The basic question in politics is this: what is our warrant for making people do things? George Washington once noted that government rests upon force. In the last analysis, however you want to describe it, government makes some people do what they don’t want to do. The point of traction in government is therefore coercion. …
My Kayak of Consistency
There are two basic streams of conservatism, and I have the misfortunate to belong to both of them. This means that as I am going down this particular river, whenever I get to the rapids, my kayak of consistency gets bounced around a bit. It can be done, but it requires some fancy paddle work, …
With the File Cabinets Still In Them
One of the biggest problems that conservatives have is that of sharing the liberal view of history. They both believe the same thing is inevitable, but one is for it and the other is against it. This makes the conservative (the one against) the one who is always tagging along behind, trying to keep up …
Like Taking a Jackhammer to a Souffle
So when I speak of secularism cratering, I am referring to official, state-sponsored agnosticism cratering. I am not referring to any coming obliteration of the necessary distinctions between the church and the world, between the Church of Christ and the Kingdom of God. So let us begin there. The Church should think of the entire …
Pumping Their Own Gas and Stuff
There are two kinds of secularism. Well, at least two — or at least two that I am willing to talk about this morning. We are more accustomed to one of these, the one that refers to the functional godlessness of our public affairs. The secular state for us is that which has enshrined agnosticism …
The Queen of Sheba and Disheartened Anabaptists
First, before we can do business, we have to set aside a number of popular assumptions garnered from various hymns, sermons, and Far Side cartoons. The New Jerusalem is not a figure of Heaven, the final eternal state, but is rather a glorious image of the Christian Church. This is explicit in a number of …
When God Settles Our Hash
There are many reasons for my behavior on this theme of mere Christedom, but one of them is that the concept provides the only real antidote to American exceptionalism on the one hand and radical Islam on the other. When it comes to American exceptionalism, a couple recent examples are here and here. We are …
Some Turtles Have to Fly With the Shell
One of the foundation stones of a mere Christendom has to be a root and branch rejection of Darwinism. The reason for this is not hard to ascertain — Darwinism is one of the chief cornerstones of the secular state. We are acquainted with the standard liberal metaphor of the Constitution as a “living document,” …
Lusts and Labels
One of the characteristics of lust is that it hates to be constrained. This applies as much to political lusts as to sexual desire, and it explains a great deal about the dishonesty of the progressive mentality. How many times, when you have asked someone a specific question about some important issue, have you been …
The Machete of Curiosity
So, then, the issues are perennial, but the terms are not. Anyone working through the tangled weave of religion and politics may need some help with terms. Anyone whacking away at the thicket of culture and faith with the machete of curiosity could probably use a simple lexicon. It seems only fair to provide some …