In the ongoing aftermath of the ever-generous fiasco that we call the Trump campaign, Russell Moore wrote that if Donald Trump has accomplished anything of value, it is that he has snuffed out the religious right. The first half of his piece says a lot of things that are pertinent, trenchant, on the mark, and otherwise okay.
I believe, with Moore, that this particular disaster-on-stilts is what we might call a “teachable moment.” It is filled with lessons we must learn if Trump goes down in flames, and with very similar lessons if Hillary does. But it is by no means assured that we have learned, are learning, or will learn those lessons.
My evidence for this is the second half of Moore’s post, and so I propose we take a brief walking tour through his comments.
“There is good news, though, behind all of this, regardless of how this election turns out. The old-school political Religious Right establishment wonders why the evangelical next generation rejects their way. The past year is illustration enough.”
First, it is always dicey to speak for something as ill-defined as the “next generation.” But second, to the extent that we can do so, it by no means clear to me that anybody is “rejecting their way.” Rejecting the contents of someone’s procedure is not the same thing as rejecting the procedure, and if the procedure itself is the problem, if the procedure is the carrier of the disease in question, then we haven’t really fixed anything. I would submit that the problem with our cultural engagement is that it has not been entirely, distinctively, Christian. It has been murkily collaborationist. More about that in a bit.
“The evangelical movement is filled with younger, multiethnic, gospel-centered Christians. They are defined by a clear theology and a clear mission—not by the doctrinally vacuous resentment over a lost regime of nominal, cultural ‘Christian America.’”
First, remember that word multiethnic. It will come back in a minute. Moore says here that these gospel-centered Christians have a clear theology and a clear mission. I believe I understand what he means by “clear theology,” and I agree. It is a clear theology. That is not the same as a clear and detailed theology, and the real question before the house is whether clear theology by itself is sufficient for any level of cultural engagement. Cultural engagement is always going to require involvement in the details, and a “clear but truncated” theology won’t cut it. This problem is revealed by the next thing Moore said, which is that they have a “clear mission.” Okay, I’ll bite. What is it? What is this clear mission?
When are we done? What does success look like? How will we know that we have accomplished that mission? In short, does the end game include the discipling of the nations or not? We can either abandon culture, accommodate ourselves in some way to culture, or successfully teach our culture what obedience to Jesus looks like. Moore believes in cultural engagement so the first option is out. He is not a theocratic postmillennialist, so the third option is out. That leaves the second option.
But doctrinally vacuous hope is no better than doctrinally vacuous resentment.
If you are accommodating yourselves, on what principles, by what standard, is the accommodation of the older religious right “compromise,” and the accommodations of the new generation not compromise? What is the officially-tolerated line of accommodation, and how can we know? What level of compromise is okay, and what level of compromise is . . . compromise? Trump is a serial adulterer, sure enough, and so was Martin Luther King.
Moore makes a valuable point when he asks: “Why Trump would be more faithful to vows to religious political activists than he has been to people named ‘Mrs. Trump,’ they do not tell us.” But this is a knife that can carve up many different cuts of roast beef. If someone is repulsed by Trump, simply because the adulteries shout louder than the message, would Moore praise him? And if someone a generation ago did the same thing with MLK, would Moore praise him? If we are going to navigate this thing, we have to do more than simply put a Christian gloss on the work of Hillary’s oppo-research team.
Another king, King David, was an adulterer and a murderer, and Nathan the prophet—the man who courageously rebuked him—was in his political corner in the subsequent battle between Solomon and Adonijah (1 Kings 1:11). So why am I #Never Trump and not #Never David? The answer is because Trump is an unrepentant Adonijah. And Nathan the prophet said, “I knew King David. King David was a friend of mine. You are no King David.”
Next, I told you to remember that word multiethnic, and here is why. Why was it a problem for the older religious right to have an attachment to the good aspects of their generation (e.g. our older quaint custom of not boycotting states for keeping perverts out of the women’s restrooms), and not a problem for this younger generation of Christians to love the good aspects of their generation (e.g. rejection of racism). When Moore trumpets the need for a diverse church, he is sailing with the wind. This generation will not give you any grief over your multiethnic ministry, any more than the culture gave the church grief in the fifties for being against homosexuality.
“The people who have used the gospel to sell us politically cynical voting guides have done damage. But they are not replicating themselves in the next generation.”
Was the problem with the voting guides that the motives were cynical? Or that the positions were not biblical? If the motives were the problem, then we should repent before the next round of voter guides comes out. If it is claimed that the problem was a misrepresentation of the Bible’s teaching, then let’s have a Bible study. And I would encourage us to include the Old Testament this time.
“The old-guard is easier to engage in politics, because they find identity in a ‘silent majority’ of Americans. The next generation knows that our witness is counter to the culture, not just on the sanctity of life and the stability of the family but, most importantly, on the core of the gospel itself: Christ and him crucified.”
There are many problems here. The old guard did preach Christ and Him crucified, but they simultaneously tried to be culturally engaged without a clear word from God. In other words, they did not make an explicitly biblical case for opposition to gun control, support for free markets, etc. They did rely on traditional American values too much, which just got everyone confused. They did this in exactly the same way that Moore is relying on contemporary American values too much.
Moore is to be commended, by the way, for his ongoing commitment to the sanctity of human life. If he continues that, and if he upgrades phrases like the stability of the family to something more like the absolute normativity of heterosexual monogamous marriage and resultant family stability, he can denounce the old guard religious right all he wants, he is still going to be lumped in with them. If you oppose the sexual revolution, whether in its bloody or orgasmic aspects, then you are a hater and will not be allowed to be collaborative with anybody.
“The 30-year-old evangelical pastor down the street from you would rather die than hand over his church directory to a politician or turn his church service into a political rally.”
The legal theorist John Rawls once said that you should design the ideal society without any information about where in that society you will be born. This is simply another variation on the Golden Rule, but we may adapt it to evaluate Christians and their political engagement. It sounds icky to hand over a church directory “to a politician,” but we really need to know more than that. What is the proposed use of the church directory? Is the politician simply using it to pump up his mailing list in his “Murphy for County Coroner” campaign? In other words, is it a partisan use? Or is he trying to mobilize white Christians in 1950 Birmingham to do something about how their black fellow Christians are being treated?
There is no question that race relations is a political issue. Is Moore saying “no church directory” for any political issue? Or just for the political issues he finds passé?
“Finding new ways of engaging our fellow citizens and forming collaborative majorities for public action are now the urgent priority of evangelicals who wish not to concede the public space, in our name, to heretics and hucksters and influence-peddlers.”
And here we come to the realization that we haven’t really learned anything yet.
Look at that phrase “engaging our fellow citizens and forming collaborative majorities.” Which fellow citizens? On what principles? NRA fellow citizens or BLM fellow citizens? By what standard? Forming collaborative majorities with whom? Why?
This is the same virus of pragmatism that has resulted, at the end of the day, with many Christians endorsing Trump. They say—and I agree—that Hillary would be a greater judgment on us than Trump would be. But they are both judgments, and judgments cannot be stage-managed.
When you form a collaborative majority with pagans, they are not going to share your “Christ and Him crucified” ethic. You will be cobelligerents with them, and not allies. Before we show ourselves too eager for “collaborative majorities,” which sounds too much like a “moral majority” to me, we need to hammer out the principles that must undergird all Christian cultural engagement.
And the question that still needs to be addressed is this one. When you propose any course of action whatever, and you do it in Jesus’ name, then you have to answer the question by what standard?
“The gospel matters more.”
Yes, it certainly does. But the gospel is the good news of the rule of the Lord Jesus. This begins with individual conversion, but it cannot end there. The foundational gospel confession is this: Jesus is Lord. That means that Caesar isn’t lord, and that Caesar needs to humble himself and listen to what the church has to say. But before that can happen, the church needs to jettison the deficient theologies that have kept us—for several centuries now—from speaking the whole counsel of God.
Lord of what? Why? Who says? How do we ascertain His will? By what standard? If those questions are not asked and answered by Moore’s younger generation, then they are soon enough going to find themselves in the same humiliating position that many of the old guard religious right are in today. They are in this excruciating position for a reason.
I don’t want to surrender the term religious right, because we are still religious, and we are still right. If there is another big battle in the coming generation, as I trust there will be, the term will be applied to us. I still believe in God and Jesus, and I still have my guns, and I still hate the abortion industry, and I still think the Fed can’t make monetary water flow uphill, and I still believe homosex is sinful and unnatural, and I still believe the federal government is a metastasizing tumor, and so on, right through most of the voter guides. But at the same time, there is something important to be said about the death of the religious right. I agree with Moore that something like this kind of did happen.
So again like Moore, but in a different way, I do have some hope for the next generation. The religious right is dead. Long live the religious right. Bring your Bibles this time.
Well said!
Let us all drop the ‘right’ and be ‘religious’; then we will be the ‘religious LIGHT’ which will be salt in the suture-ready wounds of those ‘left’ – and we already know who wins that battle!
[Stands and claps]…
Douglas Wilson: “This is the same virus of pragmatism that has resulted, at the end of the say, with many Christians endorsing Trump. They say—and I agree—that Hillary would be a greater judgment on us than Trump would be. But they are both judgments, and judgments cannot be stage-managed.”
Did not the Sovereign God offer King David a choice of judgments?
The difference: he commanded David to choose one.
It’s insulting when Moore assumes the he can condemn the older generation and praise the younger one. His constant bashing of those who hold biblical values and not “missional” ones is getting tiresome. Especially tiresome is the “we don’t bring politics into church” and than doing nothing but politics with their ministries. It takes a serious amount of Biblical ignorance to think that Church’s should have no influence on politics or that the new religious left, led by “missional evangelicals” has any grounding in scripture. It takes a great deal of self-deception to despise political involvement and than turn your… Read more »
See my post above. Moore worked for a Democrat congressman in Mississippi. He is a communitarian, which is in no way like a conservative Republican. The SBC needs to get rid of him as a spokesman. He is an opportunist, not a Christian leader.
I know Dr. Moore. Yes, he worked for a Democrat congressman before being Democrat meant being pro-choice. I’m staunchly conservative. And yet, not being a conservative Republican does not mean Dr. Moore is an invalid spokesman for the SBC! Please don’t slander him by calling him an opportunist. If there’s one thing he’s clearly not doing it’s just going with the easy tide. Russ Moore has consistently argued the same principles long before he was head of the ERLC. Some of what he says is unpopular and I disagree with. But my disagreement doesn’t serve to impugn his character –… Read more »
Dems were certainly pro-choice in the early 90s when Moore worked for one. I’m not sure about Gene Taylor’s stance, but their party certainly was.
Others who know Moore personally have commented here and their views of him are quite different from yours. While I don’t think Luke Pride knows Moore, his comments are spot-on.
We don’t need someone creating more division in the church and Moore maligns older (white) Christians, assuming that they are bigots, racists, haters and that Trump supporters are all ignorant rubes. Well, back at you, Moore, I think you are a wolf in sheep’s clothing, you serve on a Soros funded panel that advocates bringing more Islamic refugees into our country – that means more terrorism from people who will not assimilate and who, once settled, insist on enforcing their own moral codes on a community. “Make America Great Again” is mostly an economic message about jobs – not about… Read more »
Nate, on what level do you know Dr. Moore? Does that mean you took a class from him? So did I. Did you ever work for him? Do the two of you exchange emails daily? Clearly, not being a conservative Republican does not invalidate anyone as a spokesman for the SBC. Because all the conservative Republicans hate Donald Trump as a presidential candidate, presumably because he is *not* a conservative Republican, and despite all their attempts to shame people away from him, the average man in the pews likes Trump all the same – the non-conservative Republican. Then why do… Read more »
As those millenials are wont to say, … yep, he went there.
I imagine that made you feel good.
Trump is more of a King Saul than a King David.
If you read carefully, Doug compared Trump to Adonijah, in stark contrast to David.
Of course I saw it, and he’s right too.
There are plenty of sinners God used, Samson, Moses, and David, among others. He used whores and tax collectors. We are not electing a saint, we are voting for the candidate who does not have a mission to destroy us.
I think the point is (which wasn’t really mentioned in this article, nor in the one this article is about), the point is, we have been destroyed, and as far as history shows (the better part of the Old Testament) we are better for it. So yes, perhaps the “religious right” is over (I sure hope so). But it doesn’t mean things are about to get easier, which from a spiritual standpoint, is in our best interest. See Romans 5: 3Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character… Read more »
I am very curious – I agree that as Christians, we must start from the Bible – but how does that work with our political engagement, which is at least in some ways different than our discipleship mandate? Arguments that abortion is wrong because of the Bible’s value of the image of God seem counterproductive with people who don’t believe in God, images, or value.
I think Doug’s point is that it isn’t different, and that abortion (for example) can only be ended under the Lordship of Christ, not by giving good pagan reasons why we shouldn’t have it. There is overlap of course between the pagan reasons and the true ones (largely because nobody, at least in a culture that was ever Christianized, and to some extent nobody at all that lives in the world God made) but we must argue for the overlapping ones because they are the true ones, not because we can trick people into thinking it’s all good to hate… Read more »
Yes, abortion can only be stamped out if it becomes unthinkable, and in general, there is only a religious path to that being a widespread attitude. But the conversion must happen through discipleship, not politics, and yet I don’t think we are called to abandon our political opposition to abortion. How do those two relate to each other?
One thing we can do ,is become very clear that abortion is wrong because we are made in the image of God,not because we wish to punish those who do not know we are made in the image of God. Listen to Ash and all the others whose very first word when anyone says “abortion,” is punishment. How can we punish all the women who have self impregnated themselves and now refuse to be “punished with a child?” Yeah, those words said by President Obama resonated so well, because many of us know that the religious right is far more… Read more »
Without justice, grace is meaningless.
Not necessarily commenting here regarding abortion. Just that God’s grace wasn’t amazing to me until I understood it in the context of his wrath – wrath that I’m fully deserving of. And yet… He chose me. Amazing.
Thanks for the reminder.
We’ve talked about this before. I am not as convinced as you are of the proportion of the truly misogynistic in the conservative movement. How do you see conservatives and Christians in general (as opposed to the nakedly misogynistic who have commented on this board before) investing in punishing women? Is making abortion more difficult to obtain “punishment”? Or do you see serious attempts to criminalize abortion and jail women instead of providers?
I am saying that intent, motivation, and the condition of our heart is everything. It is grace that draws people to Christ and it is grace that wins over hearts and minds. So, no matter what our words and actions say, when the motivation is to punish and control, the moral upper hand is always lost. When we speak of abortion, we always speak of regulation,bans, jailing providers, all authoritarian actions based on power and control. If we instead focused on the idea that we are all created in God’s image, that love for humanity compels us to object killing… Read more »
I see crisis pregnancy centers as living that goal out admirably. I’m not sure why also advocating that abortion be illegal or more difficult to obtain is necessarily misogynistic. I’ve been attending rallies and talking to pro-life people my entire life, and I still haven’t actually met any of the misogynistic “punish those baby killer” activists in person. At least, no one has told me those ideas.
“I’m not sure why also advocating that abortion be illegal or more difficult to obtain is necessarily misogynistic.”
Because it goes right to the core of the matter and implies that women cannot be trusted to make the right choice, therefore men are entitled to invoke the authoritarian power of the state to protect them. Is it true that women cannot always make good choices? Perhaps, but it is still a model based on power and control and rooted in the idea that women are not qualified to make moral judgments, so we must enforce mandated child birth through legalism.
ME may have just tipped her entire hand with that card.
I am always tipping my hand. I’ve spent a great deal of time actually listening to the other side and I always have this silly idea that if I can get others to listen too, we can improve our strategy and start winning the culture war, or at least a few battles.
That’s not how laws work. Anti-rape, anti-robbery, and anti-abortion laws are not made to oppress the criminals, but to protect the victims of the crime. We cannot function solely on education and positive reinforcement.
Ian Miller is correct. What ME just did is called “identity politics”, otherwise known as partiality and favoritism. The sex of an offender is not relevant in the protection of life. Manslaughter against the unborn would also be immoral and criminal if we were talking about a male abortionist, or a male who caused a miscarriage because of battery.
Attempts to play the gender card on this issue are as unjust and misguided as attempts to play the race card.
It astounds me, here we are conducting a post mortem on the religious right, a situation where the very definition of identity politics has pretty much laid us out flat, and no one even wants to consider another strategy. Doing the same over and over again and losing every time seems like the definition of insanity.
Yeah, that’s why I was puzzled when she accused the alt-right of identity politics. I see a lot more of it in her and similar blogs like the Spiritual Sounding Board. One of SSB’s recent posts said the following about pro-life activites: ““Yes!” Take part in prolife activities! Go to a nursing home and regularly visit an elderly person who doesn’t have family living near by. Take in a young pregnant woman who needs a safe home. Volunteer at school for kids who need extra tutoring. Support organizations such as Doctors Without Borders or Medical Teams International who are fighting… Read more »
But it isn’t just men who want to restrict abortion access. I think the numbers are fairly evenly split. I have a lot of sympathy for many women who find themselves facing a crisis pregnancy. I also think that many women would be more likely to make the moral and right choice if an abortion were not instantly available in a clinic a block and a half away (as there is from where I live). Somebody said that a woman in a crisis pregnancy can feel as if her leg has been caught in a trap. I think that removing… Read more »
Men have moral authority over their women. Women are capable of moral judgement but typically do not bear ultimate responsibility for their decisions.
Many people cannot be trusted to make right choices, that’s why some things are illegal and we have a criminal justice system. Abortion is not exceptional, but commonplace, in this regard.
That may be one of the …
Okay, using your lack of logic, ME, one would also be forced to say that laws against homicide are rooted in the idea the men and women are not qualified to make moral judgments, so we must enforce non-murder through legalism.
I must be some kind of barbarian in your eyes, cause I’m kind of okay with that, though I really can’t quite see in what context you are using the term “legalism.”
“Because it goes right to the core of the matter and implies that women cannot be trusted to make the right choice, therefore men are entitled to invoke the authoritarian power of the state to protect them.”
As if there were no women who wanted abortion outlawed?
Hey Memi, let me help you out on this. You might be falling for a rhetorical ruse. A society is all about power and control, at the consent of the society. Society tells men and women not to speed. Society tells men and women not to dirve drunk. Society tells men and women not to assualt each other. Society tells people these things because there are times when men and women do not make the right choice, for what ever reason. There is a consequence to society when members make wrong choices that endanger society. In this respect, society telling… Read more »
“I hope you find the above sincere and helpful, and that it brings you to a less rhetorically weak position on this issue”
With all due respect A-dad, the abortion debate has been lost and continues to be lost everyday. To me that would seem to indicate that I am not the one employing the rhetorically weak argument.
Well Memi, This is where I think I can still help. The speeding, drunk driving and assault debate are not lost everyday, nor is the abortion struggle. Some people speed, drive drunk, assault and have abortions. Some get caught, some don’t, most others are not speeding, driving drunk or have abortions. After due legislative process “debate”, speeding, durnk driving and assault laws were established for the common good. Back in the day, abortion was illegal for the comon good. After an undue debate in a court, laws preventing abortion were undermined without due legislative process. Even then, many crisis pregnancy… Read more »
“… my thought is the “women cannot be trusted” line was the rhetorically weak line.Tom Kaine used that line in the VP debate, and I found it to be quite grating.” You found it to be grating because it is such an effective rhetorical argument. The only people who can never seem to understand that they lose the cultural debate every time are the religious right, because their argument is so weak and has no integrity. Thems tough words, but guess what? We are not winning. We have been losing. Why are we losing? Because we are foolish enough to… Read more »
So how are you winning Memi?
And here Memi, you must understand that Kaine’s line was evil, not effective.
When I hear about a woman considering an abortion, I am not thinking “I don’t trust you”, I am thinking “Hey! what about that sweet innocent baby?”
Must be the father in me. We do protect women and children Memi.
Not unlike Mr. Memi perhaps! ; – )
“So how are you winning Memi?” I am not. I am losing. One reason why I am losing is because my comrades in arms seem to be obsessed with committing cultural hari kari all over the place. “…you must understand that Kaine’s line was evil, not effective.” One does not cancel each other out. Evil can be very effective. A-dad, a large portion of the religious right is supporting an adulterous man who has been married 3 times, and treats women in general as sexual commodities easily discarded when they become inconvenient. Given those conditions is it no surprise to… Read more »
Memi, I think we can agree that evil is deceptive, so Kaine’s “trust” remark, is an evil decpetion that works on some. That is horrifying. The father of lies is causing these problem, long before we had these two awful choices for president. Let’s not forget the the alleged religious right was also synonymous with “family values”, like not being a lounge lizard, staying married and not killing your children. People are complicated Memi, Ron Reagan had good values, along with two marraiges. I think it is great that Trump got busted for being lizard mouthed. I think that may… Read more »
Thanks, Adad. Much appreciated.
Why can’t it just be that no one should kill another human being? Is it the category that you don’t like? If murder includes unborn children, would that be acceptable?
Well,it seems to me as if God gave a whole set of commandments,including thou shall not kill. Just the same, people went ahead and broke them all anyway. So, “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
I think that message of grace, redemption is the one we are supposed to be taking to all the nations, not, “you guys just need more commandments.”
So does this work for rape and sexual assault, too? Do we just get really pure hearts, build a great argument for stopping it, then watch the heathens change their ways? Or do we get to pick and choose what to regulate on a misandrist basis?
There’s a reason the Bible says the heart is “deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” I find those who rely heavily on “heart” arguments often have nasty hearts, based on what comes out of them (Matt. 15:18).
Actually, you’ll find me pretty consistent on that. I find many of our sexual assault laws, like consent on college campuses, marital rape, to be misguided. It is far more effective to change hearts than to legislate.
No bad guy ever read a sign that said gun free zone and decided not to rob a bank.
A lot of people have decided that since robbing banks is illegal, they shouldn’t do it.
I agree about the gun free zones – but I don’t think making it illegal to rob the bank is foolish. Nor is punishing the robber. In the same way – yes, people were getting abortions before Roe, and will continue if we succeed in outlawing it again – but it is evil, it is gravely evil, it is forbidden by the Bible and hundreds of other cultures, and it is obviously evil, and should be made illegal as well, not only to lessen its impact by removing easy access, but also to help in the teaching of morality in… Read more »
But if men are so prone to abusing their authority in the matter of not trusting women to make the right choice about abortion, why should women trust them when it comes to sexual assault?
I think that a society of people who are moral from choice, not compulsion, would be wonderful. But I think that even a society that virtuous would have people who have no interest in virtue when it comes up against self-interest.
My Special Snowflake collected four parking tickets in her first six months on the road. She stopped getting them exactly when I made her start paying them herself. (And why it took me that long to awaken from my torpor and assert my authority is beyond me.)
If coercion prevents most of us from parking in a double-fine construction zone, why would we assume it is useless in restraining crime? We see when it doesn’t restrain someone, but we can’t know the numbers of people who refrained from a wicked act for fear of the consequences.
I honestly think that ash’s view is a minority among conservative Christians. We hear it a lot, but it goes against the evidence of all the pregnancy crisis centers that conservative Christians maintain. It is hard to know how much of this is based purely on moral terms and how much is a longing for the good old days when women were (presumably) virginal until marriage. My own church teaches that while fornication is sinful, the resulting pregnancy certainly isn’t. I think that everyone who gives it serious thought must realize that no legislation limiting abortion would have a hope… Read more »
See, I don’t even hear it a lot. Just a lot from the alt-right. But I think the alt-right is an incredibly noisy, but tiny part of the culture.
WHAT? This is ridiculous. Religious right is far more invested in punishing women? You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Did you become a Christian late in life, because you were never part of the Christian right movement in the early years if this is what you believe.
I became a Christian long ago, but I have never been a member of the religious right because you people are forever telling me I am not a Christian and threatening to hit me with a shovel.
It’s all good, however, I’m used to it:-)
Your personal experience, whatever it was, is not indicative of all on the religious right. I have no reason to think you are not a Christian. I do have reason to think that Russell Moore is an opportunist.
I think it helpful to look at the few–very few–nonreligious people who nevertheless oppose abortion. Nat Hentoff, an atheist, casts the issue in terms of civil rights and is ardently pro-life–much more so than my mainline Protestant friends who toe the party line about never having one themselves but not being willing to play God for other women. I think technology and advances in neonatal medicine make it much harder for people to claim they had no idea it was not simply a clump of tissue. In the long run, the religious view is the important one. But, for persuading… Read more »
I agree. But that’s the kind of “not from the Bible” argument that Doug seems to say we shouldn’t have?
I disagree with him there, but my approach to problems tends to be practical, not theoretical. I see no point in trying to persuade nonbelievers to accept a Christian world view in the immediate moment; if God places a woman in a crisis pregnancy in my path, I will use whatever argument might work. My prayer for her conversion can continue afterwards, but the immediate task is persuading her not to abort her child.
jillybean must think Jesus very impractical. jillybean wrote: I see no point in trying to persuade nonbelievers to accept a Christian world view in the immediate moment; if God places a woman in a crisis pregnancy in my path, I will use whatever argument might work. This sentence is self-contradictory. Jillybean says she will use “whatever argument”, but has already discarded the Christian argument as pointless. Talk about a missed opportunity. Wouldn’t it make more sense to start with the correct argument before resorting to mere pragmatic ones? What if God’s Spirit has been working on this individual and all… Read more »
I am not any kind of strategist, let alone a chief one! I am a practical problem solver, with plenty of limitations. Of course, the first appeal should be to the conscience and to the individual’s relationship with God.
jillybean wrote: Of course, the first appeal should be to the conscience and to the individual’s relationship with God. I take it that jillybean misspoke when she said: “I see no point in trying to persuade nonbelievers to accept a Christian world view in the immediate moment”. If she is switching from “no point” to making it her “first appeal”, then I have no problem with her later using subordinate pragmatical arguments. (For example, Pascal’s Wager is a subordinate pragmatical argument to provoke atheists to reconsider their atheism. The Wager is not, as some atheists mistakenly suggest, an argument offered… Read more »
Yes, I misspoke!
The point isn’t trying to get unbelievers to accept the Christian worldview — it’s to make disciples. The really wrong-headed approach that he’s opposing is not “make arguments that unbelievers can understand,” it’s “get them to be against abortion while being unbelievers.” It should never be part of the “strategy” of Christians to get people to do things or agree to things “while being unbelievers.”
That’s not the same thing as saying “the only thing we do is evangelism,” it’s saying we don’t do anything else entirely *without reference to* evangelism.
Doug’s presuppositional take would be that we can appeal to nonbelievers precisely because their righteous positions are from the Bible and religious, whether they cop to it or not.
I tend to agree with Doug on that, but I don’t think saying, “You unconsciously agree with the Bible, so you must agree with me when I say blank is wrong because the Bibles says so” is terrible helpful.
You pick your battles. If the point is to support and encourage Godly action from an unbeliever, then just say “You go girl!”
But if you are trying to show them the futility of their own thinking and the pointlessness of their actions according to their avowed principles,then you proceed with a fuller logic.
Take off the roof, as Francis Schaeffer says.
I don’t think he’s saying we shouldn’t ever argue not from the Bible. I think he’s saying we shouldn’t kid ourselves that the “not from the Bible” reasons can stand independent of the “from the Bible reasons” — that we could have a nice, clean, abortion free culture if we could just make the right arguments, rather than needing to bring the culture under the lordship of Christ.
Agreed. Within the church, we need to be up front that abortion is wrong not because of some kind of rationalist argument, but because God created man in His own image. And we should be up front about that if asked by non-Christians. But I’m not convinced we should lead with that with the non-Christians.
I think it’s situational, there are times where it’s useful to start by clearly defining your position and working to the ‘middle ground’.
It’s definitely situational, but I don’t see much fruit from people arguing that homosexuality and abortion are wrong because of the Bible. Now, arguing that heteronormativity and valuing children is right because of the Bible, I think that’s a bit more productive, since positives are usually stronger in justification than negatives.
“I think that’s a bit more productive, since positives are usually stronger in justification than negatives.”
I know,right? So how come that’s not the anti abortion argument? How about, “you deserve to live in a world were you can be a mommy?” How about, “you were created in His image and have so much worth and value, you’ve been entrusted with a human life?”
I think those are not political issues, though. I don’t want the state to offer subsidies for single motherhood (or fatherhood, or absent fatherhood), because we get what we pay for. I think that churches should lead the way in crisis pregnancy centers and teaching children not to create life before they are married – but that’s not the state’s job. The state’s job is to outlaw murder.
If we really had no common ground with people who don’t believe the Bible, then our arguments would have no chance of falling on receptive ears. However: both we and they were made in God’s image, and we both have the benefit of having souls and consciences, both provided by God. This means that when we speak God’s own truth in public, with authority and confidence, that truth should resonate with people because they are humans, not because they are Christians. See, you could make the same argument with the Gospel. “Arguments that people should worship Jesus seems counterproductive with… Read more »
While completely true that all truth is God’s truth, I’m not sure the best way to disciple is to start with the outworkings of that truth as an argument. Indeed, while I think we should be always ready to give a reason for the truth that is in us, those reasons are almost never the cause of conversion. They strengthen, but do not create faith.
We are not called to give a reason for the “truth” that is in us, we are called to give a reason for the “hope” that is within us. You have hit on a major problem within faith. It’s a bit funny but on the internet, so many times I have been bashed over the head with Absolute Truth, until I have thoroughly pummeled and left devoid of all hope. That’s what the gospel message often looks like on the internet, we’re here to make sure you have a bloody good reason to see the truth within us and simply… Read more »
Hmm. Interesting. Thanks for the reminder. Makes me think of my college English course where the translation of the Bible in Faust has Romans 3:23 split at the end of a page, so it reads, “The wages of sin is Death.”
True, but nothing we say ever creates faith – the Holy Spirit does that, already working within our hearer’s heart. We are called to present the truth boldly, to apply Christ’s lordship in every arena.
And to be sure, we ought to start with the basic Gospel, not dumping them in the deep end.
But “don’t kill your children” is
A. Extremely urgent, and
B. Not exactly the deep end.
I’m sort of in agreement – I think we need to have two prongs on our sense of engagement with the culture – both the individual and public proclaimation of the gospel, and the individual and public pursuance of making society more just through laws which conform to the Bible, but not as a religious order, but as part of natural revelation.
Why would Christians ever need to justify to unbelievers the fact that murder must be punished?
Because unless Christians (truly committed, intelligent and educated Christians) are the majority of the population, we still have to share the society with unbelievers. If you think we should form our own countries, that’s your business. But if you continue to live in America, we must have a reason for the faith that is in us, including our hatred of the evils of abortion (and all the other things Doug wisely highlights above).
Do I think that most pro-abortion people know the truth? Yes. But we must have reasons to answer them.
A few decades ago I might have agreed with you. America is far past that point now.
America is, like the rest of the world, a broken state. But unless you’re planning on leaving, you still share it with other people. Unless you’re arguing that spiritually, you live in another state, and think that the laws of America cannot apply to you in a hyperapplication of Augustine’s “unjust law is no law at all” philosophy?
America was majority Christian when Roe v Wade was decided. It wasn’t sufficient. Majority opinion doesn’t directly correspond with power even in supposed democracies. (Truly committed, intelligent and educated people have always been a minority in their societies and that’s not going to change any time in the next century.)
As Ross Douthat says in his mostly excellent book Bad Religion, the 1970s were a time of passive cultural Christianity, not the vibrant semi-awakening of the 1950s. America wasn’t majority Christian then, it was majority heretics, and has only gotten moreso. Plus…Roe v. Wade wasn’t voted on by the people, it was less than a dozen people rewriting the law of the land. That isn’t a direct reflection of majority opinion in any country.
Precisely my point – majorities don’t directly matter.
So…you are advocating a radical state-within-a-state lifestyle?
The USA government will run out of financial, social, and moral capital fairly soon. It’s time to prepare for the chaos ahead — and plan for victory.
So you’re just prepping?
Not just prepping.
I troll internet comment sections too.
The internet pot-shots prepping for real-life pot-shots of those pesky people who won’t get off your lawn? :)
George Lichtenberg said it well:
An excellent quote. I shall have to take heart in it in some of our other conversations. :)
I’ve commented on this in the past, but I’ve been very surprised to learn of some evangelicals’ views on abortion during the time of Roe. For example, W.A. Criswell (former president of SBC) said: “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person, and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.” And yet you had this from Christianity Today the month after Roe: “This decision runs counter not… Read more »
As Ross Douthat pointed out in Bad Religion. Christians were muddy and weak on abortion, and it took the catastrophe of Roe to wake many of them up.
We don’t say as Christians that we must start from the Bible.
As Christians we say we start from Christ.
Yes, He wrote the Bible.
But He also wrote our logic, our sense of fair play, our compassion, our justice.
We can appeal to anything He wrote.
Sure – natural v. special revelation. Just as long as you’re clear that special revelation takes precedence.
Unclear — how can what God says here take precedence over what God says there?
Because he said it here more clearly. The biblical text is clearer and more specific than my general intuition about what constitutes “fairness”. Jesus’ claim to be God stands as a corrective and a limit to our logical philosophy that cannot understand such mysteries as the Trinity.
Basically, I agree with you, with the caveat that special revelation wins all ties.
You’re saying He isn’t clear in what He puts in nature but He is over here in Bible? Or is it just you?
Didn’t you read what I said? I put forth the example of the Trinity. By natural revelation (math, a subset of logic), this is nonsense – even the Beatles were smart enough to know that one and one and one is three, not one. Yet special revelation – the text of scripture – clearly affirms it: three persons, one God, neither dividing the substance nor confounding the persons. So we also affirm its truth, even though it is obscure to our natural minds.
The principle isn’t that complicated.
It was your declaration that the trinity is at best obscure outside Scripture that threw me.
But surely you’ve heard of folks who also couldn’t find this doctrine in the Bible?
Or should I read you to say you absolutely don’t find the Trinity outside of the Bible?
I think it’s very obscure outside Scripture. Don’t you? But I grant that the epistemology can be a little circular. We need eyes to read the Scripture, and minds that think in the way they do (assuming coherence, basic language skills and suchlike) to make sense of it.
But sure, people screw up all kinds of things in all kinds of ways, why not Scripture exegesis too? But direct revelation is less complicated, less ambiguous, and hence harder to screw up, because it is direct. That’s just what the word means.
“The foundational gospel confession is this: Jesus is Lord. That means that Caesar isn’t lord, and that Caesar needs to humble himself and listen to what the church has to say. But before that can happen, the church needs to jettison the deficient theologies that have kept us—for several centuries now—from speaking the whole counsel of God.”
Amen!
It has to be pointed out that Moore takes money from George Soros. That one of our inveterate enemies thinks Moore is worth funding says something about what Moore is all about.
Thursday1,
Can you provide a link or a source for your statement that Moore accepts funds from Soros? Thanks!
Why not google “russell moore soros” first?
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/23/national-review-enlists-open-border-zealots-trash-trump/
Because you made the accusation, and I am interest in *your* source, not the ubiquitous “they say” of the internet-by-Google.
In other words, because you’re lazy and want to make me jump. When the information is this easily available I’m entitled to question your motives.
When you won’t or can’t answer a simple question, everyone is entitled to question your motives. I know little or nothing about Moore — just don’t like the internet cult of guilt by association from an anonymous internet dude who doesn’t play his cards face up.
Oh brother, the self-righteous here is over the top. You easily had the tools to answer the simple question yourself, therefore demands that others answer it for you are in bad faith.
Mark Korkorian in National Review: Russell Moore? He’s one of the leaders of the Evangelical Immigration Table, a Soros front group pushing for Obama’s immigration agenda. He’s written that “our Lord Jesus himself was a so-called ‘illegal immigrant.’” He’s tweeted that a border wall is a “golden calf
Why is that view specifically non-Christian?
Soros is our enemy. He is for the destruction of our borders, our national sovereignty. Do you want to become Germany? France? Well, Russell Moore, who is posing as the leader of evangelical Christians, is working with someone whose aim is to destroy our country and its Christian roots.
I understand it as an issue of national interest and national security. But I don’t see it as explicitly Christian. I think there is a very clear line to be drawn between my duty as a Christian and my duty as a citizen. Sometimes they are one and the same. But not always, and I don’t think that a country’s having Christian roots should necessarily impact its immigration policy.
Christendom is a thing, it is a good thing, a Godly thing. It is worth defending. Soros (Sauron*) is not friend of Christendom *Does anybody else in Christendom see The Lord’s hand with the release of “The 300” “The Lord of the Rings”, “The Passion of the Christ” etc? To me, it is self evident that our Lord has been preparing us for this battle. The thought is common in the secular realm too. (Clancy hit on this in one of his novels), how secular governments would prepare “their” citizens for war with propaganda Our Lord has been doing the… Read more »
Well it’s false, first off. Jesus wasn’t an illegal immigrant. He could have been described as a refugee, to Egypt. But then he went home after the danger was passed. That an enforcement mechanism for a sensible law is not, ipso facto, an idol seems clear enough.
I don’t know if he is a Christian, but his remarks are certainly foolish and uncharitable; his willingness to shoot at fellow believers in service to a leftist narrative leaves one suspicious.
A group that Moore was a part of accepted money from Soros for the purpose of getting Christians to have a friendlier view of immigration. That’s a bit different than Soros funding Moore wholesale.
Which I never suggested.
Perhaps Christians shouldn’t be so friendly to the idea, though. Especially when Moore and Soros never own up to this kind of thing: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/10/11/wheelchair-bound-woman-raped-by-refugees-at-sweden-asylum-center-police-say.html
George Soros tithes ?
The big problem with postmillennialism is that, at some point, theologians end up in charge of the cops and the army. And that has never failed to become a very, very big problem.
Sincerely, Your Anabaptist Readers….
The big problem with neo-anabaptism is that, at some point, it just ends up being flabby mainline liberalism. And that has never failed to become a very, very big problem.
The problem with postmillennialism is that people are sinners? I can buy that. ;-)
Unless it involves Donald Trump talking cats.
Bro. Steve wrote: The big problem with postmillennialism is that, at some point, theologians end up in charge of the cops and the army. And that has never failed to become a very, very big problem. Someone is going to be in charge of law enforcement and armies. The question is not whether, but which. Bro. Steve is effectively saying that he prefers an unbeliever to be in charge rather than a believer. Effectively, he prefers a godless standard of rule, rather than a godly standard. If Bro. Steve is afraid that postmillennialism (or rather theonomy) is merely an attempt… Read more »
katecho,
I sincerely want godly Christian men running the government. What I assuredly do not want is the government being turned into a religious enterprise where, just to pick an example wild with randomness, denial of the Trinity becomes a crime against the state punishable by death.
To the church belongs the instruments of moral persuasion. To the state belongs the instruments of enforcement.
When Christ returns to establish His millennial reign, then it will be appropriate for the same set of hands to be in charge of both faith and force. But not until.
To the church belongs the instruments of moral persuasion. To the state belongs the instruments of enforcement.
And the two are at odds right now, in real time and Bro. Steve, by his stated principles will not allow God’s standard to inform the debate.
I think God’s standards informed the debate very well indeed when the first amendment was penned. You don’t agree? It seems to me that postmill-ism, taken to its most obvious logical conclusion, says that the government establishment of religion is its single most non-negotiable Prime Directive.
<> But I guess I’m good with that as long as the Baptists get to run everything.
;-D
Obviously. “Religious freedom” is an anti-Christian concept.
Bro. Steve wrote: To the church belongs the instruments of moral persuasion. To the state belongs the instruments of enforcement. I fully agree with Bro. Steve concerning the separation of Church and State spheres, but I believe this by way of appeal to God’s standard, not some other standard, or absence of a standard. Like Bro. Steve, I reject that the Church bears the sword, and I reject that the State has jurisdiction to impose the sword of God’s wrath against anything except civic crimes. So the State is not charged with enforcing sound confessions of the faith, or with… Read more »
We should want Christians to be in charge of the army, provided they actually submit their position of authority to the authority of Christ. That’s part of bringing all things into submission to Christ. The fact that, historically, some Christian rulers have been extremely unfaithful does not mean that all future Christian rulers will be unfaithful. King David, remember, was both a king and a faithful man of God.
Bringing people into spiritual submission at gunpoint is a Moslem doctrine, not a Christian one.
And it’s ultimately futile anyway. People have to believe the Gospel. It’s not faith if they’re just saying whatever is needed to keep the soldiers from killing them.
You misunderstand the order. We believe, then we willingly submit. Same goes for the civil magistrate – he needs to believe and submit. Postmillenialism doesn’t teach that we need to bring people into submission to Christ by gunpoint – it teaches that all people must repent and believe, must kiss the Son, regardless of their place in society. This includes kings and presidents and congressmen.
Edit: will not be allowed to *collaborate* with anybody. Unless you meant it emphatically.
“When Moore trumpets the need for a diverse church, he is sailing with the wind.” Is he trumpeting the need for a diverse church, or the existence of one? The implication is that the old religious right was rooted in postwar white people concerns, and not nearly as universal as its proponents imagined. It’s significant that “social conservatism” as a self-identifier is more or less nonexistent outside white Americans. Additionally whites are the only group that ever organized any resistance to the sexual revolution. This is in large part because most nonwhite immigrant descendants have no concept of pre-sexual revolution… Read more »
While Matt casts about on behalf of a pale white narrative of defeat, he basically ensures that the victory of Christ will catch him completely off guard.
The implication is that the old religious right was rooted in postwar white people concerns
The Baroque never happened.
This was well said, so I apologize for I throwing up in the azalea bushes here, but I am one of those people caught between the old guard and the new. I love the simple meat and potatoes of faith and dislike the night club feel of the new, with our praise songs, indistinguishable from our romantic love songs. Just the same, the religious right, if such a thing ever existed, needs to die, it needs to smother in it’s own hypocrisy. It so full of deception, of lies, of hatred and racism, of arrogance. It is authority revoked and… Read more »
Plato wrote that a change in political orders is preceded in a change in music.
196x changed music.
I have been expecting and praying for a sign from God, a new song, a song that would render the filth of the last generation irrelevant.
Yesterday, I listened to a little girl while I was shopping. She was seated in her Mother’s grocery cart. She was singing “Hallelujah” clear as the day.
That little girl was the start. God has given us a new music.
I love that,Timothy. Maybe God’s just giving us a new song,in which case all this mess is just an opportunity for us to sing.
Some of the evangelical next generation rejects the old-school Religious Right’s way in favour of the simple, missional theology of Charles Martel and Richard the Lionheart.
The 1,284th anniversary of the Battle of Tours was just yesterday!
And 9/11 was on the anniversary of the beginning of the Siege of Malta, the anniversary of the Battle of Vienna, and the Muslim expulsion from Spain. They remembered these defeats: the date of 9/11 was not accidental.
Time to Make Istanbul Constantinople Again.
Do you know the poem “Lepanto” by heart?
Unfortunately, no. I’m a semi-literate Alabama redneck and rarely get beyond Ogden Nash for poetry.
It’s Chesterton. You would like it, it making some play of a Christian victory over the Muslims.
WHITE founts falling in the Courts of the sun, And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run; There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared, It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard; It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips; For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships. … Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard, Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred, Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall, The last knight of Europe… Read more »
It is a gorgeous poem. Do you like Flecker’s Golden Journey to Samarkand? The imagery and overall feel are similar: And how beguile you? Death has no repose Warmer and deeper than the Orient sand Which hides the beauty and bright faith of those Who make the Golden Journey to Samarkand. And now they wait and whiten peaceably, Those conquerors, those poets, those so fair: They know time comes, not only you and I, But the whole world shall whiten, here or there; When those long caravans that cross the plain With dauntless feet and sound of silver bells Put… Read more »
Beautiful.
What sort of poem is this?
It’s a short lyric drama. I think you would like the opening, too: We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die, We Poets of the proud old lineage Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why, – What shall we tell you? Tales, marvellous tales Of ships and stars and isles where good men rest, Where nevermore the rose of sunset pales, And winds and shadows fall towards the West: And there the world’s first huge white-bearded kings In dim glades sleeping, murmur in their sleep, And closer round their breasts… Read more »
Don John of Austria has crossed the battle line!
do you? (:
No, but I know the Charge of the Light Brigade!
Buggery and slaughter of prisoners for all?
…and, importantly: fighting bad guys.
I feel like there are better examples of fighting bad guys than Richard “I hate England” the Lionheart.
How about the third of his name? :)
Martel?
No, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and third king of England of the name. :)
Cry havoc and unleash the dogs of war!
The game’s afoot!
Axiom: there is no perfect man but Christ. There are, however, corrective faults. Richard was a warrior and a king and a bad-ass and a savage. We who fail in the opposite direction can learn a thing or two from him. That doesn’t make him Jesus, and it doesn’t mean we, for our part have nothing to teach him.
But if we judge him, if we esteem him unworthy of our enlightened pusillanimity, do not forget that he may judge us too; and more importantly, that God who sees all shall judge us both.
I think there are worthy qualities in all humans – Richard was a psychopath, and a murderer, and a terrible son, a homosexual, an adulterer – but he was also a figure of towering physical courage and ability, and had the will to use it. He also seems to have had some measure of nobility/honor. I personally think the bad outweighs the good – but I don’t think he wasn’t fully the image of God. There is a great danger in confessing the sins of our forefathers, as C. S. Lewis pointed out – but there’s also a danger in… Read more »
Dude, why the hate? Your vehemence makes me doubt your claims – a bad son? Did you read his father’s diary or something? What does that mean, exactly? A psychopath? Are you making a claim about the condition of his amygdala, or are you simply repeating the fact that you don’t like him in a higher key? He was a violent man in a violent age. Isn’t that enough? Further, it’s anachronistic to talk about “homosexuals” in the Middle Ages – sodomy was something you did, not an identity. Thus my skepticism. However, I am not an expert Richard, so… Read more »
I will admit that in terms of my emotions about his character, I’m leaning on The Lion in Winter. In terms of actual historians, I’m definitely going off of this article: http://www.dominicselwood.com/richard-lionheart-saladin/
In terms of the psychopath label, I’m claiming I think Richard really liked killing people, and was able to do so because he was an incredibly powerful duke who could start wars. I think he liked killing people more than “normal” for people of his time – but that’s probably a bit too armchair psychologizing.
Yeah, I see no reason to accuse him of psychopathy. Look at the article you cite – the big evidence for R’s cruelty is killing prisoners, yet Saladin did no less. (And really, considering his relatively greater success in the Holy Land, Saladin likely did rather more.)
I didn’t say he was a sadist, I said he was a psychopath because he liked killing people. When injured, he was reputed to sit around shooting people with a crossbow.
Which “people”? His own soldiers, in the back? That would be unusual, certainly.
I’d say going to war against your father three times to try to gain the throne probably counts as being a “bad son”.
Wow, ya’all got me doing background reading on Richard (medieval history is probably my weakest period). I don’t know if he was gay. But a quick (okay long) read of Wikipedia has all this: * Rebels and wars against his father simply to gain more power, attacking Englishmen in the process. Then, after asking his father’s forgiveness when he was going to lose, turns around and wars against the very rebels he had helped to instigate, literally destroying the castles of those who had supported him while his father rewarded him with new castles of his own. That happened when… Read more »
It’s not my position that Richard actually is a saint – he surely did some rotten things, and I am comfortable stipulating that the cartoon version of Robin Hood is a… selective… rendition of his reign. But some of the Wikipedia article is clearly overstated. Dramatically shifting alliances, wars between kings and their princes, killing prisoners… all these were pretty common back in the day. That doesn’t exonerate Richard – it’s still sinful to be disobedient to your dad. But it does contextualize him. “Incredible severity” in the matter of Jews is a pretty high bar, particularly back in the… Read more »
What do you believe Richard sacrificed? The 25 years of his life, from ages 16 to his death at 41, were: Warring against England and losing Warring against rebels and winning Warring against England with mixed results Warring against England until his dad’s death Warring against Sicily and winning Warring against Cyprus and winning Warring against Saladin in Acre and winning Warring against Saladin in Arsuf and winning Warring against Saladin in Jaffa and winning, but failing to take Jerusalem Possibly having Conrad killed, for which he would to go captivity Warring against France until a kid killed him As… Read more »
Because the idea of looting and burning an entire island is insane. Sicily is a big island. Huge. Like 10,000 square miles, with dozens of cities and a whole lot of people. That’s like accusing someone of burning the state of Vermont. It’s like “well, which bit am I supposed to have burned?” Oh, the whole thing? A bonfire you could see from space? Yeah, all in a day’s work. R did fight with the Sicilians, as I recall – on the way to his crusade, he stopped to provision his ships; after a disagreement with the townsfolk over something,… Read more »
If you say “Sherman burned Georgia”, it doesn’t mean there literally wasn’t a home or tree left in the state of Georgia. I was saying that “Richard burned and looted Sicily” as a shorthand for occupying the island and looting and burning Messina. I knew the name of Sicily and it’s recognizably Christian – no one knows “Messina”. And even though it’s “only one city”, Richard’s victories over Saladin were only 2 cities, Acre and Assuf. And Richard didn’t fight for land or treasure. He fought for fighting. Whenever he took land, all he did with it was exploit it… Read more »
Nobody says “Sherman burned Georgia”, except as wild hyperbole, because he didn’t actually do that. The normal locution is “Sherman burned Atlanta”, because that’s what he did. Richard didn’t “loot” Sicily, either. You’re doubling down over something you aren’t equipped to confirm yourself. Do yourself a favor and quit digging. Likewise, your psychoanalysis is groundless. You have no idea what motivated Richard, and you should stop talking as though you do. Richard was very robust, so he saw more action than most. But if you think that those within the borders of modern nation-states didn’t fight with each other all… Read more »
Likewise, your psychoanalysis is groundless. You have no idea what motivated Richard, and you should stop talking as though you do. You are the one that is relying on psychoanalysis, not me. All I’ve pointed out is that basically the only thing he did was war his whole life, even when it wasn’t for the greater good of England, even when it was against his own father and/or brothers, even when it was against the church, even when it led to the neglect of any other duties as king. Those are facts. The deep “psychoanalysis” I got from that is… Read more »
My argument here is defensive: Richard was not a psychopath; his work in the Crusades was good and salutary. In response, you threw a bunch of spaghetti at the wall – he went to war a lot, he was “no true Englishman”, he sacked and burned Christian cities, or possibly islands. I am quite prepared to concede that he did a lot of very wicked things, only I think it makes most sense to understand his Crusade as a basically pious gesture. Crusades were difficult and expensive to undertake – he spent a year just in transit, at least that… Read more »
I don’t think, “The guy revolved his life around warring, that’s not the best example of humanity”, is throwing a bunch of spaghetti against the wall. Everything else was just details. I came into the discussion responding to this exchange: Some of the evangelical next generation rejects the old-school Religious Right’s way in favour of the simple, missional theology of Charles Martel and Richard the Lionheart.Buggery and slaughter of prisoners for all?…and, importantly: fighting bad guys. When I pointed out that he wasn’t really a praiseworthy character, you called his Crusading statesmanlike and sacrificial with purely spiritual rewards. I don’t… Read more »
And the Sicilians themselves, who probably are quite well aware of the current whereabouts of Messina, also appear to believe that he burned and looted large areas of the city: Unfortunately, the crusader troops were arrogant toward the local men and rather free with the women. This, followed by the occupation of the monastery, led to a revolt by the locals. Despite the diplomatic protestations of Philip and a Sicilian delegation (including Richard Palmer, bishop of Messina), on 4 October Richard’s troops, responding to further taunts, attacked the Messinans, burning and looting large sectors of the city. His force destroyed… Read more »
I suggested earlier that your arguments were simply careless. I retract that claim. You’ve made some good points. I think I see the source of our disagreement re: Messina – we are talking about two different moments. My main source on Richard is Jordan’s “History of the Crusades” – he’s relatively well-regarded (New York Times type), and no great fan of the Lion-Heart. He discusses the capture of Messina, but doesn’t spend a great deal of time on the period of occupation. Your link is talking about an incident from after Richard took the city, whereas I was defending him… Read more »
I’ll just let your kind response stand, and we’ll let the things we’ve weeded out in the conversation sit there.
I’m ready to move on to Patton now. :P
Rev. Patton, as I call him.
Doug, Super post. I call foul on one tidbit, though. You inaccurately define “theocratic postmillennialist” to = “successfully teach our culture what obedience to Jesus looks like”. While all postmillers teach obedience, and almost all target the culture around them, the vast majority of postmillers in history have never presumed or expected their work to result in the future semi-utopian “success” that dispensational postmillenials say they’re working toward. The far more prevalent amil stripe of postmillenialism has held that success has and will occur in many cases around them, because the Spirit blesses the efforts & prayers He commands with… Read more »
A good word. Moore consistently sails with the wind. He refuses to make public statements in support of things like Roy Moore’s brave stand yet will aver that BLM has a point as they’re setting another CVS on fire.
It’s not just that he refused to make a public statement in support of Roy Moore. He actively undermines him with his SBC platform. Russell Moore wrote that men (like Roy Moore) who could not in good conscience upload the new “Law of the Land” (i.e., Obergefell) should resign their post. Doug wrote an article on it last year. I think it was called “More of Moore and Less of Moore” or something like that.
How can anyone believe anything Moore says. He worked for a Democrat when he was in Mississippi. He has given interviews to the NY Times where he claims to be a Communitarian ( like Bill and Hillary Clinton). Just because the SBC gave him a job doesn’t mean he is one of us. Like the rest of the neo-cons, he is our enemy, calling out conservative Christians for not being up with the times, telling even our enemies how close minded and narrow we are as a body. He is a serpent in our garden. Get me the shovel.
“Like the rest of the neo-cons, he is our enemy, calling out conservative Christians for not being up with the times, telling even our enemies how close minded and narrow we are as a body. He is a serpent in our garden. Get me the shovel.”
That sums up so many problems with the religious right, right there. I too am often the enemy, the serpent in the garden, the one you wish to bash with a shovel.
So what if we all got together and remembered we have a real enemy and he is not us?
You need to check out Russell Moore more thoroughly before accepting him as a Christian brother. I read this site because my daughter, a homeschooling Christian attorney, recommends some of your articles to me. And you are wrong, I believe you are sincere, but perhaps do not follow these trends and their implications as closely as we do or for as long as we have. I homeschooled before it was legal in the state in which we lived – that was a long time ago – when all our homeschool friends were radical Christians and no one else dared to… Read more »
I homeschooled before it was legal …
/slowclap.
Ignore the remonstrations to follow the “ruling authorities because they are still legit” ankle-biters.
judgments cannot be stage-managed
Or opted out of.
[CLICK]
UNSUBSCRIBE!!!
[CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK]
UNSUBSCRIBE!!!
No, they can’t be opted out of, but handing the instruments of judgment the gas cans can be opted out of.
I suppose the Judahite merchants could have made a killing selling arms to Babylon, and hey, being overrun by Babylon was preferable to continuing in idolatrous human sacrifice, for sure. But I doubt that ought to have been encouraged.
Secularists and progressives in the U.S. would love nothing more than to have the Trump train (wreck) and the GOP implosion construed as conservative, principled conservatism, right wing, religious right, etc. It’s all the same in their eyes, and a shear delight to them. The narrative is set up to be able to declare the death of the whole thing. Trump hasn’t even lost yet and folks are already doing an autopsy on conservatism. (Even if Trump somehow won the election, it would not represent a victory for conservatism, let alone religious conservatism.) The GOP crisis is not what happens… Read more »
Very well said. But I do have a few secular friends who do very definitely make a distinction between Christian conservatism and the Trump campaign. They may disagree with traditional Christian positions, but they recognize them as principled. What they despise in Trump is what they (and I) see as the demagoguery and intellectual dishonesty. But you are right that for many people this is just the latest weapon in the war.
What Trump flameout?
Beloved katecho, God has a glorious sense of humor.
Evangelical Christians have always been a junior partner in their political coalitions over the past century. Support for Trump largely comes from a realisation that they’ve been serving as a vote bank for other interests in the Republican party that actively oppose them.
In some respects, the rejection of Ron Paul created the environment for the rise of Trump.
Support for Trump largely comes from a realisation that they’ve been serving as a vote bank for other interests in the Republican party that actively oppose them.
Publius Decius Mus used the (apt) term “heat sink” and I think he is correct. The energy is in us, Christendom. The “Conservatives” have merely absorbed and dissipated that energy.
The Christian alt-right* Is the sword of Charles Martel and Phineas. Let the cuck-o-christos cluck. They will lose their heads soon enough.
*Up yours Jonathan
Timothy, I don’t even know why you included my name here, but all I have left to say at this point is that I am keeping you in my regular prayers. God be with you and keep your soul in the light.
It is you who said that I had left Christ for the alt-right. The Christian alt-right exists. I am a member of it. Hence the “up yours”.
I’ve seen my share of folks leave Christ for the Left, whether it’s the “progressive” evangelical world, social justice nonsense, the alt-left (if there’s such a thing), etc.
The big difference is that most Christians in the alt-right, for any faults the have, don’t reject the Bible’s authority. The leftists almost always do.
No, I did not say that. I said that you had left the “Christian Right” for the “Alt-Right”. I was talking about political allegiance – I cannot judge your faith.
In fact, I just looked it up, and here were my exact words: The Timothy who rebuked even masturbation as a demonic enslavement, and the Timothy who casually dismisses far worse sexual sin as something innocent to be expected of any Christian man, are not the same Timothy. Your transformation from the Christian Right the Alt-Right is complete. I can’t say anything about your personal faith, I can’t judge your soul, but your political allegiance and the manner in which you defend it has become odious to God. Timothy, your first comment after hearing this video was to defend it… Read more »
Jonathan,
You wrote: Your transformation from the Christian Right the Alt-Right is complete.
There is no “Christian” before “Alt-Right” in your reply.
A fair reading of your sentence implies I reject Christ. A fair response to this fair reading is “up yours”
I can only add, “with earlaps”.
Until now, I’ve usually seen you self-identify yourself as a member of the “alt-right” without putting Christian before it either. But more to the point, no, I don’t see your political philosophy of racism, kinism, nationalism, calls for violence, and the defending of lustful/adulterous/vulgar statements as being recognizably Christian at all. Yes, you may well be personally a self-identifying Christian who practices politics that would be odious to Christ. You wouldn’t be the first, on the right or the left, who had done that. I said clearly that I was not judging your personal faith, in every single comment, so… Read more »
And this is why I pay you no mind. This is why I give you a rough “up yours” instead of the courtesy of measured rebuttal.
Do you have a spiritual elder or a mentor/discipler in the faith? I suggest you bring this all up with him, especially your initial statement that instigated it as well as our follow-ups on both sides. To be clear again, these are your exact words which I found repugnant, along with more words regarding racism and violence which I could search out for if you want them referenced. What exactly did I say that you found repugnant, which you found were outside of the Gospel of Christ? You said: Why are the evangelical “elite” shocked (shocked!) by frank discussion among… Read more »
Your distinction between the “alt-right” and the “christian alt-right” and ” Christianity is lame agitprop.
There is no “Mantle of Christ”.
You have “worn” it, but you are not if Him. He is of Him and Him of He.
Like the Pharisees and Saducees, you claim life, but you are of death. You are not of the Spirit, who walks and talks and loves and tenderly saves every day.
I don’t distinguish between the “alt-right” and the “Christian alt-right”. I don’t think the alt-right has Christian principles, full stop. Vox tried to make the distinction you are talking about, and even within the alt-right many have found his lines wanting. Also, you’d be on the wrong side of some of them. I am confused about where you are going with this now. You claimed I had attacked your faith, when I clearly had not, but had pointed out clear political positions you hold which are contrary to the Gospel of Christ. Now, in return, you seem to be trying… Read more »
The irreligious left is alive! L……….
Ruh Roh!
Speaking of voter guides, if the secular progressives put out a voter guide it wouldn’t be a page long. Heck, it wouldn’t even be a whole word.
Christ Church college of Moscow, correctly commands its horses to run free.
While the steeds are not of Idaho or Moscow, they are a Christian herd and they hear their master–the Lord Jesus.
The sheep(horse)-herder is confused! I taught them to run ahead and they obeyed! Why, oh! why am I left in the dust?
Answer? Because you where effective.
Now! Lose the “Yippee” lose the “Kayay” and enjoy.
The Body of Christ has got this.
Hey Doug, Even David, “a man after God’s own heart”, literally teamed up with the Philistines for a while. It was not wrong for he and his men to do that. It was the right thing at the right time. Could you and Mr. Moore (or less) be wrong about the role of the Republican philistine du jour, The Donald? Could he not, be just the “cure” for the Democrat philistines? I think Harry Truman said: “If you give the voters a choice between a philistine and a philistine, the philistine will always win! As Philistines go, how could one… Read more »
I am not certain Ziklag was a good choice of David’s. He nearly found himself fighting Israel.
1 Samuel 27
This is what David did.’” And such was his practice as long as he lived in Philistine territory. 12 Achish trusted David and said to himself, “He has become so obnoxious to his people, the Israelites, that he will be my servant for life.”
In any case, this is an example of David being in the world, but not of the world. According to Wilson, perhaps godly people should not have such associations, but I think Davids association was right, in those circumstances.
And why did David go to Ziklag?
What happened to his wives and children?
I don’t consider this a major sin of David’s. But possibly a less optimal choice because he struggled to trust God enough while running from Saul.
Why did Paul go to Ceasar?
Why did David go to Jerusalem?
What happened to David, his wives and his children in Jerusalem?
Life at times, makes strange bedfellows.
Even Jesus went over to Egypt! ; – )
When did David team up with the Philistines? The only occasion I can remember is when he acted as a double-agent — told the Philistine king he was going to harass Israel, and actually went out and attacked the encroaching Philistine border colonies, leaving no survivors to betray him to the king. Then he brought back the spoils to show the king. “See? I’m doing raids just like I told you!”
Lady Dunsworth, 1Sammuel 27 tells the story.
The principle of the story is that fallen people are often allied with other fallen people. An obvious question is, “Fallen how far?” Wilson seems to be suggesting that having to have to ask this question is an automatic disqualifier.
My position is that we have to ask this question of ourselves, and everyone else.
The only unusual thing in this circumstance is that the answer, for both Donald and H’ is, “really far”.
H’, more than Donald, with regard to unprosecuted criminality .
Right, but in that story, he really wasn’t teamed up with them. He got protection from them, but acted as a double agent, and largely against their interests. I was mistaken in saying he was raising the Philistines, but he wasn’t raiding the Israelites, which is what Achish was depending on him to do — he was knocking off other enemies of Israel, which strengthened Israel, which would not have made Achish happy. He used the Philistines, he didn’t team up with them. In trusting him, Achish was completely fooled.
All this, in the context of “the Lords anointed”, Saul, and his government, working injustice against David and trying to kill him.
I am suggesting there is a principle in play, where the godly must consider association with the ungodly at times, as long as the godly are not doing wrong. One could say that the apostle Paul got justice from Ceasar, in a similar fashion. (?) ; – )
Doug, as one who has said that you’re for a new Christendom, care to give your opinion on the Alt-West aims for building it again? Key Differences between the 2 Main Alt-Right Factions: Alt-West and Alt-White “1. Alt-White is for whites only. Alt-West is pan-racial and pan-national, which should not be confused with being multicultural or equalitarian or pro-diversity in the egalitarian sense. 2. Alt-White is primarily concerned with white nationalism, and secondarily concerned with European nationalisms. While the Alt-West supports white nationalism, that is not its sole concern, as it supports all nationalism, European or otherwise. 3. Alt-White is… Read more »
Though I know little about alt-right inside baseball, I’m a bit with Barnabas, as there are alt-right posters on this very forum who have traits of both alt-west and alt-white categories without appearing to distinguish themselves as one or the other. Strongly pro-Christian but hostile to all Jews or primarily pro-white and pro-imperialism.
In fact, outside of this forum, nearly every alt-right person I’ve met has been non-Christian, but otherwise they and the Christians who are alt-right here seem to share basically the same positions otherwise.
1. I think Wilson touches on the false dichotomy tat Christians raise. Some Christians elevate racism as the pinnacle sin while other Christians raise sexual sin and abortion as the pinnacle sins. Then, we criticize one another for the failure to emphasize each proportionately to our respective view. We should consistently see both as sins and oppose each with all the gifts and strength that God gives us without drop kicking our brothers in the process. I do think that sins that have the approval of our laws and government are particularly pernicious because they reflect a formal societal and… Read more »
The difference is that murder is a sin and racism isn’t.
Wrong. Racism defined as a demeaning of a fellow human simply because of their race is a sin.
How does adding the words “because of their race” make something sinful? If it doesn’t, why do you need them to describe the sinful behaviour?
Thanks. This is an excellent piece. I guess I am one of the ‘multiethnic’, and I agree with what you stated here.
Doug, what you said was exactly what I was thinking after hearing Mohler decry Trump’s failure to meet the “baseline test of human decency.” Can someone please tell me which book of the NT I can find that test? I remember McDurmon writing a piece on evangelical doubletalk and here I was watching that very thing. Here we have another prominant celebrity in the SBC saying there’s a standard while teaching that there’s not. This moment could be used by God to certainly humble us to the point of cross-examining our theological systems or it can be used by God… Read more »
“Jesus Christ and him crucified.” Jesus gave his life, so we should be very generous. Caiphas Herod and Pilate took his life, so big government lines up with them: “The bosses over the Gentiles call themselves benefactors” [but maybe I could find something else to call them???]
The “Christian Right” was seldom if ever right, anymore than Republicans are. The very fact that most of the “Christian Right” identified themselves as Republicans, proves the point. Anything left of Yahweh’s right(eousness) as reflected in His Ten Commandments and their statutes and judgments is left, liberal, and ungodly. Thus, because the majority of the “Christian Right” were antinomian and did not promote Yahweh’s moral law as the standard for government and society, they were, at best, only right-leaning liberals. Compounding the problem for the “Christian Right” is that they were in the forefront in promoting the biblically seditious Constitution… Read more »
Move to Israel, that is your home.
All you care about is getting the U.S. Constitution abolished which is the height of insanity for freedom loving people.
Beware!
Grundune is a Mormon who rejects Christ and the Word of God (see Psalm 19:7-11; John 1:1-3, 14; 1 Timothy 3:16; 2 John 1:7-11, etc.) and whose “Doctrine and Covenants” demand he defend the Constitution as divinely inspired (D&C 101:80, etc.), much the same as with the Book of Mormon. He
knows if the Constitution is exposed for the biblically seditious document it is, that the entire Mormon house of cards comes tumbling down.
Tragically, many Christians are more inclined to follow Doctrine and Covenants than the Bible when it comes to the Constitution.
SMH!