Charles Hughes was right: religious liberty is indeed the “glory of the Baptist heritage.” But how that heritage was applied and how it has changed over time is the topic of important debate. And, given the state of our American public square, it’s a discussion that will only continue to intensify in its significance.
Christian political engagement must return to a sometimes adversarial posture with society at large. The key is that for the first time in nearly a century conservative Protestant political thought is not hemmed in by the cartoonish biblicism inherited from the Fundamentalists, but has a robust intellectual ecosystem based in Protestant ressourcement and the reclamation of Protestant natural law theory.
The Protestant tradition possesses the resources to hold together the epistemological poles of creation and revelation. And it is those resources that Christians must draw upon to build a lasting, theologically compelling rejoinder to what’s commonly called wokeness.
The Church of the New Awakening begins with the desire to make moral stain an “identity group” problem, in the mistaken belief that the world can be purified through group purgation. Absent the One-Sufficient-Mediator, the Divine scapegoat who takes away the sins of the world for all time, new groups will need to be offered up after the first one fades from view.
Protestants can and should use natural law arguments to help society pursue and protect the common good of all people. By pursuing and protecting the common good of society, peace in the earthly realm is promoted and protected. This allows for the freedom peacefully and publicly to present the Gospel to all men, which all Christians should desire. As such, natural law can be used not only to promote civil goods, but also eternal good.
Bruce Gordon’s biography of Zwingli is an informative, well-written, and thought-provoking source for contemporary reflection, for its historical interest, but also for the issues it forces aspiring reformers in the present day to grapple with as we partner together to patiently preach and prayerfully work toward a church and society that honors God.
Today’s tendency to find our identity in our own experience and achievements contrasts with the New Testament and the ancient martyrs, who in confessing Christianus sum, found their ultimate identity not in their name or history but in the name and history of the Christ, which became theirs through Word and Sacrament.
What is offered in this book . . . is not care aimed at growth; it is more like the palliative care offered to a hospice patient. It is care when there is no hope for a cure. It is care for those who have been judged to be dying and beyond help. The best it can offer is kindness and pain relief, coupled with the hope that one day soon it will all be over.
For individual Christians, the advice is simple: give more and more effectively. Those Christians who did inhabit the Positive and Neutral Worlds should think seriously about how they can use their estate to advance God’s Kingdom, and whether they can give more in the present. They should also consider narrowing their giving scope. Your alma mater whose values continue to diverge more severely from your own? Remove them from your support list.
Language matters, and when we forget this fact, error subtly creeps in and displaces truth in ways we least expect, with implications we won’t recognize before it’s too late. With this in mind, we should at least be more cautious when speaking of “identity in Christ,” or better yet, lose the language altogether.
