the friend of a church member with illegal parents in Texas, and that the candidate’s avoidance of reference to The Other Place–even when doing so could be to his own hurt–displays more of mere political savvy and less of wise leadership.

Well aware of the responsibility assumed, and of the criticisms that would follow, as the sequel proved, nothing of that kind could move me in the least. The act could be defended, if needful, by the suggestion that such a salute was not to the cause for which the flag of the Confederacy stood, but to its going down before the flag of the Union. My main reason, however, was one for which I sought no authority nor asked forgiveness. Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood: men whom neither toils and sufferings, nor the fact of death, nor disaster, nor hopelessness could bend from their resolve; standing before us now, thin, worn, and famished, but erect, and with eyes looking level into ours, waking memories that bound us together as no other bond;–was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a Union so tested and assured?
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Ah, is this Picketts Division?–this little group left of those who on the lurid last day of Gettysburg breasted level cross-fire and thunderbolts of storm, to be strewn back drifting wrecks, where after that awful, futile, pitiful charge we buried them in graves a furlong wide, with names unknown!

Met again in the terrible cyclone-sweep over the breast-works at Five Forks; met now, so thin, so pale, purged of the mortal,–as if knowing pain or joy no more. How could we help falling on our knees, all of us together, and praying God to pity and forgive us all!

Col. Joshua L. Chamberlain, The Passing of the Armies, (recalling 1865)

Distant generations of those holding the Evangelical faith bear a hearing among their nominal descendants before the floor gets more crowded. If you find yourself extremely glad that the Governor is as open as he is about his faith in Christ, and simultaneously extremely annoyed that he is getting publicly flayed about the same, it’s time to give an ear to wisdom from the past–that being both a Conservative and an Evangelical virtue!

It is probable–given the historical development of evangelicalism in America–that your biblical hermeneutic tends toward both dispensationalism and premillenialism. While I will not dispute the biblical merits or faults of those systems here, I will propose that they do not adequately equip their adherents to politically counter–without inconsistency–some of the frequent current arguments against the expression of the Christian faith by public officials. It is my hope that you the reader, if you have found it difficult to answer some of the charges highlighted in Leon’s post, take time to bone up on the Two Kingdoms model as it has been developed from Scripture in light of contemporary political realities by some of the best minds in the Reformation tradition–a tradition with which at least some of the well-honored founders of the Republic were much more conversant than many today.

While neither the purpose nor the format of this site will allow detailed theological interchange, I trust it may be fruitful to present several ways in which assumptions of the Two Kingdoms model are better equipped than those of dispensational premillenialism to confront certain types of attacks–at least for those who still hold rational persuasion among the most effective political tools.

Many dispensational-premillenial evangelicals view the American state through a lens which makes her appear, on the one hand, nearly indistinguishable from Israel between Sinai and Pentecost, and on the other, nearly indistinguishable–in theory at least–from the New Jerusalem descending out of heaven. Again, setting exegesis aside, the practical difficulties of maintaining this view are cumbersome in the political realm and lead inevitably to unanswerable charges of either inconsistency or hypcrisy.

A typical argument begins with a liberal accusing Christians of wanting to establish a Saudi-like theocracy; the evangelical responding–without really knowing why–that the Sinaitic code, while ideally to be upheld, would not be uniformly enforced; the liberal tauntingly pressing for details about whether children who refused to do their homework would be stoned; the Christian frustratingly acknowledging that the law of Christ has reduced the number and penalties of the statutes of Sinai; at which point the liberal probes “like those against homosexuality, right?”; then the Christian trots out Romans 1:24-28; only to be met with Romans 1:29-32 and the observation that, if gossips and boasters likewise deserve to die, they should be subjected to at least the same civil restrictions: why not ban gossips from marrying? and since there are so many heartless in the world who do not support the poor as commanded by Christ, why not provide a means of relief by taxation on their behalf? By this point the Christian may have begun to realize that he is on the horns of a polemical dilemma: to retort against immorality on the left is to cede hyprocrisy on the right, while to hunt for passages to counter those he has already referred puts him on the path away from rightly dividing the word of truth, treating it as only subjectively–which is to say, not at all–authoritative. At this point the probability is high that the Christian will either stomp off the dance floor or trip on his own spurs–neither outcome promoting persuasion; and given his likely Arminianism, he will be at least tempted to believe that the liberal is beyond the redemptive grasp of God in a way that he, thankfully, was not.

The Christian who has done his Two Kingdoms homework, however, can prance around a much wider and more accomodating floor. By hewing to the easily-exegeted fact that no nation on earth since Tisha B’Av–including these United States–has been in a redemptive covenant with the God who thundered at Sinai, he is able to answer the fearful liberal’s taunts with much more grace. Theocracy? No–that will not be repeated, the Prophet-Priest-King, to whom the entire ceremonial and civil economies of Israel pointed, having come and fulfilled all righteousness once for all time. This Christian will take pains to distinguish between the moral law as imprinted on humanity at creation and the particular stipulations of Sinai for Israel alone, the “church under age”. He will believe that the former is knowable by all–including the atheist liberal with whom he is conversing–and thus be able to fully acknowledge, rather than feel forced to defend or redefine–or worse, lie about–every accurate charge made by his antagonist. To paraphrase Luther, the fastest way to end an accusatory barrage by Satan is to agree with every charge, and then refer him to Christ who has paid for even more of one’s sins than were just mentioned. While the interlocutor may not be immediately persuaded to vote Republican, he will at least know that all who do so are not hypocrites or inconsistent, merely sinners like himself. And who knows? Maybe the strangeness of that encounter could lead to others in which a piece of radically Good News–of more import than even last Saturday’s announcement–could be proclaimed.

Dance on!

As always, the good folks at The White Horse Inn have one of the best places to start for getting a handle on the classic doctrines of the Reformation. The broadcasts Applying God’s Law and Wisdom for Life and the Cross of Christ are among many intelligent, insightful, biblical and stimulating discussions which touch this on topic.

All flesh is grass,
   and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades
   when the breath of the LORD blows on it;
   surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
   but the word of our God will stand forever.

Isaiah 40:6-8 (ESV)

When I was in grade school, my mother fixed up the couch for me on a sick day, and we sat and spoke of things we most wanted to do. I was thrilled to hear her say that she had long dreamed of parachuting from a plane, but then immediately saddened when she acknowledged that it would be impossible at her age. Though I assured her that she would–I was wrong–that was my first exposure to the inescapable reality that the number of possibilities of accomplishment tends to decrease rapidly as one ages. Not only do the walls of time encroach unabated, but the particular permutation of one’s successive choices necessarily restricts the remaining choices; and though the available choices may theoretically lead to more possibilities, they usually do not.

One choice which led to many possibilities for me was that to begin commenting at RedState. As my online persona developed, my choices of occasion, content and style somehow kept me just on the inside edge of the bannable line while occasionally–more often not–drawing one or two others into discussion, and sometimes a–coterie, shall we say?–into accelerated oxidation. But of course the site had to grow as well, and the warm fuzzies of discussion, being deemed too ineffectual for the harsh climate, gave way to the promotion of activism as a sole raison d’etre. While a perfectly fine and pragmatically rational deeming, it had the curious effect, in my case, of reducing my remaining contributory possibilities to nearly zero.

Here’s what’s left:

To everyone: you all taught me a great deal about politics.

To many: I really enjoyed the bulk of your writing.

To some: I appreciate the bulk of our interchanges.

To too many: the vain uses of God’s name, the vitriol, the slander, the demonization, the self-righteousness, the open calls for violation of scriptural commands, the innuendo and the vulgarity, produced in me, shall we say, a growing hesistance to direct others to the site.

To the urbists: Don’t be afraid; come on in and visit a blue place. You might be pleasantly surprised.

To the evangelical Christians: Keep it objective–you don’t have the luxury of speculating publicly about theological matters not authoritatively revealed and universally accepted; you have the Scriptures and the Creeds and the Confessions–learn to either say “according to” rather than “I think/feel”, or to not say it at all. Keep it local–while preserving the country, make sure the young women (and men) in your neighborhood are able to hear about the imago Dei, that your unsaved union-goon neighbor is able to hear the gospel from you, and that your catechize your own children even if it doesn’t give you as much time to plot the demolition of the Dept. of Ed. Keep your position–honor and pray for your leaders, all of them. Keep your tongue–”With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people–who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers,these things ought not to be so.” Keep your perspective–far worse things have happened to God’s people throughout history, and the guaranteed blessing is not for those who bring things back to normal but for those who persevere to the end.

To everyone who neither knows it nor believes it: You simply will not be able to stand on the final day clothed in whatever shredded leaves of righteousness you applaud yourself for having stiched together by your merit. Only the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to your wretched account will suffice on that day. The astonishing news is that the Lamb of God still saves all who come to him in repentance and faith before his imminent return.

And with that, the tank is on E. Happy … acting!

The enduring Christmas carols, taken as a whole, emphasize many aspects of Jesus’ advent and birth–prophecy revealed and fulfilled, the local manifestations of drama which occurred when the eternal covenant of redemption broke through into the space-time continuum when Quirinius was governor of Syria, the foreshadowings of a life of sacrificial obedience unto death. One of these occurs less frequently in most carols, and in our shared musings on the subject, than references to angels and a manger, but without its truth none of the other elements would even exist.

That aspect is the fact of the Incarnation itself: the eternal Son of God, the Logos, co-essential and co-equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit, while abandoning none of his Deity, was clothed with flesh, became an infant who shivered, nursed, filled his swaddling clothes with pee and poop, in order to grow to a man who would, for the joy set before him, submit himself to the indignity of death for the salvation of the elect.

Q 15. Then, what kind of mediator and redeemer must we seek?
One who is a true and righteous man and yet more powerful than all creatures, that is, one who is at the same time true God.

Q 16. Why must he be a true and righteous man?
Because God’s righteousness requires that man who has sinned should make reparation for sin, but the man who has sinned cannot pay for others.

Q 17. Why must he be at the same time true God?
So that by the power of his divinity he might bear as man the burden of God’s wrath,a and recover for us and restore to us righteousness and life.

(Heidelberg Catechism, 1563)

Though the Incarnation is an essential detail for the Christian to believe, the extremity of its juxtaposition of necessary truths will remain forever incomprehensible to finite minds. But this incomprehensibility, rather than driving us away, invites us to come, and wonder at, and worship, and proclaim, and eternally sing of, with awe and delight, Immanuel–God-with-us.

Here are a handful of carol stanzas or lines I have encountered over the years which nicely and explicitly emphasize this incomprehensible juxtaposition. Please enjoy–and share others!

God with man is now residing
(Angels, From the Realms of Glory)

Behold, the great Creator makes
himself a house of clay,
A robe of human flesh he takes
which he will wear for aye.

Hark, hark, the wise eternal Word
as a weak infant cries!
In form of servant is the Lord,
and God in cradle lies.
(Behold, the Great Creator Makes)

low lies his head with the beasts of the stall;
angels adore him in slumber reclining–
Maker, and Monarch, and Savior of all!
(Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning)

Christ, the everlasting Lord,
late in time behold him come,
offspring of a virgin’s womb!
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
hail the incarnate Deity!
(Hark! The Herald Angels Sing)

Our God, heaven cannot hold him,
nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
when he comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
a stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.
(In the Bleak Mid-Winter)

the incarnate Deity,
our God contracted to a span,
incomprehensibly made man.

He laid his glory by,
he wrapped him in our clay;
unmarked by human eye,
the latent Godhead lay.

He deigns in flesh to appear,
wildest extremes to join
(Let Earth and Heaven Combine)

Yet in thy dark streets shineth
the everlasting Light;
(O Little Town of Bethlehem)

God of God, Light of Light,
lo, he abhors not the virgin’s womb.
(O Come, All Ye Faithful)

He came down to earth from heaven
who is God and Lord of all;
(Once in Royal David’s City)

Lo, within a manger lies
he who built the starry skies
(See, Amid the Winter’s Snow)

God himself comes down from heaven
(Sing, Oh Sing This Blessed Morn!)

The great God of heaven is come down to earth,
his mother a virgin, and sinless his birth;
the Father eternal his Father alone;
he sleeps in the manger; he reigns on the throne.

A Babe on the breast of a maiden he lies,
yet sits with the Father on high in the skies;
before him their faces the seraphim hide,
while Joseph stands waiting, unscared, by his side’

Lo! here is Emmanuel, here is the Child,
the Son that was promised to Mary so mild;
whose power and dominion shall ever increase,
the Prince that shall rule over a kingdom of peace:

The wonderful Counsellor, boundless in might,
the Father’s own image, the beam of his light;
behold him now wearing the likeness of man,
weak, helpless and speechless, in measure a span:

Oh, wonder of wonders, which none can unfold:
the Ancient of Days is an hour or two old;
the Maker of all things is made of the earth,
man is worshipped by angels, and God comes to birth:

The Word in the bliss of the Godhead remains,
yet in flesh comes to suffer the keenest of pains;
he is that he was, and for ever shall be,
but becomes that he was not, for you and for me.
(The Great God of Heaven)

But of lowly birth camest thou, Lord, on earth,
and in great humility.
(Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne)

Thou who art God beyond all praising
all for love’s sake becamest man;
stooping so low, but sinners raising
heavenwards by thine eternal plan.
(Thou Who Wast Rich Beyond All Splendor)

The invisible appears on earth,

The Lord of Hosts, the God most high,
who quits his throne on earth to live,
(To Us a Child of Royal Birth)

Who is this so weak and helpless,
Child of lowly Hebrew maid,
rudely in a stable sheltered,
coldly in a manger laid?
‘Tis the Lord of all creation
(Who is This So Weak and Helpless)

Eyes that shine in the lantern’s ray
a face so small in its nest of hay,
face of a child who is born to scan
the world he made through the eyes of man:
and from that face in the final day
earth and heaven shall flee away.

Voice that rang through the courts on high
contracted now to a wordless cry,

Infant hands in a mother’s hand,
for none but Mary may understand
whose are the hands and the fingers curled
but his who fashioned and made our world;
(Child of the Stable’s Secret Birth, ©Timothy Dudley-Smith)

God is watching us now
through a baby’s eyes.
(Earth Lies Spellbound in Darkness, ©Graham Kendrick)

God comes down; he bows the sky
and shows himself our friend;
God the invisible appears!
God the blessed, the great I AM,
dwelling in this world of tears–
and Jesus is his name.

being’s source begins to be
and God himself is man!

see the Lord of earth and skies,
humbled to the dust he is
and in a manger lies.
(Glory Be to God on High)

The One in whom we live and move
in swaddling cloths lies bound.
The voice that cried, “Let there be light”,
asleep without a sound.
The One who strode among the stars
and called each one by name,
lies helpless in a mother arms
and must learn to walk again.
(What Kind of Greatness Can This Be. ©Graham Kendrick)

* A place not on the must-see list of our ancestors with feet of stern, impassioned stress; whether their heirs, who place so much more confidence in our own righteousness than they, can remain long, or well, on that thoroughfare across the wilderness in our own time remains to be seen.

Although politically active evangelical Christians are apt to fall on either side of the perennial debates over, perhaps, the genuineness of John Adams’ profession of faith or the validity of reports of papal socialism, they are still quite likely to agree on one principle: that the conservative and liberal poles of the theological compass are nearly congruent with those on the political map. Disquieting anomalies exist, to be sure–witness Born-Again Jimmy and The Weeping Bubba¹–but those might be explained as fortunately rare ricochets of indiscriminate grace, not unlike Ruth the Moabitess and Naaman the Syrian. In general, the Bible-believing Christian will tend to have a mental image in which the picket line between the saved and unsaved camps lies right atop that separating the political right and left.

Among other benefits, this view allows the contemporary Evangelical to maintain his customary eschewal of theological reflection. American mockery of our Saxon cousins’ penchant for precision may have faded after Wernher² got the Eagle to land, but our appreciation of studious craftsmanship still applies only to the tangible/practical, never the metaphysical/intellectual. To think differently–for some, to think at all–about the issues involved would turn us into crabbed Puritans instead of the free spirits we were meant to be. Early Christians found it difficult to divide the sheep from the goats; back in those days the tares were mingled right in among the wheat. But yard signs, bumper stickers, t-shirts and FB groups have changed all that; it has never been easier to know at a glance “who is on the Lord’s side”. And the ability to make that distinction is essential in order to carry out our commission to save the one place in the world that God cares most about from utter destruction by His-and-our enemies, since the time has never been better for their own–utter destruction.

The Evangelical movement, in large part, has erred grievously on this front. Its nearly two-century aversion to both systematic theology and church history, its lurching vacillations between pietistic withdrawals from culture and opportunistic attempts to control the same, its externalization of the law and internalization of the gospel, its inflation of human ability and devaluation of divine sovereignty, and its giddy trampling of holiness–without which no one will see the Lord–under the cloven hooves of consumerism and entertainment, have coalesced to render many of its churches nearly indistinguishable from the world and woefully short of the single commodity they have been primarily charged with dispensing.

High among the factors producing this miasma has been the nearly-unchecked resurgence of that most flattering of heresies, Pelagianism³. For those uninstructed in either its ancient or modern manifestations, the inimitable R.C. Sproul’s The Pelagian Captivity of the Church is a good place to start; the inured might brave dragon-slayer Michael Horton’s Pelagianism; notably, both articles are unflinching in their indictment of one Charles Grandison Finney, roundly hailed as the (would-be, since we don’t really have such things) patron saint of American Evangelicals.

While I hope to both see and assist in an overthrow of this Pelagian Captivity, I understand that a theological discussion of such concerns is not under the purview of a site intended for political activism. However, politically active Christians in the Evangelical world would be wise to consider several political trends which have historically trailed Pelagianism; I offer the following as a safeguard against perpetuating self-defeating errors in the political realm.

Contrary to Christian orthodoxy which, in its best moments both before and after the Reformation, presents salvation in terms of a gracious act of God with no reference to either actual or potential merit in its recipients–

… if anyone makes the assistance of grace depend on the humility or obedience of man and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble, he contradicts the Apostle who says, “What have you that you did not receive?” (Canon VI, Council of Orange, 529)

When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and by his grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good… (Chapter IX.4, Savoy Declaration, 1658)

–Pelagianism ties God’s bestowal of salvation to the proper usage of an inherent disposition, namely, the decision of an individual, motivated by a heart not spiritually deadened by the sin of Adam, to make progress in the improvement of his life. Aside from the complete wreckage this scheme makes of the biblical gospel of sovereign grace which alone saves the ungodly, it also produces radically different effects on the social, cultural and political outlook of its adherents in comparison with that of Christians. These opposite effects are an outworking of each system’s view of moral accountability.

The Christian views accountability in light of the moral law of God being binding upon Adam, who had the ability to both fulfill it and turn from it, as well as upon Adam’s posterity, who find themselves neither capable of fulfilling nor desiring to do the same in a spiritually beneficial manner, yet still under all of its covenantal blessings and penalties; the Pelagain maintains that each person, retaining sufficient of Adam’s innocence to desire and fulfill the moral law at least in part, is accountable only to the limit of ability. He therefore does not see humanity as desperately lost, in need of a divine-human Savior who will accomplish all righteousness in his own flesh and impute the same to chosen sinners, but rather as a mix of people inclined to varying levels of good and evil, the former much more naturally able to make the right choice if and when the offer of salvation comes to them.

(Cinco just can’t lay off the doctrinal stuff, can he!) No, just defining terms. I, at any rate, appreciate our specialists–Vladimir, Francis and Vassar come to mind–who instruct us novices before reaching their destinations. One more observation, and then delivery of the promised goods.

A person’s view of himself in relation to God will affect his view of other people. The orthodox Christian, who sees every inclination of the thoughts of the natural man’s heart–his own included–as only evil all the time, is bound to see the rest of humanity that way as well, and will thus speak, when needing to, of the moral law as universally and perfectly and eternally binding, including upon himself, his family, his party, and his nation. When he needs to speak prophetically against particular sins–including those favored by a disapproving audience–he will do so remembering that he is subject to the same judgment as they, and that the law retains among its three purposes that of preparing the way for that gospel which alone justifies.

The Pelagian, however, beginning with his claim of inherent righteousness, finds himself compelled to measure his own manifestation of the same in favorable terms. Unable to do so in truth against that of the spotless Lamb of God, he must either devalue the standards of the moral law itself or make his neighbor’s negative behavior the point of comparison. In either case, the need for an alien imputed righteousness is effectively replaced by a claim of subjectively-defined self-righteousness.

Now to the political ramifications.

First, every good conservative will have noticed by now how deeply liberals–political and theological–have drunk of this heresy. Pelagianism not only gives theological ballast to their exaltation of both the innate goodness and perfectability of man, it also provides every incentive for subjectivizing the moral code. But while the historical ascension of American political liberalism relied on the support of the theologically liberal, in its formative years that did not produce–as it did later–an open repudiation of parts of the Tao⁴, but rather a full-blown moral improvement campaign. Witness Woodrow Wilson’s “The President’s Message” contained in New Testaments distributed to Great War soldiers by The Pocket Testament League:

… the more you read [the Bible] the more it will become plain to you what things are worth while and what are not, what things make men happy–loyalty, right dealing, speaking the truth, readiness to give everything for what they think their duty, and, most of all, the wish that they may have the approval of the Christ, who gave everything for them–and the things that are guaranteed to make men unhappy–selfishness, cowardice, greed, and everything that is low and mean.
When you have read the Bible you will know that it is the Word of God, because you will have found it the key to your own heart, your own happiness, and your own duty.
(Article from The Ladies Home Journal, December 1917)

Not bad advice, except for its fatal assumption that the Bible’s primary purpose is to encourage people to learn of and do what would make them happy and dutiful citizens while dissuading them from the opposite. But the Pelagian is always drawn to that which will elevate him in his own, and others’, eyes, for that alone will give him confidence that he has attained a workable level of righteousness. Witness also Theodore Roosevelt at the same time making the case for going to church:

1. … a churchless community … is a community on the rapid downgrade
2. Church work and church attendance mean the cultivation of the habit of feeling some responsibility for others and the sense of braced moral strength..
3. There are enough holidays … which can be quite properly devoted to pure holiday making. … On Sunday, go to church.
4. … If he stays away from church he does not spend his time in good works or lofty meditation.
5. … he will hear a sermon by a good man who … is engaged all the week long in … tasks for making hard lives a little easier.
6. He will listen to … some beautiful passages from the Bible.
7. He will probably take part in singing some good hymns.
8. He will meet and nod to, or speak to, good, quiet neighbors. … He will come away feeling a little more charitably toward all the world…
9. … for the sake of showing his faith by his works.
10. … [to avoid missing] many opportunities for helping his neighbors, and therefore, incidentally, for helping himself.
(Article from The Ladies Home Journal, 1917, quoted in the outspokenly irreproachable William J. Bennett’s The Book of Virtues)

Here again, this is great advice … as far as it goes. Which is to say, rather short of things like the universal obligation of corporate worship of God in spirit and truth, the unashamed proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ to sinners–both unconverted and redeemed, the administration of the sacraments, the lively exposition of the whole counsel of God, public prayer, the administration of discipline and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

These examples of Christianity reduced to the mere promotion of moral behavior, however, are no longer the sole property of nascent theological liberalism, being nearly indistinguishable from much of the blather currently published or broadcast in the Evangelical world. And though the older movement had sprung from Enlightenment roots, it did not beget Rev. Wright and Bishop Spong without first endearing itself to the Pelagian through its promise of a humanity made happier and more fulfilled–that is, more pleased with itself–by moral renewal. But by the end of a generation which saw many Evangelicals more concerned with building bomb cellars–in safe neighborhoods–than with compassionately articulating a refutation of nihilistic modernism, it had become apparent that happiness and fulfillment could be obtained quite easily without all the restrictions of the moral code itself, at least for those who would just … Imagine.

In magisterial reformed thought, the political behavior of a people will somehow mirror that people’s religious convictions. While many on the right complain about the corrosive effects of Secular Humanism, or the painful consequences of Islam, those are by no means the only giants prowling the land. Pelagianism–a key element of what Christian Smith describes as “moralistic, therapeutic, deism”–has gone largely unchallenged in many self-proclaimed conservative churches, to the point where Evangelical superstars can now build their empires with a fraction of the trouble it cost Leo X to establish his, merely by uttering sweet promises of having one’s “best life now⁵“–as long as the right price is paid in order to learn the secret techniques⁶. But there is no guarantee that the fans of the modern super-apostles, as they inevitably tire of the failed promises, will not be drawn to more openly secular measures to secure their happiness now. They may not end up immediately in the UCC–that drink will be sour to them for some time, thanks in part to fundamentalist anti-intellectualism (a small favor from an otherwise crippling bent)–but they will find it quite easy to turn to other benevolent agents. If the God I can’t see, who has bound himself to give me all I want when I want it, doesn’t deliver on his promises, I will find it quite easy to turn, as did Aaron and the Israelites during Moses’ elevated hiatus, to the gods I can see. And among that pantheon of local and visible deities, which differ from their ancient predecessors more in name than essence, is Big Daddy Dole, famous for his willingness to bless whoever crosses his threshhold so long as the granaries and vats remain filled by his slaves. (self: insert Pogo quote)

But unchecked Pelagianism can spawn havoc beyond a people happy to live at the troth. By sanctioning–rather than slaying–their sense of inherent righteousness, it produces disciples whose very self-validation depends on finding equal and opposite enemies, in relation to whom alone their own value can be measured. Although Screwtape describes them in religious terms, this perversion spills rapidly into the political realm:

You know how this wine is blended? Different types of Pharisee have been harvested, trodden, and fermented together to produce its subtle flavour. Types that were most antagonistic to one another on Earth. Some were all rules and relics and rosaries; others were all drab clothes, long faces, and petty traditional abstinences from wine or cards or the theatre. Both had in common their self-righteousness and an almost infinite distance between their actual outlook and anything the Enemy really is or commands. The wickedness of other religions was the really live doctrine in the religion of each; slander was its gospel and denigration its litany. How they hated each other up where the sun shone!
(C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Proposes a Toast)

Political demonization becomes pragmatically attractive whenever one side hopes to galvanize the middle into rejection of the other side in sufficient force to ensure an allied majority. The efficacy of the approach diminishes as the middle grows in relation to the sides–the demons have to pose enough of a threat to bother with, after all–but it rarely fails to convince its practitioners that attempts to persuade the other side are futile. The expedient of demonization, however, is forbidden to the biblical Christian; discussion, debate, correction, instruction, proclamation of the truth, deconstruction of presuppositions, denial of premises, open rebuke, calls for repentance, sometimes even silence–but demonization, never, because the neighbor possesses an immortal soul no less accessible to irresistible, salvific grace than one’s own.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (Romans 12:14-19, ESV)

The Pelagian will easily demonize in order to elevate his own perceived righteousness; the Christian, knowing that he was at heart as much an enemy of God as his fiercest opponents, will necessarily view them with more mercy, embodying that mercy in his interactions with them and his speech about them. One could reasonably expect the tenor of this site, for example, to display a high degree of honorable dealing with opponents–both without and within the camp–given the large number of contributors who make continual reference to their faith, but I at least do not see widespread evidence of that motivation, and find it sadly ironic that a group of people so wholeheartedly devoted to influential political activism should be so marked by the tone of those who have, in practice, abandoned all confidence in the persuasive arts.

The tendency of self-righteousness to eviscerate reasoned influence is not limited to the high-decibel, but narrow, band of the blogosphere, however. Political conservatism, for all its victories over recent decades, has been significantly hampered by the voluntary abandonment, by too many conservative Christians, of several fields of engagement. A generation preferring entertainment to exegesis is not likely to produce notably influential teachers, scientists and statesmen–or craftsmen, shopkeepers and streetsweepers either, for that matter. But the abandoment has not been merely vocational, it has redefined–some might say obliterated–Christian life in the family and church as well. Small numbers are all the rage for the former, large for the latter, no matter the cost for the comparative comforts. Pelagian self-esteem might motivate a person sufficiently to rail at secular humanists and a godless media–which he continues to purchase–but it provides remarkably little armament against the very real temptations common to our different phases of life, a fact not lost on the Hefners, Mahers and Winfreys, all raised in families which placed an apparently disconnectedly legalist premium on moral behavior. And the retreat has clearly been geographical as well. There has certainly not been a concerted influx by conservative Christians into those places which always cause the most anxiety after the polls close; rather, it has become no secret that “the nice people” really don’t go there anymore, and that the best thing for dark blue areas would be their obliteration from the face of the earth⁷.

So given the site’s newly focused emphasis on activism, how will this crash course on Pelagianism’s political fallout help us win in 2012? It won’t. Nor in the cycles closely following. And it may not result in a single seat changing sides over most of our lifetimes. But hopefully it will remind us of our very real responsibility to defend the faith once for all delivered to the saints. If in so doing, motivated by a commission greater than even RedState’s, we find ourselves actually recovering the high ground of persuasion in sight of those we had earlier reckoned implacable foes, who can know where that might lead? At the very least, more light and salt will be an improvement over less.

¹ “This past January in the wake of the inaugural festivities President Clinton gathered a group of Southern Baptists ministers to pray with him in Little Rock. They assured the evangelical community and the secular media as well that President Clinton was a sound, solid, Bible believing evangelical. Why? How did they know that? They said because he even cried during the singing of some of the hymns.” (Michael Horton, Beyond Culture Wars, Modern Reformation, May/June 1993)
² For this purposes of this article, references to Pelagianism are intended to broadly include semi-Pelagianism as well.
³ According to Tom Lehrer, “a man whose allegiance is ruled by expedience”.
⁴ Per C.S. Lewis’ usage in The Abolition of Man, that is, the universally common elements, post-Fall, of the moral law.
⁵ “At the heart of Osteen’s message is that achieving a successful, prosperous life of fulfillment can only occur when we … by using our God-given … to achieve our goals.” (Larry Trivieri, Jr., Amazon.com Review of Joel Osteen’s Your Best Life Now)
⁶ That the Prosperity “Gospel”‘s esoteric techniques also revive essential aspects of Gnosticism would be easy, but for this article unnecessary, to establish.
⁷ Not an original idea, that; James and John had similar hopes for a certain Samaritan village, “but he turned and rebuked them.”

Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
and are accounted as the dust on the scales;
behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.
:
All the nations are as nothing before him,
they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.
:
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
who brings princes to nothing,
and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows on them, and they wither,
and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

Isaiah 40:15-25 (ESV)

From Francis Schaeffer, at whose pen, so long ago, many of us nursed when first dragged into the light:

Equating any other loyalty, whether it is political, national, or ethnic, with our loyalty to God is sin, and we better get our priorities straight now.

From dear old John, across the centuries, more needful for our day than even his own:

How long, O Lord, have you bestowed
your care upon our rebel land?
Of all the nations, few, O God,
have known such blessings from your hand.

Here many godly people dwelt,
as once the glorious gospel shone;
long uninvaded, we had felt
that you had made our cause your own.

But heaven and earth have clearly heard
our wild rejection of that love:
we, though like children kindly reared,
ungrateful and rebellious prove.

Your grace despised, your power defied,
and legions of the vilest crimes,
the foulest sins of lust and pride
all greatly mark the present times.

Lord, hear your people everywhere,
who meet to mourn, confess and pray:
the nation and your churches spare,
and let your wrath be turned away.

John Newton (modernized, ©2000, Praise Trust)

And finally, from The Psalter, 1912, the integration of all of the above:

Not unto us, O Lord of Heav’n,
But unto Thee be glory given;
In love and truth Thou dost fulfill
The counsels of Thy sovereign will;
Though nations fail Thy pow’r to own,
Yet Thou dost reign, and Thou alone.

Blessed the people who, upon hearing the threatenings of the Law, consider its application to themselves as well as their neighbor, and when hearing the consolations of the Gospel, consider its application to their neighbor as well as themselves. May we find joy in the harvest during this new season of opportunity, however long or short it pleases the Lord of the harvest to extend the daylight hours.

“This guy here is one of those titans that our community needs … I’m asking you to cross lines. Forget about Democrat, forget about Republican. We are in a stage that we need real leaders.”

Be encouraged. If such an endorsement can come in … The Bronx* … imagine what must be happening elsewhere under the radar. Now to cheer your hearts a bit:

* I know, many of you will probably consider my hometown the citadel of conservatism after seeing this, but honesty compels me, I’m afraid, to admit that we still have a ways to go. But you’re certainly welcome to come and lend a hand. You might come away with more than you bargained for!

How then can I justify not signing a document which so clearly aims to defend several inarguably Conservative principles by stating that:

1.the sanctity of human life
2.the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
3.the rights of conscience and religious liberty
… are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, … inviolable and non-negotiable.

While the Declaration nobly argues several indisputable positions, it also rests on assumptions which run contrary to the professed purpose of many of its authors and signers. My dispute is rooted in the following:

Historically resonant Declarations make it abundantly clear that their signers, though possibly of different minds on unrelated matters, are in full agreement on all points explicity declared. So my forbears, the Independents who produced the 1658 Savoy Declaration, were united on all points necessary to validate the Congregational model in light of the Westminster Confession while still remaining in fellowship with the Presbyterians; the Founders who produced the 1776 Declaration of Independence were united on all points necessary to birth a new nation; the German pastors of the Confessional Synod who produced the 1934 Barmen Declaration were united on all points necessary to oppose the devastating German Christians leadership movement; so the confessional signers of the 1996 Cambridge Declaration were united on all points necessary to prophetically call contemporary Evangelicalism from the brink of self-inflicted irrelevance in hopes of preparing the way for a contemporary Reformation.

The 2009 Manhattan Declaration, however, appeals to terminology which cannot conceivably be thought to hold a common meaning for all of its original signers, most strikingly in its references to the proclamation of the Gospel:

Like those who have gone before us in the faith, Christians today are called to proclaim the Gospel of costly grace
…
It is our duty to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness

There is a logical possibility that the signers mutually agreed to renounce all significantly irreconcilable particulars about the Gospel in their several confessions. Sadly, the remoteness of that possiblity is reduced by the explicit elevation of unity under the Declaration above unity within their own communions:

We … make the following declaration, which we sign as individuals, not on behalf of our organizations, but speaking to and from our communities. We act together in obedience to the one true God

But it is much more likely that this is an instance of terminology overloading, in which identical terms can bear vastly different meanings to different audiences. Of course overloading occurs in both the political and theological realms, but it is customary for opposing groups to articulate the distinctives of their own usages, both for their fellow adherents, for those opposed, and for those in the middle. It is a rare sight when groups with long-established opposing views on a fundamental doctrine share terminology as though no differences exist, and raises the uncomfortable question whether the need to address contemporary issues, as tragic and burdensome as the subjects of the Declaration are, has now been deemed worth the price of abandoning the truth of the central message of the Word of God?

This has happened before. For all the vitriol heaped recently upon Rev. Wright and those of similar mind by Conservatives, the short-sighted would do well to remember that the theologically liberal mainstream denominations, now so inextricably and disastrously linked to political liberalism, began their decline from conservative roots at the hands of the most well-meaning persons and movements, including those universally acknowledged to have succeeded “for the common good”. But whenever the Church has attempted to acquire political capital, inevitably and to the same degree it has lost its hold on the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Political movements must attempt to acquire sufficient followings to enact their agenda in a society; this is tautological whether using ordinary means, as persuasion and the ballot, or extraordinary means, as civil disobedience or force. A church faithful to the biblical Gospel of Jesus Christ, however, finds itself saying “Follow Me–come and die!”, which tends not to be a stadium-filler of an offer, except perhaps to onlookers wanting to see the drama take place before their eyes.

This assumption about shared root principles is totally unnecessary to the good arguments in the Declaration. It would have been more appropriate to have either left out the implied doctrinal agreements, or kept them in and had each branch address solely its own communion. And what of the Jew, the Muslim, the Buddhist, the Atheist who is in agreement with the major principles? Are they expected or invited to sign in expression of political solidarity with the principles expressed? If not, are they deemed incapable ofacquiring proper political motivation? If so, are they assumed to find it easy to violate their own consciences by publicly declaring fidelity to the cause of Jesus Christ?

There is also not a single reference to the sovereignty of God in exercising His inscrutable will over men and nations–including our own–or His gracious condescension of allowing His children to participate in the manifestation of that will through prayer, led by and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Rather, the most efficacious means of accomplishing the will of God now seems to be–Civil Disobedience.

And what of the countless saints dead and living, in situations inconceivably more difficult than our own, who have somehow managed to resist the will of Caesar when it violates the will of God, always at a price of reputation, family, livelihood, health, freedom or life–content to know that their baptism encompassed a sufficient Declaration of their intent to die with Christ that none other would be necessary or appropriate?

As I have done multiple times on this site, I commend those to whom these objections seem unfitting for a self-described theologically and politically conservative to a study of the several Reformation-based expressions of the Two Kingdoms model; these will provide the most biblically sound, Christ-glorifying approach to the proper roles of the Christian citizen and the church in this present evil age, “for it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men”.

I must close with the last lines of the preface of the Barmen Declaration, signed by pastors united by similar confessions and intended for their own flocks and fellow-shepherds in the last moments before irrevocable darkness fell:

If you find that we are speaking contrary to Scripture, then do not listen to us! But if you find that we are taking our stand upon Scripture, then let no fear or temptation keep you from treading with us the path of faith and obedience to the Word of God, in order that God’s people be of one mind upon earth and that we in faith experience what he himself has said: “I will never leave you, nor forsake you.” Therefore, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

Before the Great Quarantine, but at a time still within the collectivist memory, there was great fear among ThemUs. In those days TheyWe kept hearing fell rumors that the Rational, the Wise, the Ancient and the Holy, would invade, crush TheirOur brittle defenses, and drive ThemUs into the Sea, or far worse, suck out OurMy very minds and replace them with hideous, alien Revealed Propositional Truth and an odious, objective History–the latter more likely given TheirOur Achilles’ heel of constant accomodation and surrender in place of fighting for Subjective Survival. But the fear is palpably receding as news of the Quarantine spreads.

Even so, in fleeting moments of weakness like the present, WeI feel compelled to re-issue the rationale for the Quarantine, though you have doubtless heard them all before.

It cannot be overemphasized that the Orders of Separation have NOTHING to do, as popularly mis-imagined, with the increasing incidence of Pelagian Flu in both your and OurMy parts of The World. For starters, naysayers to the contrary, that is NEVER fatal, as you and WeI should well know–come, let’s admit the truth, it can actually produce quite pleasant side-effects! But WeI digress. By this point you on the Outside and WeI on the Inside have actually experienced the Evolution of the Two Dominant Strains. So those of ThemUs on the Inside can continue to enjoy the Liberating ramifications of knowing that, since all mankind already carries the seeds of divinity within, the old shibboleths and taboos were but troubling shades of the night, now evaporating in the glorious Antinomian dawn! And wonderfully, you on the Outside, knowing that your souls are yours alone, are free to extract all joy from the intoxicating fountain of Moralistic Legalism, secure in knowing that your own inherent righteousness exceeds OursMine.

No, the rationale for the Quarantine was never the Flu–for both you and WeI know that each Strain provides Immunity to the other. As condescending as it may sound, the real reason for the Travel Bans which have so remarkably succeeded, is OurMy concern for your own well-being here on the Other Side. WeI are deeply worried that you would simply be devastated by the thoroughness with which we would, well, simply IGNORE you were you to come here!

Now WeI know some will tell you their have been reports that OurMy town has been infiltrated, not merely by passers-through, but actually by those who claim to live in OurMy neighborhoods and work in OurMy offices and shop in OurMy stores and, hateful thought! teach OurMy children and befriend UsMe and attempt to convince UsMe of the objective consistency of their ways. May it never be–The implications are horrific! But WeI know full well that you will never pay attention to those scandalous lies! And how do WeI know this? Because WeI regularly hear, in word and non-deed, from so many on the outside who say EXACTLY what WeI have said from the beginning: Conservatism can never work on This Side, will never work on This Side, must never be thought possible to work on This Side. In your current state of health, it would be unthinkable to consider moving among such robust specimens as OurMySelvesSelf!

So please, if you value your well-being, nay your lives, please remind your loved ones of the futility and dire consequences of breaking the Quarantine. WeI know that you on the Outside have many wonderful things to keep you happy and occupied and quite free from our concerns–all that This World can offer!

—–

[1] final word directly lifted with gratitude from the insightful Religion article by Lisa Miller in a recent Newsweek, quoted in the opening minutes of the 11/08/2009 White Horse Inn broadcast A Survey of Christian Faith and Practice.

… Linda Douglass … addresses one example that makes it look like the President intends to “eliminate” private coverage, when the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.

I guess you didn’t really need all those sentence-diagramming drills after all, did you?

After you turn in the corrected copy, you might also want to have a little chat with Ms. Douglass about the clear message she sends with her so-nearly-restrained head shakes during statements of positive fact.

That is, if and when your War on Terrorruth duties allow.

Now that she has left that stage, we are leaderless, we are rudderless, we are without hope in the gathering gloom.

We need her–Sarah are you reading this?–or a leader of her stature now more than ever. Here’s why.

Sarah embodied the conservative leader we need whose job, nay whose calling, is, above all, to promulgate, to articulate, to teach and to defend the ideals of conservative thought to a country full of liberal hordes infesting the arts, the media, boardrooms, campuses and–shudder–inner cities. They will never listen to us–which is why you will never catch any of us alive in any of those forsaken places. And just between us, we all KNOW that those ideals we hold dear don’t really apply in places like that, and can’t really be communicated to people like that by people like us–if we thought otherwise, why aren’t any of us in those places? That is why we must never break our solemn pledge to stay as far from those citadels of iniquity as we can, lest we be polluted and lost to the cause.

But Sarah was different! She spoke for all of us–ON TV! And of course everybody still watches TV! That’s the only way to grab the hearts and, well the hearts at any rate, of the people who hate us so much! She gave us so much power, and so much visibility, and so much excitement, and so much fun rolled in–and the biggest and best of our mega-churches keep telling us that’s what’s most important, isn’t it?–that the Other Side just couldn’t help but join the parade. Best of all, we knew that with Sarah in front, none of us would ever again have to defend an argument or articulate a position or–gasp–maybe have to invite a smelly person into our living room to attempt civil persuasion (not that I would know, but I think that’s what I heard somebody call it once). How else can a minority like us ever hope to get our hands back on the throttle?

We failed her, of course. We should have helped her to get more air time so that more of the hordes would have noticed. Now she has left and we are lost. We are really sorry, Sarah. But when she relents and starts to have compassion on us once again, she will at least know where to find us: as always, as comfortable as conceivable, as far from the really really bad places as we can manage, as isolated from our neighbors as we can contrive, keeping our kids as far as possible from theirs, watching all the shows and reading, well, watching all the shows that make us remember how good we really are and how happy we could really be if only we had someone like her to lead us back into the only safe place, what that old prophet of doom* called the American dream of peace and affluency.

Somebody’s gotta lead us back. We weep for you now, Sarah, but we will be ready and waiting for you then.

*Francis Schaeffer. I should be ashamed to admit it, but I did read just a page or two once, back before I knew how the world worked. But it was really hard to understand anyways and a little scary to boot, so none of you need trouble your minds about it.