Theology as Excuse Making

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Introduction

I was in a recent discussion with Dr. Vishal Mangalwadi, and he used a phrase that hit me with some force. He said that American Christianity was a “defeated religion.” That discussion can be found at the bottom of this post, if you want to check it out.

And of course there is a sense in which this is not true at all, and could not be true. The gates of Hades, our Lord said, was not going to be able to withstand the onslaught of the Church. The long war will eventually be won, and God’s praises will be offered up from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same (Mal. 1:11). That includes here in America. But it is in fact a long war, and just because the war will eventually be won does not mean that there can be no defeats. There will be particular defeats in particular battles. Confidence about the outcome of the war does not translate into confidence about the outcome of every single battle, campaign, or front.

So in what sense would his observation be right on the money? Because I think it is right on the money.

Gideon at the Winevat

When the angel of the Lord came to Gideon, he found him hiding from the Midianites, threshing wheat by the winepress (Judg. 6:11). It turned out that this angel might have had a sarcastic streak in him because when he appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour” (Judg. 6:12).

“Good job hiding, by the way. Even I had to hunt around a bit to find you, and I am an angel.”

But however much we might notice that Gideon was not exactly being a mighty man of valor at that particular moment, there is one way in which Gideon was vastly the superior of the modern Reformed keepers of the Big Thinks.

Gideon was hiding from the Midianites, and he knew that this was what he was doing. Modern evangelicals are hiding from the Midianites also, but they have spun themselves a yarn about it. They have told themselves that this is the way of principled pluralism. This is the price we pay for our liberty. If we want the liberty to make money, we also have to support the Midianites’ right to seize it. That is how the secular public square works. It is what the Founders would have wanted.

Now it is one thing to be forced to pay tribute to the pagans, knowing it to be such, and quite another thing to be forced to pay tribute to them while telling yourself that “this is the cost of living in a free society,” and is therefore to be reckoned as “our fair share.” It is to be considered the price of having a “good testimony.” Having a good testimony is handing over your wheat crop winsomely.

So the two ways are quite distinct. Hiding from the pagans and hiding from the pagans while rationalizing.

Hermetically Sealed Compartments in the Soul

In order to hide, just like Gideon was doing, while convincing yourself that this is not at all what you are doing, a certain configuration of the mind and heart becomes necessary. And that configuration is not healthy or integrated at all. Whatever we say about principled pluralism, in order to make it work inside the Christian mind, it is closer to principled schizophrenia.

The anabaptist position—that of withdrawal from “the society of the world”—is wrong-headed in my view, but it is not incoherent. The anabaptist says that he is not going to bear the sword, that it is not lawful for him to bear the sword, and so he is going to go out into the countryside of eastern Pennsylvania in order to drive a plow instead. This is an error, but consistent.

The modern Reformed advocate of the Reformed variant of this (R2K and such like) has to do all the withdrawing inside of his own head. Not only does he withdraw from the world inside his own head, he also manages to remain in the world inside his own head. And on top of that, he remains in the world out there in the world too. He is playing tag with the devil, and “base” is this cluster of exemption thoughts inside his head. Whenever he is about to be tagged by some sprite, he grabs base, the tree that we might call the Tree of the Knowledge That This World is Not My Home.

But this cannot be done unless you have different parts of your soul hermetically sealed off from each other. Stephen Wolfe recently highlighted the absurdities that can result from this. Unlike the anabaptists, the R2K position would hold that it is lawful for a Christian to become a magistrate, and indeed, lawful for him to become a chief magistrate. In this position, together with the other lawful magistrates, he could declare war, conscript citizens for that war, direct the conduct of that war, determine to use nuclear weapons, decide the terms of surrender, and so forth. Momentous decisions, in other words. Because these R2K men are not anabaptists, they would think that all of this is legit. But then they would also say that this magistrate could not decide that the citizens of his country needed to take Sunday off because it was the Lord’s Day. That would be way beyond the limit, and an example of ecclesiastical tyranny. Thus far Wolfe’s objection.

But there is another problem with this as well. All the activities he is conducting as a magistrate need to be sealed off from the part of his brain that believes that Jesus rose from the dead. Deciding whether or not to use nukes has to be decided on the basis of the Noahic covenant and natural law. The part of him that is making all these decisions cannot in any way be informed by or even remember what he was reading in Deuteronomy that morning. If he gathers any wisdom from that source, he is an aspiring ayatollah.

But, of course, as we shall see in a minute, if magistrates are not under the revealed law of God, what could possibly be wrong with becoming an aspiring ayatollah?

Which Brings Us to Darryl Hart

Darryl Hart believes that Christians should disobey the magistrate if the magistrate requires them to disobey God. So far so good. But, however, comma . . .

Hart holds that when it comes down to the pinch, Christians should disobey, but they should also be willing to take their lumps.

Sure. They didn’t form PACs to overturn Roman laws. They had better things to do, like disobeying the Roman laws. And as the church grew in authority and influence—because God was blessing their disobedience—a time eventually came when the emperors had to acknowledge that “this isn’t working.” Now Hart’s position, as stated above, would require that Constantine’s decision to stop persecuting Christians was a matter of common prudence, and not a moral decision at all. It would have been lawful to continue persecuting them, and it was lawful to stop if he wanted. He was in charge and so could go either way.

But if that is the case, then it would also be entirely lawful for him to start persecuting pagans. Right? And then it would be their turn to start taking it in the teeth. Incidentally, I am not saying anything about what the historical Constantine did or didn’t do. We are just using him as a handy tool for illustration.

To anchor the point, let us talk about Daniel and a different empire. Let us talk about what Darius did after God delivered Daniel from the lion’s den.

According to Hart, this was entirely copacetic as well because Darius was in charge of the lion’s den. Daniel disobeyed, and so in accordance with the law he had to go to the lions. The men who schemed against Daniel displeased the king, and so they needed to suffer the consequences of that displeasure. We all should watch this with equanimity because . . . Romans 13.

According to Hart, if it is lawful to punish Christians for breaking the law, even if the law is a pagan law, then it would also be lawful to punish pagans for breaking the law, even if the law is a Christian law. So then, so far from providing an alternative to Christian nationalism, Hart has actually provided us with a rationale for a Christian nationalism with no brakes.

But if we don’t get to pick and choose just because we have Jesus in our hearts, then the secularists don’t get to pick and choose just because they have James Madison in their hearts. We all need to do as we are told, right? Or suffer the consequences, right?

And all of this can be reduced to higher levels of absurdity in just minutes. If it is lawful for Nero to execute Christians for disobeying the law, and if it is lawful for Christians to hold office under an emperor like Nero, then what happens when Nero does not violate God’s law in ordering the execution of a preacher who would not stop preaching? The preacher was also not violating God’s law because he was willing to take the punishment. But when Nero gives the order, he gives the order to some functionary, and it is lawful for Christians to hold office among the functionaries. So let us say a Christian is the director of Nero’s Bureau of Prisons, a lawful vocation,. What does he do when Nero says—like Herod did when that girl danced for him—bring me the head of that preacher on a platter?

The preacher is an elder in this functionary’s church. Nero is not breaking God’s law by killing a Christian preacher. The preacher is not breaking God’s law because he is willing to sacrifice his life in order to obey God. The emperor gives the director of prisons a lawful order, and Darryl Hart has assured him that Nero is not out of line for issuing the order. So is this man out of line for executing his own pastor? Because his pastor continued to preach the gospel? If not, why not? If so, then why? As Joe Biden would say, “c’mon, man.”

The Glory of Limited Government

I think I may have figured out why a number of Christians are so freaked out about Christian nationalism. I said above that Hart’s position allows for a Christian nationalism without any brakes. But this is not because of anything inherent in the positions of Christian nationalism. It is because Hart himself is a statist—this is because of something inherent in his view of the power of the state. He believes that Nero has the rightful authority to ban the preaching the gospel. Such monstrous folly would be within his purview. But if something like that is under his authority, what wouldn’t be under his authority?

So all of this is because Hart is a statist, and believes that the state has no brakes. That being the case, he thinks that certain drivers that he would consider poor drivers should not be allowed to get behind the wheel. But that is just a personal opinion of Hart’s, and not a principial conviction. Other people think that Christians would be totally within their rights to summon up a Protestant Franco. “Relax. It’ll be totally great.” So if such Christians gain control of that state beast, then we should all invite Katie, as they say, to bar the door.

But actually Christian nationalists don’t want to seize control of the state beast as it now is. Christian nationalists want to get the state back within its assigned limits. A central feature of Christian political theory is the glory of limited government. Think of it as theocratic classical liberalism, and yes, this is a Puritan koan.

Theology as Rationalization

So the Christian faith in North America is currently a defeated religion because we have rationalized our marginal status in a country that we built. This is nothing short of a staggering loss of faith. We have numerous theological traditions and theologians who are adept at rationalizing the condition we are in. This is handy because if the condition we are in can be successfully rationalized, then we need not be troubled to do anything about it.

But what can be said to the objection that you Christian nationalists are part of this, right? We are in North America, and so we are part of this defeated religion, correct? No, not exactly.

It is true that we are all living under the same conditions. David French. Russell Moore. John Piper. Eric Metaxas. Stephen Wolfe. Joe Rigney. Scott Aniol. Jared Longshore. Al Mohler. Et Al. All of us went through four years of Biden, and are now in the midst of the Trump recoil. We are all dealing with the same situation on the ground. We are therefore all in the same boat . . .

So no. There is a difference between being vastly outnumbered, but still fighting, on the one hand, and having surrendered for the sake of the status quo, and then rationalizing what you did after the surrender.

The latter happened because Rab-shekeh rode up to our walls and he taunted us, and hurt our feelings.

After so many evangelicals accepted the deal, it was necessary to develop a theology that would not spend so much time jabbing at our conscience at two in the morning. And so that is what we did.

My Conversation with Vishal Mangalwadi