Rome has historically been an enemy of religious freedom but in the here and now they aren’t remotely the greatest threat to religious freedom. Indeed those Romans on the Supreme Court have tended to be our protectors.
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Tragic. Demonic. Possessed.
Refused to listen to Ozzy’s Black Sabbath. Never read Dracula or Frankenstein. Never watched “The Exorcist,” “The Shining,” “Rosemary’s Baby,” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” Walked out of “Clockwork Orange” and “The Godfather.” Evil, demons, and bloodshed are not a toy.
"Let me go I’ve seen religion But the light has left me blind Take me back I must have the Bible Black! "Well, here I go again From the start and to the end I wish I could remember what I’ve done "Now, here’s another spell It could take me straight to hell And I feel I’m getting closer to my home “Let me go I’ve found addiction And it makes me feel alive Take me back I must have the Bible Black!”
Our Heavenly Father commands us, “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness.” Ozzy Osbourne death: Black Sabbath bandmates pay tribute - updates - BBC News
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But Pastor Matt, politics impacts me here, in the real world. It affects my pocket book and where I live. Politics has led to our nation looking really brown, which is bad for us as Christians since we were founded as a mostly white Christian nation, not black, not Mexican, not Muslim. Liberals, atheists, foreigners and women voters have shifted the moral landscape so far, fighting back through politics is necessary. You can talk all you want about church reform, but where will the church be if this country collapses? Where will we live? How will we survive and raise our children?
What does a faithful Christian witness look like in these uncertain times, if not watching the Church conquer the political realm for Christ?
I am playing devils advocate a bit, but these are some things I have heard batted around. And of course, the CN response would also include assurances that they are committed to evangelism….i just can’t figure out how the political machinations and evangelism go together
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The nationalists in America today working hard to sell their political commitments as “Christian” are in lockstep with hundreds of political parties around the world also clothing themselves in the Name of Christ. Identification with Christ has long been one of the most popular methods of branding political movements. We have “Christian Socialists,” “Christian Democrats,” “Christian Labor,” the “Christian Heritage Party of Canada,” the “Christian Liberation Movement” of Cuba, the “Jesus Lives” party of the Netherlands, the “Christ Democratic Party of Bulgaria,” and the list goes on.
Caveat emptor.
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Summer, gardens, the church year and money, Epstein…
John Milton held office seeking to establish Christian nationalism at time of English civil wars and Westminster Assembly. His “Paradise Regained” reveals his conclusion abt the mess:
"Any hope Milton had that the Commonwealth would establish God’s kingdom died the death of a thousand cuts in the mundane realities of political office, its compromises and retreats, its petty jealousies, its ideological failures, and the human frailties of its leaders.
“He learned to recognise that if paradise were to be regained it would not come at the hands of generals and politicians but from the hands of God alone. Milton came to the story of Christ’s temptations in light of the failure of Christians—himself included—to resist political temptation.”
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The whole article is worth reading, if one can resist compression long enough to finish…
“This compression sickness has infected everything. We’ve created a culture that treats depth like inefficiency. One that wants love without awkwardness, wisdom without confusion, transformation without the growing pains that crack us open and rebuild us from the inside out. And in doing so, we’ve accidentally engineered away the most essentially human experiences: the productive confusion of not knowing, the generative power of sitting with difficulty, the transformative potential of things that resist compression.”
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As Tim pointed out, we ought to give thanks for MP Kruger’s speech, especially his denunciation of abortion. But as Andrew pointed out, his speech is Erastian. CoE/Parliament are Erastian. It seems increasingly clear that Erastianism is fundamental to Christian Nationalism as a movement/ideology. Therefore it is actually appropriate for Brits to take on the CN label/movement, but we’re left scratching our heads about how the US can implement CNism. The US is not Erastian. Perhaps CNism is adaptable to different nations/governments, but I do not hear men making that argument. Rather, it appears CNists want the US government to become Erastian.
On this point, worth reading is this short section from RB Kuiper’s God-Centered Evangelism (which is an excellent, relatively short book). Here’s the section in PDF
Kuiper Church and State (God centered evangelism).pdf. From those pages:
By way of reaction from Rome, which taught the supremacy of the church over the state, the churches of the Reformation, by and large, went to the opposite extreme of Erastianism, which regarded the church as a phase of the state and therefore placed the church under state domination. That accounts for the established or state churches of many European lands. It was not until the nineteenth century that free churches began to flourish, and to the present day they have by no means supplanted all established churches. Serious damage to the cause of Christian missions resulted. The fortunes of missions came to be bound up with the manoeuvring of European states in foreign politics. Briefly, foreign missions became to a considerable extent political. As striking and sad an example as any is afforded by the so-called Boxer uprising in the year 1900 in China. Due to the intervention of other governments in the internal affairs of that nation a wave of intense hatred against foreigners swept over the northern Chinese provinces, and numerous missionaries were slain.
It is a duty of the state to protect its citizens, the church included, in the exercise of religious liberty. On that proposition there is almost complete unanimity in present-day Protestantism. In its original form The Westminster Confession of Faith, being a product of the Reformation period, was marred by a strong Erastian note in its teaching of the relation of church and state to each other. In 1788, due in part, no doubt, to the influence of that great American Baptist, Roger Williams, American Presbyterians removed that error from this doctrinal standard. No longer did they assign to the civil magistrate the duty to take order, that unity and peace be preserved in the church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed, and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed’. Nor did they continue to say: For the better effecting whereof, he hath power to call synods, to be present at them, and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God’. Yet, significantly they insisted: 'As nursing fathers, it is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the church of our common Lord, without giving the preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest, in such a manner that all ecclesiastical persons whatever shall enjoy the full, free, and unquestioned liberty of discharging every part of their sacred functions, without violence or danger’ (The Westminster Confession of Faith, XXIII, 3).
That this position is Scriptural permits of no doubt. It is implicit in the assertion concerning the magistrate, ‘He is the minister of God to thee for good’ (Rom. 13:4). …
Kuiper goes on to make excellent points about evangelism in relation to Church and State.
Addendum:
For those who do not know what Erastianism means:
The full system of Erastus was never accepted or promulgated by any definite sect or band of followers; but the influence of his opinions was very considerable; both in Germany and in Great Britain. The Presbyterians of course have always vigorously repudiated his doctrines; but in the Westminster Assembly (1643-7) there was a strong Erastian party. After a long controversy, a definite resolution, affirming that the Church has its own government distinct from the civil power, was carried almost unanimously, the sole dissentient being the well-known divine, John Lightfoot. On the general questions of the relation between Church and State, it must be admitted that the opinions popularly denoted by the word Erastian have unmistakable influence on the Established Church of England, though there has always been a party resisting the encroachments of civil power. We can, perhaps, take Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity" as an authoritative exposition of this phase of Anglicanism. Hooker was a contemporary of Erastus, and in his preface he gives an account of the controversy of the latter with Beza. The eighth volume, however, in which he deals with the question before us did not appear until 1648, many years after his death. Its authenticity has been questioned; but it is now generally conceded that it is based on rough notes made during his lifetime. He adopts the analogy of Erastus between the Jewish nation and a Christian state. Starting from the truism that a good monarch should look to the spiritual good of his subjects no less than to the temporal, he defends at once the title of the king to be head of the Church. He considers that the consent of the laity is required before an ecclesiastical law can be binding, and looks upon Parliament as their mouthpiece, and accordingly defends the right of Parliament to legislate on ecclesiastical matters. He defends the king’s power of appointing bishops and his jurisdiction over ecclesiastical courts.
Also, read Bannerman’s Church of Christ. Lots on Erastianism there.
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It’s interesting how those who oppose Christian Nationalism by pointing out that the UK is the prime example of this error today are then accused by CN’s supporters of stating our argument as being that modern UK decadence is the necessary fruit of Christian Nationalism (Erastianism).
That has never been our argument. When I posted the House of Commons speech by MP Danny Kruger, my point was not that England’s legal, political, and moral debauchery is the inevitable fruit of Christian Nationalism, but that present-day UK is Christian Nationalism. Right now. That is the point MP Kruger made and he’s right.
This is the reason it is so significant that he calls for the church’s reform as the principal need of the day. Love,
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One thing that strikes me in this discussion: Denominations have done a horrible job at suppressing blasphemies and heresies. And people want the government to do this? That seems insane to me.
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The most frightening words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to fix your heresy.”
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King Charles III is Stephen Wolfe’s “Christian Prince.” He was anointed as such in an elaborate ceremony.
Everything is so amazingly Christian in the United Kingdom and Canada as a result that I’m sure all of us are just itching to move there so we can all experience the amazing awesomeness of it all for ourselves. Right?
Contrast Canada and the U.K. with the lackluster United States. In America there is no state support for churches, and so as a result there are no churches here, and nobody gives any money to missions organizations. Christianity is entirely dead in the United States because we haven’t had the faith our betters in Canada and the mother country have had.
Sarcasm aside, the real historical experience has been exactly the opposite and everyone knows it. Which is why what I said above is ridiculous. (I shouldn’t explain the joke but bear with me.)
Even inside the United States, those states who kept state (Reformed) Congregational churches longest are now the least Christian and most pagan regions of the country. While the region which did away with state churches earliest (The South, which disestablished Episcopal churches, in case anyone was curious) is today generally most friendly to Christian faith. You’re more likely to find lively churches in South Carolina than New Hampshire.
Politics has to be practical. If you can’t demonstrate a meaningful difference for a policy, there’s no point in pursuing it. It has to make a difference or the effort chasing it is in vain.
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One more comment and I’ll shut up. I watched part of the anointing ceremony for King Charles and it profoundly offended me. I can’t imagine being a citizen of a country and having to endorse such a hypocritical display. All apologies to J.C. Ryle, but I can’t imagine being a church officer in England and having to pretend that man is Defender of the Faith. Or in participating in ordaining him as such. Meaning the specific man, Charles Windsor.
Should I assume Christian Nationalist brothers did not have the same reaction? Why not?
It eliminated for me any inkling I may have had toward Loyalism. Sorry @adionne
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Yeah, I’m with you in this case. It’s easy for an American to forget that submission to rightful authority and resisting revolutionary impulses is complicated when it comes to Erastian England. Honor the King…but not when he claims an authority not given to him by God. A dissenter I would likely have been in 18th Century England. A loyalist I might have been in America, only considering the King of England a secular ruler.
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On the’ autism, neurodiversity fad:
“For all the compassion claimed by progressive, out-of-touch psychologists, psychiatrists, social scientists, and activists, convincing both autists and non-autists that society is to blame for expecting basic conformity isn’t kindness. It’s cruelty. …it’s cruel to the undisciplined child who needs boundaries firmly enforced, not a diagnosis that grants him access to a ‘sensory room’ and even fewer expectations.”
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Wow, so many thoughts on this one. Having a child with 1p36 deletion syndrome, which has many overlapping symptoms (he’s non verbal, extremely developmentally delayed, etc) with true autism has been eye opening. Many children with this syndrome have a dual diagnosis. We see a developmental pediatrician who told us frankly that he would not consider our son autistic (all of William’s therapists agree), but basically said if we ever need the “diagnosis” in order to access therapies, etc. to just say the word. I guess all that to say that there’s another whole population category she could add to the list of misdiagnoses, although I would lean towards thinking our kids could actually benefit from some of these interventions more than the other categories. But they don’t truly fall into the autistic category, because their struggles are explained by missing genes.
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“Have faith for all of Scripture being the only proper diet for the souls of your children. All of it—every last word.”
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“God’s people are not supposed to be motivated by warnings, are they? The Christian life is a life of faith—not fear–right? Doesn’t perfect love cast out all fear? Is any act of faith legitimate that is motivated by listening carefully to warnings?”
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“Reading the Great Commission and then the book of Acts, a certain type of man would naturally conclude one of two things: either Jesus was lying about what authority He had, or He didn’t know how to use it.”