Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 19

A Mighty Joy

“The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing” (Zeph. 3:17).

One of the harder temptations to overcome for many is doubt and fear over God’s true assessment of His people. There are many reasons for this. Many people grow up in homes where parents do not express much love or grace, and the trained instinct is to constantly try to perform well, with constant criticism or threats or angry outbursts or impossible demands. This leaves people with the constant nagging sense that they aren’t good enough, a constant nagging sense of their failures. And many Christians even struggle with this; they know they are forgiven, they know the gospel, but they don’t really feel it, they don’t have many times of refreshing. 

Sometimes this is because full repentance hasn’t taken place; sometimes God’s people are still clinging to bits and pieces of their sin. And that can certainly weigh on you and prevent you from having joy.

But sometimes the problem is a false view of God. Sometimes, you hear the words grace and forgiveness, but you still don’t think of God as actually happy, joyful, and glad about you. So if you think of God as the great banker in the sky, Our Accountant in Heaven Hallowed By Thy Spreadsheets, who happens to be willing to forgive your debts and pay for your sins, but His real love is keeping track of all the accounts, you’re going to have a Hell of a hard time having joy. And I mean that literally: that’s Hell.

So let me tell you plainly that our God is not like that. The Triune God is not an accountant. He is not a banker. He is not angry with you. He is not scrutinizing and judging your every move. He is Your faithful and loving Father. And here in Zephaniah it says that He’s a lover and a singer. Because He is mighty to save, He rejoices over His people with joy, a mighty joy. He sings over His people, out of pure delight.

Have you ever noticed that when you’re singing at the top of your lungs, it’s hard to think about anything else? Your whole being has to be thrown into it. That is how your God is: His love for Jesus is so complete, so full, that He sings at the top of His lungs, and this says that He sings over all of those who are in Him. It’s a song of delight and joy; it’s a song of heartfelt welcome. He delights in You.

So come and welcome to Jesus Christ. 

Photo by Kati Hoehl on Unsplash

White Boy Summer Heretics & the Autistic Reformed Bros on Full Preterism

Introduction
When Michael Foster advertised a dance at his upcoming County Before Country conference for “autistic reformed bros” a week or so back on CrossPolitic, I thought he was just being funny, but now I think he was being a bit prophetic because right after that, I was treated to like a week of it. It was like that proverb about living under a leaking roof with a pestering woman. Only most of these people have male names and avatars. But they don’t appear to have wives or children or jobs or anything else to do with their time since all they do is make repeated accusations and vague demands on Facebook. Of course I mean no insult to those who truly have some form of autism or Asperger’s. It’s just when it comes to handling a creedal or confessional question or deviation, they apparently know exactly what must be done, and it rhymes with what Monty Python says weighs the same as a duck. Their modus operandi is Ready. Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! Aim?

And speaking of lynching, this brings up a question some people have raised regarding our CrossPolitic weights and measures. On the one hand, we called out Greg Johnson for the Revoice nonsense, but on the other hand, we didn’t care for that White Boy Summer bunkum. We let Darren Doane call “kinism” incestuous on our show, and we didn’t even stop him. We also let Jason Farley say that radical individualistic Baptist theology has had a major part in our cultural tranny downgrade. And that didn’t really bother us either. And then Gary DeMar comes along and says that he thinks people get their new spiritual bodies when they die and go to heaven, and he’s not sure which texts describe the final coming of Christ in glory and the final judgment, and we said, “hmmm, that’s not good. We need to look into that.” And a bunch of folks said, Quid agis? Which is Latin for: Que pasa?

And some said in grim and dire tones: this is a clear indication that Fight Laugh Feast is the new The Gospel Coalition. Which if we’re being honest is more of an insult to TGC. But I take all the baseless insults, thoughtless slanders, and blathering folly as strong indications of God’s intention to promote and continue blessing CrossPolitic and Fight Laugh Feast. Jesus says to rejoice when people insult you and fling all kinds of poo at you, so that’s what I’m doing. And blessings to all of you, especially those of you who put sad emojis on my posts and comments. Bless you all. And I mean it. 

So here’s my attempt at describing the method to our madness, or at least the meth in my madness or something like that.

The Black Plague & Ideological STDs
On the one hand, Full Preterism is totally bad juju. It’s heresy full stop. As I said in my previous post on this topic: Paul says that people who teach that the resurrection is already past are like a canker and overthrow the faith of some. People who embrace these errors need faithful church discipline. But faithful shepherding isn’t merely a matter of running one-size-fits-all wolf tests on everything that shows up on our radar. Faithful shepherding must understand the state of sheep and which wolves are the greatest threats. And while FP is a threat; I consider it a threat like I consider the Black Plague a threat. I think it’s bad, really bad, and deadly and lethal and virulent, and… I don’t know anyone who’s died of it. There’s like five Hyper Preterists in the world and they all live in a bunker somewhere in Arkansas, I think.

Now Uncle Gary has been making some pretty wheezy coughing noises and he may have contracted the bad juju, but I’m waiting for an official diagnosis, which I won’t be getting from the autistic reformed internet bros. When determining something as serious as heresy and the potential of excommunication, the Bible requires careful deliberation, due process, you know, establishing what they used to call in the olden days, facts, you know with evidence. As firm believers in due process, we are approaching this carefully and deliberately, which you can be assured is not the same thing as dragging our feet. But if I’ve seen anything on Facebook over the last couple of days, it has been a serious lack of careful reading and reasoning skills. In fact, the way people read my Gary DeMar Debacle article and extrapolated all sorts of postmodern conclusions, has only made me more suspicious about their claims about Gary. If you’re reading my article and my comments with that kind of charity and clarity, I don’t trust you to assemble various snippets of evidence and present it honestly and accurately. Here’s a quick assortment of the sorts of questions I’ve received the last couple of days:

Me: Full preterism is a heresy.

Them: Why won’t you say full preterism is a heresy??!!!

Me: I just did.

Them: Say it like you mean it!!!!

Me: Full preterism is a heresy.

Them: So you’re saying that headcoverings are the moral equivalent of full preterism????!!!

Me: No, just that church discipline has to address ‘how’ things are handled as much as ‘what’. And sometimes people are divisive/schismatic over minor things.

Them: Like face masks????!!!!!!!

Me: Yes, like forcing people to wear petri dishes on their face in compliance with statist chicanery. 

Them: But why aren’t you doing anything about Gary DeMar???!!!

Me: I am writing him and there are conversations going on behind the scenes.

Them: But why aren’t you doing anything???!!!

Me: I am doing what I can do to find out what he believes.

Them: But he’s a full-preterist!!!

Me: But he says he’s not a full preterist.

Them: But that’s just what heretics do – they are sophists who play with words!!!!

Me: Yes, they do, which is why we need to carefully evaluate this situation.

Them: But you need to do something now!!!!

Me: No, God has established His church with elders who possess the keys of the kingdom. I’m not Gary DeMar’s elder; he’s not a member of my church. The Lordship of Jesus means respecting that jurisdiction, due process, and then doing my part to tell the truth and be a faithful friend.

Them: Fie!!! Fight Laugh Feast has turned into The Gospel Coalition!!!!!

On the one hand, Gary has plainly insisted in a few places that he is not a hyper preterist, and on the other hand, he’s been saying things like believers get some kind of spiritual body when they die and go to heaven and their material bodies just go into the ground never to rise again, which is false, unbiblical, and leaves part of this material world unredeemed by the blood of Jesus. Which is really bad, not true, and he should stop saying that. 

On the other hand, I do think that Kinism is playing with a species murder – hatred and pride in the heart based on race and ethnicity. And murderers end up in the Lake of Fire. I’m not talking about love of family, love of tradition, love of your home, love of your nation, love of your culture, love of baseball and hotdogs and cold beer – all good and godly things, ordered by God’s Word. If that’s what you’re eager to recover, that’s great, just don’t call yourself a “Kinist” and don’t share White Boy Summer memes like some kind of fathead. To traffic in racialist categories is to take the bait of Critical Race Theory and all its ugly bastard children. You don’t beat Dialectical Materialism with your own materialistic dialectic. You don’t beat feminists by ordaining women to pastoral ministry. You don’t beat fire by pouring gasoline on it.

I want to be clear: denying a settled creedal/confessional doctrine like the Final Coming of Christ in person to raise our physical bodies from their graves and the final judgment is a deadly and lethal disease like the Black Plague, but it’s relatively rare. On the other hand, even if sexual confusion and Kinist confusion and radical individualism are more like STDs, I know a lot more folks dying from those diseases, and it’s reeking a lot more havoc on our land. The doctrinal virus is way worse, but that’s not currently what’s being dished out on CNN and in most evangelical pulpits.

So some of the apparent disparity in treatment has to do with relative threats to our current culture, and some of it has to do with who is doing what. Gary Demar has been a faithful soldier fighting the good fight for many decades. He has been a father and grandfather to many. He may be going wobbly on these issues, and if so, that will be very unfortunate. I pray that he has faithful elders in his church who will pastor him well. As for Fight Laugh Feast, we won’t continue platforming someone who either is a hyper-preterist or who isn’t clear enough about what he believes to distinguish himself from hyper-preterism. But God requires us to honor our fathers in the faith, and sometimes when our fathers stumble into sin or error, they must be admonished and sometimes we walk backwards into the tent to cover their drunken shame. But a bunch of reformed cancel karens do not understand that they are currently channeling the spirit of Ham. I’m not talking about people who pointed out reasonable concerns, asked reasonable questions, and so forth. I’m talking about the people who commented over 50 times a day saying the same thing over and over, thinking that they will be heard because of their many words. Alas, the internet gods are deaf to their cries. And part of me wants to say that every time they make another comment or post on Facebook, I add another day to the time I believe is needed to properly adjudicate this situation. It’s hard to think clearly through all their chanting of “Great is the Authority of the Internets!”

Conclusion
So just to review for the autistic reformed bros: Full Preterism is a heresy. So is Kinism. And White Boy Summer is like a desperate middle school girl in a pushup bra on main street, advertising for what she knows not. And Revoice is still Spanish for “Queering the PCA.” Confessional Baptists are my homeboys all day long, but that radical individualist Baptist culture that tells people that they have to decide who they want to be, and Jesus is desperately panting at the door of their heart begging for a date, singing Jesus is my boyfriend worship songs, and riding waterslides into dunk tanks? Yeah, that’s grooming trannies as much as Drag Queen story hour. And if CrossPolitic is the new TGC, then that makes Gabe Rench the new Tim Keller, which is kind of funny if you think about it.

Nine Principles of Biblical Justice

Notes For a short presentation at Logos High School

1. Only God is perfectly just; human justice that submits to God’s justice approximates God’s justice but not perfectly. The Final Judgment at the end of human history is our hope for complete and perfect justice. Until then, we must aim for obedient biblical justice, but perfectionists will be constantly disappointed and bitter. And this leads people to take vengeance into their own hands, but vengeance is the Lord’s – God will repay. Biblical justice must be humble and patient under God and His final judgment. 

2. The Cross is the central act of biblical justice: this is both the moral justice due our sins and crimes against God as well as the foundation of our ability to do true criminal justice in this world. The Cross orients how we think about everything and fundamentally allows us to think and judge clearly. Jesus said that we should not try to remove the speck from our brother’s eye without first removing the log from our own eye. It is also the revelation of the justice of God because God simultaneously saved us while satisfying justice. The goal of biblical justice is punitive, but when the penalties are biblical, justice is also restorative. But we shouldn’t get this backwards.

3. Biblical justice makes a distinction between sins vs. crimes. The distinction between sins and crimes recognizes different jurisdictions. Sins are the jurisdiction of family/church and crimes are the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate. When we are dealing with crimes as defined by Scripture, they are also sins, but not all sins are crimes. For example, murder is a crime and a sin, but covetousness is only a sin and not a crime. It doesn’t become a crime until it turns into theft. Broadly, a crime is something that God says does some kind of objective harm to the community, or to a person or property. So, according to biblical law, adultery and fornication are crimes and sins, but they are rarely prosecuted as crimes in our modern day. 

4. Biblical justice also makes a distinction between consequences and forgiveness. A man may commit murder and while he is on trial truly become a Christian, confess his sins, and seek forgiveness, and he truly is forgiven by God and he should still receive the death penalty. In biblical law, the death penalty is only mandatory for murder (Gen. 9). I take the other death penalties to be maximum penalties, which means that magistrates may use wisdom in rendering their verdict and penalties. And while true repentance and forgiveness may play some role in that wisdom, a person may be forgiven and still face just consequences.

5. Biblical justice requires two or three witnesses in order to convict someone (Dt. 19:15). I take it that one of those witnesses may be material evidence (e.g. finger prints, DNA, blood, surveillance footage, cell pings, etc.), but this is also why the standard is two or three. The less certain the material evidence is, the more necessary a third witness is. This requirement is the basis for the biblical standard of presumption of innocence – innocent until proven guilty. This also means that biblical justice requires us to lean in the direction that it would be better to occasionally let a true criminal off the hook (for lack of evidence, e.g. only one witness) than to occasionally convict an innocent person because we have an itchy trigger finger. 

6. Biblical justice requires the cross-examination of witnesses. “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him” (Prov. 18:17). Related to this is the right of the accused to face his accuser(s). Anonymous accusers/accusations do not allow for this, and thus they ought to be ordinarily rejected. What a bunch of people on the internet think or say isn’t sufficient to convict a person of a crime. 

7. Biblical justice teaches that there is wisdom and safety in a multitude of counselors: this is part of the basis for trial by jury. And we see the same principle in the church where an elder board hears difficult cases and decides, or else where a case is brought before the entire congregation for a vote. The idea is to spread out as much as possible the human tendency to prejudice a decision. In all the old paintings and statues, Lady Justice is pictured as blind (or blind-folded), holding scales in one hand and a sword in the other. The blindness/blindfold pictures this equality of judgment, and a multitude of counselors helps approximate that. 

8. Biblical justice requires that penalties match the crime. This is what the scales represent in the pictures/statues of Lady Justice. This principle is called the Lex talionis, which refers to the law of fairness or equivalence. The Old Testament statement of this principle is: “eye for eye, tooth for tooth.” While moderns often think that this seems barbaric, it was actually a principle of restraint. If someone took your eye, the maximum penalty that could be brought against them was for them to lose their eye. In our fleshly anger and desire for vengeance, when we’ve lost an eye, we usually want to take off the other person’s head. Jesus taught this same principle in the Sermon on the Mount when he said that we must love our enemies and do good to those who wrong us, and not seek personal vengeance. Jesus was not saying never to call the cops. He was saying the wrath of man doesn’t accomplish the justice of God, and it is the civil magistrate’s job to weight out justice carefully. You can give a thief a drink of water and call the cops. 

9. Lastly, biblical justice is often concerned with restitution. Short of the death penalty (the sword), most crimes should require paying back the damage that has been done by criminal actions (the scales). Often this restitution would require years of labor to pay back. The ordinarily principle of restitution is paying back double what was damaged or stolen (Ex. 22:4). This is a far more humane and personal way to make things right. When criminal justice began talking about “paying one’s debt to society,” we turned away from biblical justice. In the situation with the U of I murders, the one who committed that crime did not primarily wrong “society,” they wronged the individuals they murdered and their families and friends. 

The Gary DeMar Debacle

Introduction
Just getting back into the saddle here from a spring break trip. A number of folks have been asking me about the Gary DeMar Debacle, and I finally had a chance to listen through the five podcasts Gary has done responding to the letter of concern signed by a number of his (and my) good friends. In response to that, I have written Gary privately with some questions, and we are corresponding currently, as he recovers from a surgery. 

A Brief Overview
For those of you just joining us, the letter can be found here. And the central request of the letter is an affirmation from Gary regarding three questions 1. Do you believe in a future, bodily glorious return of Christ? 2. Do you believe in a future physical, general resurrection of the dead? And 3. Do you believe history will end with the Final Judgment of all men? Gary has thus far declined to give any straightforward answer to these questions (that I’m aware of), but reading between the lines, I would hazard a guess that his answers at the moment are something like 1. Possibly, 2. Probably not, and 3. Probably. But he isn’t sure which Biblical texts teach these doctrines, as many of them have been understood by various Bible teachers to be referring to events that happened in 70 A.D. His overarching concern is the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura, and wanting to avoid a bare creedalism or confessionalism that essentially leaves creeds and confessions as “paper popes” (my words, not his). I admire Gary’s desire to be faithful to the supremacy of Scripture, and I think he raises very reasonable questions about a number of specific texts. Gary is a friend of mine. He’s been on CrossPolitic a number of times, and he’s been incredibly generous to us with his time and knowledge. 

At the same time, it seems to me that Gary is identifying one set of challenges/dangers without acknowledging and guarding (at least sufficiently in my mind) against other sets of challenges/dangers. One example of this would be agreeing with the point that he raises in one of his podcasts that a simplistic confessionalism/creedalism – by which he/I mean just a thoughtless mantra-like affirmation of the creeds and confessions without a sufficient Scriptural foundation — can leave many Protestants vulnerable to cults like the Jehovah’s Witnesses. But I would hasten to add that a bare biblicism does the same thing. I’m not accusing Gary of a “bare biblicism,” but I’m simply pointing out another danger. Many of the evangelicals that find themselves vulnerable to Jehovah’s Witnesses were not confessional or creedal in the slightest. Many of them were Me-and-My-Bible-Alone “bare biblicists,” what some of us have called solo scriptura as opposed to Sola Scriptura. And the point is simply that while the Creeds and Confessions remain fallible, and Scripture is the only supreme, infallible authority, the Creeds and Confessions are nevertheless true authorities. They are the considered exhortations of our fathers in the faith and as such are to be honored highly and only discarded if/when Scripture requires us to do so. 

What I want to do in the rest of this post is lay out several arguments for holding the traditional eschatological views summarized in the three questions posed above, and then close with a plea for a bit more wisdom and care in how we approach those who raise questions or even answer these questions differently. 

The Broad Case for the End of All Things
So first the broad case. As Gary notes several times in his podcasts, we serve the God of judgments. This is implied in the fact that God is the Creator of the whole world. The whole world answers to Him because He gave it existence. In this sense we might say that the first judgment of the “whole world” occurred in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve first sinned. Adam represented the whole world in that moment. That worldwide judgment was accomplished again in the worldwide flood. And when Jesus died on the cross, that was again the judgment of this world (Jn. 12:31). All of the other judgments that come in history point to this cosmic sovereignty, including the judgment of the old covenant world in 70 A.D. But all of this establishes a pattern and a typology: the pattern and types point to and promise a final judgment at the end of history, a final fulfillment. 

Closely related is the resurrection motif. Because God created this material world and declared it good, sin has infected this material world and brought death and decay into this world. God’s promise that the seed of the Woman would crush the seed of the serpent is a promise to reverse that curse. Again, many “types” promise this resurrection and give true tokens of it. For example, Adam and Eve are clothed in the skins of animals and do not die physically after they sinned and ate the forbidden fruit, Abraham received Isaac back on the mountain as a type of the resurrection (Heb. 11:19), and the angel of death passed over the houses of Israel marked in the blood of the lamb and Israel passed through the “death” of the Red Sea when God brought them over on dry ground. And of course there are many more, leading up to the glorious resurrection of Jesus, and the gift of salvation itself. 

But even after the resurrection of Jesus and the gift of salvation, creation still groans for the redemption of the sons of man (Rom. 8). While the New Creation, the New Heavens and New Earth have been inaugurated in the resurrection and pouring out of the Spirit, the fullness is still “not yet.” And while God has begun wiping away our tears, we still await all things being made new, every tear being wiped away, and Job’s great hope: “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me” (Job 19:25-27). Job confessed the historic Christian conviction that after our flesh has been destroyed, ‘yet in our flesh, we shall see God,’ with our own eyes, even after our bodies have long since decayed.  

All of this is an eschatological hope in the reunion of heaven and earth. The original union was tasted briefly in the Garden of Eden where God walked and talked with our first parents before their rebellion. And that reunion has begun in this world both in this life and in Heaven where the spirits of just men await the resurrection (Heb. 12:23). But John saw the New Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven to earth (Rev. 21:2). That is already happening, and yet it is still “not yet,” since Jesus must reign in Heaven until all of His enemies are put beneath His feet, the last enemy to be destroyed is death itself (1 Cor. 15:25-26). To entirely spiritualize these hopes is to leave this material world and human history itself to the defeat of sin and death. Another way to get at this would be to ask: does it matter theologically whether Jesus rose from the dead physically, bodily or not? Could Jesus have just died and gone to heaven and gotten a new spiritual body and salvation have been just a securely accomplished? Paul says, absolutely not. If Christ is not risen, we are still in our sins. So the complete reversal of the Fall, and death itself in human history, is necessitated by the promise of God from the Garden of Eden.

One particular exegetical question I’ve raised with Gary is why all the texts he walks through must be judged as either past or future. Why not consider the possibility that some of them are both past and future? There is precedent for this in biblical prophecy. For example, in Isaiah 7:14 the prophet says that a virgin will conceive and bear a son, and this will be a sign that the immediate looming threats of Syria and Samaria will soon fade away. That prophecy had a very immediate fulfillment time stamp and yet Matthew cites that prophecy and says it was also talking about Mary conceiving as a virgin by the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s possible that the first “virgin birth” Isaiah foretold wasn’t a Holy Spirit conception, but it was a typological sign of that which was to come. In like manner, the apocalyptic era-ending judgment language of collapsing solar systems and blowing trumpets and Christ’s coming are typological language that may often have near or immediate fulfillments but also always point to the Final Judgment, the final coming, and the true end of human history. Thus, it would seem that a consistent partial preterist might also be a futurist on some (or all) of those same texts. 

Conclusions 
I want to close with a brief summary of some of the Bible’s teaching on how we are to handle questions and controversies like this. I want to be clear that I am not drawing any specific conclusions here about exactly what I think about Gary DeMar’s position. I will continue having private conversations and make whatever decisions I need to when that time comes. But these are at least some of the principles I will be working with and would encourage you to consider. 

“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus; Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some. Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour” (2 Tim. 2:15-20). 

Here Paul specifically addresses the “profane and vain babbling” of some in the first century who said that the resurrection was already past, presumably arguing that the resurrection was purely spiritual, perhaps something that had happened at the ascension or perhaps happened as people died and went to heaven. Notice that Paul says this is error, and that it is a serious error as it had overthrown the faith of some. But notice that Paul doesn’t damn these “babblings” to Hell, but sternly warns against them, urges everyone who names the name of Christ to depart from iniquity, and finally points out to Timothy that in a great house (like the Church) there are all sorts of vessels. Of course if this is the same Hymenaeus that Paul referenced back in his first letter to Timothy, he had apparently excommunicated him for blasphemy and for making his faith shipwreck (1 Tim. 1:19-20). But it’s striking that here (if it is the same fellow) a slightly different word is given. 

Now I know that some folks have been stubbornly divisive over issues like this. I can imagine churches where someone gets a bee in their bonnet about making all the women wear head coverings or exclusive psalm singing or hyper-preterism. And being divisive, stirring up dissension and strife over such matters or teaching false doctrine is not according to the gospel. In such cases, the leaders of the church must protect the flock up to and including excommunication if necessary. But it’s striking that even Paul had different tacks for different Judaizers. He straight up implied that anyone who taught their doctrine should be damned to Hell (Gal. 1:8-9) and wished that some of them would get sloppy with their scalpels (Gal. 5:12), and then in another place references his good working relationship with someone of the “circumcision party” (Col. 4:11). It’s noteworthy that he says that, all while still generally considering those folks “unruly and vain talkers and deceivers” (Tit. 1:10). Paul thought well of at least one guy (“a fellow worker unto the Kingdom”) who apparently was associated with a teaching that had often functioned as “another gospel.” Go figure that one out. 

All this to say, denying the physical return of Christ, the general resurrection of the body, and the final judgment and consummation of all things are serious errors. Yet we ought to imitate the wisdom of Paul in these matters. While dogmatically denying these doctrines is heretical, not all who explore them, question them, dabble in them, or talk about them are capital “H” Heretics. The doctrine of justification by faith alone is actually quite significant here. 

In one place Jesus said that anyone who was not with Him was against Him (Lk. 11:23). And then in another place the disciples report that they rebuked someone who was casting out demons in Jesus’ name because they weren’t card-carrying disciples and Jesus tells the disciples not to stop them since whoever is not against us is on our side (Lk. 9:50). Both principles are true, and we need to hold both of them together. Some are not with us, and they are clearly fighting against us and against the gospel and they need to be silenced and condemned. Others are misguided, confused, and sloppy, but they are not against us, and they are therefore on our side, despite everything. When the Samaritan village didn’t receive Jesus, the apostles asked Him if they should call fire down on them. And they had Bible verses to defend the idea – Elijah had done that one time. And on top of that, the Samaritans were basically first century Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses – they really did have some pretty wonky theology mixed with idolatrous syncretism. And yet, Jesus said that the disciples didn’t know what spirit they were of; He didn’t come to destroy men’s lives but to restore them.

It really is possible to have significant concerns for the questions and ambiguities Gary seems to be raising and still be patient and gracious. It’s possible to condemn hyper-preterism, as we should, and do so without condemning every last person who dabbles in or embraces elements of it as red horned heretics. As Jim Wilson always liked to say, there is a deeper right than being right. We should not only want to win the argument, but also win the man.  

Photo by Michael & Diane Weidner on Unsplash

Utterly Destroy Your Sin

Christians often feel squeamish about Old Testament passages where God commands the complete destruction of cities: men, women, and children. But this is because we have often imbibed a sentimentalism that is not really Christian, and it has had disastrous effects on the Church. 

The central point that must be driven into our hearts is the supreme holiness and righteousness of God. When God commanded the complete annihilation of people in the Old Testament, we are required to say Amen. He is God, and we are not. He knows all things. He made all things. He kills and makes alive. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Sentimentalism is a deeply resentful and rebellious heart that masquerades as pity and mercy. It resents God’s holiness and justice in crushing wicked nations, and it reserves the right to stand in judgment over God’s commands. It says, “I will do most anything that seems reasonable,” but there’s a thought lurking in the shadows that says, “Be careful. Don’t be too extreme or fanatical with religion because then you might end up doing something crazy.” But this is fundamentally rebellious. Is God God or not? Is He holy and just and good or not? To reserve some room for judgment is to say that God cannot be completely trusted and that you think your judgment or the consensus of modernity can be trusted. 

All of this has had disastrous effects on our view of Scripture and the necessity of obedience, but it has been perhaps most harmful in our reluctance to kill our sin. When there was sin in the camp, the Lord told Joshua, “you cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the accursed thing from among you” (Josh. 7:13). And it wasn’t until Israel had stoned Achan and his sons and his daughters and burned them with fire that the curse was destroyed. 

Why are there so many professing believers in this land with so little impact? Why does God not give us leadership and victory? The answer is here. Our camps are filled with sins that we refuse to destroy. We refuse to stone and burn our sins with fire, and so we cannot have God’s blessing and we cannot stand before our enemies.

Photo by Christopher Burns on Unsplash

Tucker Carlson & A Case Study in Theocratic Conservatism

Introduction
One may wonder how the algorithmic gods of the medias mutter and chirp and old clips of Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro emerge from the ancient shadows, but be assured that they do and when they do, they provide one with opportunities to pull your son aside, like Solomon in Proverbs and say, do you see that man? Yeah, not like that. 

Now the particular clip that is currently making the rounds is from 2018, and a great deal of water has gone under the old proverbial bridge and has flowed many miles hence, even to the wild lands of Wuhan and beyond. And so one might hope that greater light has come into the great Tucker Carlson’s eyes. I mean, if they can lock us down, close our churches, foist useless perhaps even harmful masks on our faces, and demand injections or else you’re a hater, a bigot, and a scoundrel, perhaps he’s had a change of heart. 

But the clip is from when a Ben Shapiro interview of Tucker Carlson, where Tucker argues that since family is the foundational building block of society and an unmitigated good, society ought to take steps to protect it and defend it. And certain technological advances that threaten that good ought to be curbed and perhaps even prohibited. Tucker says that if we don’t we may very soon end up with a situation where a reasonably well-adjusted college graduate (one who doesn’t even smoke pot!) may not have the means to provide for himself, much less take a wife, and raise a family with her. And when pressed by Ben Shapiro about the possibility of Artificial Intelligence driving trucks on American highways, Tucker says that if he was President he would absolutely order the Department of Transportation to ban all AI on federal highways because if they didn’t millions of jobs would be lost. And truck driving is one of the most common jobs for high school educated men in America.

Setting the Table
Now let’s set the table carefully here. First, it’s absolutely true that the natural family is the foundational building block of society. Second, let’s agree that society should do everything lawfully in its power to protect and encourage family formation and flourishing. But here is where the questions begin to array themselves. What actually is “lawfully in its power?” Can the state simply do anything that appears to contribute to some notion of the “common good?” How should society protect and encourage natural family formation? As I proposed in another recent post, as Protestant Christians we must begin with the clear instructions given in Scripture and then work our way out from those by good and necessary consequence, by the light of nature and Christian prudence. So I don’t think we need an explicit Bible verse about AI and truck drivers, but I do think we need clear-eyed biblical principles. 

There are multiple problems with Tucker’s proposal, beginning with him acting like a socialist. The assumption of socialism/Marxism is that there is no God, and therefore the state must take His place. Since there is no God to do justice, rendering unto each man what he deserves, the State takes unto itself this responsibility. Fascism need not be dark and bloody at first. It simply claims the right to command commerce and markets for the “common good” society, for the “greater good” of families and family values. But it’s still fascism and socialism for all that, even if the state is commanding Bible reading and church attendance. Don’t misunderstand: I’m not saying that Tucker’s second presidential fiat would be compulsory Bible reading and church attendance. But why exactly not? 

Furthermore, these soft-socialist/fascist policies claim a kind omniscience. Tucker claims that millions of jobs will be lost in a matter of years. But this sounds like the conservative equivalent of the environmental doomsdayers. If you don’t ban plastic bags today, the oceans will rise in five years and millions will die! Or sometimes they even notice real problems, like for example, air pollution. But as Alex Epstein has helpfully catalogued, over and over again, there’s a certain simplistic and narrow mindset that looks at one factor and multiplies it by a million without accounting for all the other possibilities and complexities and concludes that the apocalyptic outcome is INEVITABLE. But that’s trying to be god while sucking at it. So when environmentalists have projected air pollution from coal and oil and other fossil fuels, what they have consistently not accounted for is adaptation, creativity, ingenuity, and improvements in technology which mitigate, minimize, and sometimes completely undo the dangers and potential harms. People, made in the image of God, are like God, and despite our fallen natures, they are generally trying to improve things.

Tucker’s comments struck me as not only tapping into that false socialist omniscience, but they were demeaning and condescending to the very human beings he was claiming to want to protect and help, while apparently completely forgetting about other human beings in the equation. Now, it’s an entirely open question as to whether it would ever actually work to have AI drive trucks in this country. At the very least, we would want to have a chain of liability clearly articulated, and like the goring ox in Exodus 21, require restitution and harsh penalties for any harm or damage that occurs. But why does Tucker paint the drug free college graduate like a helpless victim? Why are working class high school graduates being described as completely dependent on truck driving jobs? Can they not do anything else? A few decades ago they worked in American factories, but after the government got involved in “helping” them, those jobs all got sent overseas. And here we are suggesting more Big Government involvement to help “fix” inequities. “We’re the government and we’re here to help,” are still the most terrifying words in the English language, even when they are in the mouth of so-called “common good” conservatives. 

Now, the fact of the matter is that even if the tech and liabilities all got sufficiently sorted, and people started experimenting with AI truck drivers, the change wouldn’t happen overnight. But as it started to happen (if it ever did), you would immediately begin funding all the developers, troubleshooters, repairment, maintenance, and updates needed to grow and improve that new technology and industry. Far from merely “stealing jobs,” it would also simultaneously create new jobs. We simply don’t live in a zero-sum world.

The other part of the “inevitability-omniscience” complex is a failure to see that new technology only ever depends upon human beings creating it, maintaining, fixing it, improving, and so on. Read Life After Google by George Gilder and repent of your implicit Darwinism. Artificial intelligence will always be completely dependent upon human intelligence. So just as a new technology begins to break into markets, new human jobs come into being. And this is how it has always worked. As technology changes, some folks are laid off and find new creative outlets, but all of that new technology also always creates new jobs, new needs for human workers. 

The Biblical Common Good
The Biblical vision of the common good is each sphere of government exercising the power delegated to it by Christ obediently. The Magisterial Reformers were working in a particular historical moment where church government had way overreached its bounds, and part of the way you begin to limit overweening powers is by reinvigorating the balance of powers. In the days of Luther and Calvin it was absolutely necessary to call the magistrates to take up the sword of justice and push back the encroachments of the Papal See. However, we now live in an era where the state has become the Infallible Mouth of God, and it’s high time ministers of the gospel declared the Lordship of Christ and commanded magistrates back into their own lane, while insisting that husbands and fathers, wives and mothers step up to the plate and take back their authority in the home and marketplace for the common good. Until a crime has been actually committed, it is an unjust use of violence to manipulate markets. I understand that when you live in a snake pit of market regulations the temptation is to simply join the mafia and release your own “good” snakes into the mix, but as we learn from one of those lesser known Mosaic principles, never bring more snakes to a snake pit unless your snake will swallow all of them and turn back into a walking stick when it’s done. 

God has established three governments among men for the common good: the family, the church, and the state. These governments are not water-tight jurisdictions, but function more like a Venn diagram with clear differences and some overlap. God has assigned to the family the jurisdiction of health, welfare, and education for the common good. God has assigned to the church the ministry of worship and discipleship, the administration of Word and sacrament for the common good. God has assigned to the state the ministry of the sword of justice for the common good.

Closely related is the difference between sins and crimes. We see this distinction beginning in the differing ministries of Abraham and Melchizedek, Moses and Aaron, as well as the differing penalties provided in the Mosaic law. When the law says that someone will be “cut off from among his people,” this is the ordinary discipline of Old Testament family and “church.” When the penalty prescribed is restitution or stripes or death, this the ministry of the sword. Now granted these are not pristine, Euclidian categories. Many of the laws in the Mosaic code have moral, ceremonial, and civil elements to them. Nevertheless, ceremonial laws were under the jurisdiction of the priests and civil laws were under the jurisdiction of the judges and magistrates. But the fact that family law was also being established in the Mosaic law is profound. Laws surrounding marriage and divorce and remarriage within families, with instructions for what might be appealed to civil magistrates for civil penalties begin to establish these jurisdictional differences. 

In other words, not all sins are or should be crimes. Covetousness is a sin but not a crime. Lying is always a sin, but not all lies should be adjudicated as crimes. Lust is a sin, even adultery in the heart, but until the lust is acted upon in fornication or adultery, there is no crime to adjudicate. A rebellious son ought to be disciplined by his own parents for many years before they determine to appeal to the civil magistrate for criminal penalties. But here is where the jurisdictions overlap: if a true biblical crime has been committed in a family or church, the civil magistrate is authorized by God to intervene. A civil magistrate my seek a warrant to arrest a father and pastor for sexual abuse. But by the same token, a father may resist or ignore tyrannical orders given a magistrate and a pastor may rebuke a magistrate and command him to repent of his sin, just as John did and lost his head for it. When a church excommunicates a professing Christian, barring them from the Lord’s Supper and fellowship in the local church, the church is exercising its power to protect truth and morality for the common good of a society. When a family disciplines its young children teaching them Christian virtues the family government is doing its part to cultivate families and work ethics and morality for the common good. The family has the power to ultimately disinherit a son or daughter for gross immorality or apostasy. And it is the job of the state to punish crimes as defined by Scripture, and this is how the magistrate promotes the common good. But no crime has been committed if a trucking company fires a driver in favor of an AI driver. 

Conclusion
In the clip mentioned, Tucker Carlson says that even though he believes in free markets it’s not an absolute or religious commitment or requirement. He says there’s no “Nicene Creed of Capitalism” he has to subscribe to. Now he’s absolutely right if he means that free markets may not be used to justify committing crimes (e.g. theft, murder, etc.). But what Tucker is actually proposing is denying jobs and livelihoods to those working in AI, and by proposing to make it a law, he’s threatening the use of violence for those who try. In the name of doing good and protecting families, Tucker is proposing that he be the one who gets to choose the winners and the losers. Truckers are the winners; programmers and new tech are the losers. Sorry, the gods have spoken. We know what’s best for you. And actually, we’ve decided that cars have taken too many jobs away from horses and mules and farmers. So yeah, we’re going back to the Middle Ages, you greedy capitalist pigs. But seriously, where’s the line? 

Ok, I’ll stop here. Tucker says there’s no Nicene Creed of capitalism, and that’s true enough, but there is a Nicene Creed that says that God is the “Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible…” Invisible things would include market forces, the creativity and ingenuity of men, as well as their created needs and desires. Until or unless God gives a government the authority to step in, it is a violation of the Nicene Creed to grasp power for yourself and violently or coercively prohibit the free actions and creativity of people made in the image of God. It must always be remembered that if the primary power of the state is the power of the sword, then whenever you call for a “ban,” you are simultaneously calling for the use of violent, coercive force to be used if someone disregards the ban. I’m sorry, but we just had a few years of a police state trial run in the West with law enforcement fining churches for being open, for mandating gags on peoples’ faces, and frog marching decent law-abiding citizens off to jail for singing songs in public.  

I certainly do believe in the “common good,” but the common good is determined by God’s Word and not simplistic, short-sighted calculations: call it Theocratic Conservatism. It was those kinds of simplistic, short-sighted calculations that the Imperial College of London used to incite the COVID panic and lockdowns. So, no thanks. God’s world is more resilient, more complex, more glorious than that. 

Theonomy & Classical Reformed Christian Nationalism: A Modest Proposal

Introduction
The conversation swirling around Christian Nationalism, the classical liberal order, and how Christians ought to think about particular policy proposals continues apace. These issues are in play with the current push for “school choice” and Education Savings Accounts, and they are in play with Senator Josh Hawley’s recent proposal to ban social media use for children under 16. 

To which I tweeted out:

“Yikes. No. This is the kind of folly that conservatives propose in the name of “the common good” that gives me the creeping fantods. This is why Kuyper’s sphere sovereignty and old fashioned theonomy are so necessary. God has not established the state/power of the sword to raise/train our children. Same goes for alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. As soon as you start letting the civil magistrate act like your mom, you will only get more of the Karen State that we currently have.”

And that seems to have stirred the waters. At this point, I’m hoping I’ve stirred the waters of Bethsaida and not something more shark infested, but that remains to be seen. 

Part of the fun of the last few weeks was the honor of having Timon Cline on CrossPolitic, and we had a great time debating and discussing the differences between theonomy and what I think he and others would call classical reformed political theology – although I’m still not convinced that they are that far apart. Meanwhile, other conversations have continued behind the scenes with friendly critics of theonomy. And then we had the follow up honor of talking to David Bahnsen about his misgivings surrounding the “Christian Nationalism” conversation and his preference for the “classical liberal order.” 

Some related factors are that sometimes advocates of “classical liberal order” *sound* a bit cavalier about our current cultural moment, and some, like David French, seem to have sold the whole farm to the leftists in the name of his version of the “classical liberal order” which is apparently code for “surrendering slowly.” But David Bahnsen insists that is not at all what he means or thinks. He envisions an explicitly Christian public square, but he is concerned not to make the civil sphere the central or primary actor in such an endeavor. The role of the Church and the family also need to be reinvigorated and reinforced, otherwise, you have a semi-conservative version of the current regime (or worse). And to his credit, there are some in the Reformed Christian Nationalism ranks that think it’s perfectly reasonable for Josh Hawley to propose age limits for social media, and others have suggested taking over the public schools and turning them into explicitly Christian schools funded by tax dollars and run by departments of education. All of which, I repeat, gives me the creeping fantods. 

Warm Theonomic Fuzzies
The old Puritans and Scottish Presbyterians and Genevans who first sought to reinvigorate civil magistrates who had been under the spell of Papist supremacy (hence the name “magisterial” Reformers) affirmed that the specific civil laws of old Israel had expired with that particular state, except for the “general equity thereof” (Westminster Confession 19.4). While many modern Reformed types have concluded that this means something akin to “cute metaphors and warm fuzzy feelings,” the actual authors of the Westminster Confession and their immediate heirs functioned as though the Old Testament civil laws had a lot more to teach us than that. The fact that the early American colonies had Sabbath laws and blasphemy laws and laws prohibiting sodomy and adultery and fornication and divorce, tell you that they understood “general equity” as including the eternal moral and ethical principles resident in those civil laws and penalties. 

Now first off I want to emphasize that I think we need to have this conversation. And by “this conversation,” I mean I think we need to have those of you steeped in the Reformed political tradition talking with those of us who are more steeped in biblical studies and theonomy. Some of us need to be reading Franciscus Junius and some us need to be reading Rushdoony. I really appreciated the olive branch of sorts from Stephen Wolfe on this topic (his article on “Classical Reformed Theonomy”), and I also really appreciated Bahnsen’s demeanor toward the whole thing as well. 

Look, we’ve got men in women’s lingerie twerking in front of little kids in public parks and libraries; I think this is the moment for us to work together, not splinter into a million pieces because we didn’t get exactly what we wanted. So I want to issue a general invite to anyone interested in recovering a truly Christian America to join the conversation in good faith. The leftist progressives rally around their common hatred of our Lord and His people, and they are frequently able to get more done together because of that shared hatred than conservatives because we throw elbows and knife one another in the back in the name of truth and morality and justice. Look, if you want to see drag queens banned from the public square, and our nation submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, you are most welcome to the table, even if our philosophical categories and methodologies are different. Let’s talk. Let’s work together. Let’s spar, debate, and brainstorm. 

A Chastened Classical Reformed Theonomy
Toward that end, I want to propose one way of pushing the conversation forward. One trusted and friendly critic lamented “theonomy” because biblical law, he said, simply doesn’t have enough substance to fill out a complete law code or public policy system. And I don’t have any problem acknowledging that we need more than what is written in Scripture. As the Westminster Confession says, “Nevertheless we acknowledge… that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and the government of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed” (WCF 1.6). While this is primarily addressing the worship of God and the government of the church, I would argue that those activities that are “common to human actions and societies” would include the rational ordering of public policy and civil government, and therefore, those arrangements are to be “according to the general rules of the Word,” but must also “be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence.”

So here’s a practical question for my “classical Reformed” brothers: Since I believe that we agree that wherever Scripture establishes transcendent morality or universal principles of justice, those principles are universally binding on all societies and governments, regardless of time or place, can we agree that since we are Reformed and Protestant, those principles are “First Principles?” In other words, Sola Scriptura (understood rightly) applies here as much as anywhere else. Sola Scriptura does not mean that Scripture is the only authority, but rather, it means that Scripture is the only ultimate and infallible authority. Tradition, creeds, common law, parents, and pastors all play true authoritative roles in the life of Christians and Christian society. Nevertheless, the First Principles of Scripture are foundational, and wherever any other true authority bumps up against one of them, Scripture always wins. Are we on the same page so far? 

Now here’s the proposal: I propose that we agree that wherever Scripture speaks on matters of universal morality and justice, those principles be nailed into the ground with enormous steel stakes (yuge ones). At that point, I would be happy to concede that all by itself, those general principles of justice are not enough to build out a modern civil law code, but since we are Protestants, we are agreed that whatever else ought to go into that law code, it must be deduced from those principles by good and necessary consequence, according to the light of nature and reason and Christian prudence, and be consistent with them. 

Now this might be where I run into trouble with critics of theonomy, but as a fiercely loyal Protestant, I also want to insist on a sort of ‘regulative principle of power’. Since all power is derived from God (Rom. 13), all power is wielded by His blessing and in submission to His ultimate power or else it is wielded in defiance of His blessing and power. Power is therefore limited by God’s Word. Furthermore, this fits with what the Confession says regarding worship, that what is clearly stated must be explicitly obeyed, and whatever else is necessary for a flourishing society must be deduced from those principles and the light of nature and prudence. This need not be taken as tight-shoed regulative principle, but simply, as my old seminary professor, Hughes Oliphant Old, liked to say, it must be “according to Scripture,” obedient to the commands and consistent with its principles and examples. 

A Few Stakes in the Ground
What follows is certainly not an exhaustive list, but this will do for a start. 

First, while I do believe that civil government was instituted before the Fall and would have developed as families filled the earth, organizing society with a body of customary laws to maximize their good (for example, deciding which side of the road to drive on), the primary postlapsarian instruction and picture we are given of civil justice in the Bible is captured well in the paintings and statues of Lady Justice: she is blind (or blindfolded), holding balances in one hand, and a sword in the other. This accords with the repeated instructions to the judges, “Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God’s…” (Dt. 1:17). Justice requires diligent inquiry, but that inquiry is primarily for the purpose of putting all the facts in the scales of justice. While justice requires wisdom, it is not primarily a “creative” task. The judgment of justice is God’s. Diligent inquiry puts all the facts that we have in the scales, and it is the job of civil magistrates to deliver verdicts of equity, which is primarily punitive (as indicated by the sword). 

Now when I said that Josh Hawley ought not be leading the way in banning teenagers from social media since that is the family/parental jurisdiction, some friends pointed out that the Bible on one occasion refers to magistrates as nursing fathers and mothers (Is. 49:23). And so it does. But that one image (which we should not abandon) cannot be made the normative image without doing great damage to the rest of Scripture. The key question of course is: how are civil magistrates to be faithful fathers and mothers? The answer is: by doing justice according to God’s law. Isaiah 49:23 is no more a defense of Social Security, Medicare, and government schools than is Paul’s description of himself as a father default permission for him to tell parents which breakfast cereal is right for their kids. The church is the household and family of God, but that doesn’t mean that the church is the first line of defense for widows. Paul insists that a man that doesn’t provide for his own family is worse than an unbeliever (1 Tim. 5:7). These natural affections, natural obligations remain firmly in place, including then the fact that the civil magistrate has no God-ordained role in health, welfare, and education, unless you simply mean the role of punishing criminals and cheering churches and families on in their tasks. 

Another stake to drive into the ground is the most basic principle of biblical justice: the lex talionis: “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (Ex. 21:24-25). A number of case laws are laid out in the biblical law that give is a lot of information about how this principle is to play out (e.g. slaves that are struck and lose an eye or tooth must be set free). Related is the principle of restitution: a thief caught stealing must return double (Ex. 22:4). Because what he sought to do to his neighbor ought to be done to him to restore balance to the “scales” of society. If the theft is of a particularly great value, perhaps including the ability of a man/business to do his productive labor, or if the stolen item has been sold for profit, that restitution may be increased to four or five-fold (Ex. 22:1). 

The penalties in the Mosaic law should also be taken seriously, and they should be understood as maximum penalties. The only required death penalty is for murder (Gen. 9). Related to this is the principle that only civil magistrates have the power of the sword, and so church and family government may not execute criminals or heretics. This is part of the glory of Dt. 21:18-19 regarding the rebellious son. In some ancient societies, a father claimed the right to execute his own children, but God’s law forbids it. Perhaps a pagan father might have even argued “from nature” that since he had brought the life into the world, it was his to adjudicate, but God’s law prohibits it. The law provides that the family government may appeal to the civil government for adjudication and potential capital punishment. But notice that until an actual crime has been committed, the civil magistrate has no jurisdiction, and the civil magistrate is only involved upon appeal from the family government. This would be one biblical principle that would render Sen. Hawley’s proposed social media legislation null and void. 

One of the most often cited laws in the Old Testament for explaining the continuing relevance or “general equity” of Mosaic law is Dt. 22:8: “When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence.” On the one hand, this certainly is an extension of the sixth commandment forbidding murder, and it certainly establishes the notion of liability for negligent homicide or battery. The general equity of this law would require liability for fences around swimming pools or a deep pit or an upstairs balcony (and arguably, reckless driving): if someone falls and dies or is injured, the home owner/driver can be held negligently liable. And the overarching principle is certainly the duty of all to take reasonable precautions to protect and preserve life. 

At the same time, some want to reason from this principle that health codes and building codes are therefore a reasonable application of this justice. But while it would certainly be a “sin” to act in high-handed negligent ways, it was not a “crime.” The lex talionis principle requires that actual harm be measured for appropriate penalties to be exacted. But if a man built a balcony and refused to build a railing or drove recklessly through town, he may very well be in sin, but until actual damages have occurred, what penalty would truly be “eye for eye?” We also shouldn’t underestimate the power and influence of the family and church governments and their related communities. Not every problem must be solved with guns and fines. Many problems should be solved by community pressures and influence. 

Conclusion
The fear of the classical reformed Christian Nationalist types is that “the classical liberal order” is code for more liberalism, more false offers of a seat at the table of a neutral public square, and defeatism and apathy, but let us be done with all such offers of neutrality, secularism, and the like. Jesus is Lord of the public square, and the Great Commission requires us to preach and make disciples of all the nations. So America must confess that Jesus is Lord formally, and our laws must reflect is eternal law, as derived from Scripture and nature and reason, but with Scripture firmly ensconced as the Chief authority.

On the other hand, my friends of the theonomic Kuyperian classical order flavor are understandably nervous that if we do not firmly root our “Christian order” in Rutherford’s axiom, that the Lex really is Rex, and that justice and the “common good” must be grounded in God’s Special Revelation in Scripture, then in the name of “the tradition” and “the common good” and “reason” and the “light of nature” we will end up right back where are, with a Machiavellian power grab that happens to have Christian symbols and phrases attached to it. 

It’s true that the “classical liberal order” guys sometimes sound like power is only icky and bad, but in our determination to take responsibility for this mess of a country, we must have clearly defined limits to that power. And it’s also true that sometimes the Christian Nationalists sound like they would be willing to do anything to punch the liberals (or RINOs) and score points and grab power. But tyranny is still tyranny even if you try to defend it in the name of “the common good.” The “common good” is whatever God says it is, and nothing else. And if God has given the authority and power to wield, then we should not be afraid of it. We should take it up with boldness and joy in the name of Christ. 

Conservative Chimpanzees & the Real School Choice Opportunity

Introduction
Joe Biden recently got a bunch of Republicans to do what Democrats have been trying to do for decades: get them to embrace socialism. Ok, most Republicans are soft-socialists nowadays anyway, but Sleepy Joe got most of the Republican side of Congress to stand up and cheer for socialism during his recent State of the Union address. He got them to boo his accusation that they weren’t true blue socialists, and then when he asked if they were in, they stood up and cheered. Biden played them like a drum, and the next day CNN had Republican representatives doubling and tripling down on it. It was masterful, if it wasn’t so sad. 

Of course the topic was Social Security and whether the Federal Government should take care of our parents and grandparents. Republicans are idiots. Republicans are fools. There was a masterful opportunity to take and they missed it. They took the bait. They bowed and scraped at the altar of the Almighty Sugar Daddy State, almost as if they had already completely forgotten about 2020. It would have been a glorious moment for conservatives to stand up and speak clearly into the microphone. How many of our parents and grandparents died alone in nursing homes? How many were locked down, isolated, deprived of the personal care, familial affection, and honor? Don’t you understand that our twisted nursing home culture is a direct result of looking to the state to take care of our parents and grandparents? 

Yes, we absolutely want to sunset Social Security. Absolutely. All day long, every day of the week. Is there no conservative willing to stand up for our parents and grandparents, who will insist that everything the civil government does that is outside of its God-ordained assignment is inefficient, cumbersome, and ultimately sucks at whatever it is they are trying to do? All you need to do is go down to your local DMV. OK, how about the IRS? Biden had the audacity to claim that as the (apparently) new CEO of every major industry in America he was ordering sweeping changes, prohibiting various fees and surcharges, particularly for the airline industry, including for the privilege of having your family sit together. Biden is tired, he says, of treating children like baggage. But of course if a mother wanted to treat one of her more challenging children like baggage, why couldn’t she? I mean, an unborn child requires a whole lot of energy and care, and with Biden’s help, he believes she ought to be able to go down to the local Planned Parenthood (and for a small fe), unload that so-called “baggage.”

Where was I? Sorry, I got a bit distracted. But the point is that the same goons who can’t tell the difference between baggage and children want to take care of your elderly parents and grandparents, and the whole Republican side of congress stood up and cheered, like a bunch of chimpanzees clapping for bananas. 

Arizona ESAs & My Vigorous Misgivings
Ok, but here’s the real point of this post: a whole bunch of conservatives are doing the same thing with “school choice” and Educational Savings Accounts (ESAs). I posted a lengthy thread last week after reading through the Arizona ESA program which is currently being heralded by many conservatives and school choice advocates as the “model” legislation. But the really short version can be summarized by the immortal words of Admiral Ackbar in Star Wars: “It’s a trap!” 

But I don’t merely want to repeat what I said previously about all my misgivings. All those misgivings are still alive and well and they’ve even grown a third eye and developed a vigorous twitch. But what I want to do is quickly review my findings from the Arizona ESA legislation and then bring this thing in for a landing with a plea for conservatives to see a really glorious opportunity in the “school choice” discussion if only we don’t act like most of our Republican leaders in congress, so long as we don’t bark and clap like a seal simply because they say some conservative-ish sounding words. Don’t get sucked into embracing more socialism by Joe Biden or his Republican colleagues. Yeah, as the kids like to say, that was a pretty sick burn. 

So first, my findings: While the Arizona ESA program claims that “each student’s funding follows the student,” the legislation only actually allows for $6,500 of the student’s funding to follow the student. I might have a tiny ounce of hope that this was at least moving in the right direction, except that more than $11,000 is spent by the state and local taxpayers on each public school student, and that doesn’t count all federal dollars on top of that, all of which continue going to the government schools. For every student that opts into the Arizona ESA program, over $600 additional dollars are immediately added back to the public school that they left, even though that student no longer attends that school. So tips galore. And if that weren’t enough, the fact sheet defending the Arizona ESAs boasts: “In fact, the rapid growth in Arizona’s ESA program has tracked closely with major increases in per pupil funding for public schools over the past decade…” As proof of that trajectory continuing, the fact sheet assures us that a companion bill has been introduced in the Arizona legislature to add $400 million additional funds to public schools, designated for all public school districts and charter schools.

Pause here for just a moment for me to make a comment about conservatives and rhetoric. When I posted these findings on Facebook, a friend from another state pushed back a bit about my Debby-downer appraisal of the program and linked to several conservative sites praising the Arizona legislation. I cheerfully clicked on the link, and the first sentence I read was this: “First, the left told us that school choice would decimate the funding of public education. But then, Arizona passed the nation’s first universal education savings account (ESA) program last year, and funding for the state’s public schools still went up nearly a billion dollars even as tens of thousands of kids have joined the ESA program.” 

Now regardless of the exact details of the ESA program or where the funding is coming from, you just lost me. This website is a Republican clapping like a seal for Joe Biden socialism. At the very least, this website doesn’t understand what conservatives actually want. I don’t want to increase funding for government schools. I want to decrease funding for government schools. I want to dismantle government schools. I want to see them closed down. What’s the word I’m looking for? Ah right, I want to see government schools sunset.

Why? Because I’m not a communist. 

I’m not sure how to break this to you, but one of the central tenants of Marxism in the Communist Manifesto is “Free education for all children in public schools.” And of course by “free” Marx meant “pounded out of your flesh in taxes whether you use them or not.” 

Now, I’m not a communist so that is also why I am not a revolutionary, and I would be happy to slowly sunset public education. I would be happy to nickel and dime the damn thing to death. But what I don’t want to do is to take incremental steps to invigorate, strengthen, and expand government education corruption and power. When some of my more revolutionary friends wondered why I’m willing to end abortion incrementally but not public education, I replied: “I actually would support true incremental steps toward school choice, but if a 15wk abortion ban gave $400mil to Planned Parenthood, I would oppose it for the same reason.” You don’t dismantle something by giving it more money. 

When I asked my friend about this massive increase in spending on education, the reply said that this represents the ordinary increases in education budgets, which might be true, but if so, I’m still against that. If an educational system has fewer students, they should have fewer dollars, not more. The incentives here are perverse. Less for more? That isn’t capitalism. That isn’t a free market. And ultimately all that money has to come from taxes. If this continues, tax payers could find themselves paying the same amount of money as before (or more) even with the $6500 dollar ESA boost. 

Ok, back to the Arizona ESA program. 

Not only is millions and perhaps a billion more dollars in public school funding a massive increase in the government school budget and funding in Arizona, the program is also the beginning of government oversight of private schools and homeschooling. The text of the Arizona ESA expansion bill explicitly requires that the curriculum ESAs are spent on must be approved by the Arizona department of education. Perhaps this approval will begin as something relatively benign, but if you think it’s going to stay that way, you haven’t been paying attention. Next, a “qualified school” includes your standard government “non-discrimination” clause, currently specifying race, color, or national origin. But if you don’t think that will soon include sexual orientation, sexual identity, and puppy-lovers, I’ve got a beachfront property in Kansas to sell you. 

I firmly believe in school choice, and I also believe that our actual education dollars should follow the students, but I’m not aware of any “school choice” program that is honestly allowing the actual student funding to follow the student wherever their parents choose to send them to school. Of course, it should be remembered that tax dollars actually belong to the tax payers, and if we’re talking about money for education, real school choice would include the freedom not to pay taxes for schools we don’t use. I know this is a really radical notion, but I think it’s a winning point: people shouldn’t be forced to pay for goods and services they don’t use. Parents shouldn’t be forced to pay for schools they have decided are not best for their children. We don’t force parents to send checks to certain doctors and medical providers, regardless of where they receive their medical care. Why would we do that with education? The name of this is socialism.  

At the very least, if we cannot completely opt out (monetarily) of schools that we have decided are not best for our children, how about tax credits that simply refund our real tax dollars that we didn’t actually use on government schools? I don’t think they should have taken our money for a service we don’t use in the first place, but I would certainly be OK with at least getting that money back. That would seem to me to be an incremental step in the right direction. 

All of this demonstrates that government education is a mafia with a monopoly using our tax-payer dollars to rig the system and make it more difficult for hard working Americans to provide the education they believe is best for their kids. Perhaps the one silver lining in all of this is simply the indication that government school mobsters can be bought off. I would urge somebody with connections to broker a deal with some big tech company (where you at Elon?), offering to infuse some state coffers with bazillions of dollars in exchange for two things: a number of seats on the state board of education and the real freedom of choice for parents to completely opt out of the system: keeping their tax dollars and spending their money on whatever educational program they desire. 

Thus far my diatribe on Twitter, closing with “In the meantime, remember that everything the government funds is inefficient, corrupt, has strings attached, and ultimately goes woke and bad.”

Now I really don’t mean this post as merely a whine-session, and I know there are many well-meaning conservatives (that are not Chimpanzees) that are simply interested in seeing the government monopoly broken. And count me as a reasonable incrementalist. I don’t need a perfect bill to support. I’m no perfectionist. I’m a reformer; not a revolutionary. All I need is a bill that actually nudges us in the direction of real school choice, real educational freedom, and a truly free market for education. 

Conclusion: Changing the Conversation
So I’ll end here simply with a plea for conservative rhetoric. I think we really do have an important opportunity right in front of us with the school choice discussion. And I am not at all calling for conservatives to be purists who can’t be pleased with any compromise. But we also need to have a very clear idea of what we are aiming for. If we are not aiming for true educational freedom, true school choice, which means parents having the true freedom to use their own money to pay for whatever education they deem best for their children, then we will not know which direction we’re going or even if we’re making any progress at all. When you have no destination in mind, anywhere seems like progress.  

I think there’s a glorious opportunity for real progress in terms of practical policies, and I think with that opportunity is an opportunity to change the conversation. Let’s talk about real educational choice and freedom. Let’s talk about the sovereignty of parents over the educational choices of their children. Virginia Governor Youngkin was arguably elected partially on the steam of the claims of educational fascists who claimed that the experts and school boards and departments of education trumped parents, especially in the wake of a transgender bathroom assault. Do you see that opening? They are cramming CRT and sexual confusion down the throats of preschoolers. If Christian and conservative parents stand up and say enough is enough, we can make a difference. But the goal needs to be clear: we are not socialists; we are not communists. 

We believe in freedom of choice, parental sovereignty, and we refuse to be charged for an education system that hates us and hates our values. We want to keep our hard earned money and spend it on the education that we believe is best for our children. We want a level playing field, a truly free market for education, with schools competing without government intrusion, without the government putting its fingers on the scales. Let’s change the conversation. Let’s brainstorm. Let’s invite our brightest minds and legislators together, and let’s craft something better. Let’s craft something that is actually moving towards freedom. And I’m not just saying this, I’m having conversations with key players to do this very thing, and I hope to have more to share on this very soon.  

Tyre Nichols & Systemic Oppression & Blessing

Introduction
So we just witnessed another round of opportunistic outrage. A video was released of the violent beating and tazing of Tyre Nichols, and it certainly appears that some Memphis police officers massively overstepped, abused their authority, ultimately resulting in Tyre’s death. Of course, the Left has used this as a moment to preach their gospel of systemic racism, white supremacy, and revolution. The theme is something like: America was built on inherently racist principles, so the whole thing must be burned down to the ground and a new society must be formed on the basis of anti-racism, which apparently functions a lot like a racial form of Marxism. Racial minorities, which apparently now includes so-called sexual minorities, must lead the revolution, deposing the rich and powerful (mostly white males), until a new equilibrium emerges. 

Now there’s all kinds of problems with this false gospel. It identifies the original sin of America as genes and skin pigment as somehow inherent to the system. And then it identifies the solution as revolution, violently grabbing the power levers and then, as Marx prophesied, demolition of the old oppressive system and building a new utopian society of equality and harmony. But if corruption is inherent in our genes and abuse of power is inherent in our pigment, why in the world would we think that the new leaders grabbing the power levers will be any better than the last oppressors and tyrants? They won’t be. The gospel of revolution and demolition is false and empty. It just trades oppressors and tyrants and crushes the weak and the needy in every generation. Just ask the peoples of Russia and China and North Korea. 

Covenant Systems
However, sometimes in our critique of this false worldview, I think we may dismiss the whole thing as hogwash, when there are actually a handful of truths present that we need to acknowledge and not dismiss. Again, I certainly grant that their supposed original sin is hogwash, and I also grant that the proposed solution and outcomes are hogwash. I also reject the notion that all responsibility, all guilt, and all potential for progress rest solely in the collective, the mass of society, or the systems built in a society. 

Nevertheless, I do believe that the collective, societal systems that men build are players. They are not the sole players, but it’s true that men build systems. We build civil governments, we build traditions, we build customs, we build law codes, we build families and businesses and cultures; we do function to some extent as bodies, communities, and collectives. The problem is defining human meaning and potential solely in terms of collectives and systems. 

Now the biblical name for this reality is “covenant.” We exist in various covenants in our families, in our nations, in our communities, in our churches. These covenants have real existence and they have real impact on our lives. They are not the sole factors in everything, and individual choices and responsibilities remain primary, but we are not merely a drawer full of marbles rolling around by ones. We are like individual cells that can and do join together by covenant bonds in marriage, church membership, and civic citizenship, along with various contracts and agreements we make with schools, businesses, and other community associations, along with many other (often) unspoken cultural practices and allegiances. We are members of various platoons, with overlapping loyalties, overlapping and varying responsibilities, and these various allegiances, responsibilities, and loyalties, along with our personal, individual responsibilities are all before God, and to our point here, they are all in play in this world, they have real influence, for good or for evil. 

Systems Exist
So the main point I want to make in this post is simply that it is true that men can and do build systems of oppression. The families we form, the communities we serve, the churches we attend, the nations we build all have systemic functions, influences, and gravities, either pulling us in healthy directions or else not. When they are not built on biblical norms, they will necessarily be systems of oppression. And this is because all humanistic systems oppress, and all humanistic systems are greasy poles of rivalries and enmities and powerplays. 

When the final word, the ultimate authority, the decisive standard is not outside of this world, that means it’s (at least in theory) within reach of any of us. If ultimate power is not transcendent, people naturally think it’s possible to grab for it. This is why everything is reduced to power and oppression, empowerment and abuse of power in an atheistic worldview. But in the real world, the world that God made, all authority and power is derived from God. God is over all. God is the final arbiter, the decisive standard, and no one can reach Him. No one can even get close. It is not even possible for His power, His ultimate authority to be handed off, shared, stolen, or relinquished. He is God forever. Amen. The Creator-creature divide is infinite, and no creature is ever, even close to crossing over.  

But men really can build impressive humanistic systems of oppression, with cultural and moral gravity and momentum that tend toward injustice and oppression. And when previously virtuous societies are given over to this oppression, the “system” is a judicial judgment and blindness from God. God not only gives individual people over to their sins and folly (Rom. 1), God also gives peoples, families, churches, and nations over to judicial blindness and folly, and those covenant curses are often fully systemic. So the discussion of systemic oppression is not all by itself wrong or foolish. They are often describing reality as it really is in a fallen world. And in this fallen world, systems of oppression can come in the form of oppressive economic policies, housing policies, racial policies, taxation policies, and judicial policies, and much more. If it’s a stick, men full of hubris can band together and find a way to hit you with it. 

The Only Way Out
The only way out is by repentance, both individual and corporate. While individualists focus on the necessity individual responsibility and repentance, they are missing the covenant component. They are missing the fact that God made the world in such a way to weave us together through various relationships and vows. And God intends for repentance to spread naturally through those associations and bonds. The collectivists are wrong for thinking that we are only impersonal points in the collective blob, rendering individual responsibility and repentance nearly meaningless. But the Bible teaches that we need bother realities. And we need repentance on both levels.  

Jesus called upon churches to repent in Revelation as churches, or else He promised to remove their lampstand. So pastors and elders may pray and repent on behalf of their congregations. Fathers and husbands, are the heads of their households, and therefore, they can pray and repent on behalf of their families to the Lord, just as Job did when he offered sacrifices and asked God to cover any sins his children may have committed. And civil magistrates may truly repent to God on behalf of their citizens just as Josiah and Hezekiah and the King of Nineveh did, and God will hear in Heaven and answer and forgive. Of course, individuals must repent for themselves as well. Every individual will also stand before God for their own personal choices and decisions, but God made the world such that we have these covenant systems and they are capable of carrying either blessing or cursing. And of course, if you are a faithful individual in a cursed system, you are responsible before God to acknowledge that walk faithfully there. 

Conclusion
If you only mock the systemic blame shifting, you are likely to miss the covenant realities. If you only mock the collective guilt mongering, you are likely to miss the covenant potential. It’s absolutely true that you are not guilty simply because of the amount of money in your bank account, or the color of your skin, or your sex, or where you are from. And by the same token, you are not justified or innocent for any of those reasons either. All of that is stupid. But we are united by various covenants and promises, loyalties and allegiances. And God does see those relationships and He does honor them, since He invented the three central ones: family, church, and nation.  

And by the same token, there is such a thing as systemic justice and blessing. But this is no impersonal lucky charm; it is the personal, covenant blessing of the Triune God (Dt. 28). When God promises blessing on Israel’s fields and flocks, kitchens and dining rooms, battlefields and courtrooms, children and grandchildren, what do we call that kind of blessing? We call that Deuteronomic blessing. We call it covenantal blessing, but you might also call it systemic blessing. It’s God’s personal blessing on the organization, on the structures of justice, mercy, kindness, and truth, traditions and customs of love and loyalty, that we’ve put in place by God’s grace in obedience to Him.

Photo by Deva Darshan on Unsplash 

Dressed for the King

God meets us where we are, not where we should have been. This means that when someone walks into church off the street smelling and looking like the world, they are most welcome. Jesus welcomed us in our sins, and therefore, sinners of every stripe are most welcome. Come and welcome to Jesus Christ. But part of the glory of this grace is that it doesn’t leave us there. God’s grace changes us; it restores us and glorifies us to the kind of human beings we were created to be. 

This is part of why historically, the church has sought to dress for the occasion. We dress up for church because we are meeting with our King, and we dress up because we believe that this is part of what the King is doing in us and for us. He is taking our old sinful rags and giving us His royal robes of righteousness. He has done this definitively in Jesus Christ, but He is doing this progressively as we are changed from glory to glory, as we grow into Jesus Christ. We have no interest in turning this into any kind of fashion show: whether the hypocrisy of pharisees in their long robes or the hypocrisy of showboating, with fancy suits or gaudy jewelry. What we are aiming for is simplicity and thoughtfulness.  

Giving thought to simple, modest dressing up for church can be one easy way to show honor for God and the occasion of worship and show kindness to one another. The focal point of worship is Jesus, not you, and not your comfort. Of course in our world tastes, preferences, and styles vary, and we really don’t want to be cranky or legalistic at all. But flipflops and sweatpants generally communicate that something is casual and not very important, while tuxedoes and low cut blouses or short skirts communicate “hey everybody, look at me.” It’s striking that in Timothy, Paul says that men need to make sure that they are worshiping free of all wrath and doubting and women need to make sure they are worshiping modestly, without showing off their bodies or jewelry or hair. As Hebrews says, let us worship acceptably with reverence and fear; for our God is a consuming fire. 

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash