2.4 Joining a Club (radical evangelicalism series)

2.1 The State of Faith in America
2.2 Dunk and Run
2.3 Lasting Conversion
_______________________
2.4 Joining a Club
12. My first real adventures into sociology came from my study of the New Testament. [13] I became exposed to how differently people thought in Bible times than how I thought growing up in America. I learned that the ancient world was a group-oriented culture, while I had grown up in an "individualist" culture. I learned that, while my culture emphasized being "true to yourself" and thinking independently, the ancient world was an "honor-shame" culture.

Honor-shame cultures prize being true to your group. You wanted to bring honor to your group and avoid bringing your group shame. Meanwhile, I had been taught that ethics were the same for everyone. As an American, I had been taught that there should be "equal justice under the law." I had been taught that every citizen gets to vote and that everyone's vote should count.

Even more, I had grown up thinking that these were biblical, Christian values too. Love your enemy meant that you treat those outside your group with respect. "All truth is God's truth" meant that truth was truth no matter who was saying it or where it came from. If an atheist says something true, it's true, and if a Christian says something that's false, it's false. Truth is truth, no matter where it comes from.

Group cultures value loyalty. But I grew up thinking -- both as a Christian and an American -- that the real truth trumped your group's interests. Right and wrong involved absolutes, and absolutes apply no matter who you are or what group you belong to. But in group cultures, protecting the reputation of your group is more important than the truth. "We protect our own."

13. As I've observed humanity in the course of my life, I've come to believe that Western individualism is really the exception. Most cultures in history -- in fact, most people even in the West -- are group oriented. We are tribal by default. As a philosopher, I have come to think that humanity is a "herd animal" -- at least fallen humanity. Aristotle put it more tactfully -- we are a "political" animal.

I've come to believe that we have to be trained to be individualistic. Now, we don't have to be trained to be selfish -- that's something different. But we have to be trained to think in categories like universal rights or universal values. We have to be trained to think that I get to decide what I think and what I should do. The human default is to think like your group.

The human norm is peer pressure. The human norm is what in 1 Corinthians we might call a "party spirit." "I am of Paul." "I am of Apollos" (1 Cor. 1:12). In short, my group is better than your group. "You can't be a Christian and be a Democrat." "Trump supporters are deplorables, clinging to their guns and religion."

Racism is the human norm -- my race is better than your race. The same with sexism -- men are smarter than women. Paul surely didn't really mean that "in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, not 'male and female'" (Gal. 3:28). The human norm is to put our groups into a hierarchy, not to form judgments on individuals based on their individual merits.

14. Sociology calls this "in group/out group" dynamics. [14] My group is good. Your group is bad -- or at least inferior. When someone in my group does something good, I point that out as exactly what my group is like. If someone in your group does something bad, I point that out as exactly what your group is like.

I used to visit my elderly mother a couple times a year and a particular news outlet was always on. It seemed to me that there was a regular stream of news segments with a person of color or an undocumented immigrant doing something bad. I thought to myself, "If I watched this channel all the time, I probably would end up thinking that all illegal immigrants were evil criminals." Of course, the statistics don't bear that conclusion out. [15]

15. Like every country, America has always had its groups. High-minded thinkers might say things like "all men are created equal," but the ordinary person has more typically lived in groups. When I was a boy, we told Polack jokes and blond jokes. The public school tried to train "group think" out of us. I didn't realize it, but the reason there were black students and teachers at my middle school was because of desegregation. For me, it was just normal.

But the human default -- group identity -- has always lurked there, below the surface.

In America today, group culture is very much on the rise. Indeed, it seems to me that, at its heart, the Trump phenomenon is not really so much a conservative versus liberal phenomenon as it is an individualistic versus group culture conflict. Many conservatives have repeatedly critiqued the Trump administration. The response has been to call them "RINOs" -- "Republicans in Name Only."

In other words, you are being disloyal to the group. Those conservatives are evaluating Trump according to universal truth and conservative principles. His response is, "I am the leader of the group and you're being disloyal." As is the case with group cultures, the truth is what's true for my group, not some universal truth.

16. Let me give an example from a recent post made by the president:

You can see the "us-them" nature of the post, expecting total loyalty from his group. Any lack of conformity by the "in-group" will be met with expulsion from the group. Meanwhile, the out-group is depicted as thoroughly evil.

This is classic group culture. What is true is what the President says is true. The good people are, by definition, those who are part of his group. Disloyalty to the group will not be tolerated.

Mind you, these underlying dynamics to group culture are often clothed in rational argument. Indeed, it can take great feats of intellect to find explanations for claims or behaviors that on the surface seem to obviously point to a different conclusion than the one your group wants to think.

Yet the most loyal to the group will believe such explanations every time. What's important is that there is an explanation, not whether it actually makes sense.

17. You may be wondering what this has to do with the church. The church is not immune to group culture. Indeed, it has fewer guardrails against it than the Western world. The American Constitution is meant to preserve individual rights and values. I believe these actually reflect some of the Judeo-Christian fumes of our founding.

But fallen human nature pushes us to form groups. We are Baptists and Methodists and Lutherans and Catholics. Our group has the right answers -- the right interpretations of the Bible, for example. We make creedal statements and then insist that you must agree to them to be in our group. If you fall out of line, we'll kick you out.

Free thinkers don't do well in these contexts. We really don't want people reading the Bible and coming to their own conclusions. We want them to read the Bible and assume our conclusions.

18. You might say, "That may have been the past, but people don't care much about denominations any more." That's true. The group identities have changed. They're still there. They're just different.

I always smile when people say, "I go to a non-denominational church. We just follow the Bible." Tell me what your church teaches. Tell me how and when you baptize. Tell me whether tongues are approved or rejected. 

Actually, you probably don't even need to tell me. Give me ten minutes at your church and I'll tell you which group -- which tradition -- you are part of without knowing it. Chances are, you're Baptist with a twist. 

For the most part, the new group is white evangelicalism. It has flattened out the old denominations into a gray Baptist melange. The fries are tongues and the charismata. "Would you like tongues with that?" This is your typical megachurch -- Baptist with or without the tongues.

19. But the kingdom of God is not a fallen human group. The kingdom of God is neither Democrat nor Republican. It is neither Trump supporting nor following any other human leader or figure.

The kingdom of God is the kingdom of, well, GOD. It is the kingdom of Jesus Christ. It cuts across all human loyalties and is oriented around the King of Kings. If any human group lays absolute claim on our loyalties, it is anathema. Let it be accursed.

Jesus is Lord. Not Caesar. Not my church. Not my political party. Not my family.

Jesus. God and God alone.

[13] Groundbreaking here was Bruce Malina's The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (Westminster John Knox, 1981).

[14] There is an underlying reason why sociology has come under fire in Florida, and it isn't the surface reasons being given. Sociology exposes what's really going on in human culture underneath the surface. It lays bare the underlying motives and dynamics of human interaction in ways that bristle against group culture. It is no surprise that the "group" wants to shut it down.

That is not to say that there aren't group dynamics and extremes in much sociology teaching at state schools. Nor is it to deny that many state school subjects are taught with "anti-supernaturalist presuppositions." I am merely claiming that these political moves are likely more group driven than truth driven.

[15] Very common in present culture is what is known as the "you also" fallacy (tu quoque). You critique something on one side, and the response is "but you didn't critique the other side." It's a more sophisticated version of the "He started it" accusation of our childhoods. It's a deflection technique.

But the underlying dynamic I am pointing out here is the difference between group think and truth think. "Truth think" certainly involves bias, but its goal and method is universal truth. "Group think" has no universal standard for truth. It only aims to support the claims of its group by whatever means works. Unfortunately, the rise of postmodernism in the 1990s and 2000s has given a sophisticated green light for culture to be untethered from "truth think."

All media has bias (though probably some more than others). But not all media has as its aim the establishment and reinforcement of group identity. The rise of this sort of media in America has been a key feature of the twenty-first century.

_______________________
1. What is Evangelicalism?
1.1 Revivals of the 1700s and 1800s
1.2 The "New" Evangelicalism
1.3 The Poltical Takeover

6.1 The State is Never the Kingdom. (philosophy)

Last night the next group of philosophers in training started social and political philosophy. We primarily went through Niebuhr's five ways Christians have engaged culture. But since I am going beyond my classes in this blog series, I thought I would start with some fundamentals.
___________________________
1. One of the basic principles of theology--the study of God--is that any earthly, visible church is not the same as the invisible, spiritual church. Your local church may be great. The denomination to which you belong may be great. But it is not the same as the one, true, invisible church. This is one of the most basic things you learn in Christian theology.

Protestants especially believe this. But it is true even for Roman Catholics. The Roman Catholic Church openly admits that not all of its popes have been godly. The church has had periods of great corruption. No earthly church is ever the same as the true church. 

Even when you dig into the earliest councils of the church, you will find huge instances of all-too-human politics and ungodliness. The church erased a council in 449 that would have likely changed what we believe about Christ for all time. At that council, a bishop was beaten to death and those present were forced to sign a blank document that was filled in later. 

Afterwards, the emperor's horse tripped and killed him. Because that emperor died, there came a different emperor who backed a different position--the one we believe today about Christ being one person with two natures. They had another council two years later (Chalcedon) and erased the first one. Chalcedon established what almost all Christians believe today about Christ being fully human and fully divine.

The one, true church is invisible. No earthly, visible church is equivalent to it.

2. If this is true of the church, it is absolutely true of any earthly, visible state or country. Think about it, is the state more likely to be holy than the church? It's really an absurd thought. If the visible church is never the same as the true church then the state absolutely is never the same as the kingdom of God.

It's important to point out that this is a major blind spot for some Christians at times. We have recognized the dangers of civil religion for as long as people have confused patriotism for worship. Various forms of religious nationalism can't tell the difference between fervor for a particular vision of a country and the worship of God. 

And those infected can't see it. In fact, they are more zealous for the state than they ever were for God. At its worse, they are ready to kill those who do not bend to their vision of the state. They become hard hearted, and anyone whose loyalty to their vision is in question becomes the worst of evil.

In our times, Nazi Germany is of course the classic example, where loyalty to Hitler's Germany became indistinguishable from state Christianity. When German Christians in the 1930s tried to merge Christianity with nationalism, the true church responded with something called the Barmen Declaration. 

This statement pointed out that "Jesus Christ [that is, not Hitler or Germany] is the one Word of God whom we must hear and obey in life and in death." When the state insisted that it was God's kingdom on earth, they rejected "the false doctrine that the church could recognize other powers as God’s revelation."

Whenever our love of nation takes on a fervor that should only be reserved for God, we have begun to lose sight of the real God and our vision for the state has become an idol. The state has become a god for us.

The kingdom of this world is never the same as the kingdom of our God.

3. There may be times when an earthly state aligns more or less with the kingdom than at other times, but we should always be clear. No earthly kingdom is ever identical to the kingdom of God.

It is essential that we never confuse or blur the two.

A theocracy is allegedly a state ruled by God. But apart from the days of Moses, there has never been one and will never be one till Christ actually returns. The book of the Judges, when Israel was allegedly a theocracy, was one of the most godless periods of Israel's history, when everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

In so-called theocracies, there is always a group of priests or a Pope or an Ayatollah interpreting what God says. Theocracies are thus really monarchies (rule by one) or something called an oligarchy (rule by a few) in disguise. 

Sure, someone might say they are only letting the Bible rule--but it is always their interpretation of the Bible. In Calvin's Geneva, the rule of the Bible was the rule of John Calvin's interpretation of the Bible. And in Puritan England and Puritan New England when they were in charge, it was their interpretation of the Bible that ruled. If you were a Mary Dyer or Roger Williams, you were either ousted or put to death.

No earthly state--even if it claims to be a theocracy--can be equivalent to the kingdom of God because humans are involved. A human has to tell the people what God says. A human has to implement what they think God says. A human has to interpret the Bible. 

And people are sinful. "There is none righteous, no not one" (Rom. 3:10). The Founding Fathers of the United States thoroughly took that into account. They put extensive "checks and balances" into the Constitution so that the evil, sinful nature of one person or group was counteracted by other individuals and groups in the government.

This is part of why Jesus, Paul, and the rest of the New Testament strongly distinguished between the church and the state. Jesus told his questioners to "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's" (Mark 12:17). And Paul told the Philippians--living in a Roman colony--that they were citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20). 

The implication was that their political identity did not lie with Rome but with God in heaven. Hebrews and 1 Peter imply the same when they call citizens exiles and aliens (Heb. 11:13; 1 Pet. 1:17).

The Founding Fathers were thus wise to dictate that "Congress shall establish no religion." Thomas Jefferson called this a "wall of separation" between the state and religion. It was all too clear to the Founding Fathers that, if there were a state religion, it would end up oppressing the people like the Puritans had in New England or like the kings, queens, and Puritans of England had in the 1500s and 1600s.

3. Lord Acton put the principle wisely: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." [1] For this reason, it is best for the church to always be distinct from the state and for there to be more than one church at that. There is surely a correlation between the amount of power someone has and the danger of corruption and corrupt impact. 

It is not an absolute correlation, but it is a general one.

And since wealth brings power, the same correlation is in play there. The more wealthy a person is, the more powerful a person is. And the more powerful a person is, the greater the potential for corruption and corrupt impact. 1 Timothy 6:10 was not lying when it said that "the love of money is a root of all evils."

At times, Western culture has at least given some appearances of resisting these trends. But the more you dig into history, the more you realize that corruption has never been far away from any period of rulers. We celebrate the apparent exceptions. Yet even here the public doesn't always know what has happened behind the scenes.

These are not absolutes. They are tendencies and warnings with serious implications about how society would ideally be structured. The main take aways are 1) keep power from being concentrated in the hands of the few and 2) keep religion separate from the state with the state as a neutral zone. 

Of course, at any given time, most of us don't have a choice about these things. We are born in a particular place and time, and the state is a given.

[1] In an 1887 letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton

___________________________

Introduction
1.1 What is philosophy?
1.2 Is philosophy Christian?
1.3 Unexamined assumptions
1.4 Socrates and the Unexamined Life
1.5 The Natural Philosophers 

Logic
2.1 The Structure of Thinking 
2.2 When Thinking Goes Wrong
2.3 Three Tests for Truth
2.4 Knowing the Bible
2.5 Plato and Aristotle
2.6 The Story of Logic 
2.7 Hellenistic Philosophy

Philosophy of Religion
3.1 Faith and Reason
3.2 How can we know that God exists?
3.3 God as First Cause 
3.4 God as Intelligent Designer
3.5 God as Necessary Being (including ontological argument)
3.6 God and Morality
3.7 God and Miracles
3.8 The Problem of Evil
3.9 Augustine and Aquinas

Philosophy of the Person
4.1 What is a human being?
4.2 A Body and a Soul?
4.3 What is the meaning of life? (including existentialism)
4.4 Are we free or fated? 

Ethics

Social and Political Philosophy
6.1 The State is Never the Kingdom (this post)
6.2 How to Structure Government 
6.3 Kingdom Values for Society
6.4 Christ and Culture
6.5 The Social Contract (equal rights and utilitarianism)
6.6 Adam Smith vs Karl Marx

Epistemology
7.1 Beyond Binary Thinking
7.2 Plato's Allegory of the Cave
7.3 Reason vs. Experience
7.4 Kant Breaks the Tie
7.5 The Bible as Object of Knowledge
7.6 Wittgenstein and Language
7.7 Kuhn and Paradigms
7.8 Foucault and Power
7.9 A Pragmatic Epistemology

Metaphysics
8.1 Hard Times for Metaphysics
8.2 A Brief Story of Metaphysics

8.3 A Plug for Critical Realism  

Pensée 5.3: There are two core principles of governance.

Thus far, I have suggested that anarchy and communism are unworkable social forms. Similarly, I have argued that monarchies and supposed theocracies are unreliable. What then are the optimal forms of governance? Before we get there, let's lay down the guide rules.

1. There are two core goals of governance. The primary one is to protect the "rights" of each individual. (I use the word rights loosely because we do not as yet have a basis for assigning them.) We need certain "guidelines" in place for us to live among each other in peace.

The second core goal of governance is to facilitate the greatest good for the greatest number. This is of course utilitarianism. Utilitarianism alone will not lead to maximal thriving, but it is a huge first step. 

For example, it might lead to a greater total happiness to eliminate a particular group of people who are strongly disliked by the majority. But that course of action is disallowed by the guidelines. (In the United States, those guidelines are chiefly found in the Bill of Rights.)

When we put these two principles together as a framework, we have a strong foundation for a society that has the potential to thrive maximally and approach some kind of maximal happiness (eudaimonia) in terms of its structures.  

2. How can we support these two core principles? It is difficult in the absence of some grounding assumptions. For example, as a Christian, I can invoke the theological claim that all humans are created in the image of God and are thus intrinsically valuable. Every human being -- no matter how vile -- has a fundamental dignity that must be maintained even in judgment. "Rights" are thus "endowed by their Creator," as the Declaration of Independence states.

So, from a Christian standpoint, the fundamental value of each human being is something to protect. And if the fundamental ethic is to love one another, then a society that maximizes good for everyone is simply the love principle played out on a societal level.

Is there a grounding principle that might be used in the absence of religious assumptions? Probably the most likely one is the notion of a social contract. A group of people come to an agreement on the basis of mutual advantage. In terms of "rights," I recognize that it is to my advantage to agree not to kill you if you will agree not to kill me. In some specific situation, it might be to your advantage to eliminate me. But before that situation can arise, we both agree not to kill each other.

We thus grant each other rights. They are assigned for our mutual advantage. Then this mutual advantage is extrapolated to the whole system on a societal level.

Certainly, we'll need some way to guarantee this agreement. We create a police force of some sort to make sure we both keep the rules. We create consequences for violation of the contract.

On a societal level, I stand a better chance of thriving if the rules are set up to maximize the thriving of the whole society. True, there will always be those who have a particular set of skills and circumstances that would allow them to succeed on the backs of others. But since I do not know if I will be one of those individuals, I commit to rules that aim at the thriving of as many as possible and rules that keep the conniving from exploiting others.

When I am healthy, when I am prospering, it is easy for me to vote against resources being used for those who are not. But I do not know when I will get sick. I do not know when the tide may turn against me in some way. So, I commit to rules that have a safety net of some kind for those who, for whatever reason, fall off the majority path. It could happen to me.

3. Let me note that selfish human nature will constantly balk at this system. The ideal system aims at the greatest good for the greatest number. But we are wired to seek the greatest pleasure for me (egoism). In any one situation, it may be to my personal advantage to break the rules of society in general.

That is why we have rules enforced by a justice system -- to keep you (and me) from breaking the rules such that the rest of us are harmed.

Humanity is also a herd animal. When we are not trying to break the rules to our individual advantage, we will try to skew the rules to advantage our group, whatever it might be. Again, that is why we have a justice system, to keep individuals and groups from breaking the rules.

4. The rules are kept in two places. First, there is the Constitution. This is the core set of principles that lay down the social contract. The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution sets out our social contract in its simplest terms:

We the people in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.

What follows thereafter is a framework that was intended to accomplish the ideals of the American founding. Key to the passage of the Constitution was a Bill of Rights, without which it would not have been ratified.

If the full embodiment of the two core values was not fully in place with the initial version of the Constitution, it would be worked out in the years that followed. In particular, the Civil War resulted in some core modifications to the vision of America. This more complete version was less skewed toward the privileged but was "of the people, by the people, for the people," as Lincoln put it. 

A great society is not one in which a select few prosper but one in which as many people as possible prosper. Building on the core principles, it is better for a large number of people to prosper to some degree than for a small number to prosper fantastically. But it is not a zero sum game. One person's prosperity does not automatically imply that someone else is not prospering. We can all prosper together. More on this concept when we get to economic philosophy.

The details of the Constitution have long been a work in progress. "Strict constructionists" often portray themselves as noble and slander others as "legislating from the bench." However, historically, this has usually been a struggle between judges who are trying to play out the fundamental principles of the social contract versus those who want to restrict the rights of some group against its spirit. 

In other words, strict constructionism is almost always used in order to constrain some group from its potentially assigned "rights" under the social contract. Historically, we are speaking of slaves, freed blacks, women, gay individuals, etc. The letter of the law has often allowed the majority to restrict such individuals from full participation in society. More often than not, those who are called "judicial activists," have actually been trying to extend the fundamental rights of the Constitution in a more thoroughgoing way. Certainly, we can debate the details.

5. If the Constitution sets the large guidelines for the social contract, the varied laws of the land are meant to play out that contract into the local and daily lives of its participants, which is everyone who lives here. As John Locke put it, if you stay here, you are giving "tacit consent" to the laws of the land.

I personally think that maximal happiness generally correlates to maximum freedom, as long as my freedom does not unreasonably impinge on your freedoms and "rights." As Jefferson put it, "That government governs best that governs least." However, the modern world is a complex place, and there are very different people and countless factors here. What that means is that government will inevitably be large and complex. 

Nevertheless, the goal of maximal libertarian freedom remains. 

Pensée 5.2: Monarchies and theocracies aren't reliable.

1. Plato (ca. 428-347) believed that the ideal government was rule under a king. For Plato, this should be a "philosopher king," someone who ruled according to wisdom and virtue. [1] For him, these individuals in theory could be men or women. The key was that their minds were able to contemplate the "forms" behind all the reality we see. Of course, when he tried to put his ideas into practice by mentoring the king's son in Syracuse, he utterly failed. When the heir became king, he did whatever he wanted. 

It's good to be the king.

Aristotle also thought that a benevolent monarchy might be the best form of government in theory. A king has the authority to get done what needs to be done. There is an efficiency to that much power. People generally do what you tell them to when you're the king. If a king is wise and good, a monarchy would be the ideal. [2]

The problem is that you can't count on a king being wise or good. Accordingly, from a practical perspective, Aristotle thought the best form of government would more likely be a "polity," a mixture of ordinary people and the wealthy ruling under a Constitution. Aristotle also had an opportunity to mentor a future king. His student, Alexander the Great, turned out much better than Plato's.

2. As I said in the previous pensée, few of us get to choose what sort of a government we have. Nevertheless, Aristotle captures the situation well. In theory, a benevolent monarchy under the rule of a wise and good king (or queen) might be ideal. [3] But you can't count on a king being either wise or good. 

More often than not, the role of a king is passed down from parent to child. History is full of bloodshed in the moment between rulers. If there is more than one child, they may vie for the throne -- despite rules that have been set up. Any moment of weakness tends to be seized by the most powerful forces that see their chance to step in and take over the throne.

Even if the transition is peaceful, the one who takes over the throne may not be as virtuous as their parent. They may not be as intelligent or gifted as their parent. And you are stuck with them for life.

The Bible is full of examples of these dynamics. After Solomon, Israel has two kingdoms, a northern kingdom and a southern one. The northern kingdom is the story of one bad king after another with repeated coups and overthrows of the sitting dynasty. Similarly, from the perspective of 1 and 2 Kings, few of the kings in the South are truly virtuous, although the Davidic dynasty at least manages to stay intact.

The bottom line is that while the idea of a monarchy has some strong aspects to commend it, in practice it is unreliable over the long haul. And the fact that a kingship is for life means you may be stuck with a buffoon or tyrant for decades. For this reason, less power invested in an executive is advisable, with clear checks and balances on a leader's power.

3. A theocracy aims to be direct rule by a god. When Moses and Joshua led Israel, that in theory was a period of theocracy. God met Moses regularly at the Tent of Meeting and gave him instruction, and Moses consistently obeyed. Similarly, we see Joshua consistently leading Israel in the conquest in obedience to God.

However, that's it. The period of the judges is hardly a period when Israel did what was right. Quite to the contrary, the period is described as a time when everyone did what was right in their own eyes (Judg. 21:25). Most Old Testament scholars similarly would suggest that even the portrayal of theocratic rule in the Pentateuch and Joshua is somewhat idealized.

In general, the problem with a theocracy is that the will of the god has to be moderated and interpreted by someone. In reality, a theocracy ends up being less the rule of a god as the rule of a country by priests or a single prophetic figure. It is a monarchy in disguise or an aristocracy in disguise, where an aristocracy is allegedly rule by the "best."

Take Iran, whose highest authority is the Supreme Leader. Although there is an elected president as well, this most powerful role is held by an Islamic cleric -- a religious leader. In theory, this Ayatollah runs the country as Allah wants it to be run. But in reality, who is running the show? It is the Ayatollah, the one who tells the people what Allah thinks. In many ways, this gives him far more authority than a king, because he allegedly is representing god.

4. When John Calvin (1509-1564) ran Geneva or the Puritans ran the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1600s, those leaders certainly thought they were running the city or state the way that God wanted it to be run. But in the end, it was their interpretation of the Bible. Such "theocracies" typically turn out to be oppressive to someone with a different interpretation.

This is the great blind spot of so much Protestantism. The Bible has to be interpreted. Therefore, a theocracy will never fully be rule by God. It will inevitably be rule by the one who gets to interpret the Bible for everyone else.

As I write this pensée, a particular segment of evangelical Christianity has unprecedented influence in the United States. No doubt the greatest of these influencers think they are simply trying to make America's laws and practices mirror the Bible. What many don't realize is that it is their interpretation of the Bible that they are trying to impose on the nation. And few if any of them are actually legitimate experts on the Bible. It seems quite likely that they will bring a similar oppression that has almost always accompanied attempts to impose a particular religious understanding on a people (think sharia law in Muslim countries).

Theocracies are thus smoke and mirror monarchies and oligarchies. They are unreliable forms of government because their true basis isn't even what they claim it is.

[1] Plato, Republic 472a-474b.

[2] Aristotle, Politics 1279a–1288b.

[3] Aristotle did not think a woman could be a wise and good ruler. He thought women were "uncooked men," in effect. Unfortunately, his ideas on the structures of the household were in the cultural water, resulting in the social structures that the household codes of the New Testament try to redeem (e.g., compare Ephesians 5:21-6:9 with Aristotle, Politics 1253b–1255b. 

Pensée 5.1 Anarchy and communism are unworkable as forms of governance.

Thursday is usually my philosophy day, so here is a pensée from a little further down the line. Here was the first.
_______________________
1 The first question I want to address in the area of social and political philosophy has to do with the ideal form of government. What is it? Most of us do not have much say in the form of government under which we live. Perhaps we could migrate from one place to another. Occasionally, someone lives during a time of revolution and can either participate or resist. But almost none of us will be a Benjamin Franklin or an Oliver Cromwell or a Fidel Castro.

As a sidenote, I believe the United States is currently in a somewhat precarious position, and I have written as much in The United States versus Whatever This Is. There are forces that want to change the U.S. Constitution to make it more into their vision of a Christian nation. This is misguided for several reasons, not least a fundamental lack of biblical depth. But I will hold off my thoughts on theocracies until the next pensée.

In this pensée, I wish rather to address two forms of "government" that I strongly do not recommend and consider to be highly impractical. These are anarchy (rule by no one) and communism, which alleges that all property might be shared in common by a community with no one actually owning anything.

2. There were voices in the 1700s that thought a human in a primitive state would be pure. Thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) believed that society was often a corrupting influence on the good in humanity. [1] The purest human would be something like a "noble savage" that was not entangled by politics or social entanglements. Tarzan, if you would.

He was wrong. Human nature is human nature. A solitary human is a far more vulnerable human. A solitary human is unable to thrive as much as in a positive community. 

This is true, by the way, on a national scale. A country that tries to go it alone is a vulnerable country. I think of the villages along the coasts of the North Sea that were delighted to go about their own business until the Vikings came and took their stuff and burned their villages. Think of the way the English treated the Scots, who just wanted to be left alone. Even today, peaceful countries like Finland and Norway are in danger from agression from Russia and need allies.

As the African proverb goes, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

3. Not dissimilar to anarchy is the naive view of freedom that sometimes manifests itself in democratic countries like the United States. "It's a free country," someone might say. 

The problem of course is that no freedom is absolute, without exception. When freedoms come into conflict, they cannot equally be expressed. I am not free to kill you, for example. I am not free to steal your things. I have freedom of religion, but not if my religion involves child sacrifice. I have freedom of speech, but there is a line where my speech might directly lead someone to kill you. It is a very hard line to identify, but it exists and I am not free to cross it. I have the right to bear arms, but presumably not if I am a convicted serial killer.

It is quite amazing to me that some Americans seem quite irrational about such things. I am free as long as my freedoms do not substantially interfere with the freedoms of others. Anarchy is impractical because it allows my freedoms to harm you, which does not lead to a thriving society.

4. Of course, this naive view of freedom also is unbiblical. As Paul says, "Do not use your freedom as an opportunity to gratify the flesh" (Gal. 5:13). I am free to serve the Lord. I am free to love others, the verse goes on to say. 

The Corinthians were a good example of the naive view of freedom some Christians have. Paul tells them that everything may be lawful for them, but not everything is beneficial (1 Cor. 10:23). They boast in their freedom -- "I have knowledge" (1 Cor. 8:1). They think that because they know there are no other gods, they should be free to eat at pagan temples. "Nobody's home."

Paul corrects them. It's not about their rights, freedoms, and knowledge. It's about looking out for others. It's no coincidence that the love chapter is sandwiched in this sequence. Following Christ is not about me, me, me. It's about loving God and others.

5. Let me use the lock downs during COVID as an example. I recognize that there are those who question the effectiveness of quarantining and vaccines. Most experts continue to maintain that these were best practices and that, indeed, the slowness of the Trump administration to quarantine made the epidemic worse than it would have been. Those claims can of course be debated. For the sake of argument, however, let us assume that these protocols were legitimate.

If in fact they were legitimate, then arguments that the government was oppressing Christians or violating the freedom of religion are clearly misguided. Assuming legitimacy, the government was protecting the populace as its job is and those churches that insisted on meeting potentially were harming others -- even if unintentionally. 

Our freedom of religion does not allow us to harm others. And of course, churches were allowed to meet online -- there was no singling out of churches for oppression. Such claims seem to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of freedom in America. At worst, they strike one as rather selfish. Me, me, me. My rights and everyone else be damned.

I am not free to harm others.

6. Let me here assert two key axioms of the ideal society. First, it is a place that aims to bring about the greatest good for the greatest number possible. This is the utilitarian principle. Second, it aims to do so without violating the core rights of every individual. This is the principle behind the Bill of Rights and is technically called "universal ethical egoism." We set up a system that brings about the greatest good for everyone as much as possible. Within this framework, we aim for maximal human freedom.

More on these principles in a later pensée.

7. A second impractical way of structuring society is communistically. Communism is the notion that a society would not have private property but all property would be shared in common. Under the vision of Karl Marx, each person would work according to his or her ability but would receive back only in accordance with his or her need. [2] Marx naively imagined that all this would happen rather automatically if we could get private property out of the way.

We can imagine a situation where one person is sickly and is able to work very little. However, they require great resources. Someone else is extremely able bodied and is able to work incredibly effectively. However, they may need very little. Marx would say, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

Although it is no doubt accentuated by our culture, it feels like there is something unfair, perhaps unjust about this set up. The workers in the Parable of the Day Laborers feel it in Matthew 20:1-16. It seems unfair that those who worked one hour should be paid the same as those who worked all day. (Note of course that Jesus is on the "wrong" side of this one.)

8. In the end, communism doesn't work because of human nature. On the one hand, I will argue that society should take care of the person who cannot take care of him or herself. A great society would.

But a society that does not reward work and effort is not a society that thrives. We are made to strive. We are made to try to excel. From a biblical perspective, we were made to "subdue the earth," not in terms of trashing it but in terms of striving to become the best we can be.

The twentieth century attempts to create a thriving society through communism were all failures. They never even achieved a communist society but were able to get no further than a kind of authoritarian socialism. They ended up debasing humanity rather than elevating it. Eastern Europe was a failure. The Soviet Union was a failure. Cuba and North Korea have been failures when it comes to elevating everyone.

We will have time later to talk about economic philosophy. For the moment, let us simply note that true communal experiments have not lasted for long. The Shakers, Oneida, New York did not last. Usually, the most assertive voices simply run the show unofficially. The Metropolitan Church Association tried to live communally in Chicago and then Waukesha, Wisconsin. But in its latter days, it could only survive off the bequests of individuals joining the community. Eventually it had to close.

Neither anarchy nor communism are effective ways to structure society.

[1] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men (1755).

[2] Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto (1848).

3.4 All our thinking and living is enculturated (part 4)

The philosophy journey continues...

1.1 Unexamined Assumptions
1.2 "Unitary" Thinking
2.1 Binary Thinking in Ethics
2.2 Contextualization in Missions
2.3 Beyond Relativism and Absolutes
3.1 Setting the Stage for Political Conversation
3.2 Binary Thinking in Political Thinking
3.3 Assumptions about Christ and Culture I
_____________________________

18. There are other options. As an Arminian, I believe that God -- in his sovereignty no less -- gives us the freedom to disobey him. Yes, there will be eternal consequences. But he has built choice into the way he runs the world. Therefore, both because of human fallenness and because God has created a world where we have to choose, I believe the Western model that separates government from religion is actually a fair mirror of the way God runs the world.

As I (and most) understand the U.S. Constitution, there is meant to be a clear separation between religion and the law. Congress should not pass laws that are based on specifically religious beliefs or practices. It should allow Muslims and Hindus the freedom to practice their own religions unhindered. This is the now long-standing interpretation of the Constitution, and it has the wisdom of history behind it. We will explore this boundary in more detail soon enough.

Arguably none of the freedoms in the Constitution are absolutes. There are exceptions. If someone's religion involved sacrificing random individuals off the street, it would contradict a more fundamental principle. I am getting ahead of myself into some of the content of chapter 9. What we as Christians might call a basic moral code is really the basic stipulations of a social contract we make with each other. I won't kill you if you won't kill me. More on that to come as well.

This set up creates a distinction between what I as a Christian believe is right and what laws we should have as a nation. The Constitution largely sets us up as a relativist nation with regard to religion in general. The government is supposed to be agnostic with regard to which religion is correct (or if any of them are). You could argue that -- to a large extent -- this is how God is running the world before his second coming, although occasionally he might step in to steer the course of nations.

One way or another, we can have a lively debate about what we think God's approach is. He let the Nazis wreak havoc on the world for over ten years -- not very long. He gave the Amorites about four hundred years before he destroyed them. Nineveh got a reprieve because of their repentance but were fried a couple hundred years later.

So here is a question. We do not believe in gay marriage or abortion in the first trimester. What should the government do? Can we make a non-religious case against them in the secular sphere?

Or should we try to change the US Constitution and make America a religious state? There are people who would like to do so. Some would say that the forces associated with Project 2025 have ultimate goals along these lines. Are they correct? Perhaps we'll see. 

The question for now is about our unexamined assumptions. There are so many questions and so many options. Have we considered the options in perspective or are we blindly following the impulses handed to us by our upbringings and Christian subcultures?

Like the "Christ against culture" option, I believe many American Christians simply assume that the "Christ above culture" option is what Christians do. It is an unexamined assumption. And of course, others have unexamined assumptions on the "separation of church and state" side as well. Get these two sets of unexamined assumptions together at a Thanksgiving dinner table and let the fun begin. 

Are there aspects to American law that we would call "moral"? Yes, but I would argue that they technically should result from our implicit social contract with each other. Is freedom of religion absolute? No. There are clear exceptions. When freedoms come into conflict, they have to be prioritized. America was arguably designed to give us maximal religious freedom as long as our freedoms don't overrun the freedoms of others.

19. Some do not know how to reconcile their faith and religious identity with their existence and life within a secular environment. Some have therefore opted for a Christ and culture in paradox option. This option basically follows Christian faith when it is in a Christian context. Then it lives a potentially contradictory life in the world.  

Think "Sunday Christian." Worship God on Sunday and live like the Devil the rest of the week. I think of the mafia and organized crime movies I have seen where a family can be very religious on one level but then murderous on another. Go to Catholic mass and then have somebody murdered during the week. The contradiction doen't have to be that sharp.

Few of us face such sharp pressures unless they are of our own making. It is an incoherent life. But no doubt most of us have inconsistencies in our faith and life. These may come from blind spots we have. We might claim strongly that we don't have any racist attitudes when they are obvious to others. 

In the 1920s, large portions of white Protestant churches in certain regions (especially the South and Midwest) were deeply intertwined with the Ku Klux Klan, and many members saw no contradiction between Klan membership and their Christian faith. Indeed, there's a story from 1899 where Christians went to church and then took trains out near Newnan, Georgia to watch the lynching of Sam Hose. These individuals saw no contradiction between their faith and what seem to many of us blatantly unChristian attitudes and behaviors.

While most of us would dismiss this sort of "two kingdoms in paradox" approach, we probably all live it out to some extent in our lives.

20. Niebuhr called another approach "Christ in culture." Although it is not exactly how Niebuhr meant it, it is popular to connect this approach to Christians who are perceived to be taking on worldly values. They are conforming to the world and letting the world influence their Christianity. They are being "syncretistic" -- inappropriately mixing their Christian faith with worldly values.

I have most heard Christians point the finger here at the acceptance of homosexuality by other Christians. Acceptance of a homosexual lifestyle by Christians is placed in the category of accommodating worldly perspectives. Support of women in ministry has also been included at times in this category as absorbing worldly feminism. Another possible example is Christian Smith's concept of "Moral Therapeutic Deism." By this term, he referred to a sense of some young people that God is distant and mostly interested in whether you are a good person. The goal of life is to be happy.

In each case, the concept is that the Christian has absorbed foreign elements into their faith from the surrounding culture. In other words, your faith has been compromised without you realizing it. You have unexamined assumptions about what Christian faith actually is.

That leads to an important question. What is the difference between contextualization and syncretism? When are you simply giving your faith a different form and when are you actually altering the substance of your faith? Our faith is always incarnated. It can never be "de-formed" into some pure substance. So how can we tell when we are mixing our faith with hostile elements and when we are simply "re-incarnating" it?

21. Here's the kicker. All our thinking and living is enculturated. Culture is not simply something that is "out there." The church has a culture -- in fact many cultures and subcultures. Similarly, culture is not "buy one, get them all." Simplistic worldview thinking often suggests that if you accept one piece or element of a worldview, you are accepting the whole thing. This is the fallacy of composition.

I am amazed at how ludicrous such thinking is, and yet it is very common. "You believe the government can run the post office; therefore, you are a communist." It is nothing but another example of binary thinking. If the government were to run health care, we would be socialist. This is ludicrous illogic because, as we will see, there is a spectrum of possible degrees to which the government might administrate society.

With regard to the incorporation of culture into one's faith, I would argue that some of those who most point the finger toward others typically have significantly mixed their own faith with foreign cultural elements. Indeed, it is possible that some of the criticisms of other Christians can actually reveal foreign elements in one's own faith.

Let me use the issue of women in ministry as a case study. I come from a tradition that has ordained women since the 1800s. I like to say that we were ordaining women before it was cool. My tradition was part of the women's rights movement -- but the one in the mid-1800s when the question was whether women might vote and have fundamental rights that all but the most extreme assume today.

My old friend Kerry Kind used to sharply contrast that 1800s movement from the modern feminist movement of the 1950s and thereafter. I wasn't sure I completely saw the difference, but I could see what he was trying to do. He was basically saying, "The modern feminist movement might be worldly, but the one we were a part of wasn't." 

In my mind, the fundamental equality of women with men is a core New Testament principle. It is a natural implication of the Day of Pentecost, captured in the fact that sons and daughters would now prophesy (Acts 2:17). Of course, women prophesy in the Old Testament as well (Judg. 4:4). In Christ, women are restored from Eve's sin and thus in Christ there is not "male and female" (Gal. 3:28).

It all makes sense because women are also created in the image of God. In 2 Kings 22:13-15, the prophetess Huldah is a higher spiritual authority than the high priest himself. In Acts 18:26, Priscilla teaches and disciples Apollos at Ephesus. In Romans 16:1, Phoebe is a deacon. In Romans 16:7, Junia may actually be referred to as an apostle. 

For all these reasons, there are strong biblical grounds to believe that women can minister to men on any level. The Holy Spirit is the great equalizer. And, to be frank, there are no logical or universal experiential reasons that make any sense against it.

But there are some "clobber verses" that are used to argue for the contrary position. A clobber verse is a verse that a herd member slaps down and says, "Bam! You can't do that because of this verse." As you might expect, I think the motivations often have little to do with Scripture. They are "prooftexts" that are used to say, "My group is right and you are wrong." They are tools the elephant rider uses to justify where the elephant wants to go. They take a complex issue and say, "You don't have to think because I have this verse."

22. 1 Timothy 2:12 is the strongest of these verses. But I think it will be more helpful to look at how the household codes of Colossians 3:18-4:1; Ephesians 5:21-6:9; and 1 Peter 2:18-3:7 might play out in our faith. I have often heard individuals present an argument like the following:

1. Husbands are the "heads" of their wives, the authority over them.
2. If a wife were a lead pastor, that would make her an authority over her husband in the congregation.
3. Therefore, a wife cannot be a senior pastor.

This all makes perfectly logical sense. What's the problem, Ken? The problem is that the Bible never thinks this way. Deborah is married in Judges 4:4, yet she is the highest political authority in the land. Her husband is mentioned, but there is no sense that his existence inhibits her function as a prophetess at all. Similarly, Huldah is married in 2 Kings 22:14. But her husband has nothing to do with her spiritual authority. He is not consulted. She is.

The bottom line is that the argument above, as logical as it seems, is not biblical. Indeed, 1 Corinthians 11 is a balancing act between giving proper respect to a woman's husband -- by veiling her hair in worship -- and her speaking to or for God in a worship setting by praying or prophesying in worship. The headship of her husband and her exercise of spiritual authority (cf. 1 Cor. 11:10) are two completely distinct questions.

Now I'm going to give some logic of my own:

1. The use of the husband-headship framework was not distinctly Christian. In fact, it is right there in Aristotle 400 years before Paul used it. [27]
2. What was distinctive about New Testament thinking on this issue was movement toward equal value and the authority of women under the power of the Holy Spirit.
3. Therefore, husband-headship language in Scripture is part of the incarnation of the gospel into the cultural context of Paul (and Peter's) churches. It is not a core dimension of biblical revelation.
4. Therefore, in a context today where we can live out the ideal more fully, God's perfect will is for us to play out the full equality and participation of women in ministry and the home.

Let me spell out the consequences of what I'm saying here. I am saying that in fact it is the complementarian -- the person who insists that the woman is equal but fits in a distinct box (or jail) of God's creation -- who is inserting inappropriate culture into the gospel. It is the same culture that was inserted into the gospel in Paul's later days, but it was cultural then too. [28] He or she has mistaken fallen patriarchal culture for the fundamental nature of the kingdom. As Jesus says in Mark 12:25 -- women are not "given" in marriage in the kingdom. They are fully equal. And if we can move closer to the kingdom now here on earth, why wouldn't we?

23. I would like to argue that much rhetoric about Christians caving into culture often comes from groups who do not realize how much they have been assimilated into a culture. However, it is not a secular culture. It is a traditional Christian culture. The Gospel analogy is the Pharisees of Mark 7 who could not tell the difference between the traditions of their elders and the core values of the Old Testament. In the same way, many Christians may be riding the wave of a cultural understanding without knowing it. 

What makes this hard to see is because the Christians they are accusing may seem to align more with the world on a specific issue. Take the issue of women in ministry and leadership. The world says yes. The Wesleyan (my church) says yes. The conservative Christian says no. See. It looks like the Wesleyan has assimilated to a worldly position.

But let's flash back 150 years. The Wesleyan says, "Slavery is an offense to the gospel." The Princeton Calvinist says, "You just don't want to obey the Bible. Colossians tells slaves to obey their masters. You are just assimilating to the cultural values of the North and fighting against what God has taught in Scripture."

However, both sides used biblical passages to support their positions. The one that the Princeton Calvinists used was one relating to first century social order. It was a "precept" or a specific instruction in a particular time and place. The Christian abolitionists, on the other hand, were referring to a timeless value or principle -- the fact that all humans are created in God's image and are loved by him without partiality (Acts 10:34). 

The abolitionists weren't wanting to disobey God. They were trying to play out the core values of Scripture in the American context. It only seemed like they were fighting the Bible because of the antebellum (Christian) culture of the South. Both sides were ensconced in different cultures. One looked to timeless principles to apply Scripture differently in a different time. The other looked to time-bound precepts to resist the more fundamental principles of Scripture. I would argue the same dynamic is happening once again today with regard to women.

Today, there may be individuals who have the right values but faulty ideas. And there may be indivdiduals today who have the right ideas but the wrong values. It is not a sin to have a faulty understanding. It is a sin to play out faulty values. It is better to be right in your heart and wrong in your head than to be right in your head and wrong in your heart.

24. God is love, 1 John 4:7-8 say. I have received varied push back on the way I play out this fundamental truth about God's nature. "You're forgetting the other side, Ken," someone might say... "the part where he blows people away." No doubt I have been accused of absorbing "moral therapeutic deism" from the culture.

But I take the claim in Scripture that God is love seriously. I have chickens. I care for those chickens. I protect those chickens. I rescue those chickens. I try to modify the behavior of those chickens (i.e., discipline them). I'm not a permissive "parent" to them except that I want the best of chicken life for them within reason.

I'm a better chicken god than the god of many Christians is toward the world. Either God is love or he isn't. I abhor the attempt of some to redefine love into something it isn't. "Love is whatever God does by definition," they might say. "So if God fries someone, that's loving." Hogwash. On the human plane, love meant to be disposed to act in the best interests of others. And that's what it meant to say that God is love in the Bible.

Any idea a Christian might have that works contrary to love is a compromising of the gospel. It doesn't matter if you can find a prooftext in the Bible. Either God is love or he isn't.

Christ the transformer of culture...

[26] Christian Smith, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, Oxford University, 2009.

[27] Aristotle, Politics 1253b.

[28] I believe we can see a movement on this question in Paul's writings for practical reasons. In Galatians, he gives the radical position of equality in Galatians 3:28. But the elevation of women created such problems in the social structures of the day that he walks a tight rope. 1 Corinthians 11 is a brilliant balancing act between the authority of women and the sexual/household tensions of men and women being together in close quarters. 1 Timothy is in full order-making mode. 

But we don't have these problems today. We can play out Galatians and Acts! How ironic it would be if we insisted instead on what Paul calls the "weak and beggarly" aspects of earthly culture while rejecting the heavenly trajectory (cf. Gal. 4:9; Col. 2:8)!

3.3 Assumptions about Christ and Culture

Chapter 3 of the philosophical quest continues. What do you think of something like this as a title: I'm Right. You're Wrong: A Pilgrim's Philosophical Progress

1.1 Unexamined Assumptions
1.2 "Unitary" Thinking
2.1 Binary Thinking in Ethics
2.2 Contextualization in Missions
2.3 Beyond Relativism and Absolutes
3.1 Setting the Stage for Political Conversation
3.2 Binary Thinking in Political Thinking
_____________________________

11. I have'long appreciated some advice that the former president of Fuller Seminary, Richard Mouw, once gave to pastors in relation to politics. He suggested that pastors try to stick primarily to the big principles of Scripture and faith in their preaching rather than advocating for specific candidates or legislation. In an article he wrote in 2010, "Carl Henry Was Right," [15] Mouw argued that pastors are not likely to be experts on subjects like economics or climate change, so it is better not to take strong positions from the pulpit on such matters. Further, if you are ministering to a community that is like the kingdom of God, it will not likely be politically monolithic. If you are ministering to citizens of the kingdom of God, your congregation will tend to be broader than one herd. 

For these reasons and others, Mouw suggested that his old mentor C. F. H. Henry (1913-2003) was right when he told him to focus on the fundamental principles in his preaching more than on concrete policies, laws, or candidates. Henry of course was one of the shapers of modern evangelicalism in the 1940s and 50s. And this is of course the approach that Billy Graham himself took throughout his public ministry. [16] 

12. Are there ever times to speak out on specific candidates and concrete issues? I think the answer has to be yes. Our minds immediately go to Nazi Germany. There's the famous quote by Martin Niemöller: "First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me." [17]  

There is a similar quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. during the civil rights conflicts of the 1960s. "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." [18] King indicated that his silent "allies" hurt more than his outright enemies. Another sentiment of the same thrust is often attributed to the father of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." [19]

13. The problem is that Haidt's elephant in us will seize on these rallying cries when the situation is not as clear or as dire as we think. For the last ten years, various voices have been comparing the American political situation to that of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. [20] The ironic thing is that both "sides" have made such comparisons. 

The 2024 movie Bonhoeffer was said to be inspired in part by the work of Eric Metaxas on Bonhoeffer. [21] Metaxas is a Trump supporter and would consider himself a strong conservative. In his hands, Bonhoeffer is a model for conservatives fighting to stop the fascist left from taking away American freedoms such as the freedom to worship in person during the pandemic or the right for anyone to have a gun. He would view DEI initiatives (diversity, equity, and inclusion) as oppressive to white men whom he believes are often more qualified than some women and people of color being promoted ahead of them.

Ironically, the "other side" might also look to Bonhoeffer and Niemöller as models. Where Niemöller spoke of the Nazis coming for the Jews, comparisons are made to ICE coming for undocumented immigrants in the night (and sometimes documented ones). Rhetoric of arresting political enemies is taken not as idle talk or provocation but as real intent and hints of a possible future. Rhetoric and actions meant to squelch the access and voice of the media to the government are likened to similar moves under authoritarian regimes.

Despite Godwin's Law, [22] it is always possible that a situation will arise somewhere where the comparison of a situation to that of Hitler will actually be appropriate. Up to this point, America has not seemed to cross that definitive line. Voices of protest can thus sound like "the boy who cried Hitler." It might help us if we could see into alternative universes where we could see if our dire predictions actually came true under slightly different circumstances. [23]

Surely there is a time to speak out for others who are being persecuted or oppressed. Surely there is a time to hide Jews from the Nazis, runaway slaves, or hunted groups. Is there a time to protest or even to fight?

14. In normal times, I have personally found some version of H. Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture to provide a helpful lens through which to look at the various assumptions Christians have toward the broader culture. [24] Certainly, there have been some strong critiques of his model. But I find that the model can be helpful at uncovering unexamined assumptions we often have on how Christians should engage the culture around them.

Niebuhr identified five broad approaches to the way Christians engage the surrounding culture. The first he called "Christ against culture." The key dynamic here is separation. The broader culture and the workings of government are seen as foreign to the church at best, hostile at worst. "Come out from among them and be separate" is the sentiment (2 Cor. 6:17).

This model probably seems obvious to Christians who live in contexts where they are persecuted. The thought of taking over their country or asserting major public influence probably seems absurd. The best options are to hunker down and endure. In some cases, Christians have moved away from society, whether to the country or even out of the country. The Pilgrims and Puritans came to America in large part to escape a society. The Amish are a classic example.

My old friend Keith Drury used to tell how his father would say during election season, "I wonder who they'll pick for their President." He would vote, but somehow he strongly distinguished his kingdom citizenship from his participation in the American political system. Later in the book, I will argue that this is a wise approach -- engagement without complete identification.

15. This would largely seem to be the situation of the New Testament church. Scot McKnight has described 1 Peter as a defensive strategy in a context where believers feel like exiles and foreigners (1 Pet. 2:11). [25] It was not the time to abolish slavery or play out the full status of women in the kingdom. In terms of its social advice, 1 Peter basically tells Christians not to make waves in the society (1 Pet. 2:12).

When Jesus is asked about paying taxes, he effectively says that Roman coins have nothing to do with the kingdom of God. "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's" (Mark 12:13-17). But far more importantly, "Give to God what belongs to God." God's economics are something completely different from the secular world of money. 

Paul similarly tells both the Corinthians and the Romans that it is not their job to judge the world (1 Cor. 5:12-13; Rom. 12:19). That is God's job. He instructs the Romans to live peacefully with those outside the church and let God take care of them.

If you grow up under this paradigm, your default might be to assume that this is simply the way Christians operate in the world. Growing up with a connection to the conservative holiness movement, this sense of separation from the world was strong in my childhood culture. I assumed that none of the other students at my public middle or high school were Christians because they were not my kind of Christian. I was weird, and I knew it.

For women in that movement especially, you just look different. You may wear your hair in a bun. You only wear skirts and dresses. You assume that you are "peculiar" in everyone else's eyes (cf. Deut. 14:2 in the King James). When my classmates went to movies or had dances, I did not participate. As a friend wrote in my high school yearbook, "You are the most religious person I know."

Later in the book, I will argue that it is essential that Christians distinguish between their identity as a believer and "the world." The world can have good in it, but it is still a realm where Sin holds powerful sway. A "theocracy" -- where God hypothetically governs -- would be tainted from Day 1 because humans would inevitably be the ones to interpret and administrate God's wishes. The period of the judges in Israel's history was far from morally pretty. 

This is even true of the church. The true Church is "invisible" in the sense that it cannot be identified with any earthly organization. The pope is not infallible even if he speaks ex cathedra. No human is infallible. No organization is infallible because people are involved. As Lord Acton put it, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrups absolutely." There are no doubt exceptions, but it is a worthy warning.

16. I have just hinted at another of Niebuhr's options: Christ above culture. Call it the theocracy option. This is when Christians of some stripe try to take over the government or to make society their kind of Christian by force. This is the approach that is most in play at the moment in America. The much discussed "Project 2025" is basically an attempt to force American society to follow the Christian rules as they are understood by a certain segment of American Christianity.

The Christ over culture option has never seemed to turn out well. In Europe during the Reformation, you had Catholics burning Protestants at the stake and Protestants burning Catholics at the stake. You had the congregants of Zwingli in Switzerland drowning Anabaptists. You had Calvinists persecuting Arminians. It seems like it often turns out to be Christians persecuting others in the name of Christ. 

Change the names to another religion and you have the Sunnis killing the Shiites or vice versa. You have Muslims setting up Sharia law to make sure everyone practices Islam the right way. Every group in such cases says it is simply standing up for God. But it looks similar to human herds being human herds. 

17. "Christ against culture" can easily blur into "Christ above culture" when it is given a chance. The Puritans (or separatists) left England because they were being persecuted. Then they established a Puritan colony run by Puritan understandings of Christianity in New England. Those who interpreted the Bible differently from them were expelled or put to death. Important to note that the Puritans only believed in religious freedom for themselves -- not for others.

I would argue that we see similar dynamics in play among some Christians today as well. Some who have spoken much about religious freedom seem to have really meant freedom for them to live out their faith how they want to. But, given the chance, they would enact legislation to force the rest of America to live under many of their religious understandings. They do this in the name of the Bible and God -- as "religion above culture" always does whatever the religion.

The problem, again, is that God and the Bible have to be interpreted. Inevitably, it is an interpretation of God and the Bible that is forced on the rest of society. For example, many Christians think of God an an authoritarian ruler. Perhaps God is an angry father who insists the children do as they are told... or else. Where did they get this assumption? Quite possibly from the way their fathers raised them, which came from how his father raised him. These unexamined assumptions were instilled in them perhaps as they were punished as a child.

Interestingly, those who believe God chooses who will be saved without any input on our part (unconditional predestination) may also assume that society should be forced to conform to God's will as they understand it. They may assume that what is right must be forced on the world not just in the end but right now. In my opinion, these impulses usually involve unexamined assumptions. For example, my own theological tradition would naturally favor a different approach, in my opinion.

Which Christian rules would we want to force the rest of society to keep? It seems to be a moving target. Should we outlaw divorce? Homosexuality? Women in leadership? These were once illegal or prohibited. I don't think the "Christ above culture" forces of the moment would prohibit divorce, for example. On the other hand, they would certainly want to prevent gay marriage. 

Yet after the election of Trump a second time, there were voices about ending no fault divorce, which once upon a time made it much easier for an abused woman to divorce her husband. Such voices have not been in play for over fifty years, a strikingly new debate to surface in the public sphere. What we feel comfortable outlawing on a societal level changes -- sometimes very quickly.

When John Calvin (1509-64) was in control of Geneva, the laws correlated strongly with his understanding of biblical law. This was great if you agreed with his interpretations. It wasn't so great if you didn't. Are there people who were burned at the stake who will be in the kingdom of God? I have little doubt but that some of those killed will be in the kingdom while their executioners may not.

There is a story, probably not true, that the famous British preacher Charles Spurgeon was once asked why the Baptists never burned anyone at the stake. In the story, he answers that they simply were never in power. The implication is that religion should not be put in charge of the government or else oppression is bound to result. The Founding Fathers, it would seem, agreed. 

18. There are other options. As an Arminian...

[15] Richard Mouw, "Carl Henry Was Right," Christianity Today (January, 2010).

[16] It seems clear to me that Graham was actually quite conservative politically. He was a southern Democrat in his early years but then switched with other southern Democrats to have Republican sympathies in his later life. I believe he privately preferred Nixon and Trump. Despite these views, he did not promote his private sympathies publically, following the philosophy of Henry and Mouw.

[17] United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists.

[18] Martin Luther King Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 11

[19] No exact quote of this sort can bre found in Burke's actual writings. However, some similar statements can be found in Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, 1770.

[20] Godwin's Law is the idea that the longer an online discussion goes, the more likely it is that a comparison to Nazi Germany or Hitler will arise. 

[21] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010).

[22] See n.20.

[23] I don't actually believe in alternative universes. However, the concept is useful.

[24] H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper & Row, 1951)

[25] Scot McKnight, 1 Peter, The NIV Application Commentary. Zondervan Academic, 1996.

3.1 Setting the Stage for a Political Conversation

A philosophical journey continues.
1.1 Unexamined Assumptions
1.2 "Unitary" Thinking
2.1 Binary Thinking in Ethics
2.2 Contextualization in Missions
2.3 Beyond Relativism and Absolutes
_____________________________
1. They say that there are two subjects that you do not discuss in polite company: religion and politics. People can seem perfectly rational about many subjects and can calmly converse on many subjects without getting out the knives. But often not on matters religious or political. Our ability to reason seems to go out the window.

There was a great sifting of Facebook friends during the first Trump presidency. Families divided. People changed churches. Some stopped going to church. More than any time in my lifetime of well over fifty years, politics divided and continues to divide America.

A book that I found very insightful in this regard came out in 2013, several years before the Trump phenomenon. This was Jonathan Haidt's, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. [1] A fundamental metaphor in the book is that of a rider on an elephant. The elephant, he suggests, is largely going to go where it wants to go.

Meanwhile, the rider may like to think he or she is in control of the elephant. They might be able to steer the elephant a little one way or the other. But, mostly, the elephant is going to go where it wants to go. The rider is more likely to go along with the elephant than to truly be the one calling the shots.

In the metaphor, the rider represents our reasoning. The elephant represents our inner drives and impulses, our intuitions about the world. In my terms, it represents the assumptions and inclinations that we have absorbed from our cultures and subcultures, our instincts about the world. It represents our "gut" responses and our tribal thinking. It represents our unitary and binary thinking.

2. We like to think that we are reason-driven. I always smile around people who think that if we can just get our ideas straight, our lives will fall into order. Codswallop. It's the other way around for the most part. People primarily come up with ideas to justify their impulses. I'm not just talking about people who aren't into ideas. The personalities that most talk about ideas are often some of the most driven by group, tribal thinking and a drive to hide the thinking of their subcultures behind a veneer of intellectual argument and reason.

Some of the smartest people in terms of intellect are often some of the quirkiest when it comes to ideas. When I went through a time of questioning after seminary, I once said to myself. "Maybe I could have maintained some of my old views if I were smarter or more ingenious. The evidence just doesn't seem to add up to my little brain."

What I mean is that, as I studied, I often found incredibly bright people who seemed to apply their considerable intellect to trying to wiggle out of what seemed to me the most obvious conclusions. I would later chalk some of my problems up to my love of science in high school -- you should choose the hypothesis that bets fits the evidence in the most straightforward way.

Ironically, some of the influence of American fundamentalism on me contributed here too. Josh McDowell's book Evidence That Demands a Verdict came out in 1972, and it implicitly affirmed that the normal rules of reasoning and assessing evidence worked in favor of Christian faith. [2] We were still in the age of modernism at that time. 

Christian fundamentalism did not question whether logic was valid or whether scientific reasoning was valid. On the contrary, McDowell's point is that reason and evidence "demand" a Christian conclusion. I emerged from my teens with the mindset that I absolutely could use scientific reasoning and good logic when in the pursuit of truth. Reason and evidence would end up supporting my faith, not contradicting it.

Indeed, I was shaped to think that the problem with secular and non-Christian thinkers was that they did not reason well or follow the evidence well. I was shaped to think that it was their biases and faulty presuppositions that led them to other conclusions. I was given a green light to use the best logic of Aristotle and the best scientific reasoning of Francis Bacon. It would only lead me to the truth of Christ.

3. I mentioned "modernism." In the late 1900s, there was a "philosophy of history" that was quite common. In this schema, the period before the 1600s was the pre-modern era. By and large, people took the world as it appeared to them. They didn't see their own assumptions clearly. They largely argued for the ideologies of their tribes uncritically.

Then came Rene Descartes (1596-1650) and Francis Bacon (1561-1626). Descartes went on a quest for certainty that questioned everything. [3] He concluded that reason was the only sure path to truth. The stream of "rationalism" would suggest that the pursuit of truth is best carried out by the vigorous pursuit of clear and distinct thinking.

Around the same time, Bacon articulated clearly what we now call the scientific method. [4] The best path to truth, he suggested, was to gather evidence from our senses. We formulate hypotheses. We test them. We modify them. We test again. Eventually, we refine theories. Thus we have a stream of "empiricism" that has shaped a large amount of what we might call "Western" thinking.

In the philosophy of history I experienced in the first decades of my life, modernism was the era from the 1600s to the mid-1900s, where the pursuit of truth primarily focused on reason and evidence as the surest and most reliable method to discover truth. In his 1996 book, A Primer on Postmodernism, Stanley Grenz used Spock from the late 1960s science fiction show Star Trek as the paragon of modernism. [5] Think carefully before you argue with him because he is almost perfectly objective and he forms all his conclusions strictly on the basis of reason and evidence.

But Grenz notes a change in Star Trek's approach to Spock (and reason) in the decades that followed. In Star Trek 2, Spock dies. Then he comes back to life in Star Trek 3. But he's not quite the same Spock, and the "epistemology" of Star Trek is not quite the same either. Spock is somehow more human. He has spent his life up to that point trying to subdue emotion, trying to keep it from tainting his thinking. Now, he recognizes the limits of logic.

In Star Trek, the Next Generation, Grenz notes, there is also a Spock-like figure, Data. Data is not human. He is an android. If Spock spent his life trying to control emotion, to purge emotion, Data is headed in the opposite direction. As an android, he doesn't have emotion, but he is very curious about human ways. The series culminates in him receiving an "emotion chip." Far from emotion being something to purge, it is something that turns out to be desirable.

Grenz and others saw this cultural shift of the late 1900s as a move into "post" modernism. In the early 2000s, it was trendy to be postmodern. It was the latest thing that all the cool kids were doing. We got over it. Unsurprisingly, many were tauting postmodernism as the new era of enlightened thought. It fit well with the fact that we were changing millennia in 2000, a change of the calendar that only happens every 1000 years.

4. In those days, I always distinguished between the cultural trend of postmodernism that was all the rage and philosophical postmodernism. Trendy postmodernism was really hype, a pop movement that hardly understood the philosophical school of thought. The pop version was interestingly very trendy in youth ministry and other Christian circles. There was the "Emergent Village" with popular writers and speakers like Rob Bell and Brian McLaren. Many from the millennial generation of Christians were strongly influenced by these voices in their formative years. 

And there was the predictable push back of the binary machine. Groups like The Gospel Coalition arose to push back on some of these cultural forces. A good deal of rhetoric emerged against postmodernism as a movement, especially postmodernism in the church. In my own circles, Asbury Seminary underwent somewhat of a crisis during the decade of the 2000s. Part of this crisis was a bit of a snap back from a friendliness toward postmodernism to a somewhat more conservative approach.

I was never very interested in the pop version of postmodernism. I chuckled that a philosophy whose point is "we can't do philosophy" had become the latest trendy philosophy. The philosophical version of post-modernism was anti-philosophy. It said, reason is not reliable, and the evidence doesn't demand a verdict.

Postmodernism basically said that we could never be objective like Descartes and Bacon supposed. We always have biases that are clouding our thought processes. Thomas Kuhn (1922-96) argued that science was far from some Spock-like enterprise of inevitable progress. Rather, he initially argued, science was just an endless wandering from paradigm to paradigm. [6] Paul Feyerabend (1924-94) went even further, seeing science as a mere example of human sociology at work. [7]

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) argued that language didn't have any stable meaning -- which made his writing task particularly difficult. How do you use language to argue that language doesn't have meaning? I used to have quite a bit of fun mocking him in class. Richard Rorty (1931-2007) argued that truth was simply a matter of what works within communities, not a matter of what's truly true or what corresponds to reality. Michel Foucault (1926-1984) argued that "power is knowledge" far more than "knowledge is power." 

I found these voices more as a warning sign than a destination. In fact, postmodernism can't be a destination. It's an anti-destination that says, "There is no destination." That was part of what I found so funny about the popular versions of postmodernism in Christian circles, thinking that we had finally arrived in our thinking.

As we will explore later in the book, I took from Kuhn that we all operate with paradigms. From Derrida I took that language is often far more ambiguous than we suppose. Rather than go full-Rorty, I came to agree with the critical realists -- truth and the world is real even though our apprehension of it is inevitably finite and flawed. And Foucault was not saying anything new when he showed example after example of how the forces of society shape our thinking on key issues.

5. As a person in my late-50s, it is interesting to look back and observe how the church rides these waves without hardly realizing it. One moment, we feel so strongly about certain issues. We are itching to fight over them. Then they pass. "Should we go to war with Iraq?" the question arises in 2003. Our respective riders on our tribal elephants gear up to defend our herd. Perhaps we could have a more rational conversation about it now, 20 years later -- especially with younger people who weren't around back then. But as usual, it was quite polarized at the time.

We seem to forget. And we usually don't change sides. We come up with reasons and arguments to defend whatever positions our group feels strongly about at the moment -- whichever group it is. In the early 2000s, I used to joke that my mother supported the NRA because she was against abortion. She was against abortion, so she was a Republican. Republicans supported the NRA. Therefore, by the transitive property of equality, she supported the NRA. [8]

In the case of the Iraq War, it turned out that there were no weapons of mass destruction -- the pretext for going to war. [9] There was no connection between Iraq and 9-11. The Iraqis did not greet us as liberators -- a naive sense some had that everyone would love democracy if we brought it to them. [10] Following just war theory, it seems difficult to say we were really justified in invading their country. It seems more possible to have that conversation rationally now.

It wasn't so easy at the time. We were so sure we were right and righteous, whatever our side. I personally hoped at the time that the Bush administration had more information than they were sharing. They didn't. I was open but unsure at first. Obama would win in a landslide in 2008 in large part as a rejection of that unprovoked war. You think of all the people on both sides who died in that war. You think of the incredible mental impact that war had on a generation of soldiers. And in the end, it's hard now not to conclude that it was a mistake. 

Yet our ways of thinking have not changed. The same political tribes ride whatever the latest political waves are, defending similar positions that history will abandon in a decade without realizing that we are simply playing out the same basic scenario over and over again. My group is right and the other group is either stupid or demonic. 

At this present time, it has gotten incredibly hot. We're not at the level of a Civil War, but the sides are drawn more sharply than ever before in my lifetime. And I would argue we are more irrational than ever. I hope in twenty years we can have a rational conversation about these days... 

[1] Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. Vintage, 2013.

[2] Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict. Thomas Nelson, 1972.

[3] See Descartes' work, Discourse on Method.

[4] See Bacon's work, Novum Organum.

[5] Stanley Grenz. A Primer on Post-Modernism. Eerdmans, 1996.

[6] Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago, 1970.

[7] Paul Feyerabend. Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge. New Left, 1975.

[8] If we get real serious, it is a legitimate question whether I have it slightly wrong even here. Was my mother a Republican because she was against abortion, or was she ultimately against abortion because she was a Republican? After all, she was a diehard Republican long before the issue of abortion came to the fore in American society.

[9] Even now, you will occasionally hear someone say, "No, no, no. There were weapons found. They're just not talking about it." You can always find some webpage, some rumor somewhere on social media, some conspiracy theory whispered off to the side saying, "I have secret information. The overwhelming majority is wrong. You were right all along." These voices whisper to us from the corners of the internet, "Let me give you secret knowledge so that your elephant can be happy against what reason and evidence are saying."

[10] 43 days after invading, President Bush stood on an aircraft carrier with a sign behind him saying, "Mission Accomplished." The war would last almost 9 more years.