In our public square tangles, we have gotten ourselves into trouble as a result of believing what the nonbelievers tell us about our arrangement. Whenever Christians try to argue for “principled pluralism,” they are doing so on the basis of this trust — and it is profoundly a misplaced trust.
Think of it this way. When a Christian says that Christians ought not to insist that Jesus be recognized as Lord in the public square, he is either saying that we shouldn’t do this because Jesus doesn’t want us to, or we shouldn’t do this because Jesus doesn’t care, making it okay for us to go along with the secular flow.
But if Jesus wants the public square to be secular, how did we learn this? From the Bible? And if we arrange the public square in this way because of what Jesus said, isn’t this just a form of theonomy? And if we go the other way and say that Jesus doesn’t care what goes on in the public square, and we can therefore make a treaty with the secularists there, two questions arise. One, how do we know Jesus doesn’t care? Did He say? If He didn’t, how do we know? If He did, then isn’t this just another theonomy variation? Two, supposing He doesn’t care, in what way does this make the secularists trustworthy? Suppose that we just somehow magically know that Jesus doesn’t mind us making treaties with the secularists in and with regard to the public square. We still are up against this next question, which is whether or not we should believe what the secularists are promising to do. Who is their god? Why should they keep their word? Is their word good? In short, where is this secularism coming from?
Let us suppose that, instead of our abstract idols (represented by words like neutrality, pluralism, democracy, secular, and such like) the public square was governed by a giant named Dimblemuffin, who lived in a castle on a hill overlooking our town. The giant drank too much, had a red nose, and would eat some of the peasants from time to time, and I use illustrations like this because I am trying to make abstruse political and theological issues accessible to the modern reader. Now suppose that we had Christian theologians who maintained that it was crucial for us to limit the authority of Jesus Christ to the spiritual realm of the church, and Dimblemuffin could have the rest. In fact, Dimblemuffin needed to have the rest. And suppose further they added that to propose that Jesus be acknowledged as having authority over the whole shebang would actually be an insult to Him, and to the true spirituality of the church. And, this being the actual point, it was pointed out that to suggest altering our arrangement might make Dimblemuffin very, very angry.
In that setting, to go along would not only be compromise, it would be craven compromise. And that is what it remains even when we use the noble-sounding, conscience-easing words, not one of which has a red nose.