In light of the previous posts, I would like to interject that I am very grateful to Chris Ortiz for recently posting this quote from R.J. Rushdoony at the Chalcedon Blog:

According to a common error, theocracy means the rule of men in the name of God. The Bible clearly contradicts this view. The state in Scripture is a minimal institution, and so too is the church an institution. The rule of God’s law is essentially through the lives of men as they apply their faith, and as they create tithe agencies to govern various areas and needs. Where faith wanes, the theocracy wanes. The Book of Judges gives us no change in polity from beginning to end, but it gives us an alternation from peace and prosperity to oppression and tyranny, and the key is faith. The essential government comes from the self-government of the Christian man. The U.S. was best governed when it was least governed, not because less control from the state was the essential ingredient but because Christian self-government was central in the eras of good government. Without strong, self-governing Christians taking back self-government under Christ in health, welfare, education, and more, we cannot return by politics to less statism. (in Systematic Theology in Two Volumes, Ross House Books: Vallecito, CA 1994, p. 1141f.

Darrell recommended Daniel Larison’s piece from a recent issue of American Conservative. While I have overall sympathy with Mr. Larison there are some ways that he reasons that I find problematic.

The opening question that is used to set up the piece inquires, ‘if God promises universal freedom, why does He need our help to liberate the world’? First, I would observe that what the US Empire is offering is not freedom though the neo-cons do style their cause that way. Instead what is being offered by the US President to Iraqis is the exchange of slavery that comes from the bondage of Islam for the slavery that comes from the bondage of Secular Humanism. Second, as one with an optimistic eschatology I would argue that whatever expansion of God’s Kingdom we would find in this world (which would include political Freedom) would come in the context of His people’s obedience. In short, while God doesn’t need anybody’s help to advance His kingdom He does marry means (the help of His people) to His ends (the liberation of the world). To contend otherwise is gnostic. Obviously, I agree with Mr. Larison that President Bush isn’t God’s prophet but I don’t agree with the implication that God wouldn’t use His people to advance His agenda.

Mr. Larison also seems confused as to how political liberty does follow Spiritual liberty. The problem that Mr. Bush has is not that he wants people to be politically free; the problem is that Mr. Bush thinks he can reverse engineer this process. Christians, believe that political freedom is the consequence of Spiritual freedom. When Christ sets the captives free spiritually that spiritual freedom will seek to incarnate itself in the political process. Mr. Bush shallowness comes from the fact that he seems to think that political freedom can be achieved apart from spiritual freedom. Iraqis will never be politically free while they are Islamic, just as Americans will continue to slip into neo-con bondage as long as they continue to turn their back on the Christian faith.

Next Mr. Larison posits a distinction between the Sacred and the profane, thus insinuating that there are some realms that God uniquely cares about and some realms over which God isn’t so concerned. It is exactly this kind of thinking that has created the mythic wall of separation between Church and State in America that drives so many of our current cultural problems. I would go so far as to say that Reformation and awakening will never come to this country as long as we keep creating a hard and fast sacred and profane (secular) division.

Mr. Larison faults the President for investing his “freedom agenda” with a divine mandate but the problem isn’t that a President would be for ‘freedom agenda’ or that he would think that God desires him to be for ‘freedom’ but rather the problem is that the freedom that this President is for isn’t freedom. In the end the reason that we see presumption in a shockingly impious manner in which the President represents God’s will is that what He calls God’s will isn’t. Our argument shouldn’t be about whether God supports a ‘freedom agenda’ (He clearly does) our arguments should be about how the President is misrepresenting freedom and how the President is mistaken on how a ‘freedom agenda’ is achieved. If we were really interested in a ‘freedom agenda’ we would be pummeling Iraq with Gospel missionaries.

 Mr. Larison quotes Mr. Hayek on freedom and while the quote is true as far as it goes it leaves out the Spiritual component. No people have ever achieved political freedom apart from the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Peoples or nations cannot be free or civilized unless a healthy and influential percentage of God intoxicated individuals in that nation are spiritually free and the only way that freedom can be achieved and true civilization built is by people knowing Jesus Christ. It is only by knowing Jesus Christ that people’s sin enslaved wills can be free for the first time and so free to pursue and build political structures that reflect that freedom. So, contrary to Mr. Larison I do believe that freedom in Christ is a sacred justification for pursuing political arrangements that reflect that individual spiritual freedom as it is incarnated on a corporate scale. Again, the problem in Iraq is that the Muslim people do not have free wills and so enslaved wills will only build enslaved political structures and bombs and bullets can’t change that.

It is ironic that Mr. Larison would accuse Mr. Bush of a kind of Gnosticism for I was thinking of that same label for what I was hearing from Mr. Larison. It is true that God doesn’t give universal political freedom as Mr. Larison notes, but it is also true that where spiritual freedom flourishes Political freedom should rightly be expected. To suggest that large scale spiritual freedom can flourish, without a corresponding incarnation of that freedom in political structures does sound, at least to my ears, as Gnostic. I do believe that spiritual liberty should be immanentized into political liberty (and any number of other kinds of liberty) but I also believe that can’t happen in a top down bureaucratic manner, nor can it be forced upon non-Christian peoples.

So, in the end I do think non-Christians are inherently incapable of living in political liberty. They must be born from above and be delivered from their bondaged wills. When all is said and done Mr. Larison and I agree that Mr. Bush’s agenda isn’t from God, nor is it divinely mandated. It seems though the way that we get to that conclusion is somewhat different.

The most recent issue of The American Conservative contains an excellent essay by Daniel Larison, formerly of Polemics fame, who now blogs at Eunomia.

Larison unmasks the heresy of liberationist theology now infecting many quarters of conservative Christianity, but particularly its evangelical wing. Elsewhere, in the same issue of TAC, Jeffrey Hart says that Bushian foreign policy should be stamped “Brought to you by orthodox Christian believers,” by which he means Protestant evangelicals.

Regrettably, there is truth to the charge, as I have discussed numerous times.

Throughout his presidency, Mr. Bush has snatched the mantle of divine authority. As Larison comments, the president’s rhetoric has often risen “to the level of the revelatory and prophetic, freeing it from the burdens of proof and deliberation.” One staple of Bush’s rhetoric, perhaps inserted by his Wheaton educated Svengali Mike Gerson, is that political freedom, presumably under the guise of “democracy,” is “God’s gift to every man and woman in this world.”

But this confuses the spiritual liberation one finds through faith in Christ with the messianic political liberation of nations. Surely bible-toting evangelicals would have the discernment to see through such hermeneutical contortions, don’t you think? Well, perhaps not.

In any case, Larison touches on numerous shortcomings in the pseudo-Christianity on display here. First, it blurs “the lines between the sacred and the profane, investing the ‘freedom agenda’ with a divine mandate and the presumption to represent God’s will in a shockingly impious manner.” Moreover, if it is “God’s will” that every man women and child in the Middle East live under democratic governance, what shall we think of God’s providence and sovereignty when that house of cards collapses and we turn tale, and those nations revert to some form of autocracy?

More importantly, Larison writes, “Political freedom is a product of culture and habit, the fruit of the discipline of civilization. As beings created in the image and likeness of God, it might be said that all men have the potential to acquire these habits and learn this discipline over a great length of time, but to believe that this discipline is more or less automatically inherent in all people right now is to dismiss both the effects of the fall and the contingencies of history.”

Political culture, economics, art, etc. are ultimately grounded in the religion of a people. To bear the fruit of political liberty and economic growth, a people must first ingest principles of thrift and work based upon a future-orientation, a legal system grounded in the rule of law and not the whims of man, and so much more that is integral to a Christian understanding of God and man.

In short, political and economic freedom are products of culture, and culture is a product of the religious presuppositions that under gird the culture. It is thus no accident that free-markets, capitalism and freedom constrained by law are largely confined to those parts of the world still borrowing off the spiritual capital accumulated by Christian ancestors.

Almost daily at conservative news sites I see a story expressing shock at some new outrage being foisted on the hapless pupils in government schools. Then the emails from various culture-warrior ministries arrive, giving further salient and salicious details, warning me that the end is near unless “we” protect “our” Christian students from these Satanic attacks. Of course, each email is accompanied by a figurative hand sticking out, waiting for the requisite donation.

Though I agree that there is a Satanic stronghold in government-run learning institutions, I think that a bigger problem is the hand out for hand-outs.

One of the shocking stories of last week was that some parents were upset that on the library shelf of their children’s elementary school sits a picture book about a pair of “gay” penguins which adopt a fertilized egg, raising the cute little fuzzy chick as their own. The objection to this Arctic tale got a chilly reception from the school superintendent, Ms. Filyaw: “My feeling is that a library is to serve an entire population. It means you represent different families in a society—different religions, different beliefs. That’s the role of a school library.”

She’s right.

Before you write me off as a defector to the dark side, know that I also think she’s probably a classic hypocrite—if you scan the shelves of the library at that little elementary school, chances are you won’t find (m)any books there that represent the religious beliefs of the majority of families in the school, most of whom (if national statistics regarding religious affiliation are a gauge) would probably claim some brand of Christianity, leaning toward Roman Catholicism in that region.

I decided to look up the propagandistic penguin picture book on my rural county public library’s online catalog. Yup, two copies. The shocker for me was that one of the copies was in the little local branch library, just a spell up the road, the library where my children and I used to volunteer and to which I donated several books in the past.

The shock wore off quickly, though, when I started to ponder my reaction and realized that it was just as silly as the sentiment expressed in the emails that want me to help make the democratic government schools safe for Christian children. It is perfectly logical that tax-financed institutions which purport to promote learning as a means of social salvation would lean heavily toward cultural “perversity” if that is the prevailing ideology. In other words, it’s no surprise when “public” libraries and “public” schools push garbage on their captive audience. Both institutions are cut of the same moth-eaten cloth.

While many would agree that the government school system is utterly corrupt and not worth keeping on life support, most homeschoolers are aghast when I suggest that government-operated libraries deserve a similar demise. One Charlotte Mason advocate (whose name is misspelled at the beginning of this article), enthusiastically promotes books as essential to a good education, then suggests this brilliant idea:

For the most part, the books you use in any method of home schooling can be obtained from the library at no charge, which is the most economical source for all kinds of books. Incidentally, my ideal library would be a place where we could checkout resources (such as microscopes) and educational tools, and not be limited to printed matter. Let your local lawmaker know that you’d approve of your library expanding its stock to include more hands-on learning tools. Even though it would come out of your taxes, in the long run it may prove more economical to share than to have each household owning its own microscope. (emphasis added)

Did you catch that? She thinks that the government should not only provide free books but free educational tools, as well. And where will the funds come from for this booty? From “your taxes.” But the clincher is that the funding for those expensive, politically-correct edifices staffed by paid government employees with graduate degrees in Library and Information Science from liberal universities comes not just from “your taxes,” but from your neighbor’s, as well.

How well do you know your neighbors? We live in a very nice neighborhood, with a few odd characters to make it interesting. Many of our neighbors are retired. One lady is a widow whose husband died of cancer last year, and she found out recently that she now has cancer. If I went up to her door and demanded that she hand over some cash so I can buy books and lab equipment for my family, I hope the neighbors would run me out of town on a rail. I would deserve the same if I pull such a stunt with the oddball neighbors, too. Yet when there is a local election with a property tax increase on the ballot—taking money from those retired people on fixed incomes—to “benefit” the public library, the Christian homeschoolers come out in force to promote it.

Folks, that money is not yours to take.

It’s been referenced so often that it is almost ubiquitous, but for those who may have missed it, or who need a refresher on limited government, take a few minutes to read my ancestor Davy Crockett’s essay, Not Yours to Give. He tells about a wake-up call he had when running for re-election to Congress—he realized that other people’s pockets were not to be pilfered, even for the best of causes. He points out that those who are so ready to avail themselves of the largesse of others become rather parsimonious if their own purse-strings are involved.

Local libraries are sacred cows for many people, especially homeschoolers. I read a nice blog the other day by a lady who is a wonderful homemaker and very clever about being thrifty. I enjoyed several of her ideas, but when discussing her mission to declutter her home (a mission for which I have great admiration), she talked about paring down her book and CD collections to ascetic proportions, because she could just find what she needed at the local library. I have plenty to say about asceticism and how it is not next to godliness, and how an environment rich with music and books can benefit your children immensely, but I will save that for another time, as this is getting long. The assumption that the tax-financed library should provide those things for one’s family is akin to saying government hand-outs are just dandy, as long as they provide for my kind of candy.

How conservative is it to promote limited government, decry pork barrel spending and welfare, criticize tax-funded education, yet avail ourselves of the so-called “free” library? Though it’s available to all regardless of race, sex, creed, sexual orientation, or income, public libraries are really just a middle-class entitlement program. They are also a handy venue for corrupting the values of the hapless children whose parents are not careful to protect them from the insidious influences lurking on their shelves. Those bad influences come in many forms, including the socialism that is inherent in the demand for government-financed libraries.

Note: This is also posted at Buried Treasure.

Election 2006 is now completed. Here are some general observations.  

1.) Because Pro-life issues in South Dakota, California, Oregon and Missouri fared so poorly, and because reputed Republican pro-life candidates did so badly (Santorum, Phil Kline) and because Pro-Baby Murder candidates did so well (Granholm, Morrison, Democrats in general) Republicans will beat a hasty retreat from Pro-life issues and will seek to distance themselves even more from the Pro-life crowd. Those who are Pro-life will be seen increasingly as a fringe element by both parties. The end of all this is that the Republican Party on the National level is going to conclude that this election was lost because Republicans were too conservative. In 2008 there will be no serious candidate for the Republican Nomination for President that is anywhere near being explicitly pro-life. 

2.) Correspondingly, Democrats will move even further to the left. Some might contend that many of the Democratic candidates that won campaigned as centrist Democrats and therefore a move to the left, by the Democratic Party, is not likely. We must keep in mind though that campaigning and ruling are two different beasts. Also we must keep in mind the whole idea of party discipline. Freshmen Congressmen and Senators who might be more centrist are not going to throw off the old left tenured leadership in the House and Senate, who will, quite to the contrary, isolate these ‘centrist’ freshmen if they don’t play leftist ball. Finally, we need to realize the special interest groups to whom the Democratic Party is beholden haven’t gone away and since they are still funding the Party, the Party is going to continue to tack left. 

 3.) The three Black Republicans upon whom the party was pinning so much hope fared poorly. Steele, Blackwell, and Swann were all dusted handily by their White Democratic opponents. Will this end the National Republicans Party’s thesis that Blacks, in large enough numbers to make a difference, will vote against their perceived interests just because the Candidate on the Republican ticket is Black?  

4.) Because of this election President Bush will get an amnesty bill for illegal aliens. Democrats view illegal aliens as a treasure trove of votes and they will give Bush an amnesty bill. The fact that big business will be helped by this is irrelevant to Democrats who are interested in the Democratic votes that illegal aliens represent. Democrats will try to punish big business through increased tax proposals as well as hikes in minimum wage requirements to offset the advantage that big business gains by the cheap unskilled labor. 

5.) We are stuck in Iraq and there is nothing that a Democratic Congress can or will do about that. Oh, they will talk a great deal, and might even huff and puff about timetables for departure but at the end of it all little will change in Iraq besides window dressing.  

6.) This election doesn’t harbinger a vast sea change in the American electorate. Because Democrats, in this election didn’t so much win as did Republicans lose, and because Democrats campaigned in opposition to the prevailing regime without offering new ideas, the electorate will quickly weary of Democratic rule. 

 7.) Good riddance to Rick Santorum. Santorum, who two years ago, campaigned against a pro-life Republican (Toomey) in favor of a pro-baby Murderer Republican (Specter) finds himself defeated by a pro-life Democrat (Casey). Somewhere in all of that there is some rich irony. Already I have read of some who are saying Santorum would make a fine Supreme Court nominee. I am here to tell you that if anybody thinks that ‘W’ could get Santorum confirmed in this Senate they must be smoking placenta.

8.) More then ever 2008 will be a campaign of left vs. left with the Democrats trying to convince people that those who are on the right side of the left are dangerous conservatives.

9.) Look for Democrats to propose Government School and Teacher friendly legislation, which will have the effect to make homeschooling more difficult. I don’t think they have the muscle to pass it yet but there will certainly be talk. Also, in terms of Democratic Congressional action, you can expect a great deal of Congressional investigation into Republican scandal.

10.) In spite of all this much of the Christian leadership will continue to insist that the Republican Party is God’s party. 

While the in-crowd is waiting with bated breath to see if they are soon to be on the outs, me and my house are not losing any sleep as we have clean consciences about how we voted and we know that no matter who has the illusion of holding the reins of power, God is still in His heaven and still in charge in this world.

I thought Michael Brendan Dougherty had a good riposte for Fred Barnes’s fear-mongering hand-wringing over the possibility of the GOP losing power:

Is any of this true? Goldwater’s landslide loss is credited with having built the conservative political movement. And wasn’t that during a particularly nasty period in the Cold War – while the Dems were the party of pinkos who “lost China?” Would the Republic have been better off with four more years of Gerald Ford? Or was it better to regroup and nominate Reagan? Would it have been better for George H. W. Bush to have been re-elected in 1992? Wouldn’t that have jeopardized the 1994 Gingrich Revolution?

Oholibah Martin writes, 

God doesn’t honor that junk, and He hasn’t honored it. And He shouldn’t. We should thank Him for the grace He’s giving us with the flawed leaders we have, and for the opportunity to work toward a majority that will support better ones. Because what we deserve based on our head-in-the-sand do-nothing ineffective unfaithful apostasy of the past many decades is the sort of intensely anti-Christian, thoroughly wiped-out nation that is oh-so-common in once-Christian Europe.

Bret responds,

It is true that we should thank our benevolent Lord Christ that things aren’t as bad as we deserve.

Second, it surely is the case that I hope that I ‘do nothing ineffective’ and that I practice ‘unfaithful apostasy.’ (Methinks that Oholibah got a little carried away there with her rhetoric and said something that she didn’t intend.)

Third, I would argue that many Christians have been politically active, and have not been unfaithful or apostate. In 1980 and 1984 they voted for a man who talked a great deal about the problems of government. Unfortunately, he didn’t press that agenda, perhaps in part because he had to work with a politically divided government. In 1994, Christians were again faithful in voting to empower the Republican ‘Contract With America,’ in hopes that once again the Republican party would deliver on an agenda that in many respects was Christian-friendly (downsizing government, tax relief, elimination of the Department of Education, term limits, etc.) Between the failures of President Reagan and the failures of the Contract With America, along with the failure of 7 of 9 Republican appointees on the SCOTUS to overturn Roe, in addition to the advent of the Big Government Conservatism of President Bush, it has become past obvious that the Republican Party is a weak reed upon which Christians shouldn’t rely.

Given all of this, it strikes me that pursuing success via the means of the Republican Party is what will contribute to a wiped-out nation.

Oholibah Martin writes,

No, no quick fixes thank you, and no one who’s looking for such a thing either. And for that matter, enough prattling on about how wicked our conservative leaders are. I know most of them personally and as a group they are a lot more serious about their faith than most of the church folks I know (and ironically enough, for all his talk against them, Howard Phillips never misses a chance to hang out with them, drink wine with them and generally play “buddies”). We have a conservative movement that is becoming mostly Christian but isn’t quite there yet. That’s progressive sanctification in action, and it *is* biblical. And we alone among the nations of the Earth are blessed to see God doing it in our land.

Bret responds,

Oholibah, you certainly won’t mind if I don’t take your word on this will you?

The fact that “most of our conservative leaders are a lot more serious about their faith than most of the church folks” you know is not a recommendation for conservative leadership, but is an indictment of the current Church. I quite agree that the current Church is a mess.

Finally, come talk to me about progressive sanctification when the Republicans are passing bills that decentralize the federal government, or that make criminal the procedure of abortion, or that restructure the IRS, or that deal seriously with the problem of illegal aliens, or that restrict every god but the God of the Bible from the public square, or that move to end the works program that is government education. When those kinds of laws are passed, then talk to me about progressive sanctification.

Oholibah Martin,

I hope you’re up for the fight. It’s not as pretty as what the quick fix crowd will sell you, but it’s the only way to build anything that lasts. As you might have noticed, even Canaan was not completely subdued in Joshua’s lifetime.

Bret responds,

Well, I can’t speak for everybody but I am under no delusion that the building up of a third party is a quick fix.

Oholibah Martin asks for a plan…

Bret responds,

For my part, the plan is to eventually make a big enough inroad into Republican support that the Republican party has to take seriously the issues on which people are voting against them. The idea of being taken seriously would mean providing candidates in key races who actually advocate constitutional government. If, one day, a party that advocates constitutional government could gather even the 5% that John Anderson tallied in 1980, that would likely mean an adjustment in one of the parties in order to capture that vote.

So, a party that is faithful to the Constitution doesn’t need to seize power in order to have major influence. It merely needs to siphon off enough votes that its existence gains the attention of the major parties that need those votes in future elections. For example, I would say by the screed you have written here, that third parties have gotten your attention. If we were completely irrelevant you wouldn’t waste your time spilling ink over our irrelevancy. We must be making enough of a dent to cause you to wring your hands over us. Now, if we can just make that dent a little bigger, we will have the attention of the real power brokers in the party and not just little fish like you. Once we have their attention, then we can begin to parley with the hope that such negotiation will put them in the back of the bus in exchange for our support. Then they can be the ones who do all the foot work while we get elected.

Oholibah Martin writes,

Godliness does not require us to be unprofessional amateurs. In fact, it requires quite the opposite. And that means understanding every in-and-out of our system and working effectively to master it. We owe our Master nothing less.

Bret responds,

Just remember, Oholibah, that those who lie down with dogs get up with fleas.

I want to make clear, Oholibah, that I understand the art of compromise. I’m just tired of being the only one doing the compromising. When the time comes that the Republican apparatus decides it wants to do some compromising, then we can talk. Until that time, the Christian response is voting for a third party that advocates practicing the Constitution.

Oholibah Martin writes,

To claim that Ron Paul is the only Republican who’s pro-life — or that the majority of Republican officeholders are not actively pro-life — means you are not familiar with their actual voting records. No shame in that, but you should examine these things before repeating the standard anti-GOP propaganda. You’ll be surprised. This also goes for a whole host of vital conservative issues, from missile defense to gun rights to gay marriage (which only Republicans — and nearly all Republicans — have opposed, and which they’ve opposed successfully), etc. Again, if you want more details, feel free to ask.

Bret responds,

Also keep in mind that sometimes people vote for bills that they know are going to fail just so they can come back to their constituency and brag about their votes. Remember that the Republican party has owned the legislative and executive branches of the federal government for six years now. If the Republican party was as conservative as Oholibah claims, one would think this kind of control would have resulted in more conservative government. The fact that it hasn’t is one reason why the Republican party is on the ropes in 2006. They made promises that they haven’t kept, and now it looks like they are going to pay the piper.