There are five points to the citizenship program for which I have been arguing. The third point is persuasion. Last time we looked at some of the challenges we face in persuading our neighbors to support policies and politics that, “under the . . . Continue reading →
Twofold Kingdom
Eric Metaxas Is Wrong
Not everything that Christians do belongs to the visible, institutional church. Christians are free to organize in a variety of ways to accomplish social ends but Christ, the Lord of the Church, has given the visible, institutional church a very specific mandate and becoming a political action committee is not part of the church’s portfolio. Continue reading →
POPLL: An Alternative To Christian Nationalism (And Theonomy, Christian Reconstruction, Theocracy, And Christendom) (Pt 3)
The third and central act of active citizenship is persuasion, i.e., leading (inducing) our neighbors to agree with us about temporal life. Just as we organize for the well being of society, so also we seek, through convincing evidence, clear logic, and . . . Continue reading →
New Resource Page: On The Spirituality Of The Church
The doctrine of the spirituality of the church holds that God has ordained distinct spheres in the Christian life. The family is one sphere of authority and administration. Secular life, i.e., that life that is common to believers and non-believers alike, is . . . Continue reading →
POPLL: An Alternative To Christian Nationalism (And Theonomy, Christian Reconstruction, Theocracy, And Christendom) (Pt 2)
The second stage of active citizenship is organizing. Just as we pray for the well being of society, so also we work for it. This is a more important step than one might think because Christians too often simply assume that the . . . Continue reading →
POPLL: An Alternative To Christian Nationalism (And Theonomy, Christian Reconstruction, Theocracy, And Christendom) (Pt 1)
As part of an essay on the attempt by the U. S. Postal Service to compel a man to violate his religious convictions by forcing him to work on the Christian Sabbath, I offered an alternative to a variety of popular but . . . Continue reading →
Kuyper Contra Christian Nationalism
It teaches that in a Christian nation, that is, in a nation not without God, government as a servant of God is duty-bound to glorify his name and accordingly ought to (a) remove from administration and legislation anything that impedes the free . . . Continue reading →
Gamble On Wolfe’s Christian Nationalism
Judging from the attention given to Stephen Wolfe’s The Case for Christian Nationalism, one could be excused for thinking it is a significant work of scholarship. But Wolfe’s book matters more for the stir it has created than for any weight it carries. One . . . Continue reading →
Christian Tribalism And Loyalties In A Super-Heated Culture War
The noun tribe has no fewer than six senses in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).1 The first is the literal sense of a biological lineage—that is, a “group of people forming a community and claiming descent from a common ancestor; spec. each of . . . Continue reading →
Blood In The Seine: French Christian Nationalism And The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre: Part 2
Some of what took place in Paris beginning on August 24 can be explained by sociology and social history. There were real religious and social tensions in Paris and in Roman Catholic dominated towns in 1572. Paris itself was not yet spread out. There were about 210,000 people crowded together. Continue reading →
Blood In The Seine: French Christian Nationalism And The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre: Part 1
On August 22, 1572, Gaspard Comte de Coligny (1519–72), Admiral of France, bent to adjust his shoe or perhaps to open a letter. That unexpected movement saved his life. The bullet, fired by Charles de Louviers (d. 1583) from an upstairs window . . . Continue reading →
On The Distinction Between BBQ And The Kingdom Of God
All my reading material was on my computer, so on the way into the air and on the way down I read the American Airlines American Way magazine.1 It is not often that one finds stories about churches in the in-flight mag, but . . . Continue reading →
Sub-Christian Nationalism? (Part 20)
Perhaps the most fundamental problem with the Statement appears most clearly in its final article, “On ‘Neutrality’ and the Separation of Church and State.” WE AFFIRM that the Church and the state each possess their own sphere of influence. For example, church . . . Continue reading →
Sub-Christian Nationalism? (Part 19)
While Christian Nationalists busily try to put the theocratic band back together (i.e., to restore Christianity to its privileged place in American society), the culture continues to disintegrate at an alarming rate and to an alarming degree. Christians do well to spend . . . Continue reading →
Sub-Christian Nationalism? (Part 18)
It is useful to review Augustine’s humane account of just war to refresh our memories or to introduce the reader to Augustine’s approach to war, as a background to considering the Statement on just war. In his Reply to Faustus (c. 397; . . . Continue reading →
Sub-Christian Nationalism? (Part 17)
“My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” (John 18:36) One of . . . Continue reading →
World And Life View: License To Baptize? (Part 3)
In an essay dated 1 March 1996, Fred Pugh sketches what has become a fairly standard view among many neo-Kuyperians.1 His account probably obviously leans to the cultural-political right, and the antithesis is established as “secular humanism.” Continue reading →
World And Life View: License To Baptize? (Part 2)
The concept of a worldview is essential. Derived from the German Weltanschauung, the English noun denotes “a particular philosophy of life or conception of the world.”1 Worldviews are like belly-buttons. Everyone has one. Continue reading →
Distinguishing Spheres Affirms Christ’s Lordship Over All Things (Part 4)
Last time we saw that the very reason Calvin adopted the language of a “twofold kingdom” (i.e., the doctrine that God’s kingdom is one and administered in two distinct spheres) was to oppose the Libertines and Manichaeism. But it remains to be . . . Continue reading →
World And Life View: License to Baptize? (Part 1)
James Bond, Agent 007, had a “license to kill.” There are Reformed folk who also seem to have a license of some sort or other, based on what they call “the Christian world and life view” (hereafter, CWLV). This concept is interesting . . . Continue reading →