Race, Immigration, and the Church

Dear Matt,

Have you read Luther’s Address to the Nobility? It’s not long and I can’t imagine writing anything like what you shared as being a faithful summary of it. The author you shared seems to be banking on no one having read it.

Because if they had, they would see that Luther is calling the civil magistrates to make civil laws against the false religion of Rome. He is calling for them to punish evil and to protect the church and thus their nation. It’s exactly what Christian Nationalists want the civil government to do.

I’m sorry brothers butt I can’t even begin ti understand the critique that Pastor Tim had that people want Civil government to use laws. That’s exactly what Martin Luther was calling for: laws in his realm that would make great changes.

Laws are meant to punish evil. They can’t change the hearts of others but they can prevent those who will never be changed by the gospel from promoting evil and harming the good of all.

Go reread Luther’s short treatise. He no where speaks against nationalism in it. It wasn’t even the purpose of his writing. His purpose was to defeat Roman’s three walls of defense: one of which was that the state had no jurisdiction in spiritual matters. His argument is yes the nobility can and should interfere to stop the false teaching and practices of Rome.

I’m flabbergasted because I can’t see how anyone would write that summary you shared. It’s just not true. Unless there is some extended edition or secret German edition.

I had similar thoughts upon my initial reading, however:

The original address is much longer (about 80 pages), made up of three parts:

  1. Three Walls
  2. Of Matters to Be Considered by Councils
  3. 27 Articles on Reforming the Christian Estate.

You can read it here.

If you read the pages I shared from Oberman (attached above) you will get more context, especially in regard to German nationalists like Ulrich von Hutten. You can also read about Hutten in Bainton’s Here I Stand (pg 118-124, under the chapter The German Hercules).

What I found so helpful about Oberman (and Bainton) is how they point out the difference between Luther and Hutten. Luther talks about the German nation a lot in his address, but he is not to be lumped in with Hutten. Why? Their goals and means to those goals. Luther to Spalatin (quoted in Bainton):

You see what Hutten asks. I am not willing to fight for the gospel with bloodshed. In this sense I have written to him. The world is conquered by the Word, and by the Word the Church is served and rebuilt. As Antichrist arose without the hand of man, so without the hand of man will he fall.

The Christian Nationalism I am opposed to is the same that Luther was opposed to, the Hutten variety. ‘But,’ the objection comes, ‘CN today isn’t calling for bloodshed.’ I’m not so sure… much of what I see today bears the spirit of Hutten (not saying you do – but I hope to turn you away from using the CN name. Similar to why you want to reject the term ‘hyper-patriarchy.’ For the record, I really like ‘super-patriarch’ and will start using it)

I highly recommend reading Oberman’s book. The opening chapter is enlightening, and may surprise you. Oberman uses the term ‘Christian prince’ multiple times, and not necessarily in a negative way.

At the end of the day (and I know you agree) more study into the Reformation and the political sphere of the time will yield wisdom for today. I believe Oberman is a good launch pad into the Church’s not-so-distant past. But, as Tim told us in our classes: ‘never trust a PHD,’ & ‘always check quotations,’ etc. Reading Oberman ought to push us back to primary sources. But, at the same time, we ought not reject him simply because he was a scholar (and a good one at that).

Sincerely,

Here’s my take on Luther’s Address to the Christian Nobility. This paragraph from it serves as a summary of the first part:

And now I hope the false, lying spectre will be laid with which the Romanists have long terrified and stupefied our consciences. And it will be seen that, like all the rest of us, they are subject to the temporal sword; that they have no authority to interpret the Scriptures by force without skill; and that they have no power to prevent a council, or to pledge it in accordance with their pleasure, or to bind it beforehand, and deprive it of its freedom; and that if they do this, they are verily of the fellowship of antichrist and the devil, and having nothing of Christ but the name.

Luther is summarily denouncing the idea that the spiritual power is exempt from the punishment of the civil power. Good, RC priests (or anyone) who sexually abuse their sheep ought to be punished. We do this, though poorly.

Next, RC magisterium is not the sole legitimate interpreter of Scripture. Yes! Reformation 101.

Third, Popes and Cardinals are not the only legitimate authority that may call a council to work on church reformation. I agree in so far as the Protestant church is not the Roman Catholic magisterium. Whether or not the temporal powers ought to call such councils is debatable. The Original and American versions of the WCF give you the two sides of the debate. As for me, give me the American revisions. See comparison here.

Then, the paragraph below opens up that third point:

Let us now consider the matters which should be treated in the councils, and with which popes, cardinals, bishops, and all learned men should occupy themselves day and night, if they love Christ and His Church. But if they do not do so, the people at large and the temporal powers must do so, without considering the thunders of their excommunications. For an unjust excommunication is better than ten just absolutions, and an unjust absolution is worse than ten just excommunications. Therefore let us rouse ourselves, fellow-Germans, and fear God more than man, that we be not answerable for all the poor souls that are so miserably lost through the wicked, devilish government of the Romanists, and that the dominion of the devil should not grow day by day, if indeed this hellish government can grow any worse, which, for my part, I can neither conceive nor believe.

His point: if the church refuses to reform or continues to deform herself, the temporal powers or the common people must work to form such councils, no matter the threat of excommunication from the church.

Following this paragraph and to the end of the letter, Luther suggests many teachings the council should consider bringing to the church.

So, not surprised to conclude that Luther was mostly concerned about reforming the church rather than about “Christianizing” the temporal authority. The complexity of disentangling the spiritual and temporal powers of his time makes the knees go weak. And how the two are to relate to one another in our time and context will be debated until Christ returns or our nation is destroyed. Maranatha.

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Dear Matt,

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I went back and read the longer Address in full. I still don’t see anything in it that remotely dismisses what today is called Christian Nationalism. If the Oberman paragraph is representative of his summary, I would not trust him on this. It reads like a commentary banking on readers having not read the actual text. The primary source tells a different story.

Luther is not merely calling for the reformation of the Church in a vacuum. He is summoning civil magistrates to wield their God-given authority to enable and protect such reform. He explicitly argues that the temporal power has jurisdiction to restrain and punish the false teachers and immoral practices of Rome. This is precisely the kind of civil engagement Christian Nationalists advocate. The idea that Luther opposed the civil realm being used to reform the Church and society is, frankly, absurd when reading the actual Address.

Throughout church history, reform within the Church has often been inseparable from involvement by the civil realm. Consider the Council of Nicaea, the Protestant Reformation, or the Westminster Assembly—none of these occurred apart from the engagement of rulers and states. This is one of the reasons I find the American revision of the Westminster Confession’s section on who may call synods so misguided. It’s like climbing a ladder to the top of a building only to then set the ladder on fire. The Westminster Standards themselves are the fruit of church and state cooperation. Praise God for it.

As for Luther and nationalism, he assumes distinctions between nations in his writing. He references Germans and Greeks, and he commends the idea of a nation governing itself rather than being ruled by an empire. Further, he advocates not only for civil laws to suppress false teaching but also for just governance more broadly, especially toward the end of the Address.

I recognize that there are fools, the immature, or the newly initiated who can latch onto an idea and warp it. In fact, I did a podcast episode on cage-stage enthusiasts, making the point that when concerns arise about the character of certain men who hold to a position, the critique should be aimed at the character, not the position itself. If the concern with Christian Nationalism is the character of some of its advocates, then address that directly. But when the attack is on the idea itself, defenders of the idea will naturally be defensive, and any concern about their character will fall on deaf ears.

This is also why I oppose the term ‘hyper-patriarchy.’ Most who use it seem more concerned about the character of particular men than any defined system of thought. But creating a new term confuses the issue—people think you’re attacking a system rather than calling certain men to repentance.

I’ve often heard from critics of Christian Nationalism that they “agree with the substance, just not the character of its advocates.” Yet the critiques inevitably aim not at the character but at the substance. It’s no wonder then that discussions keep talking past each other.

I remain convinced that Luther’s Address stands as a strong precedent for Christian Nationalism A Christian civil order submitted to the law of God, protecting the Church, and promoting righteousness in society for the good of the actual people they are governing.

I also want to gently push back on what seems to be an assumption beneath some of these critiques—that the church’s mission is almost entirely internal. As if the whole point of church reform is just to keep reforming the church, perpetually. But the mission of the church is not simply to maintain herself. Christ gave us a clear mission: disciple the nations, teach them to obey everything He has commanded.

That means reform within the church serves a greater purpose. It equips the church to fulfill her mission outwardly. An army disciplines and drills itself, yes—but the goal of discipline is deployment. We reform the church not so she can admire her own purity, but so that she can go forth, proclaim the gospel, disciple the nations, and teach them Christ’s law. That is the vision of Psalm 2, Matthew 28, and the prophets.

So when I hear calls for repentance that only ever point inward, without any vision for reformation of the nations, of laws, of peoples, I have to ask—what then is the church for?

The church is not just a monastery; she is a militant, commissioned army. Yes, discipline is necessary. Yes, traitors and false brothers must be dealt with. But no army exists simply to endlessly drill and discipline itself while never engaging the enemy or advancing the front. The mission of the church is external as well as internal—reform equips us for conquest under Christ’s banner, not for permanent boot camp.

Lastly, I would ask you. Would you be willing to take up the pen like Martin Luther call upon our civil leaders to take up the work of reforming the church in our day?

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Not a chance.

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So many assumptions and assigning of motives in this paragraph it boggles the mind.

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Seriously?

I am out and about right now with my family, so will respond more thoroughly later. However, I’ll answer your final question now:

No. Would you? If so, how?

One of my reasons would be we are under a different form of government… the situation in Luther’s day was completely different from ours. Plus, I don’t want the civil magistrate to do the job of the church. We can work together but we must stay in our lanes.

Dear Andrew
Assumptions and assign motivations are the name of the game. I see it done all the time by us. Are you above having it done to your arguments? But to lower the tension, I was speaking of how it feels to me when I read the arguments put forth.

But seriously, the fact that you would not do what Martin Luther thought was good shows me that he shouldn’t be marshalled in arguments to uphold your position on Christian Nationalism. It’s ok for you to hold your position but it’s a different position then the reformers.

To answer Matt’s on my own question, yes I would. I would call the civil leaders to stop false teaching in public and stifle idolatry. I’d be glad for them to shut down Revoice or Joel Osteen for example.

Rather than conflate church and state, you should consider running for office to be the kind of magistrate who aims to reform the church. I honestly would like to see it…well, at least until you started meddling with my church.

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Or I could just preach and teach the whole counsel of God like Martin Luther.

It’s not so simple. I would not appeal to the Trump Administration to involve themselves in matters of the church because I have far less trust in them than I’d have in the magistrates during Luther’s time. Yet, even still, accounting for the arrogance of rulers, is precisely where Luther begins his Address. He was intimately acquainted with their failures and ignorance.

Nevertheless, I’m thankful for the work Trump has done to undergird our freedoms—freedom to be a state that doesn’t allow for the murder of babies in the womb, and freedom of speech. But to have them involved in reforming the church? No. I’m not sure they’d do any better than those Kings/Queens of England (I mean, I’m laughing as I write that last sentence).

Weren’t we resisting tyrants like five minutes ago over facemasks (…a jurisdiction I think the state actually has…)?

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This is a false dichotomy. As if discipling the nations can ever be done by a corrupt or disordered church.

No dear brother, you risk letting evangelism drive the church, rather than the church driving evangelism. Evangelism is a function of the church not the end goal in and of itself.

As I maintained in England and still maintain here, the best witness is a healthy church. Want a truly evangelistic church? Teach them how to love God and love their neighbours. Teach them right theology and right ethics. Teach and model a healthy marriage, godly parenting, a rightly submissive attitude towards our civil government, compassion for the lost, an obsession with the glory of God and the wonders of redemption. Do those things and your church won’t be able to be anything but evangelistic.

But it doesn’t work the other way. If you bang on about evangelism evangelism evangelism, especially when our own homes and congregations are grossly disordered, the church with wither and die. Because Jesus ordained the local church, not this year’s flavour of evangelism explosion.

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Dear brothers,
It has been helpful for me to watch this conversation go back and forth, thank you all.
It seems that, at least to me, things have progressed to the point where everyone begins to pile up their favorite reformers and their quotes, whether pro or con Christian Nationalism. In my opinion this is where things get muddy, because men wind up attempting to use the same reformers and opposing quotes to make their point.
I like to attempt to read the various sources being shared back and forth, getting educated so to speak, to read the reformers on these issues, and in doing so find myself in agreement with Solomon that “excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body” (Ecclesiastes 12:12).
When this happens, I like to go back to the source, God’s word, which is infallible, and eternally true, unlike the bloggers and reformers.
When I do this, especially with an issue like Christian Nationalism, something happens: I don’t see it in Scripture the way pro-Christian nationalists propose it.
What I see when I read scripture, makes me thankful for the American Revision of the WCF.
What I see in scripture, is a Nation State, Israel, having a unique, one off mission from God to rid the land of His enemies, establish an earthly (type and shadow) Kingdom, and be a light to the world.
What I see in scripture is that this plan has never ended, but it has changed, with the New Testament church now being called forth to be a light by taking the sword of the spirit to the nations.
Preaching the gospel, the Church, The Holy Nation, a royal priesthood, is the fulfillment of that type and shadow Israel (which fulfilled it’s mission according to God’s plan), and now draws all nations to it.
I don’t see a call in scripture for the church and other nations (with borders) to be in an intimate relationship, though can see where working together is natural, in that as we the church preaches the gospel, magistrates are sometimes converted and summarily seek to be a help to the church.
I also see in scripture where God uses wicked rulers to assist his church (this seems to happen quite a lot actually).

But, I don’t believe the Church has a right to cross the threshold to the point where it is abdicating its duty to defend the purity of the church and the honor of Christ by handing that duty to the state.
Christ does not need his honor defended by the sword, as he reminded Peter.
Christs honor is defended by submitting to the authorities appointed over us, praising God when those authorities happen to be godly men, and praising God as wicked rulers run over us with tanks as we faithfully defy the tyrants by preaching the gospel.
Christ is honored through our faithful obedience to be a light to the nations, drawing them in, not by attempting to merge church and state.
It is the law of God being practiced and obeyed in the church, which will lead the nations to say what we find in these verses from Deuteronomy:

Deuteronomy 4:6-7 (NASB95) 6 “So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ 7 “For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the LORD our God whenever we call on Him?
Deuteronomy 4:8 (NASB95) “Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today?

The most righteous of so-called Christian nations would have laws which pale in comparison to those given to the church, given to us so that we would model and be a light to the nations. This is Christian nationalism. Some attempt to make America or any other nation a Christian nation after the model that I see many Christian nationalists proposing would be a cheap substitute.

On a personal note, I am thankful for Pastor Spurgeon. I have watched our church grow through evangelism, and have found evangelism be a helpful tool in discipling young men at our church.
I’ve stood in front of Governors with Pastor Spurgeon, and would do it again because I believe the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, and that a Christian magistrate is preferred to a pagan.

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Haven’t read past this above yet, but no one has ever said this. It’s a straw man. For decades, including the years opposing R2K which ought to be the context within which the conscientious man should understand my constant statement that the preaching of God’s servants leads the world, what I have been saying is that it is the Word of God preached which changes the civil society.

No Christian Nationalist puts his emphasis here. It’s always hankering after civil authority, instead.

Younger men may dismiss me as a Boomer who has squandered the methods of reform THEY CHRISTIAN NATIONALISTS believe in and make a name for themselves by, but oh my. They know nothing of the work our elders did which was absolutely despised by the Truly Reformed inside and outside Bloomington. And they refuse to admit or speak of the fruit it produced external to the church—the work that was greatly blessed by God. Not a single mention of the wrongs we suffered as a result of this debilitating work our pastors and elders carried out for many years here in Bloomington.

Why, even our judges testified to it in their court judgments!

I grow weary of this discussion. Truthfully yours,

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Well, I kept reading, as you see above. And my head gasket blew. Here is an oped I wrote for our local newspaper:

The Shame of Alfred Kinsey

The late Allan Bloom was an Indianapolis native who served as professor at University of Chicago. In The Closing of the American Mind, Bloom lamented the destruction divorce caused his students. Noting that parents often used therapists to help their children cope, Bloom wrote, “Psychologists are the sworn enemies of guilt.”

If therapists are the sworn enemies of guilt, sex researchers are the sworn enemies of shame—with IU’s Alfred C. Kinsey leading the pack.

Although hired by IU as a zoologist, in 1938 Kinsey contrived to land a job lecturing engaged and married seniors on “biology.” He ended the course by taking his students’ sexual histories.

Kinsey spent the rest of his academic career conducting these interviews and disseminating the data. He was convinced that publicizing peoples’ private sexual lives would usher in a more peaceful age devoid of shame and inhibition.

But his efforts did not bring the dawn of Aquarian freedom. Rather, one set of negative consequences was exchanged for another. The fruitful discipline of true morality was exchanged for the fruitless bondage of false morality. The Biblical law codified throughout the Western world over many centuries was exchanged for infinitely smaller and petty laws.

So today, instead of community pressure being brought to bear against adulterers and sodomites, it’s brought to bear against those condemning such crimes. Freedom is shrinking as IU’s diversity advocates and the City Council’s Human Rights Commission use shame as a disciplinary tool against innocent souls caught in the act of expressing disapproval of sexual perversion.

Pity the poor widow who conscientiously declines to rent her upstairs apartment to an unmarried couple. She will soon learn what G. K. Chesterton warned of: “When you break the big laws, you do not get freedom; you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws.”

Motivated by the love of their neighbors, godly citizens work to oppose the sin destroying homes, marriages, and souls, but find their convictions censored and their motives smeared as “hatred.” And the civil authority joins in the oppression by, for instance, using citizens’ tax dollars to provide support for the local baby-killing organization, Planned Parenthood. The biblical prophet, Isaiah, spoke of this day:

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; …who are wise in their own eyes (and) take away the rights of the ones who are in the right. (Isaiah 5:20 ff.).

Since Kinsey first began to expose men’s secrets, incest, domestic violence, divorce, the poverty rate of women and children, and deaths due to sexually transmitted diseases have all increased dramatically. But no one seems to notice. At the recent Bloomington premier of the biopic, Kinsey, partygoers making a donation of $1,000 were granted the privilege of hobnobbing with the filmmakers at a private reception where Kinsey was feted.

When the Kinsey Report was released in 1948, noted anthropologist Margaret Mead critiqued it:

In every society sex patterns depend on a careful and meticulous balance between ignorance and knowledge, sophistication and naïveté. (The Kinsey Report) has upset the balance …between the things we don’t mention, and the things we do. And it may be expected to have considerable effect in our society for that reason. Quite a good deal of our virtue has depended upon people not knowing what other people were doing… In the past, it was said, “It is better to marry than to burn.” Now we translate (the verse), “It is better to have an outlet of some sort, because you’ve got to have an outlet of some sort.” …so it’s just a question of which outlet and (Kinsey) suggests no way of choosing between a woman and a sheep.

Two weeks ago the following invitation was circulated at IU:

SLAG is pleased to announce that Will Stockton will be presenting “The Normalization of Bestiality: Kinsey’s Analysis of Human Sexual Contact with Animals” …at the next brown-bag colloquium (Friday, November 19 at 12:10 pm in Indiana University’s Ballantine Hall, Room 221). (Stockton’s paper) explores Alfred Kinsey’s assertion that bestiality, rather than being “a strange perversion of human affection,” is actually “part of the normal mammalian picture” of human psychosexual development.

Kinsey was no hero. Those who think he was demonstrate no love, but hatred, of sexuality’s God-given beauty. So now we’ve arrived at the day when men no longer know why they ought to choose a woman instead of a sheep.

And the band plays on.

*(Tim Bayly is pastor of Church of the Good Shepherd, meeting in the new Grandview Elementary School. He posts regularly at WorldMagBlog.com).

Or consider this:

On the thirty-fifth anniversary of Roe v. Wade: The Lord is in His Holy Temple…

by Tim Bayly on January 20, 2008 - 3:20pm

*On the occasion of the thirty-fifth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I post this message given at Indiana’s State Capital several years ago. It would please me if you would take the time to read it. Thank you.

I remain amazed that abortion could even become a political issue in a country with pretensions to being civilized. It is as if we were to debate the merits of legalizing cannibalism, with the liberal side chanting the slogan “Keep government out of the kitchen!”

There is no danger that the other side will ever be persuaded that it is wrong; there is, however, the very real danger that we will become discouraged, worn down, and inured to an evil that should always horrify and sicken us. The erosion of our consciences is surely part of the destructiveness of this abominable “procedure.” -Joe Sobran

The Lord’s Throne Is In Heaven

Indiana State House
On the Thirty-First Anniversary of Roe v. Wade
January 22, 2004

(For the choir director; a psalm of David.) In the LORD I take refuge; how can you say to my soul, “Flee as a bird to your mountain; for, behold, the wicked bend the bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string to shoot in darkness at the upright in heart. If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” The LORD is in His holy temple; the LORD’S throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men. The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves violence His soul hates. Upon the wicked He will rain snares; fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup. For the LORD is righteous, He loves righteousness; the upright will behold His face. (Psalm 11:1-7)

Thirty one years ago today, on January 22nd, 1973, the Supreme Court of these United States issued its infamous ruling, Roe v. Wade, in which the Court declared that a mother’s intentional killing of her unborn child was a fundamental right guaranteed under our Constitution. Since that ruling, it has been a commonplace to observe that Roe v. Wade, the Court’s repeal of the laws prohibiting abortion on the books of all fifty states, was simply the exercise of raw judicial power with a legal justification based upon a mist and a vapor—or as the Court itself might put it, an emanation from a penumbra.

Our Supreme Court: intentionally conniving at murder…

Since 1973, no one has made a name for himself defending Roe. v. Wade’s history, biology, ethics, logic, or justice; and only a few have been foolish enough to claim this ruling will stand the test of time…

In fact, when the Court was handed what was, arguably, the best opportunity for reversal since Roe v. Wade was first issued, although the Court declined to reverse itself, its rationale was telling:

The Roe rule’'s limitation on state power could not be repudiated without serious >inequity to people who, for two decades, have organized intimate relationships and made >choices in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail. >The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation >has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives…

Overruling Roe’s central holding… would seriously weaken the
Court’s capacity to exercise the judicial power and to function as the
Supreme Court of a Nation dedicated to the rule of law… Moreover, the
country’€™s loss of confidence in the Judiciary would be underscored by
condemnation for the Court’s failure to keep faith with those who
support the decision. A decision to overrule (Roe v. Wade would come) at the cost of both profound and unnecessary damage to the Court’s legitimacy… (Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 1992)

Listening carefully, the Court chose not to reverse Roe v. Wade
because the withdrawal of the right to kill their unborn child might
harm the plans of fathers and mothers who count on abortion as a backup
for failed birth control; also because the reversal of Roe v. Wade
might harm women’s exercise of financial and social equality; might "seriously weaken the Court’s capacity to exercise judicial powe due
to the country losing confidence in its judiciary; and might lead to “profound and unnecessary damage to the Court’s legitimacy.” Reading
this rationale reminds us of a father refusing to apologize to his wife
and children because he fears his apology would be viewed as a sign of
weakness and undermine his authority. How sad the homes led by such
little men, but what can we say about a nation whose highest court of
law justifies its use of authority and power to support the murder of
unborn children by such insecure self-justifications?

The irony of the matter is that, by their refusal to reverse Roe v. Wade,
the Court has assured the very thing it sought to prevent–namely, a
significant loss of confidence in the court’‘s jurisprudence, as well as
its members’ integrity and honor, among those it governs. In fact, by
standing firmly on the side of those who support and practice the
murder of unborn children, the Court has assured there will be “profound and unnecessary damage to (its) legitimacy.”

African slaves and the unborn…

Today it would be hard to imagine a ruling more controversial than Roe v. Wade, but some might single out the Dred Scott
ruling of 1857 for that honor. This decision was a key part of the
buildup of hostilities that led to the Civil War, and it is the
judgment of some scholars that Dred Scott “probably created
more disagreement than any other legal opinion in U.S. history; it
became a violently divisive issue in national politics and dangerously
undermined the prestige of the Supreme Court.” €[1]

What were the Court’s judgments in the Dred Scott case? That…

A free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were
brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a “citizen” within
the meaning of the Constitution of the United States.

When the Constitution was adopted, they were not regarded in
any of the States as members of the community which constituted the
State, and were not numbered among its "€œpeople or citizens."€
Consequently, the special rights and immunities guaranteed to citizens
do not apply to them.

The language of the Declaration of Independence is equally conclusive: …

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights; that among them is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;
that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed.

The general words above quoted would seem to embrace the whole human
family… But it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race
were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who
framed and adopted this declaration…

(T)he men who framed (the Declaration of Independence)…
perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it
would be understood by others; and they knew that it would not in any
part of the civilized world be supposed to embrace the negro race… (Scott v. Stanford, 1856)

Now let us stop and compare the declaration of the U.S. Supreme
Court concerning the personhood of men and women of African descent in
their 1857 Dred Scott decision to that of unborn children following the Court’s Roe v. Wade
decision one hundred sixteen years later. But rather than limiting
ourselves to the comparison of quotes taken from these opinions, let us
develop the arguments much as they might have been heard from the mouth
of the man on the street defending slavery at the time of the Civil War
and the killing of unborn children today. (And as I list these
arguments, please keep in mind that I do not agree with them.)

  • Although a slave/fetus has a heart and a brain, and is human from the biological perspective, a slave/fetus just is not a legal person under the Constitution. The Supreme Court made this perfectly clear in the Dred Scott/Roe v. Wade decision.
  • A man/woman has the right to do whatever he/she pleases with his/her personal property, the slave/fetus.
  • Both the social and economic burdens which will result from prohibiting slavery/abortion will be unfairly concentrated upon a single group: slave-holders/pregnant women.
  • Isn’t slavery/abortion really something merciful? Isn’€™t it really better never to be set free/born than to be sent ill-equipped and unprepared into an environment where one is unwanted, unloved and bound to be miserable?
  • Those who believe that slavery/abortion is immoral are free to refrain from owning slaves/having abortions; they should give the same freedom to those who have different moral beliefs.
  • Accordingly, those who believe that slavery/abortion is
    immoral have no right to try to impose their personal morality upon
    others by way of legislation or a constitutional amendment.
  • The claim that slaves/fetuses are like us is simply ridiculous; all one has to do is look at them to see that they are completely different.
  • The anti-slavery/anti-abortion movement is in fact a small
    band of well-organized religious fanatics who have no respect for
    democracy or the principles of a pluralistic society.

And moving to the opposite side of the argument, we see the analogy works in that direction, also:

  • The question of whether slavery/abortion should be
    tolerated is not a matter of personal or religious belief; it is a
    question of protecting the civil rights of millions of innocent human
    beings who are not in a position to protect themselves.
  • The humanity of slaves/fetuses cannot be denied simply
    because they look different from us; there is no morally defensible way
    to draw a line somewhere along a continuum of skin color/(fetal) development and claim, “This is where humanity starts, this is where it stops.” [2]

Two decisions a century apart, both so radical they undermine the
Court’s reputation and sow the seeds of violent division across our
nation. Both deny the personhood of a class of human beings who are
weak and oppressed; both refuse to bring the law’€™s strong arm to bear
in their defense. Both, rather than taking up the cause of the widows
and orphans in their distress and thereby mirroring the perfections of
the One our second president, John Adams, referred to as “€œthe great
Legislator of the Universe,” [3] take the side of the oppressor,
declaring him to be protected by the U.S. Constitution. Is it any
wonder, then, that these opinions are hated and opposed at every turn,
and that they have given birth to two of the most zealous forces for
political change in the history of our nation–the abolitionist (or
anti-slavery) and the pro-life (or anti-abortion) movements?

By what authority, though, do citizens oppose these rulings?

Whoever sheds man’s blood…

If this question is to be answered on something other than a superficial level, it must be acknowledged that opposition to both Dred Scott and Roe v. Wade
springs from the Christian world view founded in Scripture and codified
in the centuries-long common law tradition: That every human being is
unique among all God’s creation in that he alone is made in God’s
Image. And further, that this Only True God has decreed through His
Word, “Whoever sheds man’€™s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For
in the image of God He made man” (Genesis 9:6).

Undoubtedly, hearing the arguments made by the U.S. Supreme Court
against the full personhood of African slaves and the extension to them
of all the rights of a United States citizen in its Dred Scott
decision awakens in each of us righteous indignation. We have no doubt
that, had we been alive in that time, we would have stood against Dred Scott
and called for an end to slavery just as William Lloyd Garrison and
many others did. But if we are inactive in opposing the killing of
unborn children, we certainly would not have been found active in the
anti-slavery movement. Jesus was speaking to us when He said:

€œWoe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the
monuments of the righteous, and say, “€˜If we had been living in the days
of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding
the blood of the prophets.” So you testify against yourselves, that you
are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure
of the guilt of your fathers. (Matthew 23:29-32)

Christian faith, and love for our brothers…

It’s instructive to note the strong positive correlation between
Christian faith and activism within the anti-slavery and anti-abortion
movements. For instance, the first speech given by William Lloyd
Garrison in which he repented of his past support for the colonization
compromise, instead demanding a full cleansing of the evil of slavery
from our national conscience under his uncompromising cry, “No union
with slaveholders,” was given in the basement of Park Street Church on
the corner of Boston Common.

What sort of religious commitments
characterize Park Street Church?

Our nation’s Sunday school movement started in this church and to this day Park Street Church is known as New England’s bastion of
evangelical Christian faith.

This same correlation repeats itself over and over in the mid-nineteenth century.
Jonathan Blanchard, the first president of Wheaton College in Wheaton,
Illinois, was active in the Underground Railway. And today, Wheaton is
known as the alma mater of Billy Graham and his wife, Ruth Bell Graham.

What of the anti-abortion movement?

A war between wicked and godly women…

Some years back Family Planning Perspectives, the research
journal of the Alan Guttmacher Institute (a "special affiliate"€ of the
Planned Parenthood Federation of America), published several studies
examining the demographic composition of the pro-abortion and
anti-abortion forces. The articles titled “Abortion Activists” €[4] and “The War Between Women” €[5] demonstrated the intractable nature of this
conflict spawned by the Supreme Court. For instance, taking two of the
principal political action groups on opposite sides of this issue–€”the
National Abortion Rights Action League and the National Right to Life
Committee–they found:

(Right to Life) members are far more likely than (Abortion Rights)
members to have been reared in large families, to prefer large
families, and (themselves) to have large families… Eighty-seven
percent of (Right to Life) members report that religion plays a "€œvery"€
or "extremely"€ important role in their lives compared to only 20
percent of (Abortion Rights) members… (causing the author of the
article to observe) “It is difficult to imagine data that might more
convincingly demonstrate that religion is a very important factor in
determining attitudes about legal abortion.”

Turning from the opposing organizations to individual women involved
on opposing sides of this issue, in her January 1984 article, “€œThe War
Between Women” (also published in Family Planning Perspectives),
author Kristin Luker speaks of the “€œemotional and volatile abortion
debate,” declaring "over the last decade the subject (of abortion) has
galvanized–and polarized–Americans in the same way that such moral
issues as abolition… once did."€ She continues,

Women who are engaged in the abortion debate are separated from one
another by income, education, family size and occupation… Thus, the
abortion debate grows out of two very different social worlds that
support very different aspirations and beliefs… The life circumstances
and beliefs of the activists on both sides of the (abortion) issue
serve to reinforce one another in such a way that the activists have
little room for dialogue and few incentives for it.

(O)ne may ask who is the "€œtypical"€ (Right to Life and Abortion
Rights) activist…? The typical (Abortion Rights) activist is a
44-year-old married woman whose father was a college graduate. She
married at age 22 or older, has one or two children, and has had some
graduate or professional training after her B.A. …She is married to a
professional man, is herself employed, and has a (high) family income…
She attends church rarely, if at all; indeed, religion is not
particularly important to her.

(Whereas) The typical (Right to Life) activist is also a 44-year-old
married woman. She, however, married at age 17, and has three or more
children. [Sixteen percent of the (Right to Life) women in the study
have seven or more children.] Her father was graduated from high school
only, and she herself has a good chance of having gone no further in
school… She is not employed and is married to a small businessman or a
lower income white-collar worker; her family income is (about $20,000
lower than the average Abortion Rights household)… Her religion is one
of the most important aspects of her life… The two sides have very
little in common in the way they look at the world, and this is
particularly true with regard to the critical issues of gender, sex and
parenthood. The views on abortion of each side are intimately tied to,
and deeply reinforced by, their views on these other areas of life.
Even if the abortion issue had not mobilized them on opposite sides of
the barricades, they would have been opponents on a wide variety of
issues.

(Abortion Rights) activists… see women’€™s reproductive and family
roles not as a natural niche, but as a potential barrier to full
equality… A general theme in the interviews with (Right to Life)
activists–many of whom have large families–is that there is an
anti-child sentiment abroad in American society…

In short, the debate about abortion rests on the question of whether
women’s fertility is to be socially recognized as an asset or as a
burden.

If a broad cross-section of American society is anti-child and views
women’s fertility as a burden, it’s little wonder that unborn children
are killed at the rate of around 1.3 million per year in our nation,
sacrificed on the altars of our national gods of convenience, choice,
autonomy, and self-determination. But it’€™s also no wonder that godly
mothers and daughters and sisters and grandmothers and wives will
oppose this slaughter of the little ones with every fiber of their
being.

Just as those involved in the anti-slavery movement believed in the
full personhood and dignity of members of the African race because of
their prior belief that every human being is made in the Image of God,
so also those involved in the anti-abortion movement believe in the
full personhood and dignity of all children because of their prior
belief in this same biblical doctrine that every human being, born or
unborn, is made in the image of God. Slaves or freedmen of African
descent, unborn children swimming in the amniotic fluid of their
mother’s womb–each a precious soul who, in the words of
our own Declaration of Independence, is "endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights; that among them is life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness…"€ And further, “That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent
of the governed.”

Mothers who forget their children…

Can a woman forget her nursing child And have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. (Isaiah 49:15)

This then is the impasse of our nation, and it grows ever deeper.
On one side are those who believe in the dignity of every man,
from the moment of conception to the time of natural death, because he has bears the Image of God. On the other side are those who do not
believe in the dignity of every person, claiming that
the dignity of some–€”particularly those living in the first world who
are rich, white, educated, and (of course) already born–trumps the dignity of others.

To put it bluntly, our divided nation falls in behind two women: One woman loves her child and, from love, gives up her life for him, while the other hates her child and murders him.

Back in the 18th century, "in six pages of elegant, deadpan prose
Jonathan Swift set forth an impeccably logical solution to alleviate
the Irish famine: poor people should dismember and eat their babies.
(Swift wrote) "A young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a
most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted,
baked, or boiled…“€™ Through satire, Swift intended to shock his readers
out of their moral turpitude…” €[6]

(But) today, when English professors teach “A Modest Proposal,” they
often find it hard to make students realize Swift was joking. Here’s one actual
response: "Well, I don’t completely agree with him, but he does make
some really good points."€) Harvesting embryonic children for their stem
cells is little different from Swift’s proposal to harvest just-born
children for food. But whereas Swift’s audience pulled back in
revulsion, much of the American public thinks this is a swell idea.

"Adults are supposed to provide for, protect, and, if necessary,
give their lives to defend their children. They are not supposed to
sacrifice children for their own well-being… [7]

What has happened to us, to our senators and congressman and supreme
court justices and presidents and mayors and governors and law
enforcement officers and attorneys and physicians? What has happened to
the men of this nation for thirty-one years now, that has caused us to
look the other way as forty million unborn children have been
slaughtered in their mother’s womb? Has the killing of these children
been invisible? Have we not heard their cries? Have we not felt
their pain? Have we not seen their blood?

Again and again, Scripture declares God’€™s hatred for the shedding of innocent blood:

Surely at the command of the LORD it came upon Judah, to
remove them from His sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according
to all that he had done, and also for the innocent blood which he shed,
for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; and the LORD would not
forgive. (2 Kings 24:3,4)

But when the blood is shed by fathers and mothers–when it is the blood of their own children?

They did not destroy the peoples, As the LORD commanded
them, But they mingled with the nations And learned their practices,
And served their idols, Which became a snare to them. They even
sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons, And shed
innocent blood, The blood of their sons and their daughters, Whom they
sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; And the land was polluted with the
blood. Thus they became unclean in their practices, And played the
harlot in their deeds. Therefore the anger of the LORD was kindled
against His people And He abhorred His inheritance (Psalms 106:34-40).

If we are oblivious to their suffering, here is the condition of our hearts:

The righteous is concerned for the rights of the poor, The wicked does not understand such concern (Proverbs 29:7).

Inasmuch as ye did it to the least of these…

Brothers and sisters, it is time we shake off our complacency
concerning the oppression surrounding us and remember again the
godliness and courage of those who have gone before us, those who dealt
a mortal blow to the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision
and brought an end to slavery. Like us, every effort was made to
silence them and to relegate their cries for reform to the backwater of
private religious expression. But they would have none of it. They were
determined to be heard. When they tried to silence
Abraham Lincoln, he responded:

Let us apply a few
tests. You say that you think slavery is wrong, but you denounce all
attempts to restrain it. Is there anything else that you think wrong,
that you are not willing to deal with as a wrong? Why are you so
careful, so tender of this one wrong and no other? You will not let us
do a single thing as if it were wrong; there is no place where you will
allow it to be even wrong; there is no place where you will allow it
even to be called wrong! We must not call it wrong in politics because
that is bringing religion into politics; we must not call it wrong in
the pulpit because that is bringing politics into religion…and there
is no single place, according to you, where this wrong thing can be
properly called wrong! [8]

Let all such men, let each of us here this day, remember that God is not on His throne for nothing:

…The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world
because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe
to that man by whom the offense cometh."€ If we shall suppose that
American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of
God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed
time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South
this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came,
shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes
which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we
hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may
speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the
wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of
unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with
the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said
three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of
the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

May God have mercy on our motherland and raise up a great army of godly men who will follow the godly women leading the battle for the wee ones being slaughtered by the millions each year just down the street from our real estate agent and barber shop. We should tremble to think He has told us He is a Father to the fatherless.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] Encyclopaedia Britannica 2003 Edition; sub "Dred Scott decision"€ and "€œRoger Brooke Taney."€
[2] Patrick Derr, "The Argument€ & the Question,"€ Human Life Review, Vol. V, no. 3, 1979, pp. 77-83.
[3] John Adams, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765.
[4] Donald Granberg, “Abortion Activists,” Family Planning Perspectives, vol. 13, no. 4, July/August 1981, pp. 157-163.
[5] Kristin Luker, "The War Between Women,"€ Family Planning Perspectives, vol. 16, no. 3, May/June 1984, pp. 105-111.
[6] With thanks to Steve Baarendse.
[7] Gene Veith, World, July 8, 2001.
[8]
William McGurn, “Lessons from Lincoln: Abortion and The GOP; If the GOP
Is Lincoln’€™s Party, Maybe It Should Use His Tactics” in National Review,
March 25, 1993.

[This message was given at a Sanctity of Life Memorial Service on the occasion of the thirty-first anniversary of Roe v. Wade. The service was held in the Indiana State House and co-sponsored by four churches: Christ Community Church (PCA) of Carmel, Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCA) of Indianapolis, [Crossroads Community Church (PCA) of Fishers (http://www.crossroadspca.org/), and Church of the Good Shepherd of Bloomington, Indiana. The service was under the leadership of two men from Trinity Presbyterian Church, Pastor Jim Furey and Mr. Brian Bailey. The message was given by Rev. Tim Bayly, a member of Ohio Valley Presbytery, Presbyterian Church in America, and Sr. Pastor of Church of the Good Shepherd.]


But nevermind. Boomers pissed it all away.

Younger men have no patience for those who went before them. Nor their warnings.

Alright then.

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The ultimate civil magistrate in our system of government is the collective People. The President, Congress, governors, legislators, etc. are all servants of the sovereign electorate. So the best way to get godly change in this country is to convert more people into true disciples of Christ. But if that happened on a widespread basis there would be less need to pass laws because the culture would be better.

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This is the best and only way in every country, every system of government…and completely dependent on the sovereign will of the Holy Spirit. Any attempt to invert the culture of a nation that starts or finishes short of the new birth is a runaway train to nominalism.

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Dear Pastor Tim,

You and I have had multiple discussions where you’ve explained the work you’ve done with civil magistrates. So I would ask—why would I knowingly strawman you?

A few options come to mind:
1. I suffer from memory loss, like the fish in Finding Nemo. But I haven’t forgotten.
2. I’m too obtuse to comprehend what you’ve explained. I can be a little thick-headed, sure—but I understand you on this point.

Perhaps there are other explanations:

Let me offer a few:
1. Maybe I’m simply following your example, Pastor Tim. You’re comfortable using hyperbole and, I would argue, strawmen in these discussions. For example, you’ve said that Christian Nationalists are never concerned about church discipline or repentance within their own people. Never—you emphasize it. But that’s a strawman. The pastors I know who identify with Christian Nationalism do precisely that—they preach repentance to their own congregations, they practice church discipline.

Now, you might say, “Well, they never do it publicly,” and sure, there’s some of that online bluster. But even then, the men I know directly do call their people to repentance. Many of the laymen in these circles aren’t even pastors, so it’s not their role to carry out discipline, yet they still advocate for holiness in their families, churches, and communities.

But you feel comfortable making sweeping statements about them. You do this with Doug Wilson too, claiming that he never does church discipline. Yet I can point to examples where he has disciplined his own. So if hyperbole is acceptable for critique, then you ought to permit others to mirror it back. What’s good for the goose is good for Evangel.

  1. Alternatively, it could be that I’m responding to the thrust of your arguments. Yes, you might say you believe in the magistrate’s role, but the consistent emphasis of your position is internal. The effect of your arguments is to diminish the church’s outward mission to disciple the nations, leaving only introspection and internal reform. And that emphasis parallels the kind of pietism I grew up hearing or the arguments of R2K advocates. So if I respond to the pattern of your emphasis, it’s not strawman—it’s addressing the functional takeaway of your position.

Our brother Aaron Prelock said something similar of me—that I’m all about evangelism, evangelism, evangelism, as though I think evangelism drives the church rather than the church driving evangelism. But even there, I’d push back: the church is given a mission. The mission drives the church’s labor—otherwise, why not simply be saved and taken straight to heaven? The church is purified so that it can work, namely to disciple the nations. But I’d reject any hint that I would disagree with the need to pastor and discipline the church.

Just as you can point to your past work with civil magistrates, I can point to past and present work of disciplining our flock and trying to reform it. I’m not above disciplining my own people. Heck the conversations we have here are me doing that work within my own beloved Church where I proudly hold my membership, Evangel. I want to improve us and keep reminding us that the church has a mission. I also want to protect the peace of the church even broadly. I also want to see my nation and my people protected.

You’ll say you agree, of course. But again, what is the thrust of your argumentation? That’s the issue at hand.

And this brings me to another point I’ve raised before: if your concern is the character of those advocating Christian Nationalism, then address their character directly. But instead, the critique always targets the position itself, which leads people like me to conclude that you simply don’t hold the position, or anything sufficiently similar to it. That’s why I respond as I do.

Lastly, I appreciated my elder Aaron’s point about going back to scripture, and I might engage that further in a separate message. But we need to be honest here: the Reformers, the original Westminster Divines, the Reformed fathers—they simply did not hold the same view on civil government’s role that you brothers advocate today. If you think the scriptures teach differently, then argue that. But don’t pretend that your position is consistent with the Reformers if you reject their conclusions on civil magistrates. And don’t be surprised when men in your congregations, in the presbytery, or beyond, read the Reformers and arrive at very different conclusions from yours.

But don’t be upset when some of us press these matters and call attention to the dissonance between your arguments and the fathers you want to honor.

If the fruit of your arguments is to discourage any serious role for the magistrate in reforming society and protecting the church, then it shouldn’t be surprising when people call that out—not as a strawman, but as a direct inference from your stated emphases.

I want to share a post I write on social media a while back that I think deals with what you are saying;
In debates about Christian nationalism, people often draw a hard line. Either reformation comes from the top—leaders, laws, civil authority—or it comes from the bottom—revival, preaching, cultural repentance. Pick one, they say. But that’s not how God works.

Some argue for political strategy and legislation, aiming to bring civil government under the lordship of Christ. Others dismiss that as shallow and say we must focus only on gospel preaching and church reform. They warn that top-down reformation produces nothing but dead religion and nominal converts. They insist real change must come from the grassroots.

But Scripture and history don’t support such a narrow view.

When Jonah preached to Nineveh, the king led the charge in repentance. He called for a fast and humbled the people. But the people also turned. It was total. Top-down and bottom-up. And God relented. Some might say, “But they later fell.” Yes. And so did Israel. So did Judah. So have revivals throughout church history. The question is not whether the repentance lasted forever. The question is whether it was obedience in the moment. And it was.

Christian nationalism isn’t chasing utopia. It’s not trying to usher in heaven on earth. It’s about obedience. Real good in real time. For our children. For our people. For God’s glory.

The early church grew through bottom-up proclamation. The gospel spread through homes and synagogues, ordinary people bearing witness. But when Constantine bowed the knee, top-down change followed. Then laws changed. Then public morality shifted. Then idol temples shut down.

When King Alfred defeated the Vikings, he demanded the conversion of their leaders. And they complied. Not just in word, but in genuine fruit. Christianity took root and reshaped their people. God used Alfred’s authority to bear real, lasting fruit.

Don’t despise how God works. Sometimes He stirs the masses. Sometimes He raises up a king. Sometimes He does both. He turns the heart of the king. He pours out His Spirit on the people. This is true in nations, in churches, and in homes. When a father says, “We serve Christ now,” God honors that leadership. When a president says, “We will obey God,” that is not coercion—it is submission. And it is good.

Rulers are not above Christ. They are His servants. Their duty is to kiss the Son and govern righteously. They cannot save souls, but they can uphold justice, restrain evil, and create peace in which the gospel flourishes. That matters.

We need pastors preaching truth. We need men discipling their families. We need mothers raising children in the faith. We also need governors, presidents, and lawmakers who fear God and obey His Word. This is not either-or. It is all-in.

Those who insist it must only be bottom-up ignore the Bible and deny history. And those who have given up on the possibility of civil or social reformation aren’t arguing strategy—they’ve already surrendered.

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