waltondammerung

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Hi, Amy. I'm one of the pagan troublemakers over on Will's blog.

Even though my opinions are pretty much in direct opposition with those of your family, it's refreshing to encounter a group of Christians who are willing to discuss issues in a rational manner.

This is my first visit to your blog, but I'll be coming back.

(By the way, is that previous comment a joke from someone you know, or an expression of stupidity from one of the "less generous" your mother referred to yesterday?)

....yeah, the second one...

Hi, Amy. At first I thought I’d write a short, but pointed, reply to your piece on the relationship of scripture to politics. But you get so many things wrong, and at such a fundamental level, that it has turned instead into a very long, and even more pointed, reply. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll try to mitigate that length and pointed character by sending it to you a little at a time.

Here is my first entry.

You write: I don’t see the biblical precedent for Christians seeking political dominance in order to further the kingdom of God. I can only think of counter examples, the most obvious being the life of Christ…. His mediatorial rule over the earth is not presently administered through political means…. If you want me to believe we are called to do political battle, show me the Scripture…

My reply: It is true that Christ’s personal mission did not include political responsibilities. But ours does, whether as citizens or magistrates. The first gentile to become a Christian was a Centurion in a Roman auxiliary legion. Several other Christians in the NT were officials in either Roman or local government. Did they cease to be Christians when exercising political office? No? Then this means, contrary to your assertion, that Christ’s “mediatorial rule over the earth” actually is presently administered by political means – in the form of Christians who are involved in politics as magistrates and citizens. Do you disagree with this?

Further, two thousand years of Christianity have formed a political culture that reflects principles of government, embodied in laws, derived from Christ’s teaching. When Christians act to uphold those principles and laws, they also act as agents of Christ’s kingdom. For example, religious freedom is implicit in Christ’s teaching, but was first established in law only two centuries ago. By upholding religious freedom in law, Christians serve Christ’s kingdom. Do you disagree with this?

What is my scriptural support? Well, first, there are all those Christians in the NT who serve in government. But the most important scripture is: “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.” By upholding Caesar’s laws, and by conforming law to scriptural principles, Christian citizens and magistrates obey Christ’s injunction. For some reason, you want Christians to stop rendering to Caesar when that rendering offends pagans. Since pagans are offended only when Christians are acting to further law based on scriptural principles, this is when you want Christians to cease to uphold their responsibility to Christ.

Another crucial scripture is Christ’s words following the Resurrection: “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me…” Of course, the fullness of Christ’s authority on earth will not appear until the end of history, but you will note that all power on earth was actually given to him at the time of His Resurrection. How is this power exercised? Through His followers, in whatever capacity they are called to in church or state.

In other words, the opening words to your piece misconstrue the relation of scripture to politics. You confuse the responsibility that Christians have as believers, with the responsibility they have as believers who are also acting as magistrates and citizens.

#2

You wrote: I am not convinced that the opposition of the government to biblical beliefs has ever really hurt the church or the message of Christ…. The early church had it pretty bad, but they didn’t complain about their rights being trampled upon… Did you know that Chinese pastors are praying for the persecution of the American church, so that we will be made stronger?

My reply: Perhaps you have never heard of the permanent disappearance of Christianity from North Africa or the Middle East as the result of Islamic invasion, and the subsequent centuries of oppression. You should also study the permanently fossilized churches that are left there today there, living under Islamic dhimmitude. The church is essentially dead.

Even better, you should read the history of modern, pagan Europe and find out how the church was effectively destroyed there. Or haven’t you noticed that Europe no longer contains Christians? Somehow the European church went out of existence without being physically persecuted, through the use of techniques of social and political cleansing that are now being applied in America. Indeed the de-Christianization of European society and politics is decades in advance of our own. The Chinese government is much too old fashioned in its approach, through the use of beatings and imprisonment. They need to pay more attention to what works.

You know, in the early centuries of the church, they got to the point where they decided to excommunicate people who deliberately looked for ways to be martyred as short cut to sainthood. Why do you look to martyrdom as a means for achieving authentic faith?

#3

You wrote: Because we are basically prevented from discussing laws in terms of morality and Truth, political dialogue in the United States is now generally conducted in terms of personal rights and freedoms. The church has fallen into the trap of arguing politics in these terms along with everyone else….

My reply: Allow me to unpack what you are saying here.

Suppose we publicly discussed laws in terms of morality and truth. For example, in a political debate with John Kerry, who calls himself a Christian, we wouldn’t get very far in this project before having to publicly label him as a pseudo-Christian who is lying about the nature of gospel and its relation to politics. Such blunt language would, of course, greatly offend those potential pagan converts of yours. It would contradict your view that Christians should not offend in politics.

So you are not really advocating discussing law in terms of morality and truth. Indeed, you say that we are “basically prevented” from arguing in this fashion. But who, exactly, is doing the preventing? The American secret police? The ACLU? Or is it simply self-censorship on the part of Christians, for fear of offending pagans? That’s the only thing I can think of that prevents us from arguing on the basis of morality and truth. Since your own desire to not offend pagans on political grounds seems to be fundamental, I guess this would also be your reason for not making political arguments on the basis of truth and morality.

Okay, so we are “prevented,” as you say, from arguing in terms of morality and truth. This means that we are forced back on second order (or secular) arguments to make our political points. But, according to you, we cannot use such arguments because they are sub-Christian and a spiritual trap for the church. The church should only deal in terms of morality and truth. So: let’s see. We can’t argue from the standpoint of morality and truth and we can’t argue on any other basis. So I guess your point is that Christians are supposed to keep their political mouths shut.

I hope you don't mind if I don't take this line of argument very seriously.

You wrote: I don’t think there is a scriptural basis for demanding one’s own rights when they are denied.

My reply: Again, the scripture I believe you are looking for is “render unto Caesar.”

Because all political views rest on political principles, it is very odd that you would think that the primary criterion for deciding whether to uphold a political principle or not is whether one benefits from it. The logical import of your statement is that Christians are only to uphold those principles that they do not benefit from. Or is it no principles at all? You will forgive if my view is that it is our duty, as citizens and magistrates, to uphold political principles – period.

#4

You wrote: Abortion aside, most recent Christian political arguments seem to be based on the assumption that we are personally wronged by the immorality and anti-Christian views of other people, and that we have the right to demand better treatment. Homosexuals shouldn’t be able to marry because it diminishes the value of a heterosexual marriage. My marriage is being threatened, darn it! Prayer in schools? My children have first amendment rights, too, and boy howdy, am I mad that they’re not able to exercise them! (etc)

My Reply: The problem is that it is not possible to distinguish between abortion and these other issues. That is because it is all the same issue. Let me explain.

Abortion is objectively wrong, whether or not the Constitution contains a right to abortion. However, the claim that the Constitution contains such a right is not just an assault on the unborn, it is also an assault upon constitutional government. When Leftist judges “interpret” the Constitution as containing a right to abortion, we need to understand that they are not interpreting the Constitution at all – unless, that is, you think that 1 + 1 = 3 is an interpretation of mathematics.

In the abortion decision, the Leftist judges altered the Constitution without the consent of the governed. To be frank, the American people no longer really care that Leftist judges do this, which is why they get away with it, but the people are not completely stupid. The Left still has to maintain the pretence that they are engaged in an interpretation of the Constitution. They can’t come out and say “I am a liberal, I am god, obey me.” So they pretend to interpret constitutional “principles” which then turn out to make Constitution mean things that no one, in their wildest dreams, ever believed the Constitution could mean.

Abortion is a good example of this. There is literally no one in the history of the United States, prior to 1960, who ever thought that abortion was a Constitutional right. Indeed, had someone made such an argument, they would not have not been taken seriously. They would have been regarded as making an obscene joke. But, just as the Mexican bandits masquerading as lawmen told Humphrey Bogart: “We don’t need no stinking badges,” Leftist judges don’t need no stinking consent of the governed. They are, fundamentally, outlaws - although the Republican euphemism is that they are “activist” judges.

What does all this have to do with school prayer? As I said, it’s the same legal issue. The First Amendment, as it was understood from its ratification in the 1790s to the year 1947, applied only to Congress (the first word in the First Amendment is Congress). It never applied to the states, and thus never to the public schools. In 1947, the first Leftists, appointed by FDR to the Court, rewrote the First Amendment to apply to the states as well. And the reason why this happened is fairly straightforward. The Leftist revolution rests upon removing all traditional religious influence from American public life.

Understand that, under the First Amendment as actually written, a state can have an established church if it wants to. Indeed, three of the states that ratified the First Amendment had established churches. They just didn’t want a federally established church. Those three states continued to have their established churches well into the nineteenth century. Again the First Amendment has nothing to do with the states, or the public schools.

The purpose of the Left is to replace constitutional government, which rests on the consent of the governed, with a political regime that rests on the consent of judges who are members of an “enlightened” elite. Those judges constitute a floating constitutional convention. The recent accession of Roberts and Alito to the bench has, of course, put a crimp in the Left’s plans, but you need to understand that much of the Constitution is already gone. Or as one constitutional scholar puts it, most of what we today call constitutional law is actually a substitute for the Constitution.

So the prayer issue is not similar to the abortion issue: it is exactly the same issue. Are we a self-governing people or not? Are we under the Constitution or not? It has to be said that, to a great extent, we are no longer either self-governing or under the Constitution. That is the Leftist revolution.

I am actually opposed to prayer in the public schools. But that should be a thing for the people themselves to decide, and not Leftist judges.

The reason I am opposed to prayer in the public schools is because I am opposed to the public schools. My view is that the public school is the American substitute for an established church. It was that way from the beginning. In the 19th century, the public schools were mostly controlled by local evangelical Christians – it was a kind of generic Protestant establishment. In the twentieth century, paganism has become the established religion in the public schools, under the pretense that public education is now religiously neutral. This, of course, is a lie.

My view is that, if Christians ever come to their senses, the public school will be abolished – and for the same reason that the established church was abolished. Since I do not expect Christians to come to their senses, my hope is that the computer and the network, after they grow up (with ten times the current processing power and bandwidth), will destroy that system. We already have the University of Phoenix, which is entirely online. And this is only the beginning.

But my point remains. As Christians who are also citizens, our Caesar is the Constitution. This means that defending the Constitution – or what remains of it – is required of us (“render unto Caesar). And that means, practically speaking, that when we find judges who discover abortion in the Constitution, or a ban on public school praying, or homosexual pseudo-marriage, we need to understand that such findings are nothing more than a rationalization of the Left’s will to power. They are the enemies of constitutional government.

(My apologies for butting in here, in case you're not finished and before Amy has a chance to reply, but I'm again getting that "Twilight Zone" feeling that I mentioned with my first intrusion on Will's blog. Scat the theme with me?)

Well, I forgot to delete and then to re-enter the text for entry #4 after previewing, so my post was marred by the dreaded multiple curlicues. I guess I’ll re-post again, and hope that this time it appears correctly:

#4

You wrote: Abortion aside, most recent Christian political arguments seem to be based on the assumption that we are personally wronged by the immorality and anti-Christian views of other people, and that we have the right to demand better treatment. Homosexuals shouldn’t be able to marry because it diminishes the value of a heterosexual marriage. My marriage is being threatened, darn it! Prayer in schools? My children have first amendment rights, too, and boy howdy, am I mad that they’re not able to exercise them! (etc)

My Reply: The problem is that it is not possible to distinguish between abortion and these other issues. That is because it is all the same issue. Let me explain.

Abortion is objectively wrong, whether or not the Constitution contains a right to abortion. However, the claim that the Constitution contains such a right is not just an assault on the unborn, it is also an assault upon constitutional government. When Leftist judges “interpret” the Constitution as containing a right to abortion, we need to understand that they are not interpreting the Constitution at all – unless, that is, you think that 1 + 1 = 3 is an interpretation of mathematics.

In the abortion decision, the Leftist judges altered the Constitution without the consent of the governed. To be frank, the American people no longer really care that Leftist judges do this, which is why they get away with it, but the people are not completely stupid. The Left has to maintain the pretence that they are engaged in constitutional interpretation. They can’t come out and say “I am a liberal, I am god, obey me.” So they pretend to interpret constitutional “principles” which then turn out to make Constitution mean things that no one, in their wildest dreams, ever believed the Constitution could mean.

Abortion is a good example of this. There is literally no one in the history of the United States, prior to the sixties, who thought that abortion was a Constitutional right. Indeed, had someone made such an argument, they would not have not been taken seriously, and would even have been regarded as making an obscene joke. But, just as the Mexican bandits masquerading as lawmen told Humphrey Bogart: “We don’t need no stinking badges,” Leftist judges don’t need no stinking consent of the governed. They are, fundamentally, outlaws - although the Republican euphemism is that they are “activist” judges.

What does all this have to do with school prayer? As I said, it’s the same legal issue. The First Amendment, as it was understood from its ratification in the 1790s to the year 1947, applied only to Congress (the first word in the First Amendment is Congress). It never applied to the states, and thus never to the public schools. In 1947, the first Leftists appointed by FDR to the Court, rewrote the First Amendment to apply to the states as well. And the reason why this happened is fairly straightforward. The Leftist revolution rests upon removing all traditional religious influence from American public life.

Understand that, under the First Amendment as actually written, a state can have an established church if it wants to. Indeed, three of the states that ratified the First Amendment had established churches. They just didn’t want a federally established church. Those three states continued to have their established churches well into the nineteenth century. Again, the First Amendment, for the first century and a half of its existence, had nothing at all to do with the states or the public schools.

One of the purposes of the Left is to replace the consent of the governed with a political regime that rests on the consent of judges who are members of the “enlightened” elite, and who therefore constitute a floating constitutional convention. The recent accession of Roberts and Alito to the bench has, of course, put a crimp in the Left’s plans, but you need to understand that much of the Constitution is already gone. Or as one constitutional scholar puts it, most of what we today call constitutional law is actually a substitute for the Constitution.

So the prayer issue is not just similar to the abortion issue: it is the same issue. Are we a self-governing people or not? Are we under the Constitution or not? It has to be said that, to a great extent, we are no longer either self-governing or under the Constitution. That is the Leftist revolution.

I am actually opposed to prayer in the public schools. But that should be a thing for the people themselves to decide, and not Leftist judges.

Now the reason I am opposed to prayer in the public schools is because I am opposed to the public schools. My view is that the public school is the American substitute for an established church. It was that way from the beginning. In the 19th century, the public schools were mostly controlled by local evangelical Christians – it was a kind of generic Protestant establishment. In the twentieth century, paganism has become the established religion in the public schools, under the pretense that public education is now religiously neutral. This, of course, is a lie.

My view is that, if Christians ever come to their senses, the public school will be abolished – and for the same reason that the established church was abolished. Since I do not expect Christians to come to their senses, my hope is that the computer and the network, after they grow up (with many times the current processing power and bandwidth), will destroy that system. There is already the University of Phoenix, which is entirely online. And this is only the beginning.

But my point remains. As Christians who are also citizens, our Caesar is the Constitution. This means that defending the Constitution – or what remains of it – is required of us (render unto Caesar). And that means, practically speaking, that when we find judges who discover abortion in the Constitution, or a ban on public school praying, or homosexual pseudo-marriage, we need to understand that such findings are nothing more than a rationalization of the Left’s will to power. They are the enemies of constitutional government.

#5 [and final]

You write: “But,” you may say, “I am not fighting this political battle for myself but because of my righteous indignation over our country’s flagrant disregard for God’s laws….[but it was] Hypocrisy, false teaching of God’s word, and using God’s holy place for personal gain [that] were the activities that drew Christ’s ire.

My reply: In this paragraph, you fail to distinguish between Christ and Caesar, and conflate the two realms. Your argument has everything to do with the spiritual responsibility of Christians in their private capacity as believers, but nothing at all to do with their responsibilities as magistrates and citizens.

Again, Christ Himself did not act in a political capacity. We act, or can choose to act, as citizens and magistrates under Caesar. Thus we have a double role. First, we render unto Caesar, but simultaneously we are Christ’s representatives acting in that role. Your paragraph applies to the role of the Christian as a Christian, and not to the role of the Christian who is acting in the political realm.

You write: As it stands now, I think we have turned the Church into nothing more than a political action campaign in the eyes of many people.…hurting [the] proper presentation of the gospel of Christ for the sake of winning a battle that does little, if anything, for victory in the war for souls.

My reply: Almost all churches and congregations distinguish between their actions as a church and the actions of those Christians, associated with that church, who are involved in politics – if for no other reason than IRS regulations. Of course, they should make that distinction anyway. You can argue that providing facilities and other assistance to church members who are politically active will cause the general public to conflate the church with that political group, and thus to be offended. My response is that perhaps they should be offended. I don’t have a problem with that.

Of course, Christians, being human, do not always act the way they should. But, to be frank, I’ve never heard a criticism of the involvement of Christians in politics that wasn’t either bogus (accusing them of things that nothing to do with reality) or else a thinly disguised problem, not with politically active Christians, but with the truth. But maybe you know a better class of pagans than I do.

Here is my overview of your essay: Despite your protests, you desire to limit Christ’s kingdom to evangelization. In theory, you acknowledge that Christians may act as magistrates and citizens, but only in theory. What you concede in theory, you withdraw in practice. At each point in your essay you ignore the distinction between believer and citizen, and require Christians who act as citizens and magistrates to cease being Christians at the point at which pagans find their behavior objectionable.

You would be more consistent if you simply said that Christians should not be involved in politics at all.

To oversimplify things... if we create laws that are more in-line with Christian values are we really advancing the Kingdom? Really?

On a related subject - who is this Jon? He sounds totally hot.

Jeff,

I would argue that individuals, whether Christian or pagan, should also make a distinction between, or at least prioritize, their responsibilities as citizens and magistrates.

As a magistrate, an individual's first duty is to act within and uphold the law. Naturally, personal beliefs (as a private citizen) will affect this, but in cases where there is some conflict between performing the official duty and personal beliefs, the latter much be compromised or the individual recuse him/her-self.

Sarah,

Well, to oversimplify things as well -- there is only one reality.

Christians are representatives of the kingdom of God. To the extent that they act as Christians, in either spiritual or temporal matters, they constitute the appearance of that kingdom in the world. Thus, it is less a matter of consciously creating laws in line with the teaching of Christ, than believers simply reflecting Christ -- and thus changing the nature of government, among other aspects of human life.

Again, there are not two realities, the spiritual and the temporal. There is only one reality, but in different keys. Christians do not bring the kingdom by creating laws, but influence the creation of laws to the extent that they faithfully represent the kingdom.

Ron,

I am in complete agreement with what you say.

But with this proviso: in Western society, as the result of the influence of the gospel (this is one of the things my forthcoming book is about), we have divided political authority. What this means is that the executive power (which we usually think of as Caesar) is itself bound by law, and may be resisted when it goes beyond the law.

The two primary modern examples of legitimate resistance against unlawful power are found in the English Civil War in the seventeenth century and in the American Revolution in the eighteenth century. In both cases, Christians largely sided with those political authorities (Parliament in the English Civil War and the colonial legislatures in the American Revolution), against the executive (the king) who had exceeded his authority under law.

In my view, modern liberal judges long ago exceeded their authority under the Constitution, and are factually speaking enemies of constitutional government. Now I am not advocating war here, if only for eminently practical reasons. There is no constituency for war and we have not actually exhausted the legal or political remedies (for example: Congressional removal of appellate jurisdiction, or the right to hear particular cases, from the Supreme Court in matters where it has exceeded its authority).

But I do distinguish between the Constitution and the Supreme Court. A Christian magistrate does not have to resign his position if, for example, he disagrees with an unlawful decision of the Supreme Court. He instead should be part of the resistance to that unlawful decision, since his oath is to the Constitution and not to the Supreme Court.