The Selective Separation of Church and State

For years we have been preached to about not “compromising the gospel” with politics. This sermonizing was of course aimed at the “Right” by those of a more (or so we were led to believe) pietistic leaning in all matters relating to the public square. Many indeed may have been consistent and true believers in a more or less pietistic reading of the biblical covenants and law. On the other hand, there were many who had what we call, in our intellectual laziness, “left-of-center” leanings all along, but who could not yet articulate too much of that in their out loud voice.

Fast-forwarding to the present, the vast majority of conscientious conservative Christians in American feel as though their ethical world has been hit by a comet over the past three years. But there is no mystery about it at all. You have been groomed. It took no grand conspiracy in any smoke filled room, and no need to read the motives of others. Consider it the enemy’s grooming. We all still do believe in evil spirits, do we not? So, even genuine brothers and sisters can often be used in such ways.

Now those same voices who cried “Idol” and “Triumphalism” and “Two Kingdoms,” at every hint that something could be done about abortion or that other political matters might be connected to that right to life—many of those same “Pietists,” as it turns out, were not Pietists at all. They too fly under a flag. What symbols and colors may be on it is another story for another day. Let us not move too fast. The more important matter is the effect of this long-term rhetorical maneuver, not so much what anyone’s intentions were.

The Selective Separation of Church and State

Never mind what old Mr. Jefferson really meant by that “wall of separation” or its corresponding words not at all contained the First Amendment to the Constitution. What we need to focus on here is a little bit of simple theology made confusing by our old friends who were good enough to warn us of political idols lo those many years ago.

I refer you to those two biblical symbols of the keys (Mat. 16:19) and the sword (Rom. 13:4). The former introduced by Jesus and the latter by Paul. One depicts the authority given to the church and the other to the state. If all we were to do is to draw out the basic implication of these to the boundaries of church and state—in terms of their divinely ordained powers—not many among the Reformed at least would find much disagreement.

The darnedest thing, then, to be constantly berated for failing to consider President Trump’s total lack of qualification to be our spiritual leader. And indeed he would be. Just a moment, though. I thought that we had all just agreed that the design of the state is to wield the sword and not the keys? Now if one thinks that Trump does precisely this sword-wielding in an unjust manner, fair enough. Let us have that discussion. Just know that the critique will come with a price to one’s feigned Pietism.

How can one make such a critique without getting the Bible involved in politics from the “Left,” in just that positive way that had been denied to the “Right”?

(And yes, I always use “scare quotes” for those labels meant for the metaphysically-directionally challenged, because I know where they come from in the history of political thought. The political spectrum is a bogus invention to distract you from the obvious truth that all collectivism ends in democide, and the next one on a global scale … but that’s another lunchtime rant).

Here is the bottom line for those who feel confused by all this.

You who have been groomed are now being bullied. What your evangelical elites are telling you is that a Christian can only participate in public affairs for the sake of “social justice,” which is a term signifying neither definition. It is indeed a Marxist term for a state of affairs that will be neither just, nor very social, as those who have escaped the old Eastern bloc, China, Cuba, or Venezuela can testify.

What you may not derive from Scripture or Christian theology is a justice defined by lawful protection of the image of God: a negative justice that sees the sword for what the Bible says it is. Thou shalt not deny that this sword is really a magic wand that delivers on equality of outcomes and other associated ill-defined and never-experienced social states. Thou shalt not bring in objective truth or empirical data.

The narrative is simple and undeniable to an honest observer. If you believe that God’s design of government is actually limited to the upholding of justice against force and fraud committed against the image of God (as Genesis 9:5-6, the Second Table of the Law, Romans 13:1-7, and 1 Peter 2:14 set forth) then thou shalt not participate in anything but apologizing for your existence.

The trouble we are witnessing here is not the mere hypocrisy of “the Left,” in terms of its politicians, year after year, using liberal churches to propagandize with perfect impunity. That goes without saying.

The issue is a campaign of intimidation, a sort of speech code enforced by tone policing and passive-aggressive slandering, that has been amped up in the church at just the moment when they could finally get away with it: when the offensive Orange Man made it easy.

But is this not the most cowardly red (or is it orange?) herring in the history of fallacious debating tactics? All the more so when it comes from fellow Christians who are supposed to be committed to the sanctity of our neighbor's intent as protected under the Ninth Commandment? If the professing Christian with liberal political sensibilities would not appreciate being made into a Castro or Pol Pot apologist, then should we not all apply the Golden Rule and extend the same courtesy the other way?

Neither “Trumpism” Nor “Triumphalism,” but Conservatism and Libertarianism

Anti-statists of the world unite!

Leave behind, for the moment (and preferably our whole lifetime the way things are going) the finer points of difference between conservative and libertarian. At the moment our only business is to see through the whole selective separation of church and state by which the “young, restless, and Reformed” has all been groomed for a good two decades.

Whereas before we were told that political issues and gospel issues were at an inverse relationship at every point—except perhaps that we are all pro-life—now we are told that some political issues are not “political” issues so much as they are “biblical justice” issues, which is only the exegetically virtue-signalling form of “social justice.”

In short there is absolutely no separation between church and state if that state takes the place of God (Statism), but there is an absolute separation between church and state, if that church’s political philosophy keeps the state in its proper bounds (Conservatism / Libertarianism).

Implicit in the older pietistic grooming stage of this campaign was the notion that “right wing” politics were “triumphalistic,” a product of the church-state hegemony called by names such as “Constantinianism.” Such language oozed through the pages of New Calvinist beginner’s eye candy for over a decade on topics as disparate as justification and missiology. It was not terribly surprising that no one in my neck of the woods heeded my warnings over a decade ago.

Now let me admit frankly that many who identify as “conservative” can be guilty of precisely this sort of temporally-based pride of being on “the right team,” and can even embrace a kind of collectivism themselves in its nationalistic flavor. Guilty as charged. In fact, even the word “conservative” has been liquid enough throughout modern history to be able to accommodate this very knuckle-dragging ethnocentrism.

Libertarianism should not be too quick to say Amen on that point. It is true enough to point out that economic systems, capitalism no less, are not intrinsically evaluative in terms of moral sentiment or transformation. That is to say, free markets and profit motive may form a morally preferable system, but no one is claiming that individual economic actions were ever designed to be a moral panacea. While individual liberty is not held out to be a whole kingdom in theory, we can be quick to act as if it is, thus living up to all of the caricatures. The truth is that any of us can put an infinite faith in a finite reference point. And that is always a bad thing.

But what I want my reader to notice is this. That while conservatives and libertarians can be guilty of this due to our finitude and sin, the Statist (whether in its communist or fascist uniforms) has made this their whole political philosophy. The liberal or progressive (or whatever one fancies the moderate position being) is not far behind on this slope. And the reason was given to us long ago by T. S. Eliot, that,

Liberalism … is something which tends to release energy rather than accumulate it, to relax, rather than to fortify. It is a movement not so much defined by its end, as by its starting point; away from, rather than towards, something definite.

It is all very well to fix our attention on some balanced middle—at least, at first glance. Until that is, we discover that the middle of the road between life and death is not a strong enough commitment to life to do anything but lay down and die; the lip service paid to truth in the mush between truth and error a temporary bargain with Goebbels and Pravda.

If we think we can share only a few common policies with the man who would lord all over his fellows, then our fifteen minutes of fame (or whatever it is Evangelical leaders think they are accomplishing by kissing up to culture in the latest Op Ed) will soon be spent. The spirit of political correctness is a bloodthirsty deity, and the progressive Evangelical doesn't have enough brothers and sisters to sell out to satisfy its appetite for our submission.

Perhaps you have heard the word “Utopia.” It is said to mean “No such place.” At least that was one of the renderings. But try telling that to a Utopian, or in other words a Statist. Whatever else can be said about political theory and practice, we should at least notice this one obvious fact that seems to have been lost in the contemporary church. Political philosophy matters to political idolatry. Some models of political engagement and adherence to economic systems are intrinsically less Christian than others. Both sides will agree to that, but only one has stated all the implications of it openly and honestly.

If the question is political idolatry and when to know if the church is committed to it, we should ask ourselves a few clarifying questions: Does the political philosophy in question place the hopes of people in the power of the state? Is that power the same power that Scripture has clearly designated to the state? Is the state being held out to accomplish something that the Scriptures clearly say that only God in Christ was meant to be for us? Does that political philosophy demand a Kingdom now, even if a kingdom without its King? Must words always be wrestled from their ordinary meaning and the motives of one’s opponents utterly slandered? Does either model tend more naturally to the erosion of religious freedoms? Does either view directly call for the collective violation of the entire second table of the law?

I will not answer these questions for you here. Their value should be obvious enough, even if their exact answers are not.