Apologies for posting late. We had a major wind storm and trees were down all over town, and power was out. But we are here now.
Show Outline with LinksIntroduction
Interacting with the book Disarming Leviathan is the kind of thing that provokes the sort of sensations one might have after pounding down three hefty pieces of cheesecake. Woof would be what sums it all up.
This is why I am no longer taking in a chapter at a time. Today’s installment will therefore be content with just a modest portion (pp. 159-166), but one that is still quite enough.
We will touch on three topics—immigration non sequiturs, the divine inspiration of America’s founding documents, and the belief of many Christian nationalists that the Democratic Party is of the devil. That should be sufficient for today.
Immigration Observations that in No Way Follow
Campbell next takes on those Christian nationalists who believe that immigrants are ruining the country. He knows, in an a priori way, that this could not possibly be the case. I mean, it would be a nice thing to take in a family of refugees, especially if that family were Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus.
“I also know that immigrants are often fleeing from harm, just as Jesus’ family fled to Egypt to find safety from Herod’s murderous threat.”
And if it would be a nice thing to take one family in, one holy family in, then how could it possibly be problematic to take 13 million in? There will be no problems, no friction, no difficulties at all. So the thinking goes, if you want to call it thinking.
The issue is cultural assimilation. You cannot take in refugees in those numbers without simultaneously taking in all the pathologies that they were fleeing from. It is as though Egypt’s immigration policies resulted in them taking in Joseph, Mary, the baby Jesus, a tenth of the population of Judea, and a couple of regiments of Herod’s soldiers. In other words, a demented immigration policy solves no problems, including whatever problems true refugees might have.
And then there is the profound inconsistency and high hypocrisy of Campbell’s entire position. First, his heart goes out to those people who are fleeing from bad situations around the world.
“America, like Egypt in Jesus’ day, has a lot of financial resources and military might. I’ve been wrestling with our responsibility to use those resources to help protect people fleeing from bad situations.”
Well, I don’t know about that, Caleb. Here is where positions argued earlier come back in order to bite one on the hinder parts. I recently read somewhere—where was it?—that this kind of thing cannot be done.
“The state itself is not inherently Christian nor can it act in Christian ways. The state cannot follow Jesus, live out the Sermon on the Mount, or embody the fruit of the Spirit.”
And so this earlier message from Campbell comes through loud and clear. Pound sand, immigrants!
Sure, he also references “the frequent commands in Scripture to care for foreigners in our community” (DL, p. 161)—but this would have to be directed at the church, right? Not at the state, because the state cannot follow Jesus. Unless of course, the call to follow Jesus lines up with the progressive agenda. Then the state can and must follow the Jesus way! Great how that seems to work out.
We can call this a form of Jubilee-debt-release theonomy and not that icky thou-shalt-not-suffer-a-witch-to-live theonomy. You know, convenient theonomy. Left-coded Christian nationalism.
The Inspired Founding?
This next section need not be very long because the windmill Campbell is tilting at here does exist, but only among Mormons, as far as I know.
“Some Christian nationalists will say America’s founding documents were inspired by God.”
The problem here is that in order to be a Christian nationalist, you need to be a Christian first, and Mormonism is not Christian. Not to put too fine a point on it, the Christian faith is monotheistic, and Mormonism is polytheistic. There is what you might call an unbridgeable gap there, and it really doesn’t matter if this ruffles Glenn Beck’s feathers.
Let us move on. I don’t know who he is talking about. The only possibility I can think of would be politically conservative Mormons, who are not Christian nationalists.
Democrats are Demoncrats
There are two aspects of this next point that need to be taken up and analyzed with a less than perfect tenderness.
Campbell complains that Christian nationalists have in effect demonized their enemies.
“Modern American Christian nationalists have ramped up this dehumanizing rhetoric, often invoking biblical language to equate political progressives with demons, evil spirits, or the antichrist.”
Yeah. It is apparently bad to associate your political opponents with satanic forces. For example, one ought not to equate conservatives with Leviathan, that ancient sea serpent of darkness . . . glances at the cover of the book . . . oh, wait.
I mean, the placid serenity with which he does this kind of thing is just breathtaking. It is so stuffed full of effrontery that a kind of splendor creeps into it. Christian nationalists have gone too far. They have associated Democrats with evil spirits. Can you even believe it?
“The supernatural power covertly at work in our mission field” (DL, p. 39). “the spiritual undercurrents that empower it” (DL, p. 40). “operating like a cult” (p. 40). “Leviathan’s domain was the sea (or abyss)” (DL, p. 41). “the Leviathan symbolizes moral chaos” (DL, p. 41). “our mission field is caught in a deceptive trap laid by an enemy at work since the beginning of time” (DL, p. 42).
But in the meantime, you Christian nationalists need to work harder at keeping it classy!
The second problem with this section needs to be given a couple of whacks, one on the right side and the other on the left.
He tries to show us that good Christians can support the Democrats, provided they believe in their hearts that the government can do what the government cannot do, i.e. follow the Sermon on the Mount. Many Christians believe that certain aspects of the Democratic platform align more faithfully with Scripture than does the platform of conservatives. And okay, so they feel that way. But is that correct?
As a case in point, he points to the example of the Black Church, appealed to here as sort of an Ecclesiastical Magic Negro.
“In America one of the best ways to do this is by exploring the witness of Black Christians in America, 84 percent of whom prefer the Democratic Party.”
All I can think about here is the way that these Black Christians have compromised in a terrible fashion and are under a fearsome judgment. It was an honest charge against ungodly white slave owners that they would separate slave families, selling children down the river. But these Black Christians of America have sold their children to the slaughterhouse—and there is no excuse for it. The Democratic Party is the party of dismembering children and selling the pieces, and these Black Christians have been entirely good with the fact that a disproportionate number of those pieces were black. Campbell appeals to that 84% as though it means something, but he is appealing to those who have been cooperating with the genocidal targeting of their own people. And traitors and quislings don’t get to speak with moral authority about anything.
I say nothing against those black Christians who see this travesty for what it is, and who hate it like God hates it. God bless them.
Here is the second whack.
“The Bible talks a lot about caring for widow, immigrants, the poor, and orphans. I wonder how many Christians vote for Democrats because they believe that their policies are more in line with these biblical principles.”
Yes. But have we forgotten that the state cannot follow Jesus and cannot obey the Sermon on the Mount? Why are we trying to get policies that are more in line with biblical principles? A fool’s dream! Ah, but the actual fool’s dream would be those conservative Christians who believe Campbell is sincere in his belief that government cannot implement biblical principles. They can, but only so long as they are Campbell’s idea of biblical principles.
“We can help to show that there are many faithful Christians who prefer the Democratic Party because it aligns more closely with their understanding of the teachings of Scriptures.”
This would be a great argument if it made any moral sense.