That assumption might be debated, I assume.
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My concern is that, in trying to correct those who place too much hope in politics, we may be overcorrecting. It can come across as if we’re saying, “Politics is essentially useless—stop worrying about it.” But we don’t speak this way about other areas of life.
Take medicine as a parallel. To the man placing too much hope in health fads or medical systems, we might say: “I understand your fear. God’s command is, ‘Do not fear, I will be with you,’ rather than ‘Trust in medicine to save you.’”
But we wouldn’t then discourage the proper use of doctors and medicine. In fact, we would strongly encourage it, just in its right place.
I don’t see that same balance when it comes to politics. It’s not ultimate, but that doesn’t mean it’s not useful.
Right now, it often feels like the only options being presented are:
- Hope too much in it.
- Or treat it as having very little value
That’s a false binary.
I appreciate your honesty about man’s heart. It’s something I’ve valued for over a decade now from Trinity and it’s been foundational to me.
But surely those are not the only motivators at work.
- They want the gospel to go forth in a free country and want to know how to work toward that. How can they help make that happen?
- They feel the world shifting and want to capitalize on it for God’s kingdom.
- They want to know how to use these feelings—telling them things aren’t right—correctly, and put effort/work into something that matters.
In other words, there are both disordered desires that need correction and right instincts that need direction.
I want us to speak to both:
- Confront and discipline what is excessive or misplaced.
- Encourage ambition and stoke the fire of what is good.
Keep Jesus ultimate, but give proper weight and value to politics, medicine, work, and education.
I’ll put my cards on the table and be frank about an example I believe many Christians are feeling.
My in-laws are generationally from Goshen, IN. Two generations ago, it was your traditional Michiana small town. Today, the high school is 50% Mexican. The culture has changed.
You have men whose families have been in the town for 3, 4, or 5 generations who are grasping for a framework to understand what they’re experiencing. They like the Mexicans they work with. They hang out with some of them outside of work. They don’t dislike them because of the color of their skin. But they hate the way their town has changed. They don’t recognize it. They don’t like that people have come in with no desire to assimilate or respect what their fathers have built. And they don’t know how to deal with the dissonance between those two things. What are we telling them?
Too often it feels like the options presented are:
- Despise them — “They don’t belong here, get them out”
- Condemn yourself — “If you feel this tension, you’re a racist”
Many are trying to say (even if imperfectly), “I have sympathy for why they are here. I want to love and evangelize them like any other neighbor, but I also have grief over the way my town is changing. What should I do?”
I want us to have food for that guy. I don’t want to lose him.
Maybe we (I include myself) are, in part, to blame for why so many men in our circles have gone to the more degenerate sides of Christian nationalism. If we only tell them what is wrong with their instincts, but give them no framework for what is right, it shouldn’t surprise us when they go elsewhere to find it.
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An underlying assumption of most postmillennials (what I would say is the majority, default, and assumed position today; even for many who deny the label) is that the return of Christ will not and can not be imminent.
Think about how all the tensions you expressed above dissolve when we believe the blessed hope of Christ’s return is imminent. We don’t cross our fingers behind our backs when we cry out, “Maranatha!” We don’t freak out; we endure with simple hope.
And yet, should He wait, we don’t flee to monasteries or give up the necessary work at hand to call out sin and promote righteousness. We have children, plant a tree, call all to flee the judgment to come, protest at the abortion clinics, write a letter to our representatives, run for office, love our neighbors, defend the widow and orphan, love our enemies, suffer, pray, etc. You know, all that Jesus commanded us to do.
But, we do so with godly patience (day at a time; each task at hand), avoiding the prideful sin of thinking we ourselves are ushering in God’s Kingdom. Or that we must usher in God’s Kingdom. Or, the worse error of thinking that if America doesn’t turn politically, there is no Kingdom.
As for all the accusations that will come against me now for holding this boringly normal and historical view, read someone smarter than me before you rake me over the coals.
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Dear Joel,
And how did the Native Americans feel when the Europeans changed their culture? And how did the Europeans feel when the Visigoths changed their culture? And how did the French and the Germans and the Athenians and the Lydians and the Phyrgians and the Assyrians and the Babylonians and the Jews… This is the fallen world we live in. The times are always a changin’. History is full of such change. Augustine felt this same world shifting under his feet in his day.
The rhetoric today is cultural change is the equivalent of the Scouring of the Shire: the immigrants are the ruffians, the globalists (whoever these faceless people are) are Saruman, and my town is the Shire. But no one stops to think that maybe Christ the King of kings wants immigrants to ‘invade’ our precious Shire… Which raises the question, Why?
There are some civic actions Christians can take to stem the tide of mass immigration, like bringing these issues up to state and local authorities, recommending certain legal processes that include English language skills and assent to the US Constitution, etc. (stuff we used to require for legal immigration). These types of actions are done to prevent real ruffians (see: ICE). I’m all for legal immigration, and so are many immigrants—my Costa Rican in-laws and half-Ecuadorian cousins included. I can’t wait for this Gordian knot to get untied.
But is stopping foreigners from coming to your town something Christians should do in the first place? Stop the ruffians, yes, but what about the non-ruffians—which most are? Not to mention, such mixing of cultures might create some really cool stuff. Jazz anyone?
The blessed apostle wanted to go where people were to share the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Now we have people coming to where we are (although this has always been the case in many places in the US). Maybe this is what King Jesus will do to save His people? But that requires us to ‘look our neighbors in the eyes’, and have compassion, which is not natural for sinful man.
To piggy back off Andrew: The Shire rhetoric above assumes many things about history and homeland. I personally have no Shire because I was born in NJ, lived in Russia for a year, grew up in SC, moved to IN, back in SC…my hometown has changed on it’s own without me. I guess the USA is my hometown. But as a Christian, all of this grasping for home dissipates with this one fact: the meek shall inherit the earth. The Christian is supposed to wait for his inheritance. Sentimentality and nostalgia and do not compare with the glory that is to be revealed. That and the Church is my home. I’ve never felt more at home than with my brothers and sisters in Christ, whoever they are (1 Pt 2.9)
Love,
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Amen. Well said.
For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come. - Hebrews 13:14
Many would do well to meditate afresh on those words. Here we do not have a lasting city.
You can’t postmill hermeneuticize your way out of the fact that the “here” is the earth (the one we actually inhabit), and that there’s something here that we may otherwise desire but cannot have; namely, a lasting city.
A mark of Christians is that we’re seeking that city which is to come instead of seeking a lasting city here.
Set aside all the “yeah buts” until these words are deeply burned into your soul. Then proceed to ask about what Christian engagement in the world of politics looks like.
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Got it. Understood. Agreed. Now what?
Setting aside our fear of neo-Naziism (we can admit we’re afraid too can’t we?), setting aside bad versions of postmillennialism (we’re not so shallow as to assume postmillenialism is itself the problem are we?), and setting aside our character concerns about those asking the questions (we’re not such Job’s counsellors as to assume that being bothered with the current state of affairs means we’ve got the rebel spirit are we?), we still return to my original question:
What are we to do?
Some of you have given hints and nods in that direction, but those are all lost amidst the tidal wave of fear and caveats and provisos.
Brothers, in what other sphere of life would we do this?
Yes I know you want your marriage to be better, but remember there’s no marriage in heaven and earthly marriage can’t satisfy and this could just be an unbiblical desire for earthly happiness.
Yes I know you want to glorify God through your work, but work is meant to be futile and earthly work is just a means to an end and you won’t take your work with you when you reach what really matters in eternity.
Yes I know you want to be a good church member, but remember the bride is not perfected yet and the best of earthly churches is but a pale foretaste of what’s to come and no pastor church or congregation can so overcome sin so as to move beyond sin.
I would assert that a pastor who said only or even largely these things was so incompetent as to border on pastoral malpractice. It’s only half the story! And without the proactive half, it’s grossly insufficient. It’s not the whole counsel of God, not by a long shot.
If we can’t give positive teaching on what being a Christian in today’s realm looks like without inevitably veering to all the warnings and nos and pitfalls and not really giving all that much that’s helpful about how to think and act, I have to ask, do we even have that much to say?
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I don’t know. You tell me. I don’t stick around here because I’m the one with the answers. 
Incidentally, I am reading and writing today from the hospital. My 15-year old son had appendicitis. Recovering now. Surgery went well. Meanwhile, wife texting me from home saying she’s had severe migraines, and almost called ambulance in my absence during overnight hours. She is doing better now.
I received word today from a brother pastoring in Kenya that a 10 month old baby in their church died unexpectedly last night. This will be the second baby their church has buried in the last 12 months. Their church is small.
For my part, as soon as I get started trying to pontificate about some of these big questions about Christianity’s intersection with geopolitics and the advancement of the church through the ages, the all-too-imminent realities of death and mortality pull be back to the meat and potatoes of the faith. Life is short, God is just. Heaven and hell are real. Men must be born again. I am not ashamed to say that understanding the big picture of how the gospel comes to affect nations is just too big for me. Maybe not for other men (I’m being sincere), but for me it is. I can read about it in hindsight, but I don’t know how to navigate it in the present very well.
As I think about the examples you give of marriage, church membership, and work, I guess these are easier to tackle because they are so earthy and in your face as you live the Christian life. Politics is, by comparison, more ethereal, and I don’t get a lot of direct instruction about it in the Scriptures.
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Much to be praying about for you, dear brother. That’s definitely something we can do right now.
I hear you, really I do. But I think that’s mainly because we’re so out of practice. Politics is just ethics writ large. And the Bible and the history of the Reformed church have lots to say about ethics.
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Yes, agreed. If we were living amid the 17th century English Civil War, or the time of the American Revolution, I am sure I’d have a lot more to say.
Meanwhile, here we are waking up after a couple generations of assuming the secularist ethos, trying to figure out where to put our feet.
I acknowledge the deficiency is with me. Not trying to say these things don’t matter.
Thanks, brother.
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Thanks for the feedback, Joel. I’ll address each of these in turn.
- Those who are actually interested in that are doing that right now. That doesn’t often include me, to my shame. But it is obvious when anybody is concerned about this, because they are doing that work. I don’t mean to diminish the “free country” part of this, but let’s be perfectly clear: the apostles lived in a much less free country, and they still evangelized. So what is actually holding us back?
- This feels like you are trying to have it both ways. If we have such a great opportunity right now to promote the gospel, then I really want to know what is holding us back. If the answer is that we want to capitalize on it politically, then that shows that the actual goal is something besides the kingdom of God. I’m afraid the answer is that the opportunity we see is to use the disgruntledness of political conservatives to build our own names up.
- Tell me which of their feelings are legitimate and why and I’ll gladly help think about what to do about them.
I don’t buy it. I teach on this, and nobody wants to hear it. Submit to authority. Vote. Love your neighbor. Speak God’s truth in love boldly, even if it means persecution. Yes, the moral law applies today and to all people. Yes, Romans 13 applies today and to our government. No, the failure of the government to do justice does not justify you in rebelling. Yes, please do call them to account for their immorality, like John the Baptist did with Herod.
The response is, “You’re not giving me anything I can do!”
That’s not true. You don’t like what I’m telling you to do. You want to be able to live a quiet peaceful life of godliness? Great! Pray for that by praying for your rulers. Pursue that by faithfully calling all to repentance.
What precisely do you men think can be done by @joelbark’s parents?
A better comparison is some other particular currently in vogue sin in the church. Let’s take the promotion of effeminacy by Revoice et al. It’s bad. We warned against it. It made many people mad who were tempted by the seductiveness of the sin itself or who were wanting to wink at it to be popular, respected, un-persecuted, etc. And we got the same sort of response! “But what are we to do? You’re going to lose the people who are legitimately worried about the gospel going forth among gays and don’t want them to be turned off by the rejection of what they are legitimately feeling. Plus, friendship is good. Sexual celibacy is good. Companionship is good. Love of beauty by men is good.”
Meanwhile, we simply keep warning against a simple sins. Comparing it to how you’d make the same arguments to support and legitimize pedophilia. Pointing to what the Bible says about those sins.
I can hear you saying, “But you also taught about marriage!” Yes. We said it’s better to marry than to burn. A Christian’s identity is in Christ, not sin. Control your desires. Yes, Christians must love their neighbors caught in sexual sin, not just be disgusted by them.
I just don’t buy your judgment in the slightest that we aren’t teaching positively only negatively. Not in the slightest. The problem is that people are unwilling to hear any negative, and so the more they reject the warning, the more I see the need to repeat it.
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This is exactly where and why your comparison breaks down dear brother: being interested in bearing witness for Christ in the public square is not sin. Again, much of the discussion on Christian Nationalism in the broader church is not the poisoned well you seem to think is the majority. Even if it is - which I deny - then there still has to be an explanation of the biblical path forward.
Remember I fought for godly sexuality as well, and that in LivingOut’s back yard. I did so using the Warhorn ‘attracted to pigs’ sketch (look it up!) and commending and urging godly marriage using Warhorn marriage podcasts, as you did as well. You seem to think I’m arguing this from the outside, as if I somehow oppose you in your work. I don’t! I’m just asking for more help here on SV, constructive teaching, explaining orthodoxy as well as fighting heresy.
If that’s true, then let’s see both in appropriate measure here on this forum. I have no problem with God’s no, but only God’s no accompanied by character accusations whenever someone asks about God’s corresponding yes, which - with rare exception - seems to be what happens here whenever anyone asks about Christian Nationalism or says anything in its favor.
That’s just begging people to ignore us and head into the arms to those who care enough to listen to and answer their questions.
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As for this, I grieve for you brother and I’m praying for you…for any of you brothers for whom this is currently your main involvement in CN discussions. I’m praying for perseverance for you, patience with the sheep when they’re fractious, and discernment to know which need rebuke and which need instruction. If it’s any consolation, I think we’re cresting the wave of CN as a fad, but what do I know…
But brothers, please, don’t see everyone who asks in this light. Many are coming here hungry for teaching.
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Aaron, you are going to have to show us the way here, since you don’t think we’ve done or are doing what you think we ought to be doing. Have at it!
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Andrew, I tried to use my Bullinger posts to generate more conversation on these issues. My posts were probably too wordy to wade through (shocking that). I’ve suggested preaching through the WSC as one way of teaching that could help.
I don’t know the way forward better than anyone else here, but I do think these topics warrant more conversation. I think there’s something worth salvaging in what many Christians in the last decade would call Christian Nationalism.
What about a pastoral thread here on Sanityville on how to think about politics? A pastoral podcast with several Evangel pastors, from different sides of the issue, talking through the challenges and blessings of the last few years? I’d love to listen to any number of you men! What about scouring Calvin for everything he says positively about politics and trying to analyse how that could help us? Sounds like a job for @MattShiff!
And yes I know it would take precious time…but it seems worth it…to me at least.
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I do appreciate the work you did in the Bullinger posts. I read probably 50% of them.
Several years ago, our session taught through the WCF, but, honestly, very little of the WCF has to do with nationalism.
Matt, I, and a dear brother in our church worked through Iain Murray’s Pentecost-Today in our podcast as a way of presenting two different and antithetical visions for how the gospel spreads and leavens a culture.
Yes, we were critical of CN because we currently understand it to be a bad alternative to revival.
What we are working to discern with the help of history and Scripture is whether Christian Nationalism is an oxymoron, a trojan horse for elitism and racism, an infelicitious way of saying Christians ought to be engaged in the public square, a necessary work of the Church, a postmillennial delusion created by the pessimism of the un-imminent return of our Lord, or the conjoining of two imcompatible forces.
No CNist has yet convinced me that their goals are godly. I’m waiting to be convinced, assessing the fruit (it’s bad), arguing with proponents in my church, not getting answers to my objections, and going on being involved in the public square as I have.
And no presbyterian wants to preach through the WSC. We preach Scripture alone.
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I’ve preached through it (okay, fine, the theology and proof texts behind the WSC…same dif).
You don’t wanna be shown up by a Baptist do you?
Took two years, and the congregation absolutely loved it. It was in our PM service, which I don’t have now. So I have no idea how I’d do something similar at the moment.
Thanks for the links. I’ll check those out.
Here’s something on using the Ten Commandments for an intro to ethics.
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You can read years and years of warning against R2K from @tbbayly when that was the ascendent error. Today, when the error is hoping in politics, what you’re going to get is warning against hoping in politics.
Your dismissal of the comparison to Revoice just tells me that you have no sense of this being a serious sin that is sweeping the church right now. I remember the warnings about Wolfe and the trajectory of CN, and everybody, including pastor Wilson saying how sinful and slanderous that was. Turns out it’s just as poisonous as everybody warning against it was saying.
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Listened to your podcast series. Found it helpful.
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Here’s one place to start, from one of Calvin’s contemporaries in Switzerland in the 16th century, believing that the work of the civil magistrate is noble and worth pursuing. That’s what our fathers in the faith thought.
We would do well to understand what Bullinger means when he says,
‘A Christian man not only may take up the magistrate, he ought to do so, as a matter of duty, if it is lawfully offered to him.’
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Just came across Psalm 85.10 in my Bible reading this morning, and it reminded me of this discussion. Earlier than Reformation/post-Reformation church history, medieval legal theory also has some fascinating insights as to how Christians can apply Christian ethics in the public square.
13th-century Norwegian law explicitly quotes the Psalms for legal precedent. Two examples explaining this: Daughters of God - Stephen Morris, author and "God’s four daughters" – Landslovjubileet. The theological and ethical sophistication behind this idea is incredible. And so obvious.
Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde introduced me to this idea, but I can’t find his work other than behind a research paywall.
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