For sure. I was listening to one of Mohler’s Thinking in Public podcasts where he chats with an Australian politician who speaks of “a cut flower society” that quickly withers after being severed from its source.
In my work place at least, for the number of times their names came up, Daniel and his friends would have almost immediately been labeled trouble makers. Go along to get along is not the lesson de jour. It was God’s divine sovereignty that he used their faithfulness to demonstrate his power to a wicked ruler and a wicked nation and cause them to repent, eventually.
I think sometimes, people misread Daniel and use it to teach that we are all supposed to submit and obey, when the command does not violate God’s law, but even that is overly simplistic. I mean how often to we expect the pagans to actually obey God’s law?
Consider when Jesus says render unto Cesar what is Cesar’s and unto God what is God’s. We often take this to mean somethings belong to Cesar that doesn’t belong to God. This statement is actually a question with a veiled answer and the hearer must make a decision. I mean did Cesar make the fish, and did he cause it to vomit up a denarius in the presence of the rulers? What exactly doesn’t belong to God?
But back to obeying…How many times do we violate God’s law, even when we love what God loves and hate what God hates, as believers. So how often will our lives go up against ungodly rulers who most certainly love what He hates? If we are seeking to please the Lord, I would expect quite a bit. Basically, we are to be innocent, not malleable doormats for our wicked rulers. There’s a tension for sure.
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I think the answer lies in the Church’s duty to disciple the nations:
Matthew 28:18–20
And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
That discipleship is usually a long process. We need to faithfully obey Christ’s commission, knowing that the leaven spreads slowly and joyfully suffering in the mean time. But we need to suffer with hope as we actually do the work of teaching the nations to obey all that God has commanded. We modern American Christians have totally neglected that for generations, now.
We also need to obey the Apostle Paul’s command:
1 Timothy 2:1–2
First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.
In the context, I believe our prayer for the magistrates must focus on their salvation (verses 3–4: “This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth”). As they come to repent of their sins and know the Lord, they will be able to understand true justice and righteousness and apply it in the civil sphere (as Romans 13 requires), just like a newly-converted father begins to apply it in his home. Slow work, to be sure, but God promises to bring good fruit.
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I quite agree with the following caveat; go along to get along isn’t the message (I don’t think) of 1 Peter 2:18-20 where submission to authority, even a badly behaving one, is related to Christ’s suffering.
Are there instances where showing respect to an authority figure actually glorifies God even when that authority is being abused/misapplied etc?
In the same vein I think of a wife submitting to her husband “as to the Lord.” He (we) won’t do his job well all the time as much as he tries to, yet she is called to submit to her husband’s authority.
Thanks for the back and forth! Really fun.
I think it is important to keep in mind that one big change that happened in very recent times compared to the rest of history is that authority in most of our societal institutions is no longer personally exercised. Let us not think that Daniel had to adhere to some gigantic Babylonian Policies and Procedures Manual as he carried out his duties. Rather, he could carry out his tasks as he saw fit while receiving unquestioned obedience from his subordinates. One also sees this world in the Westminster Catechism. But it is not the world that we live in. Personal authority carried out in personal relationships is heavily circumscribed by bureaucratic procedure in our world, and we are instead burdened by impersonal authority over us and through us. The prevalence of the Policies and Procedures Manual, I think, makes it more difficult for Christians to live in a righteous manner.
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Agreed, I enjoy the back and forth as well. Thanks for the opportunity.
Absolutely, the disrespect, disdain and dishonor many Christians show to this current President is perfect example of how Daniel didn’t behave under a wicked leadership. Again, we are to be as innocent as doves and as wise and serpents.
We can plead, and maybe at times our personal faithfulness can become inconvenient to the public image of that leader, but trying to force them, or seeking to make them look bad or showing public disrespect is not worthy of our faith.
I think about Moses pleading with Pharoh. He wasn’t there to say that he was an illegitimate Pharoh or berate and call him names. Instead he warned him, and plead that the Lord would do as He had promised. Moses was no Che Guevara, and yet in the end the Lord caused the Egyptian to invite their own pilfering by the people of YHWH.
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This is very important in understanding the quagmire we are in currently. We now govern by formulas and “data”, and not by wisdom.
This provides cover in two ways: for cowards to hide behind the rulebook, and for wicked rulers who know how to manipulate through the rulebook.
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Amen. Isn’t it a problem that some bible bashers like us are social justice types, some are more libertarian and still others are nationalist (in the Yoram Hazony sense, not the tiki torch people sense).
Not really, because there are a lot of ways that disciplining the nations happens. The real problem is those who explicitly say that the church should not be involved in such work—the R2K error.
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R2k, now these are the “worship at home and church” only people are they not? No public involvement of any kind, just watch it burn.
Yes. Kind of like those who say the Bible’s commands to men and women only apply in the church and home. In both cases they would say, “Well, when you go out into the world, of course you are still a Christian (or man, or woman), and you continue to act accordingly.” But they can’t seem to find any particular way to “act accordingly” that is actually required.
Edited to add: Here’s a good link to intro series about R2K (Radical Two Kingdom):
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I think I need to read this whole series.
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I’ve read them, they’re currently digesting.
In one of these posts T Bayly combats the idea that a sodomy law is no different than a law demanding people pray a certain way/ attend Clearnote/ other particular religious requirements. It is a false dichotomy smokescreen.
I can’t remember in which of the posts it is written or I’d quote it for the sake of accuracy
An old friend of mine ( who hated the gospel ) once challenged me in a similar fashion. He informed me of my options, either I celebrated LGBBQ etc or I was shoulder to shoulder with Westboro.
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And some of those same people will argue that cultural Marxist Social Justice is a Christian obligation. It’s enough to make your head spin.
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Yep, he was neck deep in intersectionality and the rest.
You poor guy. Drink some baking soda. Love,
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Dear Joel,
We don’t have to adhere to policies and procedures today either, though. When we see those policies and procedures we take it as a commitment on the part of our masters to discipline us if we go off the approved track, and in faith we judge that it’s prudent to refrain from the course we intended – or in sinful fear we shrink back and avoid doing what we were convinced we should have done. But in neither case are the policies and procedures to blame, it’s our own agency.
I think that our brothers from back in the days when a king could have you tossed into a furnace because he didn’t like what you said would get a good laugh out of our generation thinking our hands are tied due to the policies and procedures, when their very lives were on the line whenever they so much as spoke a word to the king!
A lot of times the thing we worry we should do actually isn’t prudent, wise, or necessary–and sometimes it’s actually wrong. These things must be faced with a clear conscience and with counsel from God-fearing brothers and fathers, and if then if the path of love and good deeds lies contrary to the policies and procedures, so much the worse for the policies and procedures.
(And at the point a man acts, it is then the authority’s call whether to carry out what the policy manual says at that point, or not. That’s not automatic either.)
Love,
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Daniel,
Serious question: if you are in a supervisory position at your workplace, how do you apply WLC Q. 129?
All non-Christians trying to make you implement a social justice agenda because of your faith are just using your faith as a club to beat you with. It’s an inherently bad-faith argument.
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@jtbayly and @tbbayly I realise it’s a long post but does the critique below apply to the R2K people? Is this their error?
This was written by a Catholic chap called Budziszewski
neutralism . According to this notion the virtue of tolerance requires suspending judgments about good and evil; according to Christianity it requires making judgments about good and evil. We can break neutralism into three components. According to the Quantitative Fallacy, the meaning of tolerance is tolerating; therefore, the more you tolerate, the more tolerant you are. According to the Skeptical Fallacy, the best foundation for tolerance is to avoid having strong convictions about good and evil; therefore, the more you doubt, the more tolerant you are. According to the Apologetic Fallacy, if you can’t help having strong convictions the next best foundation for tolerance is refusing to express or act upon them; therefore, the more pusillanimous you are, the more tolerant you are.
Closely examined, each fallacy explodes itself. If you really believe that the meaning of tolerance is tolerating, then you ought to tolerate even intolerance. If you really believe that the best foundation for tolerance is to avoid having any strong convictions at all about right and wrong, then you shouldn’t have a strong conviction that intolerance is wrong. If you really believe that when you do have strong convictions you should refuse to express or act upon them, then your tolerance should be a dead letter; it should be one of the things you are pusillanimous about.
But if consistent neutralism is self-refuting, then why is it so persistent? How is it possible for it to live on in our newspapers, on the television, in the schoolroom, and even in the pulpit? There are two main reasons for its vigor. The first reason is that it is never practiced consistently. Rather it is used selectively as a weapon for demoralizing Christians and other opponents. For the neutralist too has strong convictions; it’s just that his convictions aren’t the ones he says one shouldn’t act upon. Consistent neutralism would hold that if it is intolerant to express the conviction that unborn babies should not be torn from the womb, then it is also intolerant to express the conviction that they may be torn from the womb. By contrast, selective neutralism remembers itself only long enough to condemn the defenders of life.
The second reason for the vigor of neutralism is that it encourages the illusion that we can escape from moral responsibility for our beliefs and decisions. “I am innocent of this man’s blood; it is your responsibility”—in these words Pilate implied that one can authorize a wrong without taking sides. “I am neither for nor against abortion; I’m for choice”—this statement is based on the same view of responsibility as Pilate’s. Indeed in trying to evade our choices we set ourselves not only against the laws of conscience but also against the laws of logic, for between two meaningful propositions X and not-X there is no middle ground; if one is true, the other is false. Even the pagans knew that.
What then is the truth about tolerance? The meaning of this virtue is not tolerating per se, but tolerating what ought to be tolerated. Practicing it means putting up with just those bad things that, for the sake of some greater good, we ought to put up with. We aren’t practicing the virtue when we fail to put up with bad things that we ought to put up with, such as the expression of false opinions in debate; nor are we practicing it when we do put up with bad things that we ought not to put up with, such as rape. But making such distinctions requires knowing the truth about goods, bads, and greater goods. There is nothing neutral about that. It requires that we avoid not strong convictions, but false convictions; it requires not refusing to act, but acting. As Abraham Kuyper, J. B. Phillips, and C. S. Lewis have said in nearly identical words, “There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.”