Swamp Whackadoo

In the post-Obergefell era, there are two basic areas of scriptural understanding where evangelicals really need to get up to speed. I will only mention them here, and briefly outline the problem, but hopefully more development can follow in the weeks to come. As we go along, I also hope to be recommending books here and there. Getting up to speed requires a theological and intellectual armory, I mean library, and that means books.

The first problem is a cause of a paralyzing tension in the evangelical reaction to homosexuals gaining certain political — so-called civil — rights. On the one hand, they know homosexuality to be a sin, because of their Bible reading, and therefore they have a negative reaction to it. But on the other hand, because of their deep theological commitment to autonomous individualism, and all related cooties, they don’t know what to do with an argument that says “we should outlaw discrimination against gays.” That strikes them as prima facie reasonable, but it does so for a reason.

The distinction we must recover, or at the very least shore up, is the distinction between individualism, an ideology that is profoundly antichristian, and individual rights and duties, which are grounded in the biblical idea of covenant. Individuals are the bricks for making the great house we call a culture, but covenantalism means that we get to use mortar as we build it.

If someone — me, for instance — says that of course we should discriminate against practicing homosexuals, and everyone in the room gasps, this reveals plainly how we haven’t really thought this thing through. First, discrimination is inescapable — it is not whether our society will do so, but rather which which group will be the object of that discrimination. Every evangelical baker, florist or photographer who is getting slammed in the name of tolerance is getting slammed because somewhere, somehow, evangelicals were chary about discriminating against people because of personal choices. But because they could not see the sense in discriminating against people because of their personal lifestyle (homosexuality), they found themselves having to put up with discrimination against people because of their personal lifestyle (evangelical businessmen).

Discrimination need not be a bad word. A man of discriminating taste is a man who knows that Pappy Van Winkle’s bourbon is a far smoother drink than Stomach Surgery in a Bottle. Every man makes choices, and every society makes them also. It is not possible for a society, any more than it is possible for a man, to go through its time on earth being neutral about choices. If you are going down the road, and we are, there will be turns, intersections, crossroads, exit ramps, and choices.

So of course we should discriminate — society wide — against the homosexuals who embrace that lifestyle of perversion. We should do this the same way auto insurance companies discriminate against policy holders with five DUIs. If you refuse to discriminate against them, simply out of pig-headed principle, then you are now discriminating against those who don’t have any DUIs — for they will be the ones who pay. Why? Because in the world God made, somebody pays. The question is who, not whether.

So evangelicals do need to hold on to their belief that each individual is radically important. As the Lord taught, what profit is there in gaining the whole world if you lose your own soul? Your own soul is vastly to be preferred over all the wealth than even Greek voters could imagine. At the same time, individual bricks were made, fashioned, and designed to go into buildings, and to fit into the building in a particular way. We must therefore have God’s mortar, and we must follow God’s blueprints.

So the first lesson is this — Christians must learn how to reject autonomous individualism without surrendering their understanding of the importance of an individual relationship with God the Father through Jesus Christ. As we see this debacle unfolding in front us, we must come to understand that autonomous individualism is a deadly foe of individual liberty.

Perhaps surprisingly to some, the second area concerns the issue of civil disobedience, particularly when it comes to tax issues. The reason we must get our act together here is that we have been way too compliant with those preachers who expound Romans 13 upside down to congregations who are listening while looking at the text sideways.
From where I sit right now, this battle is going to be really joined when it comes down to money — issues of tax exemption, tax immunity, tax receipts, tax returns, and so on.

A lot of Christians have not been paying attention to the disintegration of their nation because they had businesses to build and families to raise, and so on. They were minding their own business, or at least that was the theory. They didn’t have time (or so they thought) to read a bunch of big, fat books that would help them discover that the clouds on the horizon looked ominous. But then when the government comes in and shuts your business down, you don’t have to read a book to discover what you think about it.

So mark this. In the majority opinion, Justice Kennedy basically said that opponents of homosexual mirage were protected by the First Amendment, such that they could continue to think and express themselves on this subject. What he notably did not say was that entities which do so may continue to receive what the government considers “a benefit” from the government (in the form of tax exemption status).

By the way, here is another screwed up thing. We have gotten to the point where the government thinks that when it lets you keep some of your own money that it is being generous. But let us leave that alone for a moment.

So when the inevitable moment comes when it is determined that churches, colleges, Christian schools, etc. may no longer retain their “tax exempt” status because their “deeply held convictions” are at odds with the decision the highest court in the land made against “bigotry” in Obergefell, it will be necessary to have a theology of Christian resistance in place, with taxes as the point of conflict.

I should add at this point that I am referring to the theology of resistance outlined by the magisterial reformers, and not the theories that sometimes float out of Swamp Whackadoo.