For many members of the so-called New Right, one thing is clear: Classical liberal principles are not getting the job done.
The left, after all, has no compunction about using the state to go after conservatives. As far as those illiberal progressives are concerned, Catholic hospitals should be forced by law to perform abortions, and social media companies should be threatened with regulatory action if they don’t agree to scrub their platforms of ideas and information unfavorable to the Democratic Party.
So instead of a principled commitment to limited government and individual liberty, the argument goes, conservatives who “know what time it is” should be willing to use public power to attack their foes. Anything less amounts to unilateral disarmament or even suicide.
The stakes, in this telling, are existential. It’s not uncommon to hear that a future of Soviet-style persecution awaits those who refuse to embrace a sufficiently “muscular” response. A New Right influencer once told me that the liberalism of the American founding, by making conservatives squeamish about fighting fire with fire, was apt to land her in a gulag. Like the famous maxim from Game of Thrones, it’s a vision of politics as a literal war in which you win or you die.
…Perhaps the leading argument for classical liberalism is that it turns down the temperature of our politics. By ensuring that the rights even of minority groups are respected, good institutions can remove, or at least significantly reduce, those supposedly life-or-death stakes. Meanwhile, Americans by all accounts want a government that protects basic rights and liberties, not one that imposes a single moral orthodoxy on the country, however much some progressives might wish to do so. Given all this, perhaps the worst thing conservatives could do is to tear down the liberal institutions and norms that keep the left’s worst impulses in check.
New Right rhetoric is saturated with talk of the need to restore traditional Christian virtue, by force if necessary. Several prominent New Right voices, including law professor Adrian Vermeule and journalist Sohrab Ahmari, are Catholic converts who dream of subordinating civil government to the church in pursuit of “a public square re-ordered to the common good” and possibly even “the eventual formation of the Empire of Our Lady of Guadalupe.” At this year’s National Conservatism Conference in Miami, a major New Right gathering, one speaker after another lamented “the things that we’ve lost” under liberal modernity: God, Scripture, nation, family.
The irony is that the approach to politics outlined by these new, militant conservatives is flatly at odds with authentic Christian virtue. The New Right implies that religious traditionalists have a choice: They can either be the ones inside the gulag, or they can make sure their enemies are. Jesus never would have accepted that bargain.
Stephanie Slade | “Against Game of Thrones Christianity'” | January, 2023
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One thing the author misses in this article is that reformed Christians are rediscovering what the Reformers taught about the duty of the civil magistrate regarding religion. The renewed interest in Protestant scholasticism will only accelerate this trend. For example:
“Thirty-Fourth Question: What is the right of the Christian magistrate about sacred things, and does the care and recognition of religion belong in any way to him? We affirm.
“They sin in excess who claim all ecclesiastical power for the magistrate…”
“They sin in defect who remove him from all care of ecclesiastical things so that he does not care what each one worships and allows free power to anyone of doing and saying whatever he wishes in the cause of religion.”
“The orthodox…maintain that the pious and believing magistrate cannot and ought not to be excluded from all care of religion and sacred things., which has been enjoined on him by God.”
Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Eighteenth Topic, Thirty-Fourth Question
Dear CH,
Those of us who study this period are well aware of what they said about the magistrate. The founders of this Republic. were also well aware of what all Christians had believed virtually from the time of Theodosius until the American revolution.
What I don’t understand and what none of the theocrats has been able to explain to me is how this renewed appropriation of theocracy, in America, is consistent with the American constitution, since it’s ratification, and American law since 1833.
How are we going to have an established church in the United States of America without a revolution?
How is this not, as Brad Isbell has said, nothing more than cosplay?
See, the problem with Slade’s article, as with so many “normie” objectors to the New/Dissident Right, is this right here:
“But how like Westeros is the United States? Are American leftists really plotting to round up religious traditionalists and Republican voters? If they were, would they stand a chance of getting away with it under the American system as it exists?”
She poses this as a rhetorical question to which the expected answer is, “No.” Which is odd, because I and many others believe that the answer is, “Yes, obviously so.” Further, this suggestion:
“. . .perhaps the worst thing conservatives could do is to tear down the liberal institutions and norms that keep the left’s worst impulses in check.”
–is based on the manifestly inaccurate assumption that “liberal institutions and norms” do, in fact, keep the left’s worst impulses in check. They do nothing of the sort.
Remember that classic quotation from “A Man For All Seasons”? About knocking down laws and then looking for shelter from the winds that blow afterward? Same argument Slade is making here. The argument really only works if the laws (or, in this case, “liberal institutions and norms”) haven’t already been knocked down by our enemies.
Riffing off your response to another commenter, yeah, I agree that the “integralists,” and theocrats in general, are basically just LARPing. There is no realistic possibility of establishing a church in the U.S., nor is it obvious that such would be desirable in the first place. But on the flip side, the people who insist that Christians play by the rules of “liberal institutions and norms” are engaged in LARPing just as much as the theocrats.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it is increasingly clear that “liberal institutions and norms” are not effective to prevent evildoers from chopping off our children’s genitals. That being the case, I’d say that there’s a good argument to be made that while both theocrats and “normies” are LARPing, at least the former are LARPing something virtuous.
Ryan,
It seems to me that a key element of your objection is “our children.” Whose children have you in mind? Mine are grown but I can assure that should someone have proposed to mutilate my children I was (and remain) quite prepared to prevent that. So, the term “our” is ambiguous.
Should parents be allowed to subject their children to mutilation? No and red states are presently passing laws against it. ABC news breathlessly writes today:
This means that a majority of the states are either actively seeking to prevent such mutilation or are considering it.
This isn’t Larping or cosplay. This is how a representative republic works. The majority of people in blue states have lost their minds to the degree that they prioritize abortion access and trans surgery for minors (and thus they elect people that pass laws to achieve those policy goals).
People in Red States (and probably purple states) are either flat-out opposed to such or are concerned about it.
The problem with the cosplaying theocrats (theorecons) is that, instead of actively trying to persuade their neighbors to behave rationally and to pursue reasonable policies, they spend time & energy dreaming about an American theocracy that isn’t going to happen.
As I keep saying, there is a 1st amendment and, if that fails, there is a second amendment (which was adopted to protect the first and to prevent an American theocracy).
So, I can’t agree that being an American, i.e., persuading one’s neighbors to vote a certain way, is LARPing.
Dr Clark,
Sorry for the delay in responding. I am puzzled by your response. Surely the question is not, Is the doctrine American or not, but, Is it biblical or not?
Neither is the question, “Is this Scriptural position ever likely to happen or not.” With God all things are possible. The Church must hold fast to all truth, regardless of whether it will be implemented or not, because that is honoring to her Head.
Finally, could you give me your definition of “theocracy?” With some definitions, the phrase “One nation under God” is a theocratic statement and people will argue that it should therefore not be used. They would also say that a politician placing his hand on a Bible when being sworn into office is a theocratic act that should be discontinued.
CH,
1. The theocrats are proposing effectively an American revolution. That is a serious proposition that certainly involves violence. After all, the American revolutionaries shot Englishmen and others, in order to prevent the imposition of the church of England in the colonies. Any attempt to impose a religion on the state or federal level would meet with violent resistance today.
2. Most of the American Presbyterian and Reformed churches have rejected theocracy, and revised the Westminster Confession and the Belgic Confession accordingly. The American Presbyterians revised the Westminster confession in the 18th century. Abraham Kuyper began this movement in the Dutch Reformed churches in the 19th century. It took about 60 years for the CRC to finally revise the Belgic. The United Reformed Churches in NA revised the Belgic a few years ago. More»
3. Yes, the most fundamental debate concerns what scripture says. I should very much like to see a plausible case for theocracy made from the New Testament. I do not believe it is possible. I have been asking for such for decades, and have yet to receive anything like a coherent answer. There is not a shred of evidence in the New Testament that any of the apostles, or any of the apostolic churches, desired the Roman empire to establish Christianity as the state religion. There is no evidence in the Apostolic Fathers that they desired the Roman empire to establish Christianity as the state religion there’s no evidence in the other major second century writers, e.g., Justin or Irenaeus, wanted Christianity to be the state religion. No evidence in the third century fathers that they wanted Christianity to be the state religion.
4. So, the argument comes down to what we are going to do with the Old Testament. What advocates of theocracy have always done is to appeal illegitimately and inconsistently to the Old Testament. We see this in the Protestant resistance literature of the 16th century, e.g., Beza’s On The Right of Magistrates or Anon., Vindication Against Tyrants. Beza’s makes an admirable case for the spirituality of the church and even acknowledges that the Mosaic theocracy (state-church) was temporary and typological of the NT church. Then, because he simply assumed the righteousness of Christendom, i.e., the church-state complex beginning with Theodosius I (AD 380), he incoherently and inconsistently appealed to the French crown as though France was national Israel and the the crown was a 16th-century David. No, the French monarchy was never David and France was never God’s national people. Neither was Scotland. Neither is America. There are no more national people of God.
Ps 2 is not, ultimately, about any earthly king. It is about King Jesus, who rules generally over all nations and specially/savingly over his church. Christ has not established a state church in the New Covenant. The visible church is his covenant people. Full stop. Jesus’ kingdom is manifested in the visible church, not in the secular/civic kingdoms of this world except insofar as he governs all things in his general providence. The theocracy expired with “the state of that people” (WCF 19.4)
Dr Clark,
Again thank you for taking the time to respond. My impression from reading the Reformers is as follows (and I readily admit I need to do much more reading):
1. The establishment principle does not call for an OT theocracy. The Erastian view of Church and State comes closer to it, but this was firmly rejected by the Westminister Divines. Since Church and State have different origins and aims, they can have a friendly alliance that does not invade the rights, privileges, and duties of each other.
2. The establishment principle does not imply that the State will prosecute people for wrong beliefs. The state deals only with outward actions; the church deals with the conscience.
3. There was indeed a theocracy in the OT, but even then, a distinction existed between church and state. King Uzziah was smitten with leprosy for invading the priestly function. The reformers used this instance repeatedly to argue that the civil magistrate may not take to himself the preaching of the Word, the keys of the kingdom of heaven, or the administration of the sacraments.
Hezekiah as king urged the priests to cleanse the temple and perform the duties of their office, but did not attempt to do any of this himself. The reformers said that Hezekiah is one example of how a godly magistrate can promote the true religion without invading the spiritual functions of the Church.
4. The distinction that existed even in the OT between Church and State shows how the OT *religious* economy could be abrogated, while some of the principles of its *civil* economy could still be relevant today.
5. Just because there was a theocracy in the OT does not mean that everything the OT says about the civil magistrate is irrevelant.
6. The gospels and Acts teach the church what to do when the society/nation is pagan and hostile to the truth. But the OT provides guidance about church and state relations when the true religion becomes at least nominally accepted by a nation.
This is a key point in their argument. We cannot expect that the NT would give a detailed explanation of the duty of the civil magistrate to support the true religion, because in the NT era, the Roman empire, magistrates, and even church officials and members were hostile to the true religion. (There is a analagous objection from the anabaptists about how little space the NT devotes to the subject of baptising infants, and an analagous response from the Reformers.)
7. The Reformers would say that nations must either receive the gospel (and deal with the upheaval predicted by Christ in Matthew 10:34-36) or be utterly wasted (Isaiah 60:12). They were not perturbed with the accusation that they were turning the world upside down by demanding that individuals, families, and nations and their rulers submit to Christ. Love for the nation moved them to make this demand, because they knew that if their beloved nations did not submit to Christ, they would suffer something worse than a revolution – utter devastation.
8. The rejection of reformed doctrine of the establishment principle logically leads to something that American Presbyterians never wanted: no laws protecting Sabbath observance, no swearing on a Bible in government or in court, no prayer in the name of Christ at any government meeting or function. (Or if prayer is allowed, all religions must be represented, and prayer offered to every god – stretching the length of the ceremony to an impractical length.) American Presbyterians like A A Hodge saw that national pluralism would lead to national atheism, and therefore wanted an amendment to the US Constitution stating that America was a Christian nation.
9. As far as I can see (correct me if I’m wrong) the modern two-kingdoms theory, reasoned to its logical conclusion, would demand that judges, jurors, witnesses, and politicians swear on a document outlining the principles of natural law. Anything more than that would be an unwarranted favoring of one religion above another. The good Princeton theologians would shrink in horror at such a position.
CH,
Replies below.
FWIW, I’ve been reading/studying the Reformers for 40+ years (I started as an undergraduate). I’ve been writing on them academically and teaching on them for 30 years.
For the purposes of this discussion, Erastianism isn’t material.
What is material is that theocrats what the state to impose and enforce, by the coercive power of the state, which is the only power the state has, religious orthodoxy.
With all due respect, this is historical nonsense. There has never been a state-established religion, prior to the modern period, where the state did not prosecute heresy and enforce orthodoxy by force.
This is a talking point of the Theonomists and Reconstructionists. Read Exodus 19 and 20. Anyone who touched the mountain had to die. Lev 24:14 institutes the death penalty for blasphemy. Christendom instituted civil punishments for religious crimes on the basis of their use (as you acknowledge) of the OT judicial laws. There was, to a certain degree, a distinction between church and state under Christendom, in different ways under the medieval church and the Reformation, but people were still punished regularly for religious crimes.
The premise is flawed, ergo the conclusion also.
Straw man.
The traditional Reformed view, which I accept and which the Theonomists reject, is that general equity is natural law. This is easily demonstrated from pre-modern sources (e.g., Beza, Wollebius, Perkins et al) as I have done on the HB theonomy resource page. What abides from the OT theocracy is what is natural. Whatever is distinctively Mosaic is abrogated.
This gets to the heart of the question. There’s no biblical evidence in the NT for a theocracy so, every theocrat must turn a post-canonical nation, in some way, into national Israel. This, as even Beza admitted theoretically (and contradicted within the same work) is untenable. Ergo, the theocratic case fails. The USA is not national Israel, even were all the citizens to become Christians.
This is special pleading. We have clear indications of continuity between the New Covenant Scriptures and the Abrahamic covenant, but we have no such clear indications of continuity with the Mosaic national covenant and the judicial laws. Hence the special pleading argument: it requires us to ignore plain contradictions of the theocratic argument and to draw unwarranted conclusions from silence.
Yours is the Baptist argument since, like the Baptists, you’ve turned Abraham into Moses as they do.
I don’t see how this is relevant. Every medieval believed the same thing.
Non sequitur. The 18th & 19th-Presbyterians assumed Christendom as did most 20th-century Presbyterians. The ancient, pre-Christendom church, lived without the state-institution of the church. Indeed, the church flourished under pagan rulers even though, especially in the 3rd century, the magistrate sought to destroy the church by murder.
There is a natural case for a Sabbath. We might not get Sunday, which depends on special revelation but we can make a case for a weekly Sabbath from nature since the Sabbath principle is built in to nature.
Here, for the most part, you’ve assumed what you must prove: that Christendom is the proper order. It wasn’t from the death of Christ until AD 380.
Further, the theocrat argument ignores the great damage done to the church and orthodoxy by magistrates through the centuries. This is the part of the argument that puzzles me. It’s easy to demonstrate that, almost universally, magistrates have worked against Christian orthodoxy and certainly Reformed orthodoxy. There are a few, brief exception but even they are problematic (e.g., Frederick III opposed the death penalty for the three anti-Trinitarians in 1572 but gave in to the preachers who demanded it). The Erasmian and Remonstrant sympathizing magistrates in the NL nearly scuttled the Dutch Reformed church. Even William of Orange asked the Reformed to tone down their criticisms of Rome for the sake of political unity v. the Spanish. The natural interests of the magistrate are almost never those of the Kingdom of God. At this point the theocrat argument is essentially that of the Marxists: the right people haven’t tried it yet, which is essentially a Pelagian theory. There are no “right” people this side of heaven.
I don’t know that there is a single “modern two kingdoms theory.” I’ve been trying to adapt Calvin’s “twofold kingdom” doctrine for a post-theocratic setting. Your attempt at a reductio ad absurdum fails because even the American founders acknowledged “nature and Nature’s God.” I don’t see why a religious person could not swear to God when required by the magistrate but people regularly swear without reference to God. So long as the state was not compelling religious speech, I don’t see the problem here.