1. Voddie T. Baucham, Jr., Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe (Washington, DC: Salem Books, 2021), 14–19.

Still, when he arrived at New Mexico State University in the Fall of 1987, he did not yet know the Lord. As he said later, “I did not know Jesus from the Man on the Moon.” ^[2] Yet, a campus minister explained to him what the Bible was, what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is, and how to “search the Scriptures daily.”^[3] In October 1987, God gave Voddie new life, as he took this football star with NFL hopes and made him a Christian who would become a true north star for so many Christians in the first quarter of the twenty-first century.

As Voddie tells his story in Fault Lines, he was a young man on the move. After playing football at NMSU, he transferred to Rice, where he met the woman who would become his wife and mother to his nine children. Before finishing college, they moved together to Houston Baptist University (now Houston Christian University), and from there to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. Indeed, long before we came to know Voddie as the traveling evangelist, Christian apologist, church planter, seminary dean, and conference speaker, the Lord was already leading him from one station of life to another.

Accordingly, Voddie was always a man on the move. After finishing his time at SWBTS, he pursued a doctoral degree at SEBTS and began to receive invitations to speak throughout the Southern Baptist Convention.^[4] In 2006, he moved to Texas to plant a church with a unique model of family ministry. In 2015, he moved to Africa to start a new theological seminary. And most recently, in 2025, he brought his family to Cape Coral, Florida to start Founders Seminary—a work begun by his close friend and confidant, Tom Ascol.

4. Baucham, Fault Lines, 30–31.

While always pastoral in heart and at times serving as a pastor, Voddie was far more like the apostles and evangelists of the early church. Like Paul and Timothy, who were constantly on the move—preaching, correcting, encouraging, and building up the church—Voddie gained a reputation as someone who traveled the world preaching the Word of God without reservation or apology.

Always On the Move, A Man Who Never Moved

Indeed, while Voddie’s life and ministry was always on the move, his commitment to the truth never moved. From before the time he wrote his first book, The Ever-Loving Truth: Can Faith Thrive in a Post-Christian Culture? (2004) until his final message delivered at New Saint Andrews College (Moscow, Idaho), Voddie’s voice was always clear and his message was always straight. Combining academic rigor with good humor, he brought biblical exposition to the masses, punctuating sage wisdom with his famously dramatic pauses. He wanted us to think and to feel the Word. The challenges we were up against were greater than we understood. But Voddie understood.

At a time when the world was overrun with deceitful acronyms (e.g., LGBT, CRT, DEI, etc.) and when a promising gospel-centered movement was pulled to the ideological Left by social justice in the church and BLM in the streets, Voddie Baucham remained unmoved.

Indeed, as man who was once reprimanded by Dwight McKissick for wearing Afrocentric T-shirts, Voddie Baucham provided firsthand testimony to the truth of God’s Word and the errors of social justice. But more than just speaking from his experience, Voddie provided some of the most trenchant critiques of Social Justice and Ethnic Gnosticism (a term he coined). He may not have spoken for many African American voices—as criticized by Phil Vischer^[5]—but he nevertheless gave voice to many, even as he trained black pastors in Africa. And more, he had been engaging these cultural lies long before they infiltrated the church. Characteristic of Voddie’s unwavering commitment to the truth, he had been talking about the Frankfurt School more than a decade before the SBC resolved to employ Critical Race Theory and its “analytic tools” in 2019.

5. Timothy Martin points out the irony.

Put all this together, and we begin to see how Voddie Baucham served as a North Star in the constellation of evangelical speakers. Or to drop the metaphor, he was an embodiment of everything that Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:1–5. In this final chapter of Paul’s life, he wrote to his protégé and urged him to remain steadfast. He writes,

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

These words are a constant charge for every pastor. And thankfully, in Voddie’s life, he embraced them all. And thus, as we offer tribute to Voddie today, we want to give thanks to God for this valiant servant and suggest four ways that Voddie embodied Paul’s words. As two pastors who preach the word ourselves, want to highlight the ways that Voddie has impacted us, even as we commend his life and labors to others as well.

In short, as a man who is gone too soon, he established himself as a north star to his generation by being a preacher of the word, a lone voice in the church, an apologist to the culture, and an evangelist to the end.

A Preacher of the Word

The first time I (Dave) heard of Voddie Baucham was in 2000, when he spoke to a gathering of 40,000 college students at One Day (Shelby Farms, Tennessee). While summer plans kept me from joining my friends at this Passion event, the sermons and the music of that day reverberated across college campuses. Twenty-five years later, John Piper’s “shells” sermon might have the most notoriety, but I cannot forget hearing Voddie speaking the words of Isaiah 53. And thus, I was introduced to Voddie as a preacher.

Indeed, when Paul exhorts Timothy, this is his simple word: “Preach the word!” More fully, “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word.” Ever since Paul wrote these words, men have sought to preach with an eye to their Lord, knowing that they will give an account to God (cf. James 3:1). Tragically, many famous preachers in our own day have broken their sacred duty by drifting into error or diving into sin. By contrast, Voddie Baucham was a faithful preacher to the end. His life and ministry bear testimony to the truth he proclaimed and the character that he possessed.

Together, his life and his preaching have left an indelible mark on all those who listened to him. From the first time I heard him, until the last (at the 2025 Founders Conference), his sermon was never to be missed. He had proven himself to be bold and biblical. He was a proven expositor and careful student of history, theology, culture, and the human heart. Combined with humor and gravitas, his ministry defined what it means to be a preacher of the word—and what it means to preach the word in season and out of season.

A Lone Voice in the Church

When Paul wrote to Timothy, he told him there would be seasons when God’s Word would be agreeable and others seasons when it wouldn’t. Across the ages, this axiom has stood the test of time. And even in the last three decades we can see ways that the church was pressured to whisper about sexual sin and shout about social justice. Ironically, many of the traveling evangelists that preached next to Voddie would take very different approaches as cultural winds picked up. One can hardly imagine a conference today that would include Louie Giglio, John Piper, Beth Moore, and Voddie Baucham.

For anyone who has been around Big Eva for the last twenty-years, they can see the cultural changes. We wrote about some of them in the book Dividing the Faithful: How a Little Book on Race Fractured a Movement Founded on Grace, and not surprisingly, Voddie’s work preceded and shaped our own reflections. Yet, it did so amid much controversy and even cancellation. For if Voddie was once a rising star in the Southern Baptist Convention and a popular preacher at events like One Day, it did not continue unhindered. He was cancelled twice. Why?

First, as he tells it in his book Fault Lines, his commitment to the doctrines of grace ran into problems with SBC leaders who opposed Calvinism. Likewise, his commitment to training up children at home, instead of in government schools, also invited ridicule. In a denomination that sent eighty-five percent of its children to government schools, Voddie stood against that common practice. While applauded by some, he was a lone voice in the church. Yet, wisdom is proven by her children, such that today, Voddie’s caution—that children sent to Caesar will become Romans—is undeniable true. Still, to speak such truth came with a cost.

Yet, what was the SBC’s loss was TGC’s gain. As The Gospel Coalition began to pick up steam, Voddie Baucham became a fixture in the movement and a Council Member. He spoke at many events, including TGC’s national conference in 2015, where he spoke on the resurrection. But this did not last.

Indeed, it’s difficult to understand Voddie’s transition out of that council apart from his famous article, “Thoughts on Ferguson” (November 2014) and his unwillingness to go with the rising narrative of America’s structural racism. In point of fact, Voddie’s article on Ferguson was not the last time his name showed up at TGC, but clearly his views on race were not in season to many evangelical gatekeepers.^[6] And if, in 2015, his move to Africa made his absence on the evangelical speaking circuit understandable, it was not because he had changed. Rather, as he pointed out in Fault Lines, the shift was caused by the introduction of CRT and cultural Marxism—ideologies that Voddie had been fighting for decades.

6. Evidence of this is seen in the fact that many of Voddie’s books on Scripture, family and apologetics continue to be commended. But not so his views on race and justice.

On the one hand, his cancellation in the SBC over Calvinism and schooling proved a point Voddie was eager to make: the SBC was not racist. His melanin was welcome, just not his views. This did not offend Voddie, for this ultimately affirmed his treatment as an equal.^[7] On the other hand, while Voddie’s race was welcome in both the SBC and TGC, his views on America’s challenges around race were quite unwelcome.

7. Baucham, Fault Lines, 33.

To return to Paul, the Apostle urges Timothy to “be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.” In Voddie’s case, he was. As you can see in this panel on politics, he was always ready to give an answer for the hope that he had in Christ and to explain why his commitment to Christ required him to stand for the truth. As one of eleven evangelical leaders engaged at an event on following Ferguson in 2014, “A Time to Speak,” Voddie’s perspective was outnumbered, ten-to-one.^[8] Voddie felt the fault lines personally and early.

8. This event video offers a time capsule of the discussion within the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement including the Who’s Who of conference speakers at the time: Matt Chandler, John Piper, Darrin Patrick, Eric Mason, etc. This panel took place four years before two high profile moments in 2018, MLK50 and Platt’s T4G sermon, “Let Justice Roll Down Like Waters: Racism and Our Need for Repentance”; five years before the SBC’s Resolution 9; six years before George Floyd; and seven years before Voddie’s, Fault Lines. Today, Voddie’s views expressed in this panel are more widely engaged and even appreciated. At the time, while many in the pews were making similar arguments, Voddie stood alone among his peers, those setting the agenda for public conversations such as the one held at this event. For this he deserves honor.

A Prophet to the Culture

In 2015, Voddie not only moved on from evangelical panels, but he also moved continents. Receiving a call to serve as the founding Dean of Theology at Zambia Christian University (Lusaka, Zambia), he did the hard work of raising up a school to equip the saints in that nation. For us, his name was not forgotten, nor his place in the universal church. But continuing in America, Voddie dropped off our radar until the zenith of social justice hit the streets with BLM marches in the summer of 2020.

As evangelicals went in search of leaders who were not woke, Voddie’s voice came from across the seas to provide immense wisdom and clarity. At a time when lock-downs made everything go online, his voice began to re-emerge in conferences and other places of biblical proclamation. In January 2021, his presence at the 1500-person Founders National Conference in Fort Myers—the first large gathering in more than 18 months—will never be forgotten.

And since that day, Voddie’s frequent visits to America have filled the land (and the internet) with cultural apologetics for wandering sheep. Indeed, 2020 has been called the “Great Sort” because so many previously-trusted leaders stumbled in their treatment of COVID and the culture. Equally, with the rise of online communications, many evangelicals began to go in search of new voices. Some went in search of false teaching, but many found themselves in places where the sound teaching had been captivated by social justice. And at this time, few men were ready for the season more than Voddie Baucham.

Indeed, by means of his traveling and preaching, he brought truth to those who were wandering. And thus, while many shepherds wandered from the truth—and thankfully many have returned—Voddie Baucham was again a North Star. At a time when many church-goers would not “endure sound teaching” and would “accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,” Voddie began denouncing things like Ethnic Gnosticism and Social Justice that emerged from the Frankfurt School and Critical Race Theory.

To be sure, such plain speech offended many—including those who once walked beside him. But true to form, Voddie did not deviate. Instead, he continued to explain the Bible and the world to those who love the Bible. And thus, the years of 2020 to 2025 made him one of the most trusted voices in America—a seminary president from Africa who even preached the gospel to the likes of Ben Shapiro.

Recently, it has been observed by Jason Whitlock, Chad O. Jackson, and Virgil Walker that Voddie’s name was not well-known among the so-called Black Church and that major publications have not recognized his untimely death. But clearly, Voddie was a public theologian par excellence and one whose voice will continue to speak to matters of Christ and culture, by means of the countless videos that captured his preaching.

An Evangelist Until the End

If Voddie was a voice crying out for truth in season and out of season, he was also a man who fulfilled his ministry until the end. As Paul told Timothy, “As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

Voddie wore sober-mindedness on his sleeve. Before preaching, noticeably, Voddie was consumed with his task. Like an athlete preparing to take the field, he prepared his heart and mind to preach the gospel to those who needed the truth. And in the words that he leaves behind, it is clear that he did the work of an evangelist until the end.

Even in the week before his death, Voddie preached the gospel to the saints at Grace Baptist Church and proclaimed God’s truth to the students at New Saint Andrews. Like Charlie Kirk who preceded Voddie’s ascent to glory by days, Voddie was preaching the good news. To do this meant that he had to endure suffering—both physical and relational. It cost him a great deal to be faithful. And yet, such fidelity reflects his all-consuming commitment to God’s Word.

From the days when he preached the gospel to teens in Texas to the days when his sermons would travel the earth, he was a man on the move whose biblical convictions did not change. For a generation, he was a north star and one whose light continues to shine.

As Paul said in Philippians, when he contemplated his own earthly passing and his impact on others, he urged the saints to shine as lights, “holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain” (Phil. 2:16). Applied today, one of the best ways to honor Voddie Baucham is to give thanks to God for him, to examine his life and ministry, and imitate his faith.

Voddie ran hard and he did not run in vain.

May we run that same race, stand in the same truth, and shine like stars with Christ’s light until he comes.

That’s how I feel having taken a fresh look at Mark 13. For example, what do you see when you read this passage?

But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. (Mark 13:24–27, emphasis added)

Popular interpretations of this passage had me looking in one direction: obviously, this is about Christ’s return, right? But no, something has gone missing. Or, rather, by our popular misreading of this passage, we have missed what’s right in front of us. In this essay I will take you into the pastor’s study to show how I came to see that in Mark 13 Jesus is actually talking about the cross.^[1] The journey from the Mount of Olives to the cross takes place in four steps. But first, let’s begin where Mark does and have a seat with Jesus on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple.

1. I am indebted to Peter Bolt and his book, The Cross from a Distance: Atonement in Mark’s Gospel for this argument and many of the exegetical insights that contribute to it. In fact, this essay surveys the view that Bolt argues for in more detail—in detail I can’t go into here. This essay is an expansion on a sermon titled, “Be On Your Guard,” preached at Heritage Bible Church in Greer, SC, March 7, 2021. If this brief survey piques your interest, I highly recommend reading Bolt’s book for further study. Peter G. Bolt, The Cross from a Distance: Atonement in Mark’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: IVP Academic, 2004).

Sometimes It’s Hard to See What’s Right in Front of Us

When Mark 13 begins, Jesus leaves the temple with his disciples, who offer their famous reaction: “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” (Mark 13:1). Maybe they were awestruck with the architecture. Maybe they were speaking about the glory of the temple in God’s plan. Whatever the case, Jesus’s disciples saw the temple, but they did not truly understand what they were looking at. Jesus had a different take: “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down” (Mark 13:2). Then Jesus started talking about “the end” (Mark 13:7, 13). That’s why this Olivet Discourse is called an apocalyptic discourse.

The two most common interpretations of Jesus’s words here are that either he is talking about the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. or else his second coming. There are good enough reasons for that. The physical stones of the temple were thrown down when Rome sacked Jerusalem in AD 70, and this caused religious upheavals (false messiahs), international upheavals (wars and rumors of wars), and natural upheavals (earthquakes and famines), all of which Jesus declares will happen before “the end” comes (Mark 13:7). All of these signs fit with the destruction of the temple, but could also be applied to the second coming. Moreover, the warnings Jesus gives are easy to apply to our present situation as we await Jesus’s return. Disciples should expect trouble before governors, among family, and to be hated by all for Jesus’s sake (Mark 13:9–13). “See that no one leads you astray,” Jesus warns (Mark 13:5). “Be on your guard” (Mark 13:9, 23, 33). “Stay awake” (Mark 13:33, 35, 37). All of these descriptions and warnings can lead the reader of Mark’s gospel to look toward a future apocalypse.

But on a second look, there are discrepancies. The destruction of the temple in Israel’s socio-political experience seems incongruent with the cosmic scope of Jesus’s speech, and even anti-climactic. And as for the second coming, we have to reckon with Jesus’s emphatic promise: “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Mark 13:30–31).

We find ourselves not only asking with the disciples, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign . . .? (Mark 13:4), but also “what are these things?” Where is Mark pointing us? If we want to figure this out, we need to focus on four particular areas.

First, Count the Days.

Jesus’s apocalyptic discourse comes at the end of three days in which he had made the same journey from Bethany in the morning, out to Jerusalem and the temple, and then back in the evening. With each day, the action slows down and the tension ratches up.

On the first day Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a colt, enters the city from the Mount of Olives, and thereby demonstrates that Israel’s Messiah has arrived (Zech. 9:9; 14:4; Mark 11:1–11). Jesus enters the temple (Mark 11:11), and our expectation heightens, for the book of Mark opened with a quotation from Malachi concerning the Lord’s promise to come to his temple in judgment (Mal. 3:1; Mark 1:2–3). What will Jesus do? Not much. He enters, looks around, and goes home (Mark 11:11b). This is not what we expected, but he now has our attention.

Heading out from Bethany on the second day, Jesus curses a fig tree without figs (Mark 11:12–14) before he enters the temple complex and turns over the money changers’ tables (Mark 11:15–19; cf. Zech. 14:20–21). Jesus didn’t just cleanse the temple. As the Lord who comes in judgment, he shut it down. When Jesus and his disciples pass by the same tree the following morning, Jesus offers a curious interpretation: “Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him” (Mark 11:23).

It’s at the end of that third day when Jesus sits down “on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple” (Mark 13:3) and gives his apocalyptic speech. This is his longest speech and his last teaching before his passion begins.

What exactly is Jesus up to here? Jesus is signaling the end of Israel’s days have come. Israel is the fruitless tree and Israel is about to become, figuratively speaking, a level plain (Zech. 14:4). When Jesus curses the temple, he enacts a parable of what he did in clearing out the temple, which itself is symbolic for what Jesus is doing to Israel. Increasing conflict on the third day between Jesus and Israel’s leaders (Mark 11:27–12:40) makes it clear that the time has come for judgment.

Mark has our attention. Where should we be looking now?

Second, Don’t Forget to Watch the Characters.

Jesus also had the attention of his disciples. This is a short but important step in our effort to see where Mark is pointing us. Mark’s gospel was written for Mark’s audience, but let’s not forget who Jesus was speaking to in the narrative. We might miss what Mark is doing and what Jesus is saying if we miss the experience of Jesus’s disciples in the story.

For three days they have been with him out to Jerusalem and back. For three days they have experienced the increasing conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders who seem now intent on killing him. And at the end of these days, a day before his betrayal and arrest, they sit with him opposite the temple and listen.

What did Jesus’s disciples need to hear in that moment? Could it be that Jesus’s words in Mark 13 are given to prepare them for his coming crucifixion?

Let’s keep looking.

Third, Follow the Sequence of Three Events.

Looking at the temple, Jesus told his disciples to look for a sequence of three events: 1) the sun being darkened, 2) the Son of Man coming in the clouds, and 3) the sending out of angels to gather his elect from the ends of the earth (Mark 13:24–27).

These events would be preceded by the upheavals of this present age of which Jesus spoke. They would be immediately preceded by a horrendous act of sacrilege of the kind the world has never seen and never would see again, “the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not to be” (Mark 13:14, 19). It would be a time of great distress (Mark 13:14–18). So great an evil would occur that if the Lord did not cut the time short it would swallow up the whole world (Mark 13:20). And in all this Mark adds the important phrase, “Let the reader understand” (Mark 13:14). Apparently, Mark’s readers should know something the characters in the story do not.

Whatever this great cataclysm was, it was to happen in the lifetime of Jesus’s disciples (Mark 13:30). And it would be followed by the darkening of the sun, the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds, and the gathering of God’s elect.

When did all this happen?

Finally, Watch the Clock.

Mark has walked us through the calendar of three days and now he points to the hour (the clock).

But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows . . . Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning—lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake. (Mark 13:32, 35–37, emphasis added)

Evening, midnight, dawn, morning—with these time markers of Mark 13:35, Jesus gives his disciples an outline for the great tribulation of the very next day, a day in which so much of what Jesus said on that mountain would occur.^[2]

2. “Day” here is inclusive, speaking of Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection. The third time reference—“in the morning”—was not technically in the same twenty-four hour period. “The Day”—an Old Testament concept—was a day of both judgment and salvation, and thus in this sense it is fitting to consider Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection as a single Day.

The disciples were with Jesus the next “evening” when he instituted the Lord’s Supper (Mark 14:12). It was at that time that Judas was led astray. They were with Jesus in Gethsemane at midnight. They should have “stay[ed] awake” (Mark 13:37) and prayed while Jesus agonized there, but they didn’t (Mark 14:37–38). When “the hour” finally came, they “left him and fled” (Mark 14:41, 50).

When the “rooster crowed,” Peter remembered Jesus words, realized what he had done in denying his Lord, and wept (Mark 14:72). Jesus was crucified, an act of sacrilege of which the world has never seen and never would see again, and the sky went dark (Mark 13:24; 15:33). Israel’s leaders had committed the final and greatest act of rebellion the world would ever see, a desecration of the very temple of God himself. Which makes sense of why Jesus used the disciples’ admiration of the temple stones as a launching point for his speech.

But God did not let the evil of humanity go on forever. In fact, he raised the Lord Jesus from the dead, and he did so three days later “very early on the first day of the week,” that is, in the morning (Mark 16:2).

It was a quiet morning, yet a morning of great power and glory for the reader who understands. Long before it occurred, the prophet Daniel described what would happen on this morning: the beastly nations of the world would be overthrown, and all authority would be given to a human figure called a Son of Man for judgment and the establishment of God’s kingdom (Dan. 7:1–14). Daniel asked when this would occur and was told that he would not live to see it (Dan. 12:1–4). But Jesus told his disciples that they would see it (Mark 13:30). Jesus’s resurrection is nothing less than the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds. This apocalyptic and poetic picture took place on the morning of the resurrection. As Matthew would tell us, it was at that time that “all authority” was given to the Son (Matt 28:18). And with that authority Jesus sent out his disciples—or his messengers (it’s the same Greek word translated as “angels”)—to the end of the earth (Mark 13:27; Matt. 28:19–20; Acts 1:8).

Jesus sat down across from the temple and talked about the end of the world. The next day he brought about the end of the world as we know it. Through his resurrection from the dead, he brings us with him into his glorious kingdom.

So, What Have We Been Missing After All?

When Mark wrote, “let the reader understand,” he indicated that we were to pick up on something that the disciples did not grasp in the moment (Mark 13:14). That is because when Jesus first spoke these words, he had not yet been crucified. But by the time Mark was written (and thus, by the time there was a “reader”), Jesus had been crucified and raised. Thus, we are to understand that Jesus was speaking of his own crucifixion and exaltation.

If we see all the events described in Mark 13 as describing Jesus’s future return, what do we miss? We miss the cross and resurrection of Jesus. We miss the measure of our Lord’s suffering for us. Beyond that, a future-oriented reading of Mark 13 must envision an act of sacrilege that surpasses that of the cross (Mark 13:14). How could there be a greater sacrilege than God himself being sacrificed on Golgotha? On the cross Jesus was so identified with the sins he was bearing that later texts could say “He became sin for us” (2 Cor. 5:21). What is more abominable than the sins of Jesus’s people concentrated in one man? This was the darkest day the world and heaven has ever known or will know.

A future-oriented reading also misses the significance of Jesus’s own body as the temple, the very way to God (Mark 13:2). The cross and resurrection must not be missed. Fortunately, their significance is so well attested that we cannot miss them even if we misinterpret one passage. But a more careful reading of Mark means we will see them even more clearly for all that they are.

So, Christian, remember the characters in the story, count the days, watch the clock. As you read Mark’s gospel look where Mark is pointing you, to the crucified and risen Lord Jesus. But don’t stop there, for Jesus calls all of us to the path of the cross. So, keep watch, stay awake, and pray. For in as much as Mark 13 is about the path of the cross and the promise of resurrection, it is about the Christian life as we await Jesus’s return. Yes, this passage has profound application to Christians in light of Jesus’s second coming. Jesus prepared his disciples for the worst to come and for all that would come after that. Yes, today we will face very great tribulation ourselves, for we follow Jesus on the path of the cross, just as he called us.

When this bill was presented in 2021, many people—including physicians and attorneys— gathered to offer their perspectives to our state’s Health Committee reviewing the bill. As a pastor representing Bible-believing evangelical Christians, these were the remarks I prepared:[1]

1. Time at the mic did not allow this full testimony. Thus, what is written below is an expanded version of my initial comments.

_____

I’m here as a pastor from Desert Springs Church in Albuquerque. I also coordinate network of thirty pastors in our region. Representing these pastors and their churches, I stand in opposition to the End-of-Life Options Act.

I owe you three words this morning.

I Owe You a Word of Thanks

Thank you to the NM House Health Committee for seeking to discern and serve the best interests of our state. To the physicians who are with us, thank you for caring for the sick. Tyler is my 39-year-old brother. After multiple open-heart surgeries, he contracted meningitis in the hospital at 18 months old. Today he is severely mentally handicapped. You are brilliant, you work hard for us, you deal frequently in difficult ambiguities, and we need you. Thank you. To those here who have suffered and are suffering, we grieve with you. Death is cruel. As a pastor, I’ve seen it up close. This topic is not abstract to me or for any of us.

To the committee, I owe you a second thing.

I Owe You a Word of Truth

No doubt for some, support for this bill springs from a noble motive and moral imperative: compassion. May we never tire of doing right from compassion. But it crosses a bright line that we shall not cross together, friends. Physicians should treat fellow human beings in the course of death. Physicians must never treat the suffering with death. This line is clear, ancient, tested, needed, and unambiguous.

A familiar verse in Scripture limits our choices in a compassionate way: “You shall not murder.” Suicide is self-murder. Assisted suicide—however motivated—is a form of murder. Job’s wife said to him, “curse God and die.” He did not. Rather, he “fear[ed] God and turn[ed] away from evil.” We are not self-created and so we shall not self-destruct. We are not the origin of the life we possess, and we must not dispose ourselves of that life.

God’s command against murder stands on two pillars.

• The first pillar: human worth. We are not animals. They can kill and eat one another. We can put them to sleep. But there is a reason we have hospitals and oaths and compassion. There is a reason why we are here today. We are human beings—creatures of inestimable worth. My brother’s dignity is not from any capacity he possesses or contribution he makes, but from his status as one made in God’s image.

• The second pillar: human sinfulness. Not only are we limited as finite beings, but we are limited as fallen and flawed beings. There is a reason we need this command against murder. Humans can break terribly bad.[2] The Bible calls it sin. Others call it human nature. We might call it the evening news and twentieth century history. We may not agree on what to call it, but we should all agree that human beings, marvelous though we are, are capable of the most heinous evil—the taking of life. 

2. Time at the mic did not allow this full testimony. Thus, what is written below is an expanded version of my initial comments.

Given human nature, while this bill has a compassionate beginning, it fanciful to think this bill will serve only compassionate ends. As with any bill, we may consider the intentions of some who support the bill, but also the unintended consequences we can reasonably expect from this bill.

• This bill will serve commercial ends. For financially-driven third parties in a finance driven industry, shorter lives are cheaper lives. This bill will be good for business and bad for patients.

• This bill will serve ends of convenience. Our age does not value age. The aging are made to feel unneeded and unwanted. Who can’t hear the elderly mother saying to herself, “I’m such a burden to my busy son. I know I’m disgusting. He has a young family and bills to pay. Is it time for me to go?” This bill will be bad for the elderly.

• This bill will serve cruel ends. Inside this bill is a poison pill which connects compassion to intentional death. By advancing this bill we advance that logic. How will the next generation apply this bill’s legal logic of compassion? What about the deformed infant or the elderly with Alzheimer’s who can’t ask for the prescription? Shouldn’t someone decide for them? Many countries have already answered these questions. What begins as a compassionate option for patients will end as a “compassionate” duty for physicians.

• And, yes, because of human sin, this bill will serve coercive ends. I am concerned here for particular minority communities, rural communities, the poor, and the disabled—those who as a matter of capacity or culture are more vulnerable to persuasion and suggestion, who more readily defer to authority of all kinds.

My friends, this is a bad bill. Like a Trojan horse, its protections conceal its deadly logic.

Let us pursue compassion, tirelessly! But, please, do not lead us into a partnership with death. Do not turn your head to the logic present in this bill and where it leads. Do not ask us to allow our doctors to prescribe deadly poison.

Life is theirs to heal if they can. It is not theirs to take if they can’t.

I Owe You a Word of Welcome

If you are suffering, I welcome you to come into our churches; come to my church, and see how we love one another. See how we care for our sick, our elderly, our deformed, our orphans and widows, the poor, the weak. Let us love you. You are not a burden. Your life, every moment you have, is a blessing for us and a sacred trust.

If you care for the suffering, I welcome you to send them to our churches. We have an answer for hopelessness. A man walked through our door 18 months ago with terminal cancer. We helped him get right with people. More importantly we heled him get right with his Maker. He died a painful, terrible dead. I was there. It was also an honorable and dignified death.

We don’t help people die. We help people die well.

So, send us your suffering. We have something to offer them—we have Someone to offer them; a savior who suffered affliction and death; our great physician, who mends our souls even as our minds and bodies fail.

Finally, a Word about Tyler

With dropping blood pressure, Tyler was taken from his nursing home to the ICU. A state away, my mom arrived five hours later. She had been through this before. But this time, when she arrived, no ordinary care was underway. Why not? Because Tyler had “do-not-resuscitate” orders. Which they translated into do-not-treat orders. Here are the words my mom—Tyler’s mom—heard when she arrived: “you have some decisions to make, ma’am. Think about the quality of his life.” Yet, they hadn’t taken the first step toward a diagnosis.

After several days, Tyler was sent home on hospice to die a painful death. That was ten years ago, and he’s with us today. It was a mistake—a misdiagnosis. It was also a familiar experience. Tyler contracted meningitis as a baby because of a doctor’s mistake. We have never held it against the doctor. Medical professionals are marvelous human beings. And like all human beings they are finite, and they are fallen.

A vote for this bill is a vote for its logic. And the logic of this bill has my brother in its crosshairs. No, this bill will not permit a prescription for my brother Tyler. But its logic, in due time, will.

Death is an enemy. It is not an “option.” We reject The End-of-Life Options Act.

The State of the Issue Today

I delivered these remarks in 2017, and in that time much has changed. On a personal level, my brother Tyler passed away, and I have moved into a season of life in which I am caring for aging family members. This issue has become acute for me in new ways. On the national level, as of January 2024 there are eleven states/districts (including New Mexico) in which assisted suicide is legal (CA, CO, DC, HI, ME, MT, NJ, NM, OR, VT, & WA). While two of these states (MT & NJ) are considering overturning their assisted suicide laws, six more were considering legalization in the 2024 legislative session (DE, IL, IN, MO, NH, & NY).[3]

3. If you live in one of these states, consider contacting your local state assembly member to keep this legislation from passing.

In many of these cases, the political left has prepared groundwork for months or years, busing people in from out of state and rehearsing their remarks for maximal persuasiveness. Conservatives, however, have been caught flat-footed, disorganized, and unprepared. That was my experience on the day I delivered these remarks. There were dozens if not hundreds present in favor of the bill with a line of prepared and emotionally intense testimonies. Against the bill there were only a small number of us. The current situation is dire; as Christians we must stand up for life, educate one another, and work together to rebuff efforts to legalize murder in our nation and our states.

At the end of the day, all legislation is theological application. Everyone has a theology; the only questions are what that theology is and how it is applied. If Christian theology is kept separate from the political sphere, then demonic theology which seeks to overthrow God and destroy his image will rule in its place. This is not to say that church and state are the same, that the church should rule the state, or that God’s special requirements for his covenant people should be imposed on the entire nation. Nonetheless, because all legislation is theological application, we must make every effort to apply Christian theology, in an appropriate manner, to the legislative and political issues of our day.

May God grant us courage and fortitude to stand on his truth, rightly stewarding the authority He has given each of us in our Constitutional Democratic Republic, for His glory and for the flourishing of His image bearers.

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared at the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention, and is used here with permission of the ERLC and the author.

1. Dan Goldman made this comment on social media on February 29, 2024. Goldman is the Congressman for New York’s 10th Congressional District in the House of Representatives.

For many years, the idea that women have “freedom to choose” an abortion has held some sway over Americans. It’s a slogan that assumes complete human agency. But the appeal of the congressman’s argument that people are “forced” reflects a new stage of progressing moral absurdity. Indeed, dehumanization now extends not only to babies in the womb, but to the women and mothers themselves. The implication is that their choice to engage in sexual relations doesn’t count as a choice.[2] Such an argument dishonors the humanity and agency of women and, further, what it means for any of us to be human.

2. This is seen also in a Chicago Public Schools program to provide free condoms to students, including elementary schools. During his radio program, Rush Limbaugh regularly responded to such absurdities by declaring, “Abstinence. It works every time it is tried.”

Here is our thesis: in our age, there is an inverse relationship between victimization and personal agency. The more people are perceived as victims, the less personal responsibility they are perceived to have. As the neo-Marxist doctrine of victimization (detailed later in this article) has escalated, acknowledgment of personal agency has proportionally diminished, as if the all-powerful oppressors have rendered humans utterly helpless—like pieces of driftwood tossed about on the waves of life’s boundless sea. In other words, as the doctrine of victimization has come to dominate the culture, so has the belief in an impersonal force, often called “The Universe,” that robs individuals of agency, rendering personal decisions pointless and wholly ineffectual. 

To put it more tersely, and at the risk of being rude, never in history have so many people been whining, complaining fatalists—politicians and people alike.

This argument about “force” did not win out in the 2024 U.S. election, but it did have sway with the broader American public. Why is this so? How did we get here? What does Scripture say to this?

Though the concept of victimization has gained prominence in cultural, social, and political discussions in recent years, it is hardly new. While reality constrains us to acknowledge genuine suffering and oppression exist and obligates compassion, it also requires us to acknowledge that the doctrine of perpetual victimhood—an ideology that frames individuals as powerless, blameless, and entirely at the mercy of external forces—stands in opposition to reality and starkly contradicts the teachings of Scripture. This article explores how the deceptive doctrine of victimization subverts personal agency and responsibility while emphasizing God’s irrevocable design for human beings to function as agents whose choices are consequential.

The Roots and Rise of Victimhood

Ideas indeed have consequences. So do idols. Victimization is an idol fashioned over centuries by the hands of men, with dire consequences for people and society.

A generation ago, Allan Bloom demonstrated how Jean-Jacques Rousseau “single-handedly invented the category of the disadvantaged.”[3] Rousseau led the way in linking the assault against human culture while simultaneously calling for both the unrestrained self and compassion. The combination of these three attitudes—“hostility toward the bourgeoisie [the upper middle class], faith in the self, and the embrace of compassion”[4]—became the policy foundation for modernity’s attitude toward culture.[5] Bloom points out that before Rousseau, “men believed that their claim on civil society had to be based on an accounting of what they contributed to it. After Rousseau, a claim based not on a positive quality but on a lack became legitimate for the first time.”[6]

3. Allan Bloom, Giants and Dwarfs (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990): 196.

4. Charles J. Sykes, A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992): 77.

5. Sykes, A Nation of Victims, 77.

6. Bloom, Giants and Dwarfs, 196.

In Rousseau’s ideal republic, society is founded on the principle of tolerance, whereby “compassion,” for the “sensitive man” (L’Homme Sensible), is not to be regarded as a sacred duty owed either to God or fellow humans but a way to refine one’s sense of self-identity and self-awareness. Consequently, for “the Romantics of the early nineteenth century, concern for the downtrodden and with human suffering became not only fashionable but a form of self-therapy and elaborate self-indulgence. Abstracted from the moral order, pity became contagious, turned first on a lengthening and shifting list of putative sufferers but ultimately back upon the se1f.”[7] Thus Joseph Amato appropriately affirms that “Suffering itself became a vehicle for self-identity and expression.”[8]

7. Sykes, A Nation of Victims, 78.

8. “Sorrow, misery, and suffering provided fertile material for self-dramatization. Identifying oneself with suffering was a way to assert one’s sincerity and profundity. It served many as a shortcut to ‘originality.’ To suffer as Jean Jacques Rousseau—founder and master of the art of self-cultivation—taught, made one sensitive, serious, interesting, something other than a superficial, materialistic, and vulgar member of the middle class, whom artists and bohemians from Baudelaire’s time on condemn with such righteousness and spleen” (Joseph Amato, Victims and Values [New York: Praeger Publishers, 1990]: 113).

Consequently, obsession with self and compassion for others became inseparably linked. Genuine “moral concern had become virtually indistinguishable from aesthetic posturing.”[9] So, as the twentieth century dawned, the revolution of ideas gave birth to a fully developed “sensitive man” who, thanks to the twentieth century’s Cultural Marxists, has become the “virtuous human” who fixates on the alleged oppressor v. oppressed dynamic, publicly signaling one’s virtue.

9. Sykes, A Nation of Victims, 79.

Hence, our therapeutic society transforms any disadvantage from a misfortune that needs to be overcome to the essence of existence and, thus, an entitlement to dependence on society. Virtue signalers coddle the alleged oppressed victim and condemn the oppressive circumstances and agents as victimizers. Two generations ago, Herbert Schlossberg correctly identified and rejected the politics of our therapeutic culture, which

exalts categories of weakness, sickness, helplessness, and anguish into virtues while it debases the strong and prosperous. In the country of ontological victimhood, strength is an affront. Denying the possibility of strength for the weak keeps them weak. Being freed from dependence would bring the victim back into the human family, responsible for himself and others. How much better to remain a victim, shielded from trouble and responsibility by altruism.[10]

10. Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction: Christian Faith and its Confrontation with American Society (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1983): 69–70.

Schlossberg’s assessment appropriately applies to every form of alleged oppression. He also observes that Rousseau promoted embittered enviousness.

Ressentiment begins with a perceived injury that may have a basis in fact, but more often is occasioned by envy for the possessions or the qualities possessed by another person. Ressentiment has its origin in the tendency to make comparisons between the attributes of another and one’s own attributes: wealth, possessions, appearance, intelligence, personality, friends, and children. Any perceived difference is enough to set the pathology in motion.[11]

11. Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, 51–52.

Once set in motion, the evil of the Rousseau-derived-embittered-victim worldview, enhanced by Cultural Marxism’s “oppressed v. oppressors” dynamic, expanded and intensified for both the alleged aggrieved victims and their virtue-signaling coddlers and handlers.

The Nature of Personal Agency in Scripture

Victimization is almost as old as humanity. The Bible opens with the profound truth that human beings are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Succinctly stated, this imago Dei bestows to humanity personal agency, namely the ability to reason, the capability to make moral choices, and the accompanying moral accountability for every choice. Hence, in the Garden of Eden, God gave a clear command to Adam and Eve concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:16–17). Obedience would sustain life; disobedience would incur death. God granted agency to them—and by extension, to us—and holds us accountable for how we exercise it.

When Adam and Eve sinned, their initial response was to play the victim by shifting blame away from themselves to outside agents. Adam pointed to Eve, and Eve pointed to the serpent (Gen. 3:12–13). This act of deflection exemplifies the human tendency to avoid personal responsibility by casting oneself as a victim lacking agency. However, God did not absolve them of their choices. He addressed each one individually, summarizing the consequences of their actions (Genesis 3:14–19). This episode demonstrates that while external influences may tempt or influence us, each person remains a responsible agent accountable for their own decisions.

The Danger of Perpetual Victimhood

The doctrine of victimization diminishes if not denies personal agency by attributing all suffering, failure, or moral shortcomings not to personal choices, but to external forces. While injustices, oppression, and genuine harm are real and acknowledged in Scripture (e.g., Exod. 3:7–8, Isa. 1:17), the Bible also emphasizes the reality of personal agency, holding us accountable for our choices and actions, calling for repentance, and requiring us to mature in grace.

Proverbs 19:3 states, “When a man’s folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the Lord.” This verse encapsulates the danger of a victimhood mentality, which encourages us to externalize blame rather than confront our own role in generating our circumstances. By doing so, it fosters bitterness, resentment, and rage.

The Biblical Balance: Recognizing Injustice Without Abdicating Responsibility

The Bible does not ignore or trivialize genuine oppression. Scripture is replete with accounts of people who suffered unjustly—Joseph, Job, David, and Jesus Himself, to name a few. However, their responses to suffering illustrate a crucial truth: while external circumstances may be beyond our control, our response to them is not.

Joseph’s story is particularly instructive. Sold into slavery by his brothers, falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife, and imprisoned unjustly, Joseph had every reason to adopt a victimhood mindset. Yet, he chose to trust God, act with integrity, and faithfully steward his responsibilities. In Genesis 50:20, Joseph acknowledges human wrongdoing and, simultaneously, God’s sovereign purpose: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” Joseph’s life demonstrates that acknowledging injustice does not preclude personal agency or trust in God’s redemptive plan.

Similarly, the Apostle Paul faced immense suffering—beatings, imprisonment, shipwrecks, and betrayal (2 Cor. 11:23–28). Yet, he declared, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances” (Phil. 4:11). Paul’s attitude reflects a profound understanding of personal agency rooted in dependence on Christ: “I can do all this [i.e. endure every difficulty] through him who gives me strength” (Phil. 4:13).

The Call to Personal Accountability

The Bible consistently calls on individuals to take responsibility for their choices and the consequences of those choices. Ezekiel 18:20–32 emphasizes individual accountability, rejecting the idea that children bear the guilt of their parents or vice versa. Instead, each person is judged in keeping with their own actions resulting from their own choices.

Jesus also reinforced the principle of personal responsibility in His teachings. In the parable of the talents (Matt. 25:14–30), the master entrusted his servants with varying amounts of money, expecting them to steward it wisely. The servant who buried his talent out of fear was rebuked, not because of external circumstances, but because he failed to act responsibly. Individuals are accountable for how they use their God-given abilities and opportunities.

The Transformative Power of the Gospel

The doctrine of victimization routinely leaves individuals feeling powerless, trapped, and enslaved to the imagined whims of their alleged oppressors. In contrast, the gospel offers hope, transformation, and freedom. Through Christ’s death and resurrection, believers are no longer defined by their past, wounds, or circumstances. Paul writes, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cor. 5:17).

This new identity empowers believers to rise above victimhood. In Romans 8:37, Paul declares, “In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” The phrase “more than conquerors” speaks to a victory that not only overcomes adversity but transforms it into a testimony of God’s grace and power.

The gospel also calls believers to be forgiving and forsake bitterness, which is key to breaking free from a victimhood mindset. Ephesians 4:31–32 exhorts, “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Embracing an attitude toward those who afflict us marked by a readiness to forgive—the opposite of bitterness and resentment—does not negate the reality of wrongdoing, but it prepares us to grant forgiveness to those who sin against us when they acknowledge and repent of their sin.

One Sinful Woman’s Story

This essay argued for personal agency. But Jesus nor the Scripture writers settled for arguments alone. They brought arguments home to real people like you and me. One New York congressman took away the agency of the women he purported to help. For one “sinful woman,” Jesus did the opposite.

Jesus ate with Pharisees when she entered the room—“a woman of the city, who was a sinner” (Luke 7:36). We can imagine what sins made her famous. Almost certainly, she was involved in prostitution and sexual sin.[12]

12. What else would a woman be known for by that label? She would not be in a position to abuse servants or embezzle money.

She kissed Jesus’ feet, wet them with her tears, then wiped them with her hair. The Pharisees were upset with her, but more with Jesus. “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is … for she is a sinner” (Luke 7:39).

The Pharisees granted her personal agency, but that is all. Jesus showed her compassion, yet not by reframing her plight as something that has happened to her, like a sickness.[13] Instead, Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven” (Luke 7:48).

13. Thomas Sowell: “Many of the words and phrases used in the media and among academics suggest that things simply happen to people, rather than being caused by their own choices or behavior. Thus, there is said to be an ‘epidemic’ of teenage pregnancy, or of drug usage, as if these things were like the flu that people catch just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” The Vision of the Anointed: Self-congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy (Basic Books, 1995): 198.

This lovely passage shows the kind of people Jesus forgives and the kind of love he forges in our hearts. But sitting under the surface of the text is an anomaly for our times, a truth basic for our gospel witness: she is a “sinful woman.” Whatever her circumstances, she had agency. And guilt. Luke was not unkind or unjust for saying so. In fact, it is the knowledge of sin that made it possible for her to love Jesus. “She loved much” because she was forgiven much (Luke 7:47).

The Pharisees of Jesus’ day would leave us in our sins. By a trick with words, the political Pharisees of our day do the same. Yet to all who come to Jesus, he says still today, “Your sins are forgiven.”

Unless we reject the dehumanizing project of the Neo-Marxist West, we cannot understand that statement. Unless we reject the false doctrine of victimization, we are dead in our sins.

We are human beings with the privilege and responsibility of personal agency, a necessary pre-requisite to see our sinfulness and believe the gospel. God will surely judge us all in keeping with our exercise of agency, as Romans 2:6–8 attests, “He will render to each one according to his works:to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life;but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.”

1. This article is an adaptation of an article titled, “How Not to Lose Yourself (and Your Soul) In A Crowd,” which was a follow-up to a sermon on Mark 15:1–15 entitled, “Crucify Him.”

This new sensitivity to crowds was on time. Several insightful books sought to wrestle with the nature of their influence: The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race, and Identity, by Douglas Murray is one example. Even more close to this month’s theme at Christ Over All, in his book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism, Mattias Desmet explores what he calls mass formation, “a kind of group hypnosis that destroys individuals’ ethical self-awareness and robs them of their ability to think critically.”^[2] Understanding crowds is crucial for saving civilization. But that’s not the first reason why I wrote about crowds for my church.

2. See Brad Green’s, “Science and its Shortcomings: A Book Review of Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism”.

Following Jesus in a Crowd

Crowds are mentioned by Mark thirty-three times. They exert tremendous influence on the shape of events. As Greg Morse writes, crowds “[possess] the power to make the timid brave, the good better, or the bad devastating . . . When passions are shared, they swell, exciting actions to the status of legend or infamy. The power of assembly can build a better society or destroy it.” Ironically, the crowd that shouted at Jesus’s trial before Pilate did both. Their only two words? “Crucify him” (Mark 15:14).

It is easy to lose our minds and our souls in a crowd. From the first century to the twenty first, many have. So, let’s reflect on crowds together that we might hear and heed the words Jesus said to a more docile crowd:

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. . . . For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? . . . For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. (Mark 8:34–38)

Crowds are not the problem. Neither is shame. I see two crowds in Jesus’ warning: an adulterous and sinful generation and Jesus with his holy angels. Shame is the currency for both. In order that we might not lose ourselves or our souls in the crowd of this age, let’s consider how crowds work.

How Crowds Work Leaders

Apart from the influence of a crowd on a Roman governor, Jesus would not have been delivered to death. How did that happen and what can we learn?

This Jewish crowd was gathered between two opposing characters: Pilate and the chief priests. The Jews were an occupied people, and Pilate—the fifth Roman governor over Judea—was charged with keeping order in his region. When the chief priests delivered Jesus to Pilate with calls for his death, Pilate was perceptive enough to know what was behind their call. They envied Jesus’s popularity (Mark 15:10). What the chief priests unwittingly failed to realize is that Pilate did not like being used, especially by Jewish leaders. He despised them, and they despised him. Once Pilate marched a legion of soldiers into the temple with blasphemous banners.^[3] He killed priests as they conducted their sacrifices. He built the Jews an aqueduct twenty-three miles long, which was nice of him, but then charged the temple for the cost. He was a cruel governor and a weasel. He also perceived their envious motives and took Jesus to be innocent (Mark 15:14). For that reason, he belabored the trial. He asked Jesus several questions and worked angles to both keep peace and to keep from sending Jesus to his death (Mark 15:2, 4, 9, 12). As they say, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Pilate didn’t want to kill Jesus.

3. For a summary of Pilate’s actions towards the Jews, see B. M. Rapske, “Roman Governors of Palestine,” in Dictionary of New Testament Background: A Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship, ed. Craig A. Evans, Stanley E. Porter, and Ginny Evans (Downer Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005).

So, why did Pilate send Jesus to his death? Here’s one way to answer that question: because of the crowd. How it happened teaches us something about how crowds get worked by leaders and how crowds in turn work leaders.

On the day of Jesus’s trial, a crowd gathered to demand that Pilate “release for them one prisoner for whom they asked” (Mark 15:6). This was customary and expected. For Pilate, though, this was an opportunity to leverage the crowd’s energy against the will of the chief priests. So, he asked, “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” (Mark 15:9). Knowing the chief priests delivered Jesus over from envy, he perceived that the crowd may have their own mind about Jesus (Mark 15:10). Perhaps he thought the crowd would choose against the priest’s demand.

How Leaders Work Crowds

Crowds are easily stirred. They are vulnerable to manipulation. And we are personally more vulnerable to manipulation when we’re in one. But that is not where it ends. Crowds are also vehicles of manipulation.

Understanding the political incentives involved, the chief priests worked the crowd. “The chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release for them Barabbas instead” (Mark 15:11). Barabbas was an insurrectionist and a murderer. He was the kind of person they were falsely accusing Jesus of being. How did they bring the crowd to demand the release of this prisoner? Maybe they made threats. Maybe they made promises. Perhaps they spread rumors. However they did it, this imagery of “stirring up” tells us that they were able to exert control over the crowd and to consolidate the crowd’s energy. When this happens, a crowd is more than the sum of its parts. Together with one voice they shouted, “Crucify him” (Mark 15:13, 14)!

Pilate’s motives were not as famously or flagrantly bad as other parties involved in Jesus’s death. Judas handed him over because of greed. The chief priests handed him over because of envy. Nevertheless, Pilate is the one whose name is embedded in the ancient Nicene creed: “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.” What was his motive exactly? Pilate, “wishing to satisfy the crowd,” released Barabbas and delivered Jesus to his death (Mark 15:15).

Once stirred, crowds are not easily satisfied.

In the mix of incentives present among the crowd and various leaders, we find a warning concerning the craftiness of the serpent and the entanglement of sin.

How Not to Lose Yourself (and Your Soul) In A Crowd: Ask Three Questions

To Pilate, Jesus was interesting and innocent (Mark 15:5, 14). But at the end of the day, Jesus was inconvenient. Pilate valued his reputation for keeping the peace and his career as a Roman governor over and above giving justice to this innocent man. He didn’t want to kill Jesus, but he did want to spare his life enough to defy the crowd. That says something to us about Jesus—that there is no neutrality with him. It also says something to us about ourselves—that we are vulnerable to changing our thinking and making decisions in order to satisfy a crowd.

When we read the Bible, we aren’t just looking through a window into the events of the first century. We are looking into a mirror. Crowds are still a thing, and so are leaders with more or less hidden motives who both play them and get played by them. Today, we too find ourselves in crowds and before crowds. So, having looked in the mirror of Mark 15—and because three makes a crowd—ask yourself three questions.

First, what crowds are you running in?

Know your crowds. Jesus did and so did the early Christians. Acts 19 tells the story of the famous riot at Ephesus. As the gospel grew in that region, the growing number of disciples meant a depressed market for silver shrines to the local goddess. What ensued is as insightful as it is insane. That was the crowd that the Ephesian Christians had to deal with.

Crowds are unavoidable unless we remove ourselves from life in the world (1Cor. 5:9–10). So, what crowds are you in or around? A crowd of middle school classmates, a high school locker room, the management team at your place of work, a text thread with a certain mood and collective opinion, or the current academic trends in your field of work? Don’t forget your Instagram and Facebook feeds. Yes, even your family is a kind of crowd. Any of these crowds can strengthen you in the right paths or else lead you to deliver Jesus over to be crucified. The answer is not a monastic life away from the crowds, though you may need to get some new friends. Rather, this first question is about girding ourselves up in the loins of our mind, a fortifying self-awareness.

Second, how are you tempted to please the crowd?

Every crowd has a certain way of seeing the world. A crowd’s subtle and not-so-subtle indications about what is good and beautiful and true will shape your own way of seeing things. The tangible and invisible incentives for speaking and acting a certain way have more persuasive power over us than we might realize. Once you’ve considered what crowds you’re running in, ask yourself, what would you give up to satisfy the crowd? How are you willing to obscure or hide your union with Jesus in order to satisfy a crowd? How are you vulnerable to changing your thinking in order to satisfy a crowd?

We should not be surprised that the recent ex-evangelical trend is populated with former pastors and others that simultaneously distance themselves from their former faith and then reveal their new enlightened understandings of gender, marriage, and sexuality. This is the effect of the crowd. One hundred years ago, the crowd tempted us to deny the Bible’s supernatural miracles. Today, we’re tempted to deny the Bible’s sexual ethic. No one in 1924 was leaving Christianity for a transgender-affirming pseudo-religion. Know your crowds. Know yourself.

Third, when is it time to stand out in the crowd?

There’s a time for staying quiet. Jesus did not always aggravate his opponents. There’s a time to move on from the crowd. When the crowds dispersed, Jesus let them go. But there’s also a time to stand out in a crowd by standing up to those attempting to lead the crowd. When we do this, we just might find out how many others hoped that someone would. Jesus trolling the religious establishment in his day points the way. When men and women came from all over to be with Jesus, so did the Pharisees, an act to intimidate not only Jesus but his followers. With perfect command of the situation and at great risk to himself, Jesus exposed the lies of Israel’s leaders and established himself as one work following at any cost. (Mark 12:12–34) Sometimes we will need to do the same.^[4] In fact, speaking truth in a crowd is the only barrier between us and tyranny in the West.^[5]

Running With the Right Crowd

We should be wary of crowds, but we should not write off the influence of crowds wholesale. In fact, we dare not.

The church is a crowd. The word “church” means literally “assembly.” Like crowds anywhere, the church is more than the sum of its parts. When we’re with the right crowd—that is, a healthy church centered in the gospel and gathered under the righteous rule of Christ through his Word—there is no safer place on earth to be. The power of this crowd is not coercive but compelling, not polluting but protecting. We speak the truth in love to stabilize one another against the winds of doctrine blowing all around (Eph. 4:14–15). Church discipline guards us against unrepentance and the leavening effect of sin in our midst (1 Cor. 5:1–13). Our regular exhortations guard us against the deceitfulness of sin (Heb. 3:12–15). We even run the race of faith with endurance as those “surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,” the saints down the ages who have endured before us (Heb. 12:1).

Brothers and sisters, “let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Heb. 10:24–25, emphasis mine).

Look to Jesus, expect to be shamed, refuse to be ashamed, and remember that you are never alone in a crowd.

On the one hand, I could speak and tweet and write daily on the intersection of our faith and our civic life. I might risk being more prescriptive than a pastor should be, or speaking beyond my understanding. Perhaps some would find an angle objectionable and call me divisive or leave the church. But I’d be helping my people in a real area of their discipleship in real time. My social media or blog output would not be our Confession of Faith, but it would be a genuine effort at working out the implications of our faith in everyday life—and this from someone who knows and loves them.

Alternatively, I might hold my cards close to the vest. In an effort to “stay in my lane,” I might avoid prescriptions in general, reminding my people, “The church is made up of adults; you will know what to do.” I’m not Moses, after all, and don’t intend to play Moses in the details of my people’s lives. Jesus Christ reigns above all earthly politicking and there is a certain comfort, even wisdom, in staying above the fray.

Or, I might avoid having cards altogether. “I’m not into politics,” some pastors say. It’s hard having people we love speak against us, and biblical instruction for our civic lives can invite more of that. So, for the sake of keeping the pastoral office free from politics, I might refuse to engage.

2020: A Year to Remember

Four years ago, however, I did engage, because it didn’t seem I had much choice. Everyone was telling my people what to think and how to pursue politics, including other pastors. Some famous pastors pressed fellow pastors to avoid being political, all the while using their own influence to steer opinion in a decided direction—typically left.

During the 2020 election year, I didn’t pick up daily tweeting, but I did take up writing a series of articles titled, Give to God What Is God’s: Three Rules for (Political) Engagement. What started as an election-week napkin-drawing, offered to a couple prospective church members, turned into a series of biblically-sourced reflections on politics.

The first article in that series, “Understand What You’re Doing as an American,” addressed an easily overlooked dimension of our responsibility as Christians: understanding our civic context and the meaning of a vote. I have much to be thankful for in the schooling I received growing up, but civics—understanding how our government works along with our privileges and responsibilities as citizens—was a gap. In listening to many pastors my age, I have a feeling it was/is a gap that many share, and especially those who say things like “I don’t care about politics. I’m all about Jesus.”

To that end, I wrote three articles for my church, and I share the first (with updates) here.^[1] It is one pastor’s attempt to offer a civics lesson to frame the Christian citizen’s thinking about voting in our country. It doesn’t say everything that needs to be said, but it begins to explain how to vote to the glory of God in our uniquely American context.

1. An introductory article to set up this series included a definition of politics. Trent Hunter, “Give to God What Is God’s: Three Rules for (Political) Engagement,” Heritage Bible Church, November 1, 2020.

To Be a Good Christian You Must Be a Good American

Let me explain.

The Bible says that God put you right where you are. “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place” (Acts 17:26).^[2] Assuming you are reading this in America as an American citizen, that means God put you inside the borders of America to be an American for this period of time. Faithfulness to God as Christians means faithfulness in this civic context in which he has placed us. Which means taking up our civic responsibilities with care.

2. I speaking specifically to American citizens throughout this essay, but what I will say has transferability to other democratic republics.

One of those civic responsibilities is voting.

On this topic, we rightly speak of wanting “a clear conscience” in the voting booth. Important for a clear conscience is a clear understanding of what we’re actually doing when we vote. You don’t need to feel bad about stealing third base when you’re playing baseball. That’s because it’s baseball; stealing is an expected part of the game. What is the meaning of a vote in the American context? The function of our vote emerges from the form of our government.

What Is the Form of Our American Government?

You and I are citizens of The United States of America, along with some 328 million other people who call this home.^[3] Ours is a nation comprised of local, state, and federal governments. Unless anarchy or fascism rule the day, large groups like this live together somewhere on the spectrum of personal freedom and government control. What kind of government do we have?

3. Leave aside for a moment the question of illegal immigration and the millions of unregistered voters for which some of have raised concerns. We will tackle that thorny problem in an upcoming podcast.

In a sentence, we have a kind of government that intends to order and protect personal liberty. At least, this has been the aim of America from the beginning. While experiencing modifications to our constitutional order,^[4] as well as bureaucratic manipulation,^[5] we must begin with a basic lesson in what America was supposed to be. And to that end, my goal in this section is first to inform you, since you are an American, and secondarily to make you see the wisdom of our nation’s founding design as a Christian. All this serves to put your vote in its proper context.

4. Brad Green, “One Constitution, or Two? Reviewing The Age of Entitlement by Christopher Caldwell,” Christ Over All, July 31, 2023: Civil (Rights and Wrongs).

5. See Auron McIntyre, The Total State: How Liberal Democracies Become Tyrannies, (Washington: Regnery, May 7, 2024) who argues that the managerial revolution has fundamentally changed the way America works. In October, we will discuss some of those changes with him.

What Is a Constitutional Federal Republic?

What form does our government take? We have a constitutional form of government. We are not ruled by a king whose authority is derived from blood or force or pulling out a sword from a stone, but by a constitution. We do not have a ruler, but we are instead ruled by law (Lex Rex), the fundamental law of which is the Constitution.^[6] More specifically, we are a constitutional republic, which means our representatives are democratically elected by the people. Their authority is derived from the people they lead.^[7] More specifically, we are a constitutional federal republic. Hence, we are not the United People but the United States. It’s for this reason that our election of a President is not by popular vote, but by means of the electoral college, a way of ensuring national schemes do not subsume the interests of local states.^[8] It is for this same reason that all governing power is not concentrated in the Federal government but distributed between local, state, and federal governments.

6. Doug Wilson, “An Introduction to Lex Rex,” June 19, 2024: Great Books Throughout the Ages.

7. It is important to clarify the distinction between democracy and republic. In the former, sovereignty is vested in the people and is carried out by the people directly (think Athens). In the latter, the sovereignty stems from the people—but it is exercised on their behalf by elected representatives.

8. More importantly, the Electoral College prevents direct democracy from deciding presidential races. If the President of the United States were directly elected, a candidate would just need to get the largest cities to vote for them and he’d be in.

What is all this government machinery constructed to do? The Founders had a precise answer to this question: the government is here to secure the rights of the people, rights which are universally held, and which pre-exist government.

What About My Rights?

It seems biblical to talk about our responsibilities as Americans, but what about “our rights as Americans?” Yes, that’s biblical too. Admittedly, that doesn’t always seem like the correct emphasis as Christians who are called to lay our lives down. In an age when many of our fellow Americans are contesting those rights, it even feels a little like culture-warring. But what if laying down our lives includes appealing to our rights as Americans? What if loving our neighbor requires us to stand up for our rights, so that now or later their rights will be protected?

Those are important questions related to civics, and they are also quite biblical. Remember what the Apostle Paul did when he was taken before the Roman tribunal? Acts 22:25 records his question: “Is it lawful for you to flog a man who is a Roman citizen and uncondemned?” Paul knew the answer, and so did the officials, so they let him go. Paul took up his cross and followed Jesus, but that doesn’t mean he was trying to get killed as fast as possible. No, he’s the one who told us to pray for kings so that we could lead “a peaceful and quiet life” so that all people might “come to a knowledge of the truth” (1Tim. 2:2–4). In other words, Paul’s strategic appeal to his rights saved his life and made way for the gospel’s advance. It also checked the state at that point of intrusion. He was right and they were wrong.

The American preoccupation with rights is not just an American thing. It’s an American thing because it’s a human thing.^[9] Biblically, rights are tied to the basic structure of the created order that God has made: there are humans who have inherent dignity, families that are the basic building block of society, and government. Each of these have their own distinct role in relationship to God and one another. Paul appealed to his rights as a means to the gospel’s advance.

9. Admittedly, the concept of “rights” is not interchangeable across all cultures, nations, and historical contexts. The rights of a Roman citizen were quite different than the rights enjoyed by early American colonists, or by Americans after the Constitution was ratified. Further, there is disagreement as to the nature and substance of these rights. Thinkers like Burke argue that “rights” in the early American context were norms grounded in English common law—developed over many hundreds of years within a specific place and culture. He draws a sharp contrast between this conception of rights and those espoused by the French Revolutionaries as abstract universals.

Christians in America also have a certain responsibility to hold America to its purposes and its promises. Not only because many of our rights as Americans precede the state, but because the state has made certain guarantees concerning those rights enshrined in the Constitution and the rule of law.

Those inalienable rights alluded to in the Declaration of Independence were made explicit in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Constitution has been amended many times, and the first of those are called the Bill of Rights, which guarantee our civil liberties. These amendments outline our rights in relationship to the action of our government and make explicit what the government cannot do to us or take from us. The first of these is important enough to cite, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Lose one of these and lose them all. That’s why they are collected together in one amendment. Other amendments deal with due process, ensure that we are innocent until proven guilty, and protect our right to property. From one angle, these amendments are just a way of making explicit a commitment to keep government in its place as God’s servant.

Weapons and Balances

This form of government is utterly unique in human history. The history of nations is generally a story of a tyrannical unrestrained government, as our Founders alluded to in the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence. By contrast, the theme of our constitutional system is restraint, or limited government. This form of government recognizes the sinful tendency of mankind to abuse governmental power. Thus, several principles built into the Constitution help to limit the power of the government. For instance, in the United States we took the power usually concentrated in one man (the king) and split it into three parts (separation of powers): a legislative branch to make laws, an executive branch to execute and enforce the laws established by the legislature, and a judicial branch to interpret the laws. Then we gave weapons (checks) to each of those branches to allow them to keep their powers balanced (checks and balances). The President can veto laws, but a supermajority (two-thirds) of Congress can override the veto. The Supreme Court can declare laws unconstitutional, but Congress can impeach justices and the President can appoint new justices with congressional approval. Separation alone would not keep any one branch from dominating the government. Checks must be given to each branch to keep the others from gaining too much power. All of this keeps government doing its job.

That’s a summary of our government. Now, which Americans get to run this ship? The Bible is clear that governing authorities derive their power from God (Rom. 13:1, 4). They are his ministers doing his work, whether it be patrolling the streets or signing bills into law. But the Bible does not speak to how this-or-that person comes into this authority. We might wish that it did. But we can be grateful for the careful reflection of our Founders on this question.

What Is the Function of Our Vote as Americans?

America’s electoral process is built on John Locke’s understanding of social contract theory, which itself is a secularized version of the Bible’s idea of covenant.^[10] That is, the idea that the government’s just powers are derived from the consent of the governed.

10. For those who haven’t read Locke’s Two Treatise of Government, they might be shocked (but shouldn’t be) that this great thinker of the spent large swathes of time interpreting early chapters in Genesis. While we might dispute his interpretation; we would not dispute his source. Instead, we should recognize that Locke’s use of Genesis plays a role in forming the ideas of America’s founding.

How this works out to balance a large nation’s consent involves some deliberate intricacies. As one example, the legislative branch, or Congress, is made up of an upper and lower chamber. The lower chamber is the House of Representatives where each state elects representatives in proportion to their populations. The upper House is the Senate, where each state regardless of their size elects two representatives. This ensures that Rhode Island’s interests are not functionally irrelevant at the table because its relative size. Shorter two-year terms in the House of Representatives keep our elected officials accountable to the people while longer six-year terms in the Senate protect against the intrusion of short-term political interests and ensure stability. The Presidency, as we know, is limited to a maximum two-term office of four years each, which keeps us from crowning a perpetually-elected king. And justices on the Supreme Court, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, serve for a period of good behavior, which generally means a life term, insulated from political pressure so that they can check both the Presidency and the Congress.

Trade-offs in a Two-Party System

Even our two-party system is very American even if it isn’t a part of American law. What is it exactly? It’s a way of facilitating a negotiation between millions of people. It gets a bad rap at times, and that’s understandable. It delivers us less than ideal candidates. We don’t generally get to vote for who we would pick. But that again is a design feature, not a bug. Why? Because the original intention of the federal system aimed to balance competing interests and various interested parties.^[11]

11. One of Madison’s greatest fears was the emergence of faction. He envisioned the republican system as a means of controlling it. See The Federalist Number 10, [22 November] 1787 (archives.gov).

Narrowing our whole process down to just two candidates before the final pick fosters cooperation, concession, and compromise—in both senses of the word (positive and negative). It allows people who have differences to still rally together because they have enough in common. Things can get weird, as we know. Given human nature and in the absence of true religion, these collections of interests can become a functional religion unto themselves. And we can get swept up or lumped in with the phenomena. Party slogans don’t help. Certainly, Christians must be disciplined about how we relate with our respective parties. But my point is this: there is much to appreciate in even this part of our system for how it fights our natural tendency to fragment in a large group.

Difficult by Design

The American system of government is frustrating, and that’s the point. It is frustrating to human government’s time-tested tendency to totalitarianism. Rome moved from a republic to a dictatorship, and that trend keeps happening around the globe. Our government is designed to slow things down. It’s calculated to make power frustratingly difficult to accrue, arrest, and abuse. The purpose of government is not to perfect humanity or the human experience. The purpose of government is, among other things, to protect humanity from itself. Or, as Peter put it, “to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good” (1 Pet. 2:14).

Paul knew his rights and held the officials to honor them. That’s part of what we are doing in our political process as Americans.

It’s Time to Vote

Through the Constitution, the Founders established a government strong enough to provide for the common defense and general welfare—to protect the peoples’ natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—while preventing the federal government from amassing power or exercising it in ways that would infringe on the rights of the people. We participate in the political process to uphold the purposes and promises of our government.

Americans will engage in the political process in different ways and to different degrees and in different spheres—local, state, and federal. Yet, voting is something all of us can do, whether it’s for a school board president or the President of the United States. And it’s easy.

Why then is this topic often so hard, especially when it comes to our vote for a President?

As I see it three are three different ways to understand the meaning of a vote. One of them matches the kind of game we’re playing in our role as voters on the playing field of politics in America.

1. All-In Voting

For those who operate with a pietistic view of voting, what matters most is what a vote says about me before God. This view adopts a secular religious framework for the action of voting. Let me explain. With the receding influence of Christianity in our culture, politics and political leaders have moved into that space. Politics is how Americans, in the process of losing their religious moorings, express their hopes and aspirations for themselves and humanity. Which is why our political discourse takes on such strident overtones. As with all religion, in this secular civil religion of politics we identify with the individual who gets our vote. Because religion requires purity, the purity of this selection is crucial to our spiritual and moral standing. Our vote is a statement of faith, so it has to be just right. True to the nature of religion, to vote for a candidate is to be all-in with that candidate, to engage in a form of religious self-expression, a kind of secular sacrament.

If you need a candidate that can do no wrong, you may be a pietistic voter. Or, alternatively, maybe you’ve said, “I could never vote for Kandidate Karl.” Depending on the reason, you may have accepted the all-in sacramental framework that supercharges your association with the candidate with spiritual implications that lead either to a sense of personal defilement or salvation.

2. All Eyes-on-Us Voting

For the public relations view of voting, what matters most is what a vote says about me or maybe what I am trying to say to others. This kind of voting seems to dominate the airwaves of X, and while genuinely intentioned, it seems to think that voting is as much for show as it for saying “no” to the candidate that is clearly more committed to wicked policies. More on that below.

For now, we can say that public relations voting treats a vote as an important public statement affecting one’s reputation and, by association, the reputation of the church and of Christ. It is a virtue signal, and I don’t use that pejorative flippantly. Rather, such voting booth PR changes the way one thinks about the whole voting system. For those familiar with Thomas Sowell, it is more akin to politics for self-congratulations, than doing actual good.

When polls report on blocks of voters, they do so in a way that ignores the textured motives of those voters. Such polls generate headlines, and those headlines generate reactions. Some may even attempt to swing voters. If you don’t want to be one of those people when the headlines roll out in the days following the election, then you will be vulnerable to such voting. This mindset makes you vulnerable to manipulation, as public square opponents of your values know how to steer you away from the partnerships that would advance your interests.

Both of these first two voting mindsets can be held with good motives. In the first case, we want to honor our Lord. In the second case, we don’t want to misrepresent him before the world. Yet both are vulnerable to unique forms of worldliness. The world makes the government its God, an election its sacrament, and the President its king. That’s not the game we’re playing, constitutionally or theologically. Alternatively, voters who prioritize the perception of their neighbors, trade on the actual good of their neighbors. But the constitutional game we’re playing assumes neighborly disagreement by design.

My own take is that there is a better approach, an approach with more integrity. That is, an approach that is truer to the kind of constitutional game we’re playing, regardless of what X thinks. Here’s how to vote.

3. All-Things-Considered Voting

For the principled pragmatic view of voting, what matters most is not what a vote says about me or to anyone else, but what a vote does. This view takes a functional view of voting and it sees a vote as a strategic move to advance the greatest good given the circumstances with a special emphasis on the role and goals of government. In other words, its a matter of prudence. It is simply answering one question, in our two-party system: Which candidate will do less harm and more good with the sword I am giving to them? For after all, a vote is a sword or the tacit permission for the candidate to hold the sword.

Thinking big picture, our vote gives power to some people to make and carry out and enforce laws over the rest of us. What matters is who is getting that power and what we expect them to actually do with it. If we were the only ones voting for a President, we would need to approach it like we choose a babysitter. But it is not like that at all. It is 328 million people not like that! It’s much more like blob tag, as I’ve heard it called—where a few children lock hands as they try to run and catch the rest of the other children. Blobs are big, imprecise, and messy. Hardly anyone likes a blob. But that is what a nation is trying to decide on its leaders. This is an all things considered approach in a system designed for concessions.

Don’t like the options for President? Before you call your neighbors to repent (which you may need to do), consider whether you were engaged in the processes that led to that party nomination, not only in the primary election process of this election season, but the local and state and federal elections that form the party ecosystem that gave rise to the party candidates. We cannot throw shade or accept shame for being involved in politics and then complain about the outcome of the political processes we’ve neglected.

At any given stage in the process, we can ask ourselves this question: which candidate’s platform will do less damage with the power they will receive—to humanity, to our cultural and political inheritance as Americans? At a healthier stage in America’s history, the question could be more positive: Which candidate’s platform will do more good?

Sadly, we are not in a good place with our nation and its elected officials. And looking only at the presidential candidates, we can all admit that some form of judgment appears on the horizon. On the balance, I agree with Edward Feser’s helpful essay, “Trump has put social conservatives in a dilemma.” Many of the reasons conservatives voted for him in 2020 (for the way he appointed pro-life judges) have been opposed by his own positions this go round.^[12] It is not only okay to wish we had better options, but also right to do so. Yet I heard wisdom in this recent comment by a friend: “I vote for the person and the platform in the primary election. I vote for the platform in the general election.” The ethical calculation changes depending on the stage of the process. He gets it.

12. This is arguably partially the fault of some conservative evangelicals who were less pro-life in principle than Trump was in practice in his first term. We might wish that Trump were more principled in his pro-life position. But given that he responds to political incentives, we might also wish that such evangelical leaders were more principled in theirs.

All things considered, the two candidates are not equal.

Delegating Power, Engaging in Prayer

There is more to say. That’s why I said more to my congregation in subsequent articles back in 2020. Christian Americans must understand what they are doing as Americans. But then we must engage the political process as Christians, which means taking our view of humanity and of human government into the public square and into the voting booth. ^[13] That will demand our greatest care. Yet, whatever is required of us in this age politically, being a Christian means reserving our greatest energies for the most lasting society, the church. The church’s work was the focus of my final article for our church.

13. Colin Smothers offers a helpful framework for voting as Christians in our current political moment in his piece, “Voting as Christians: The Creation Order Political Scorecard.”

Every generation has its different challenges. Under conditions of slavery pastors were right to engage in making controversial public arguments for its abolition. We will make arguments in the face of our own challenges, some better or worse. When we make arguments on the internet, we might be heard by Christians across town or across the country. But the most important believers I write for are those that make up my congregation in Greenville, South Carolina. Better than so many talking heads on so many podcasts, I pray our people are blessed by a pastor who loves them enough to risk speaking to the political dimension of our discipleship in these times. I see no other way to love them well.

In and through it all, let us be on our knees. Here’s the prayer I prayed for my church to close out that series on politics, a prayer as fitting today as it was four years ago.

Father in heaven, you are in heaven and you do all that you please. You are more powerful than the most powerful office over the most powerful nation on earth. No one checks your power because you are the source of all power and authority. No one fact checks you because you are the source of all truth. No one judges you because you are the standard of all righteousness.

You, the God of heaven, have put us on earth in this place for this time. You guide the nations on the earth, and you steer the hearts of kings. Would you steer our land and our leaders to righteousness, to enact and carry out and enforce laws that are good and not evil? Would you show our lawmakers that the freedom of American citizens to exercise their religion free of compulsion is a sacred duty? Would you see that we may live peaceful and quiet lives? Would you save our neighbors from the tyranny of sin and guilt and of Satan and the fear of death? Would you make them, with us, citizens of your glorious and everlasting society, your church?

America is great. But we, your church, have a perfect leader, a more perfect union, and a more powerful story. Bless this country and especially your church.

In the name of Christ and for his kingdom,

Amen

Sometimes we over-value that which is of very little value. But we can also undervalue that which is precious.

So it is with marriage.

And just as the hoarder in that home, we get used to it.

Just Add Water, Then Stir

The book of Hebrews is a sermon, a “word of exhortation” (Heb 13:22).^[1] But it doesn’t sound like one to modern ears. It’s light on application. Or is it?

1. The only other instance the Greek words behind this phrase are used is in Acts 13:15 when Paul is about to preach a sermon in a synagogue.

Sometimes less is more. Consider this brief twofold command: “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous” (Heb. 13:4).

Like a seed that expands and grows into a great tree with time and water, this command doesn’t yield its fruit all at once. It requires us to ponder its implications, to pick up where the author left off. That’s what the author expected of his readers when he wrote, “let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works” (Heb. 10:24). He did not say merely “stir up one another” (even though for simplicity’s sake I used this phrase for my title), but “let us consider how to stir up one another . . .” Application—its the job of every sermon hearer. It takes time. It takes consideration.

In this article we consider how to stir one another up to love and good works with respect to marriage.^[2] For Christians in the first century, marriage was a primary arena for the life of faith as well as a target for temptation to drift, to fall away. In this we are not alone.

2. This article is adapted from a sermon titled, “Marriage, Money, and What Man Can’t Do to Us” from Hebrews 13:4–6 delivered on May 28, 2023 at Heritage Bible Church, Greer, South Carolina.

We’ll take this in two parts, one part for each side of this verse on marriage. Every couple has two jobs—to prize and protect.

Job #1: Prize the Institution of Marriage

The command in Hebrews 13:4 to hold marriage “in honor among all” speaks to the public nature of marriage. The author does not write about your marriage or about marriages. He writes about marriage. The word “honor” indicates that marriage is a treasure, something highly valued, something precious.

How might we stir up one another to love and good marriages? Here’s a place to start: by speaking to one another about marriage’s true worth.

Marriage is represented in the shimmers of a precious diamond on a bride’s finger. Here are five facets about marriage for our thoughts and conversations.

• First, marriage is made by God.
  
  Contrary to what my high school sociology teacher taught our class back in the nineties, marriage is not socially constructed. It may be something we corrupt. In fact, the corruption of marriage is an early mark of sin’s corruption of the world (Gen. 4:19). But it is not something we made up or remake to our liking. The all-wise and generous God made marriage for his liking.

• Second, marriage makes life better.
  
  It was not good for man to be alone (Gen. 2:18). Adam had the whole world, the tree of life, and even God himself—but it was still “not good” enough. In marriage, Adam found companionship, someone from him and for him. Someone like him yet, in all the right ways, unlike him. At last, he had just what he was missing and just what he needed!

• Third, marriage makes life.
  
  The man found more than a companion in the woman. In his wife, Adam received an essential partner in the wonderful work of fruit-bearing and multiplication. The woman came from the man. But every man and woman since came from the woman—thus Adam named his wife Eve, “mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20). God could have caused people to multiply like amoebas or dandelions. But he created the marvelous and mysterious mechanism of new life to come through the mingling of lovers in marriage.

• Fourth, marriage makes sense.
  
  As an institution created by God, marriage fits the created world we inhabit. If someone uses a spoon as an umbrella, eats napkins, or used a fork as a writing tool, we would rightly say that this makes no sense. When we make use of an instrument outside of its created purpose, we go against the grain of creation. So too marriage has a certain shape, two opposite parts that fit together: a man and a woman—and no more. These two notes create a harmony, one biological whole. Man and woman quite literally fit one another.
  
  But marriage also fits in another way. If humans have rights owed to them by anyone, children have a right to be nurtured and protected and provided for by the mother and father who made them. We hold marriage in honor because marriage holds men to their wives and children to their parents. We hold marriage in honor by recognizing the invalidity of every so-called marriage that goes outside of God’s created purpose of one biological man joining with one biological woman.

• Fifth, marriages are made in public.
  
  Let marriage be held in honor among all. It’s an easy word to miss, “all.” But that’s what he says, “Let marriage be held in honor among all.” This doesn’t mean that every marriage must be known by every person. But it does mean that every marriage is a public relationship, and that the public owes marriage a certain honor. In particular focus here is the church to whom the author of Hebrews writes. It is in the church that we should find marriage honored for all that it is.

These five truths help each spouse to do their first job: to prize their marriage. And if the first part of the author’s instruction highlights the public nature of marriage, then the second part touches on the most private aspect of marriage.

Job #2: Protect the Intimacy of the Marriage Bed

To prize marriage is to protect it from harm. Make no mistake, the marriage bed is in harm’s way. As it was for the first readers of the letter of Hebrews. This most intimate and powerful dimension of marriage is also its most vulnerable.

There are more graphic ways the writer could have said “let the marriage bed be undefiled.” But we know what he’s talking about, and he knows that we know what he’s talking about.

So, how can we stir up one another to protect the marriage bed from defilement? Here are five ways. I’ll use the metaphor of the marriage bed to speak in ways that are clear for those with ears to hear.

• First, look forward to bed.
  
  The marriage bed is good. It is a sign of the times that many in our culture want to make the public truth of marriage a matter of private opinion (“you may believe marriage is between a man and a woman, but that’s your opinion.”), and to make the private intimacy that belongs to marriage a matter of public consumption (Playboy magazine, internet pornography, onlyfans, etc.). Considering this, we have a tendency either to downplay sex or demonize it. But sex is not a sin even if we can sin with it in many ways. The language of defilement—“let the marriage bed be undefiled”—comes to us from the tabernacle and the temple. Sex in marriage is not a sin just as the priest’s work before God was not a sin. It is intended to be joyful and sweet. It can be corrupted, yes. But it must not be cancelled. Sex is at home in the marriage bed. Look forward to it.

• Second, go to bed together.
  
  Sleep together. Literally and figuratively and regularly. Sleep in the same bed. In no place in our lives are we more vulnerable. We literally go to sleep, rendered unconscious for some six to eight hours of every day of our lives. Sharing a bed requires almost unlimited trust, a trust wholly appropriate to the marriage covenant. But of course, more is meant here. A husband and wife share not only a bed but their bodies (1 Cor. 7:3). This is God’s gift for our mutual delight. At the same time, regularly “sleeping together” guards and strengthens the couple from the defilements of finding marriage bed delights outside of the bed. Which leads to the next point.

• Third, keep others out of your bed.
  
  Sleep with your husband or wife and with no one else—physically but also emotionally and in your thought life. Which means no flirting with others, lingering in intimate conversation, or pondering life sharing a bed with another. This doesn’t mean avoiding the opposite sex; there’s a place for proper brother and sister relationships in the church. We must not fear proper affection between family members or church family members. But brothers and sisters treat each other “in all purity” (1 Tim. 5:2), and they do not share a bed.

• Fourth, make your bed.
  
  My wife typically makes the bed. No, my wife always makes the bed. It’s something she loves to do. Yet both of us are responsible to make the marriage bed warm and inviting. This means guarding not only against sexual temptation, but bitterness, thanklessness, and even busyness. Children come from the marriage bed . . . and they also complicate it. More children means less time and more exhaustion. If a couple is not careful, the time they do have can be wholly given to talking about the kids. All this means that the marriage bed requires great care—to be present with one another physically and emotionally. I once heard a pastor say “does your wife feel more like a mother or a wife in your home?”^[3] This is why you make your bed.

3. I do not recall where the pastor said this. I follow the example of Hebrews 2:6 and 4:4 (though the author of Hebrews cited Scripture this way to preserve the oral effect of the sermon and not because, like me, he did not recall where he got the material)!

• Fifth, get ready for bed.
  
  I have in mind here a preparation of two kinds. First, unmarried couples, actively prepare for your first time together in bed. Your thoughts and your treatment of one another before marriage are a preparation for that first night. Then, once you’re married, actively prepare for your time together in bed. What that means will depend on the couple but there are investments you can make that are consistent for each gender. As an example, a woman may take care of herself to be attractive to her would-be husband but then let herself go later. Or, a man may take care of that same lady with love and affection but then take her for granted when they get married. The things you did to win your spouse typically remain meaningful after you’re married. Whatever it means for you in your marriage, stay in the game. Keep investing. Get ready for bed.

Your Wedding Day, God’s Judgment Day, and Our Assurance

All of this is more serious than we might at first think. This twofold command comes with a compelling reason: “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous” (Heb. 13:4, emphasis mine). This is indeed a sober warning of final judgment (Heb. 6:4–8; 10:26–31; 12:25; cf. Col. 3:5–6; 1 Cor. 10:8; 1 Thess. 4:3–6). Those who unrepentantly indulge in sexual immorality will be exposed and judged by God, and he will justly sentence them into the lake of fire (Rev. 21:8), away from the joy of his presence forever (Rev. 22:15).

How are we supposed to hear this warning?

We should hear this warning as the measure of the preciousness of our marriage beds to our Lord. The marriage bed is from God for our joy. Which is why he jealously guards it with such prohibitions and promises of judgment for defilement.

We should hear this warning as a real warning. Holding fast to our confession of Jesus means, quite practically, holding on to our spouses.

Are you slowly drifting from Christ in the arena of your marriage—one conversation or click at a time? This warning is especially for you—even God’s mercy for you. In this warning, hear the call to pay much more careful attention to the message you have heard (Heb. 2:1). Jesus is a once-for-all sacrifice for your sins and he is yours if you will look to him, repent, and stay with him (Heb. 7:27). Pray to him, hold fast to him, and get back to church where his people can encourage you until the day of his coming (Heb. 10:19–25). Are you far from shore but beginning to see your predicament? Lay aside your sin, look to him, imitate your leaders, and don’t look back (Heb 12:1–2; 13:7, 17).

What You’ll Find Through Front Door of Our Home

Rarely have I heard more thankful words after a sermon than when I read my wedding vows to the church after preaching from Hebrews 13:4.

One way all of us can stir one another up to honor marriage is by tending to the first words we speak in marriage, the vows we speak before God and many witnesses on our wedding days.

Here are the vows that Kristi and I made to one another before God on our wedding day, the vows I use when marrying couples.^[4]

4. When I am asked to officiate a marriage, I have a few requirements. One is that the couple use the vows that I provide. They can modify them slightly. But I discourage the suggestion that writing your own vows from scratch helps you own them, or that being creative or original is necessarily more meaningful.

Trent, do you take Kristi to be your wedded wife, to leave your father and mother and all others to cleave unto her so long as you both shall live? “I do.”

Kristi, do you take Trent to be your wedded husband, to leave your father and mother and all others to cleave unto him so long as you both shall live? “I do.”

With love I take you, Kristi, to be my wife; to have and to hold from this day forward; to love you as Christ loves the Church; to cherish you as I do my own body; to lead you as Christ leads me; with deep respect and honor; willingly sharing every part of my life with you; as you are now a part of me; remaining faithful to you with God’s help; encouraging you in our Lord; and being at your side; according to God’s Word; for the rest of my life.

With love I take you, Trent, to be my husband; to have and to hold from this day forward; in submission to you as we both are to Christ; with deep respect and honor; supportive of you as my leader; and as the head of our home; willingly sharing every part of my life with you; as you are now a part of me; remaining faithful to you with God’s help; encouraging you in our Lord; and being at your side; according to God’s Word; for the rest of my life.

We said these words to one another on July 19, 2003. We’ve been married over twenty years. We pray for faithfulness to match our parents on both sides who have passed fifty years of marriage.

Today, these vows hang by our front door of our home, words surrounded by the signatures of the witnesses who joined us on that day—our parents, our pastors, and those who stood with us. Our marriage is not without its trials and temptations, even failures. But these words at our front door speak to the value of this covenant we are in, and they remind us of the need to prize and protect what God has joined together.

Beloved, let us consider how to stir up one another up to love and to good marriages.

This is a short article to commend a simple truth: pastors are local theologians.

As Peter put it: “shepherd the flock of God that is among you” (1 Pet. 5:2). Peter had more to say about shepherding than this, but everything Peter wrote to pastors assumed a local sphere for our sacred work.

Most local church pastors don’t want to be anywhere else most of the time. But some of the time, we do want to be somewhere else. A pastor can wonder if he shouldn’t be somewhere bigger, somewhere more strategic or significant. Or just somewhere different, somewhere that will appreciate him more. Perhaps some should. But often enough our straying imaginations are a sign that we simply need encouragement to shepherd the flock of God among us.

That’s what this article seeks to do with a little help from our “fellow elder,” and a man who knows his own weaknesses. Here are three encouragements for local church pastors from the Apostle Peter.

Pastors, We Are Theologians because Our Churches Are God’s Possession

Man-centered ways of thinking about church lead to man-centered ways of leading church, and, therefore, man-centered ways of evaluating ourselves as pastors.

But Peter exhorted us, “shepherd the flock of God.” (1 Pet. 5:2, emphasis mine). That’s who we are dealing with here: God and his flock. How encouraging!

We may plant a church, but we do not create a church. We may revitalize a church, but we are not the source of new life for our church. We may strategize for growth in maturity or size, but we never grow the church, not in an ultimate sense: “So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth (1 Cor. 3:7). We may have chosen to accept a call to a pastoral role, but before we chose to come, God chose those saints in his Son.

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:9–10)

All pastoring is theological because the pastor shepherds God’s people into the fullness of their identity as God’s people so that they may declare his excellencies and live as his servants (1 Pet. 2:9, 16). That is, to be clear, emphatically not our excellencies and not our servants.

We are there for them because they are there for him, and not the other way around.

We are not entertainers—though our people should find us interesting. We are not therapists—though our people should find us thoughtful doctors of their souls. We are not Chief Executive Officers—though we should be faithful overseers of our flocks for the sake of the church’s mission. No. Churches are the pillar and buttress of truth, and that truth is truth about God, and thus the church’s pastors teach sound doctrine that accords with godliness (1 Tim. 1:9, 1:10; 3:15; 6:3).

What does that sound like? Like this: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” (1 Pet. 1:3). It sounds like the sovereign work of God in the new birth rooted in the resurrection which gives us an imperishable hope in view of the coming revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 1:3–9). That’s called theology and it’s how Peter began his letter.

Pastoring is a thoroughly theological task. But for whom?

Peter, after all, wrote to the “elect exiles” all over Asia Minor.

Pastors, We Are Local Because That’s Where God’s People Are

Peter wrote of the “brotherhood throughout the world” and yet he wrote for the churches in “in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia (1 Pet. 1:1; 5:9). We know he wrote to churches there because in his letter he wrote to the elders in those places (1 Pet. 5:1).

The writers of our New Testament letters wrote to local churches, and we can tell. Not just because they often addressed “the church” in a particular place. But because they wrote into local situations.

We learn about the local challenges of first-century churches by listening in to these letters. Paul commended individuals by name and even “named names” when necessary (Rom. 16:3–16; Phil. 4:2; 2 Tim. 2:17). The people were local and so were their problems. The Galatian church needed to know there is no good news apart from justification by faith (Gal. 1:6). The Corinthian church needed to hear they are fools if the resurrection is not true (1 Cor. 15:17). The Colossian church needed to hear that union with Christ is fullness of life in contrast to empty philosophies involving angels and asceticism (Col. 2:8–3:3). In a region obsessed with magic and invisible powers, the small Ephesian church needed a word about their heavenly position (Eph. 1:3, 20; 2:6; 3:10; 6:12). The Hebrew audience needed to hear of Jesus’s incarnation so they might know him as a sympathetic high priest (Heb. 4:15).

There were no boilerplate letters for the apostles, nor for Jesus. Jesus himself wrote seven letters tailored to seven churches, each with their own context and threats (Rev. 2:1–3:22). Only tailor-made messages for the need of each church would do.

So it was for Peter. The rejected “exiles” to whom he wrote needed a word concerning their chosenness in Christ (1 Pet. 2:4, 9). They were elect exiles (1 Pet. 1:1)! Subject to difficult authorities, these discouraged Christians needed to hear that Jesus, “has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him” (1 Peter 3:22, emphasis mine).

Peter knew his hearers. He spoke to them accordingly.

The variety and occasional nature of our New Testament epistles invites us to speak to our congregations likewise in personal and specific ways. So, while some of our people may listen to some of our generation’s “best preachers” on the internet (and we thank God for them!), only local pastors can speak a personal word to the flock of God among us. We know them and love them as only their shepherds can. May that be apparent in our preaching.

We may understand this calling quite well, that we are local theologians for our people. But what are we to do on our more discouraging days? When it seems we want that couple to be reconciled more than they want it themselves? When one criticism of our preaching weighs heavier on our minds than many words about God’s Word at work? When the glory of the ministry seems to elude us and the grass seems greener on the other side of the pulpit? Sleep goes a long way.

But even better than sleep is a better source of encouragement.

Pastors, We May Be Obscure Here, but We are Seen by Heaven

Peter seems to know that elder-pastors need big encouragement.

That’s why Peter did not just exhort elders to “shepherd the flock of God.” He put our difficult task in its proper heavenly context:

So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you. (1 Peter 5:1–2, emphasis added)

We must not be in the pastorate for shameful gain, but there is nothing wrong with being in it for gain. In fact, our pursuit of godly gain is precisely how Peter motivates us: “And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory” (1 Pet. 5:4). That crown of glory is nothing less than the fullness of salvation (1 Cor. 9:25; 2 Tim. 4:8). Heaven not only sees our work; our work leads to heaven.

Here’s what this means: there is nothing lost whatsoever for being local. Our churches may be small and, at times, difficult out of all proportion to their size. But local church pastors are not out of sight and out of mind for God, for his eye and his mind are ever on his people.

They are his, and so are we. A great encouragement, indeed.

Make Local Great Again

Much has been made in recent years of the pastor as a public theologian. That has been a needed emphasis. Among other things, it means pastors must speak about and into matters beyond the walls of their churches. But it is increasingly tempting to think that the action is out there rather than in the room with our people. We need pastors who are public theologians, yes, but for the sake of their local churches.

When we shepherd the flock of God among us, the Chief Shepherd sees, and he is pleased. And for this reason, there is no better place to be.

I think my pastor growing up knew that. His greetings, his preaching, and his prayers were local. Just like the Apostles. He always had a Word from God for us. When we spoke in private, he always had a Word from God for me.

That’s the kind of pastor I want to be.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!

“May they be secure who love you!

Peace be within your walls

and security within your towers!” —Psalm 122:6–7

The recent attack on Israel did not take place in Jerusalem, yet the imagery in this psalm of secure walls and towers called to mind so many images of vulnerability and broken-down walls from that day.

It is obvious that we should pray for the state of Israel, as they seek to protect their people from a hostile enemy committed to their annihilation. But what does it mean to pray for the “peace” of Israel in alignment with the psalmist’s own prayer request in Psalm 122? What kind of peace is this, how will it come about, and when?

In this article, I offer a simple guide for how we might pray for the peace of Jerusalem and the nation in which it sits, the nation of Israel. We’ll do this by reflecting theologically on the content and context of the very passage that called on saints of old to do so.

But first, join me for a moment at a recent prayer meeting at our church.

Why Did I Flinch?

Hamas attacked Israel on a Saturday. At our Sunday prayer meeting the day following, one of our members requested prayer for the state of Israel. That was an appropriate and expected request. But why did I flinch and then so carefully select who should pray for Israel?

The role of the state of Israel in God’s plan is a matter on which Christians disagree.^[1] Those who lean towards dispensationalism believe that there is a continuation between the old covenant people Israel and the modern nation-state. This view believes that God will fulfill his Old Testament promises in the modern nation-state of Israel, including the rebuilding of a temple in the millennium. For these believers, blessing comes to those nations that bless modern day Israel and curse to those that dishonor her (Gen. 12:3). While the church is a part of God’s plan, one day he will remove the church from the world and resume his plan for the nation of Israel centered in Jerusalem. This conviction has profound influence on how and why we pray for Israel today.

1. For a careful summary of views and examination of relevant texts, see Brent Parker’s essay, “A Biblical and Theological Perspective of National Israel,” Christ Over All (January 8, 2024).

It is the contention of this article that the people of Israel in the Scriptures are not the same entity as the modern nation-state of Israel or even the Jewish people broadly today (more Jews live outside of Israel’s borders than in them). The church, composed of Gentiles and Jews, is God’s one new humanity (Eph. 2:14–17), the true circumcision (Phil. 3:1), and the true children of Abraham by faith union with the true seed of Abraham, the Lord Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:16, 29; 4:28). Through Christ, her great high priest, the church has come to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem (Heb. 12:22; cf. Gal 4:26). Indeed, she is the new Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven dressed as a bride described on the last pages of the Bible (Rev. 21:2). Israel’s land and Jerusalem her city were a shadow leading us to the substance of these greater salvation realities in Christ.

With the coming of the new covenant in Christ, neither unbelieving Jewish people nor Israel as a nation are in a special covenant with God. While there may be a great future ingathering and ingrafting of many ethnically Jewish people into the church as described in Romans 11, the geo-political state of Israel in our day is not awaiting the fulfillment of God’s promises in a geographical and national sense.

At that church prayer meeting, I tapped a recent seminary grad and Air Force retiree to pray for Israel. His combination of study and military experience made him an ideal leader for our church in prayer that evening. He did not pray for Israel as “God’s special people” or for America to bless Israel in order to be blessed as a nation by God. He prayed for the families, the nation, and for God’s saving purposes in Christ.

I want more of my members to pray for Israel in ways that adhere to God’s plan for his name. Where can we find help to pray for Israel in our day?

An Ancient Prayer Guide

Psalm 122 is more than an ancient prayer request. It is also a faithful guide to praying not only for the church but evangelistically for all nations, including Israel.

The journey of Psalm 122 unfolds in three stanzas. Examined from one angle, the psalm climaxes in the third stanza with the psalm’s only imperative, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Ps. 122:6). But from another angle, we observe that this psalm is organized as a chiasm with the first and third stanzas bookending the second and central stanza. To help us see this psalm’s powerful logic, we’ll take these stanzas in a particular order: the first, then the third, then the central stanza.

First, Give Thanks to God for Israel and Her Place in Redemptive History

In our prayers for the nation-state of Israel today, we can begin by giving thanks for the people of Israel on the pages of Scripture. Our story of salvation runs through Israel.

The first stanza of Psalm 122 reminds us of the treasure of God’s presence that we have received through her story.

I was glad when they said to me,

“Let us go to the house of the LORD!”

Our feet have been standing

within your gates, O Jerusalem! (Psalm 122:1–2)

The “house of the Lord” mentioned here referred to the tabernacle or the temple. The thought and sight of this building stirred the heart with glad expectation for God’s presence. There was no happier place to be in all the world than Jerusalem.

The temple court was open for company. In fact, the Lord called his people home once each year and this psalm was part of that journey. This “Song of Ascents” was used as part of a collection of Psalms sung as part of the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem of every Israelite man (Deut. 16:16)—and often his family. Psalm 120 marks the beginning of the journey in the midst of the world and all of its problems. Psalm 121 sets our faces to Jerusalem and points us to the Lord as our only help on the way to a better place. Psalm 122 is a song of arrival at the Lord’s house.

At the same time, Psalm 122 is a song of longing. The psalmist was glad to go to Jerusalem. Yet worshipers did not arrive at a city marked by peace, especially after their return from exile when this psalm would have been compiled and used by Israelites. Jerusalem was anything but secure in those years. The gladness that began the journey to Jerusalem would have ended in tears. After the exile, Jerusalem was a city wrecked by sin, judgment, and curse. This reality itself was owing not merely to external forces on the people, but God’s judgment for their own idolatry and sin. Israel, with all her advantages, was not a transformed people (Rom. 3:19–20). And this is why Jerusalem did not live up to her name as the “city of peace.”

But these hard days did not stop the pilgrims from calling to their companions to “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!” This prayer reveals a great need, but also great hope in the hearts of faithful Israelites.

So, with great affection, we can give earnest thanks to God for the people of Israel on the pages of Scripture. The Apostle Paul, an Israelite himself, spoke fondly of his “kinsmen according to the flesh” (Rom. 9:3). To Israelites, he wrote, “belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises” (Rom. 9:5). Most precious among them? Jesus, our savior from sin. Emmanuel, God with us! For as Paul continues, “from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.” (Rom. 9:5).

Thank God for Israel!

But this heritage in salvation’s story does not guarantee an inheritance of salvation itself.

Having given thanks for Israel, how should we pray for her?

Second, Pray for the Physical Seed of Abraham to Know the Peace of Complete Salvation

In our own day, headlines might lead us to pray simply for an end to war, to pray for “peace in the middle east,” and to stop there. But a mere negotiated peace is not the sum of what God had in mind for the city of Jerusalem.

The psalmist has a certain kind of peace in mind.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!

“May they be secure who love you!

Peace be within your walls

and security within your towers!”

For my brothers and companions’ sake

I will say, “Peace be within you!” (Psalm 122:6–8)

This “peace,” from the word shalom (mentioned three times in the song’s climax), involves more than an end to war. Read in context with the rest of the psalms of ascents (Psalms 120–134), this peace is nothing less than the complete stability and security of the people of God resulting in the untold gladness (Pss. 125; 126:1–6; 128:5-6), uncommon harmony (Ps. 122:6–8), and unbridled worship (Pss. 124:6, 8; 126:2–4; 130:7; 134:1–3). The point is not the strength of walls, but the safety of the people. Jerusalem as a city is a stand-in for the people of Jerusalem: God’s people. The security pictured here is only possible with the transformation of the people inside those walls into those who love the Lord with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind. In short, this peace is the very coming together of God and humankind in reconciled and joyful fellowship. This is a prayer for the peace of the fullness of salvation promised through Abraham and his children. Prayed today, this is a request for God to secure the children of God, those whom the Lord loves in Christ. As Romans 8:39 promises, no one can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Who is the ‘us’? Those who are now citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem.

Still, to get to that final citizenship requires a bit more work, for when Psalmist entered Jerusalem he did not yet see this peace, nor did Jesus when he made his pilgrimage to the holy city. What Jesus saw in the place of peace was only sin and rebellion. In Luke’s gospel account we read:

And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19:41–44, emphasis added)

So much for peace in Jerusalem! Jesus’s prediction was fulfilled in 70 AD with the destruction of the temple. Yet, in his own day, he would lay down his life in order to bring peace to the city of Jerusalem. And this brings us to the second and central stanza.

Third, Pray for Israel to Repent and Receive the King of Peace

Each of the stanzas in Psalm 122 mention the city of Jerusalem. But with a closer look, we see that the psalmist has more than the city of Jerusalem in focus: namely, the two houses for which the city came to be known.^[2]

2. I am indebted to David Camera for this observation.

Recall the invitation of stanza one: “Let us go to the house of the Lord!” (Ps. 122:1). The third stanza concludes, “For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good” (Ps. 122:9). Yet the peace and joy that flow from the temple depend on the justice of the second house from the second stanza:

Jerusalem—built as a city

that is bound firmly together,

to which the tribes go up,

the tribes of the LORD,

as was decreed for Israel,

to give thanks to the name of the LORD.

There thrones for judgment were set,

the thrones of the house of David. (Psalm 122:3–5)

What was this second house in Jerusalem, mentioned at the center of this psalm?: the palace, the house of the king, the house of David.

Now, step back and look at the shape of this psalm, abbreviated here.

“Let us go to the house of the LORD!”

Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem!

Jerusalem—built as a city that is bound firmly together,

There thrones for judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! “May they be secure who love you!

For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your good.

Here’s what this means: there is no peace for anyone apart from the king who makes peace possible. Where God’s justice does not reign, there is only the reign of sin’s terror. But where Jesus is king there is security and harmony and gladness and submission. There is no peace where there is no justice. Put differently, there is no peace apart from King Jesus, and the peace that his cross will afford.

In the fullness of time, when Jesus came to Jerusalem, the city rose to war, but by such violent opposition, Jesus would make peace. Jerusalem’s rejection of Jesus included the conspiracies of Jew and Gentiles alike, yet behind all human machinations was the predetermined plan of God to bring peace and salvation to a sinful world (Isaiah 53; Acts 2:22–24; 4:27–28). As with all Scripture, the cross of Christ should be the driving feature of our theology and the burden of our prayer.

As we pray for peace in Israel today, therefore, we must pray for her people to acknowledge Jesus as the rightful king on David’s throne. Jewish people today do not need to confess the sin of crucifying the Lord of glory.^[3] But Jews today, like Palestinians, Greeks, Ghanaians, and every other Gentile, must confess that there is no salvation apart from Christ and his cross (Acts 4:12). Likewise, the way of salvation for the world does not come by blessing the nation of Israel in order to be blessed, but by blessing the son of Abraham, the true Israelite, the son of David, Jesus Christ. “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him” (Ps. 2:12; cf. Gen. 12:3).

3. See Kevin DeYoung’s chapter, “The Infinite Extensibility of Guilt,” in Impossible Christianity: Why Following Jesus Does Not Mean You Have to Change the World, Be an Expert in Everything, Accept Spiritual Failure, and Feel Miserable Pretty Much All the Time, (Wheaton: Crossway, 2023).

The Jews with many others thought that Jesus’ crucifixion would bring peace by the putting down of a man who, in their eyes, made trouble. Little did they know, however, he was the one making peace by his cross. Today, praying for the peace of Jerusalem is a prayer for all those who wage war to bow the knee to his once-crucified king. Even more, for those in places like Israel, where the war drums are beating, we should be praying for the church, that they might bring peace to their neighbors—whether in Jerusalem or any of the cities of Israel.

Finally, Thank God for His Answer to This Ancient Prayer

God’s people went up to Jerusalem “to give thanks to the name of the LORD” (Ps. 122:4). How much more should we give thanks!

The ancient temple in Jerusalem is rubble. Jesus predicted it and brought it to pass. Israel, as a nation in covenant with God, trusted in the stones of the temple rather than the Lord of that house. She also rejected her servant (Isaiah 53), who is now her Lord and the cornerstone of a new temple. Indeed, as Jews demanded a sign from Jesus, he predicted the destruction of yet another temple: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19).

From this day, the day of his resurrection, forward God has not abandoned his purposes for Jerusalem and its temple. Rather, through the destruction of his own body, Jesus brought about salvation peace to Jerusalem, and then from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). The temple itself was to be a “house of prayer [for all nations]” (Luke 19:46; cf. Isa. 56:6–7). In the person and work of Jesus Christ, God has answered those prayers and the prayer of Psalm 122. In the sending of his Spirit at Pentecost, Jesus extended the blessing of this peace to all who receive him by faith, from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.

Where can this peace be seen today? Where do we find God’s people joined in worship under the rule of heaven’s king? The Apostle Paul shows us where:

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. (Ephesians 2:13–16)

What, then, becomes of the temple? This peace has dawned in the church, God’s true temple, a people “being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Eph. 2:19–22). Having come to Jerusalem’s king we have come “to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering” to worship with gladness and harmony, with security and submission, with reverence and awe (Heb. 12:22, 28; cf. Gal. 4:26).

Saints of old journeyed to Jerusalem to “give thanks to the name of the Lord” (Ps. 122:4). Today, the church calls out one to another, “let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken” (Heb. 12:28). Such is the peace and security of those who have come to heaven’s king.

So, let us pray for peace in the Middle East and for the justice of God through nations and governments against evil in this age. But above all, let us pray that many sons of Ishmael and sons of Isaac would become true sons of Abraham by faith in the Lord Jesus.

So Let’s Pray

At our church prayer meetings, we do more than share requests or talk about praying. We actually pray.

Having considered how we might faithfully pray for the peace from Psalm 122, let us pray now specifically for the people in the state of Israel.

Father, we delight in your presence. We rejoice in the astonishing truth that we can know your presence by the Spirit in a way never possible for the pilgrims who journeyed to Jerusalem in the days before Christ came. Those believers too had to look past their immediate circumstances in hope of a day when Jerusalem would live up its namesake as a place of peace, ruled by a righteous Davidic king, and marked by justice. We look to the trouble in the Middle East, and we may be tempted to pray only for the kind of peace achieved through peace deals between nations. But the psalmist had so much more in mind for sinners. May the people of the present-day nation of Israel find peace in the Prince of Peace promised in her Scriptures. May they take refuge in the king promised on the pages of her sacred book. And may we all look to the day when Christ’s righteousness and justice will make for a true and lasting peace in the new Jerusalem, a new heaven and a new earth for which we eagerly wait. It is in the name of the Lord Jesus we pray.

Amen.

My answer to that question might not lead you to read Amity Shlaes’s Great Society: A New History.^[1] However, I hope it will inspire you to become more familiar with the vision of some of our fellow Americans during this period, a vision that they dubbed “The Great Society”—a program, like so many other grand schemes, that failed to live up to its name. Some truly great legislation came from this era, but enmeshed within them came much damaging legislation as well.^[2] As Shlaes reminds us, “Nothing is new, just forgotten.”^[3] Or as Solomon put it, “There’s nothing new under the sun” (Eccl. 1:9).

1. Amity Shlaes, Great Society: A New History (New York: Harper, 2019).

2. See Brad Green’s essay, “One Constitution, or Two? Reviewing The Age of Entitlement by Christopher Caldwell,” Christ Over All (July 31, 2023).

3. Shlaes, Great Society, 17.

So, what was The Great Society? Why did it fail? And what must we learn from it? That is the question that this review essay attempts to answer as it follows and interacts with the story Shlaes tells of this epoch. It is a tornado siren for our own day. Those who care deeply about justice in our day will care deeply about the weather conditions that caused so much systemic wreckage for the precious people with whom justice is concerned.

Truly, Shlaes offers a cautionary tale for our compassionate nation.

This essay is a Christian exercise in stewarding history’s lessons in love for neighbor. This is a pastoral exercise in guarding the church from faulty visions of both humanity and heaven. It’s long, but only because this is a long-neglected subject. We have heard much over the last decade—from politicians and pastors alike—about the legacy of slavery in the form of a straight line from American’s founding to Jim Crow to the present as an explanation for real problems in America. Americans at our best are concerned to get our history right for the sake of doing right by our neighbors today. But what about that period we call “The Sixties” that was filled with programs and projects designed to eradicate poverty and racism? And why do we hear so little about these dramatic political efforts and their outcomes? Why is this so, especially given that their aims are the aims of modern justice movers and shakers today?

If you care about justice, about the poor, and about the lingering effects of slavery, then come with me on this journey into our country’s more recent history.

The Legacy of Slavery or the Legacy of Liberalism?

An exchange between columnists back in 2014 piqued my interest in this period. Nicholas Kristof, in his New York Times piece titled “When Whites Just Don’t Get It,” writes the following: “The presumption on the part of so many well-meaning white Americans [is] that racism is a historical artifact. They don’t appreciate the overwhelming evidence that centuries of racial subjugation still shape inequity in the 21st century.”^[4] Racists have existed and do exist. No problem with this claim. But Kristof says more: that present inequities are shaped by the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, by past and enduring racism, both personal and systemic.

4. “When Whites Just Don’t Get It, Part 4,” New York Times (November 16, 2014).

Thomas Sowell sees the same situation differently: “If we wanted to be serious about evidence, we might compare where blacks stood a hundred years after the end of slavery with where they stood after 30 years of the liberal welfare state.”^[5] The title of his piece was his thesis, “A Legacy of Liberalism.” According to Sowell, “Despite the grand myth that black economic progress began or accelerated with the passage of the civil rights laws and ‘war on poverty’ programs of the 1960s, the cold fact is that the poverty rate among blacks fell from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent by 1960. This was before any of those programs began . . . from the laws and policies of the 1960s, nothing comparable happened economically. And there were serious retrogressions socially.”^[6]

5. “A Legacy of Liberalism,” Creators (November, 18, 2014).

6. Jason Riley has a book-length treatment, False Black Power?, telling the forgotten but inspiring story of unprecedented black progress in the years after slavery. See this link for one insightful chapter.

This resonated with me.

Cabrini-Green Homes, the public housing project just outside my window in downtown Chicago when I was a college student in the late nineties, was by then notorious for crime and violence. “The Projects”—Whose idea was that? And what precisely did they expect to achieve by building these inner city monoliths?

My father, then a district manager for a retail chain in St. Louis, was awakened many nights by the police due to break-ins at his stores in East St. Louis. What was the backstory for that “bad part of town”? Later, when I sold cell phones to fund my years as a seminary student, I encountered different cultures in different stores, each with their own admirable qualities and predictable sins. Upper-middle-class folks worked hard but frequently asked to split their accounts following a divorce. Rural folks frequently needed new phones for a child returning from Afghanistan or else for a man in the home who lost his phone in another drunken fishing incident. Then there were the black urban poor, many lovely individuals and loving mothers. In this community, however, few were married, “baby daddies” were a daily thing, and there was a refrain in the context of selling: “I’m waiting on my check,” that is, a government check. This was a cultural norm. More than the rest, this part of town felt stuck, trapped, downtrodden.

As statistics will show, not all blacks are stuck. Not hardly. The community I encountered does not characterize the whole of blacks in America, an important clarification. Today 82% of black Americans are above the poverty line despite only 30% being married.^[7] 94% of black married couples are above the poverty line.^[8] That we hear so much about black poverty is owing more to political rhetoric that exploits poor urban blacks, painting this subculture as the state of blacks as a whole. The dynamics I explore in this essay apply equally to whites and blacks, a point Shlaes makes.^[9] The difference is that one group’s poor are exploited for political and social gain and the other are not.

7. See, “Poverty Rate for the Black Population Fell Below Pre-Pandemic Levels,” at Census Bureau (September 12, 2023).

8. See, “Poverty rate of Black married-couple families in the United States from 1990 to 2022,” at Statista (November 28, 2023).

9. Bob Woodson explores this dynamic in his pursuit of a deracialized approach to poverty in his book, Red, White, and Black: Rescuing American History from Revisionists and Race Hustlers.

For that downtrodden part of town in my sales experience, it did seem that something structural was going on—something systemic that shaped cultures and the precious individuals embedded within them. But I did not resonate with Kristof’s take in the New York Times.

What were these “war on poverty” programs Sowell wrote of, and how were they related to the passage of the civil rights laws of the 1960s? What were these “serious retrogressions,” and what might they have to do with “the liberal welfare state,” as Sowell claims? Sowell’s own body of work has been helpful on these questions, especially in the realm of researched statistics.^[10]

10. See, for example, Intellectuals and Race (New York: Basic Books, 2013), and Discrimination and Disparities (New York: Basic Books, 2018).

But what is the story behind these stats, these policies? Who were the personalities involved in them? Why did the American public embrace them? What might all of this have to do with the “legacy of slavery” and the various disparities we see today?

Shlaes’s book Great Society tells that story.

This is the story not of cruel people, but in Shlaes’s words, “lovable people who, despite themselves, hurt those they loved.”^[11]

11. Shlaes, Great Society, 17.

America Was Doing Good—Real Good

At the start of the 1960s the country was affluent. That’s the first word that describes America at the start of the decade. The post-war American industries stood head and shoulders above those of other countries. The sharpest contrast was in the automotive industry. That a small Japanese company like Toyota could ever be competitive in the US was not on even the shrewdest industry leader’s mind. The American middle class thrived, work was in demand, and jobs paid well. If you weren’t skilled, a company would train you and then employ you. Young people growing up at this time had a different perspective than their parents who grew up during the Great Depression. Poverty was the exception rather than the rule. Add to this America’s recent industrial and managerial achievements in the Second World War and you have a generation marked by a second word: confidence. This was an optimistic generation. America could do anything and in particular, the United States government could do anything. Trust in government was high and so were hopes in the possibilities of government. We hear it in Kennedy’s words at Rice University on the Nation’s space effort in 1962: “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”^[12] This affluence and confidence made for a generation intrigued with socialism. Sound familiar?

12. See, John F. Kennedy, “Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort,” Rice University, September 12, 1962.

The New Deal era programs of the 1930s failed to address the economic depression, leading to a truly Great Depression.^[13] The Second World War pulled the country out of its economic plight. But those failures had faded just enough for a renewed optimism in big-government solutions.

13. Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, (New York: Harper, 2008). A 2004 study by two UCLA economists, Lee Ohanian and Harold Cole, concluded that Roosevelt’s policies extended the depression by seven years. “Professor’s ‘big intellectual risk’ grabs eyeballs years later,” UCLA Newsroom (June 6, 2016).

The 60s were also dominated by ambition, a third word for the era that stirred popular intrigue with socialism to political action. This was a moral ambition, ambition for a cause, ambition with “a fierce urgency of now.”^[14] The Great Depression era had its great crisis to overcome, and the World War II generation accomplished a truly great feat overseas. What great achievement might this generation undertake? If that wasn’t on the mind of average Americans, it was certainly on the mind of their political leaders. President Lyndon B. Johnson answered that question with what he called “The Great Society.”

14. Shlaes, Great Society, 5.

What Was the Great Society?

We can answer that question from six angles: legal, historical, religious, political, sociological, and economic. This is not the outline for Shlaes’s book, which works across the sixties chronologically. Her story dramatizes the events of this period and humanizes its many characters. I commend it to you. This here is my attempt to synthesize what I learned from her narrative account.

1. Legally, the Great Society was Lyndon Johnson’s sweeping domestic legislative agenda to eliminate poverty and racial disparities.

Yes, that’s exactly what it was. This was in an era before the loss of trust in the government that makes that kind of legislative ambition sound hollow. In fact, it was in part the great failure of these promises that explains our present cynicism. But make no mistake: this is what they set out to do by legislation.

This package of legislative initiatives created new federal programs and whole agencies to help Americans in nearly every area of life: education, housing, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, and transportation, including bussing for school integration.

In her narrative history, Shlaes spends most of her volume tracing the personalities around the President during this time—aids, fed chairmen, famed economists, and union bosses. The mingling of genuine altruistic motives and blinding political ambition—often in the same characters—is a study of human nature and the nature of government. Among this cast of characters, President Johnson, as one of his aids put it, “made laws the way other men eat chocolate chip cookies.”^[15] That was his expertise from the Senate. That’s what he became famous for in the White House. The sheer amount of legislation passed during this period was unparalleled.

15. Shlaes, Great Society, 6.

2. Historically, the Great Society was an ambitious moniker reflecting that period’s mindset: confidence in what government could do and should do.

“Let’s not alleviate poverty; let’s cure it,”^[16] President Johnson stridently and repeatedly insisted. He meant it. America after the Second World War was confident in its federal government. So too were government officials. Lyndon Johnson wanted to expand government in a way that eclipsed Roosevelt’s transformative presidency, but Johnson did not have Roosevelt’s crises: economic depression and war. Johnson, rather, had affluence. Things were not just going well for Americans, but exceptionally well. Johnson’s challenge, then, was to generate a sense of urgency for America to see it go well for everyone—literally.^[17] His legacy as president—and the legacy of those whose careers were bound to his presidency—depended on such grand plans.

16. Shlaes, Great Society, 89.

17. Shlaes, Great Society, 102.

A “good society” would not do. He rejected that suggestion.^[18] He insisted, rather, on a “Great Society,” and this became his rallying cry. America had already organized itself to finish a war overseas. Winning the war on poverty, it was said, would be a “mopping up action.”^[19] This war, like any war, would be a job for the federal government. They were not sloganeering. They really were that optimistic in the power and precision of government planning.

18. Shlaes, Great Society, 97, 101.

19. Shlaes, Great Society, 5.

3. Religiously, the Great Society was the expression of the nation’s collective human and religious—even Christian-informed—impulse to do something good for those who are hurting.

This legislative vision did not emerge in a vacuum. Johnson’s vision was a continuation of what President Kennedy pursued before him, in part, and what President Nixon continued after him. In his own time, it was marketable as the political expression of the human desire to help those in need, a good desire shaped by America’s Christian roots.

It was President Kennedy who by executive order established the Peace Corps, headed by Yale-grad and decorated officer Sargent Shriver. Shriver became President Johnson’s poverty czar, the principal architect of his “War on Poverty,” and head of the Office for Economic Opportunity. Along with many Americans, Shriver believed that what the church already did for the poor, the federal government could and should do through its programs.^[20] To a national conscience informed by its Christian heritage, this just seemed right.

20. Shlaes, Great Society, 109–110.

4. Politically, the Great Society was a political project with all the incentives and complexities intrinsic to politics.

Political motivations and incentives abounded. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society vision was curious on the heels of Kennedy’s death. Lyndon Johnson to that point was known for his opposition to civil rights legislation.^[21] Johnson wanted to exceed the accomplishments of his predecessor, President Kennedy. This was something of a political imperative given that the House and the Senate went to Democrats following Kennedy’s assassination. He must do more. But he also wanted to best his intellectual and political father, President Roosevelt, and his New Deal. What Roosevelt did in creating infrastructure jobs to supposedly energize the economy, Johnson intended to do with the influx of cash to impoverished communities. Johnson expected these communities to begin to work, to contribute, and to join the rest of their American peers in their share of affluence. Without the crisis of a depression, Johnson leveraged the crisis of Kennedy’s death to move on this apparent political opportunity.^[22] He forwarded this vision on a wave of empathy and optimism. As they said, Roosevelt had his “New Deal,” and Johnson had his “Fast Deal.” But had it, he did.^[23]

21. Shlaes, Great Society, 121.

22. Shlaes, Great Society, 88.

23. Shlaes, Great Society, 92.

A lawmaker by trade, Johnson was more attentive to legislative inputs and intentions than he was to results. Laws—and the promises they held out—were the goal. The more the better. Not so much the outcomes. As the war in Vietnam became complicated and politically costly, neither Johnson nor his successor, Richard Nixon, could afford politically to go back on these promises. The Great Society had to move forward no matter the results. The priority of winning elections consumed and compromised even the most principled economists and advisors at the time to such an embarrassing extent that many later acknowledged their complicity.^[24]

24. Shlaes, Great Society, 11.

5. Sociologically, the Great Society institutionalized America’s commitment to a desegregated society.

The Great Society was an expansive vision that merged ambitions and political visions beyond an interest in helping the poor. In one of his famous speeches, Johnson, who was fashioned as the “Great Emancipator” of the twentieth century, said, “We’ve got to find a way to let Negroes get what most white folks already have.” He continued, “Freedom is not enough. You do not take a person who has been hobbled by chains and put him at the starting line of a race and say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others.’” What the nation needed was, “equality as a fact and equality as a result.”^[25]

25. Shlaes, Great Society, 166.

Thomas Sowell, a young economist at the time, disagreed: “To expect civil rights to solve our economic and social problems was barking up the wrong tree.”^[26] Blacks, for all the gains they had remarkably made, were nevertheless underdeveloped and, for that reason, genuinely and understandably discouraged.^[27] Much to the embarrassment of whites and blacks, reading scores were significantly lower among blacks. From Sowell’s perspective, the black community should have turned away from counting on political leaders to change their circumstances and toward an investment in “our own self-development as a people.”^[28] As Sowell has demonstrated in his own research, this is how any formerly-oppressed group rises out of the developmental consequences of their oppression.

26. Shlaes, Great Society, 120.

27. Shlaes, Great Society, 126.

28. Thomas Sowell, A Personal Odyssey (Free Press, 2002), 162.

In this attempt to compensate the black community, Johnson went further than the vision to which Martin Luther King Jr. rallied a generation in his early speeches. He went further than the call for equal treatment before the law, further than seeing that the children of the civil rights era were treated “according to the content of their character.”^[29] Instead, Johnson wanted a policy of redistribution to make up for what was lost in the black community’s development under oppressive laws. Not only was school segregation outlawed—a good thing—but mandated school integration required that students be bussed from one part of town to another, a bad decision, as we’ll see.

29. To be precise, King’s original rally cry was not the whole of his vision. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was given in 1963. In 1967, King delivered a different kind of speech calling for guaranteed income. His initial vision for civil rights included progress toward economic “justice” by means of state redistribution. See, “How We Can Make Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream of Ending Poverty A Reality,” from TIME (January 16, 2023). See also “When King And Johnson Joined Forces To Fight The War On Poverty,” from NPR (January 18, 2014). This piece reports that “King walked out of the White House having agreed to help Johnson’s anti-poverty agenda but emphasized that blacks would not accept ‘any watering down’ of a civil rights bill.”

6. Economically, the Great Society was ultimately a form of socialism.

Americans had two paths forward in bringing about this vision for a great society: the private sector or the public sector. The country chose the public sector and relegated the private sector to “milk cow” and “consultant.” Of course, it was the immense growth of the private sector that made wining the Second World War possible. It was the private sector that gave us Flint and Detroit. But then only the government could build a military or win a war. This was, it seemed, a job for the government.

Curing poverty seemed greatly desirable, the right thing to do, and not that difficult. But to whom?

One of the great stories of Shlaes’s history is the meeting of a group of young and bright-eyed college upperclassmen who made their way to Port Huron, Michigan, for a week with their thirty-something thought leaders to dream about America’s future. They would become an activist movement called Students for a Democratic Society. The roots and fruit of this movement, contrary to their name, were plainly socialist. Their manifesto reflected this socialist vision. It began as we might expect, “We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit.” They gave their lives to activism for its cause. One author among them, Michael Harrington—author of The Other America, which was the Hillbilly Elegy equivalent of that era—would go on to miraculously land a job in the Johnson administration overseeing the creation and expansion of a redistributive anti-poverty program.

Yet another character in Shlaes’s telling reveals that this assignment was not as miraculous as it may have seemed to those students. Their meeting was organized by a man whose name dominated the headlines and stories of his day, a kind of George Soros of the times: Walter Reuther, the head of the United Auto Workers. It was to Reuther that Johnson made a phone call on the day of Kennedy’s assassination, a man whose influence could secure the votes and confidence of some ten million union voters.^[30] However independent and anti-establishment these students may have believed themselves to be, they were hosted and helped along at every step by a man who met with the president weekly, who was himself one of America’s most powerful men—and also a socialist.

30. Shlaes, Great Society, 87.

Michael Harrington, who was both Reuther’s plant and the man in Johnson’s ear, said this in a candid moment: “There is no real solution to the problem of poverty until we abolish the capitalist system.” Anti-poverty legislation was a launchpad for his anti-capitalist movement.

Loveable People, Simple Arrogance

Reuther was a warm-hearted man who believed that the social-democratic experiment he had conducted within the auto industry should go nation-wide. From his seat, it was going swimmingly. But it would not last. In a few years, the US auto industry would be on the decline, falling to competition from Japan’s Toyota. While Reuther was busy provoking and managing competition between auto workers and their motor companies, Toyota was busy being competitive.^[31] It helped that their workers didn’t need lake homes. It also helped Toyota’s problem-solving creativity that their workers were for the companies they worked for. Reuther’s socialist vision was, as Shlaes puts it, the economic murder of Flint and Detroit, Michigan, as it fostered an adversarial relationship from employee to employer. This destruction of trust led to a decrease in productivity, competitiveness, and ultimately, profit. The influence of Reuther’s ideas on Johnson and his administration was the effective murder of the hopes and dreams of so many American poor.

31. Shlaes, Great Society, 303–309.

The government thought they were helping by housing the poor. They envisioned “flourishing communities” enjoying, in their own words, “the good life.”^[32] They also imagined their own political legacies in the form of impressive buildings.^[33] But the opposite occurred when entire communities had no stake in their own place. They did not want to be housed. They wanted homes of their own. Downtrodden properties and people followed.^[34]

32. Shlaes, Great Society, 231–233.

33. Shlaes, Great Society, 233.

34. Shlaes, Great Society, 426.

The government imagined that a scheme of rent assistance for single mothers would help raise these families from poverty. Yet this required a small army of social workers to patrol communities and inspect homes to ensure the absence of fathers.^[35] It is no wonder that an emerging culture of fatherlessness was exacerbated. Dads stayed away. A generation later, there are fewer dads.^[36] A good impulse; an unforeseen consequence.

35. Shlaes, Great Society, 240–242.

36. Thomas Sowell: “The black family survived centuries of slavery and generations of Jim Crow, but it has disintegrated in the wake of the liberals’ expansion of the welfare state,” from, “Liberalism versus Blacks,” National Review (January 15, 2013).

With the Supreme Court’s sanctioned abuse of eminent domain, the government thought they were helping by bulldozing hundreds of acres of slum community homes.^[37] But the subsidized cement high-rises they put in their place in the name of “urban renewal” became havens of intractable crime, violence, and hopelessness. The former streets and slums replaced by high rises were embarrassing to the elite class, but much loved by those who lived here.^[38] In one egregious case in St. Louis, demolition crews destroyed five thousand buildings, including forty-three historic churches.^[39] In reality, slums were not inevitable or permanent. These areas could “unslum” over time, as Shlaes put it.^[40] They were flexible in that respect, rising with the community. But the high rises that replaced them were a cement trap, holding the community down.

37. Shlaes, Great Society, 238.

38. Shlaes, Great Society, 175, 236.

39. Shlaes, Great Society, 239.

40. Shlaes, Great Society, 250.

The government thought they were helping by giving welfare checks, thinking that would quickly propel the poor into productive work. But this turned into the state paying people not to work, for as their wages went up so did their rent.^[41] Worse still, they thought they were doing right by making these checks a form of new legal “property,” or “a matter of right,” thus removing the discretion of local social workers in their allocation and distribution.^[42] The result of these good intentions? A culture of “entitlement” remains with us to this day and holds whole communities in helpless and hopeless generational dependence on the state. They set out to eradicate poverty; they institutionalized it instead, creating “a system of pauperism,” as one study put it.^[43] By expanding the meaning of property rights, they also weakened the property rights principle in American culture.

41. Shlaes, Great Society, 201, 245.

42. Shlaes, Great Society, 195, 344, 367.

43. Shlaes, Great Society, 334.

The government thought that minimum-wage policies would help those working at the lower end of our economy. But this was a form of self-deception. In fact, such policies only priced less-skilled workers out of jobs, with a disproportionate impact on younger workers just getting a start. As the 1960s dawned, unemployment among the youth was below 10%. During that decade, however, double digits became the norm.

The government thought bussing kids from one part of town to another was a good idea so that schools would be integrated, black and white. But this was less popular among blacks than modern Americans would care to admit. It didn’t help anyone for parents to be thrust into mandated isolation from the schools and teachers to whom parents used to be in close proximity. Lost time, resources, and fragmented relationships hurt the children in obvious ways.

The government thought that the size of the federal government was a match to problems of national scope. But when they deliberately weakened state and town programs, they undermined the kind of personalized help that assists the poor without hurting them. Further, by undermining the authority and responsibility of mayors and towns, the federal government undermined the foundation for democracy in a nation as large as the United States. During the New Deal of the 1930s, the presence of the federal government in a given community exceeded the presence of state and town governments combined. Under Johnson, federal money and leverage came to squash local governance as we knew it in America.^[44]

44. Shlaes, Great Society, 153–155.

All this entitlement spending, according to the government, would energize the economy. Instead, we got a new word—“stagflation”—to describe the unexpected, unprecedented, and economically devastating combination of inflation with unemployment. By 1971, entitlement spending outpaced defense spending. “Assume growth” they said, as if the “milk cow” of the private sector was unstoppable. The ambitious government plans of this era, built as they were on this assumption, actually reversed seemingly unstoppable growth.

It all sounded so good on paper. Not so good in reality. This much, Johnson understood. He did not run for reelection in 1969. His foreign policy and his domestic policy were abysmal. He assembled “the best and the brightest” to plan the War in Vietnam and the “War on Poverty.” The planners failed, and the Great Society became the Stagnate Society. Nixon understood the growing public sentiment. He campaigned on “workfare, not welfare.”

Why did it fail?

Liberals a generation later offer explanations tied to Vietnam and political opposition. Shlaes shows just how little political resistance the left faced on the domestic front. They got what they wanted. Just not the results they promised or expected. Instead, she summarizes their failure in two words: “simple arrogance.” A fifth word to describe this era.

That sounds right to my ears. It even sounds biblical.

Not Traitors, Just Wrong: Three Failures of Socialist Policies

As Shlaes argues, arrogant people are not necessarily cruel people. “The trouble with 1960s leftists was not that they were traitors. Few were. The trouble was that they were wrong.”^[45] Or, putting all of this together: the gravity of good intentions cannot compensate for the calamity of bad ideas.

45. Shlaes, Great Society, 16.

There is no field of study—from history to economics—that is not also theological. Speaking during the Great Depression on what governments do in crises, Chase Bank’s Benjamin Anderson made this simple observation: the government “plays God yet more vigorously.”^[46] He was right to cast this tendency in theological terms.

46. “The True Engine of Economic Recovery: A Conversation with Amity Shlaes,” Texas CEO Magazine, August 24, 2020.

Shifting now to my work as a pastor, here’s an attempt to summarize the arrogance of this era in light of a simple theological truth: humans have limits, and the Great Society did not acknowledge those limits. It did not look evil. But in fact, arrogance that denies limits is deeply evil.

1. First, the political liberals of the 1960s failed to recognize the limits of human nature.

Housing policies undermined the dignity of property ownership and the integrity of the family. Welfare policy undermined natural incentives to work for oneself or one’s family, and it trapped communities in institutionalized and generational government dependence.^[47] Mandatory bussing for integration undermined local neighborhood communities. The list goes on.

47. Two passages from Paul’s letters speak to Christians on the basis of responsibilities that belong to all people. In 2 Thessalonians 3:10, Paul offers the biblical command: You don’t work, you don’t eat. In 1 Timothy 5:8, Paul insists that the one who doesn’t provide for his own household has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

In all this they failed to account for the constraints of human nature. As Thomas Sowell wrote during those days, “People who have been trying for years to tell others that Negroes are basically no different from anybody else, should not themselves lose sight of the fact that Negroes are just like everybody else in wanting something for nothing.”^[48] Generous sounding programs ultimately stole the less tangible cultural norms essential to the durable emergence of any group from poverty.

48. Shlaes, Great Society, 167.

2. Second, Americans failed to recognize the limits of human government.

Prior to this era, social work had been the assumed responsibility of local communities and sometimes local government. The idea that the federal government would take responsibility for local social problems was unheard of. But this era, marked as it was by optimism and presumption, decided the federal government was the answer to one problem after another.^[49] They misapplied a proper Christian (and indeed human and family) responsibility of charity to the role of human government. Is it hard to imagine solutions by any other means? Marvin Olasky’s magnificent work The Tragedy of American Compassion tells the story of America’s bustling cottage industry of local and lovingly tailored organizations that were smothered out by the growth of the government to address the same needs.^[50]

49. Anti-poverty socialism plays God and ignores Jesus’s words in Mark 14:7: “The poor you will always have with you.” A Christian worldview recognizes that poverty can be alleviated but not eliminated on this side of glory.

50. Marvin Olasky, The Tragedy of American Compassion (Wheaton: Crossway, 2022). The first publication of this book, now thirty years ago, was influential in the crafting and passage of bipartisan welfare reform legislation in 1996. For the story, see, “The Tragedy of American Compassion: Pilgrim Beginnings,” Capitol Research Center (May 3, 2023).

The problem of knowledge, as it would be called, became apparent during these years. Government planners planned for buildings with precision but could not calculate many other things, such as the movement of jobs out of a community where those projects were constructed. It was in response to these sorts of policies that Friedrich Hayek wrote his essay “The Use of Knowledge in Society”^[51] and Thomas Sowell wrote his book Knowledge and Decisions.^[52] Simply put, good decisions require the right information at the right time. A large centralized federal government is not suited for this. Politicians and government planners took on a job whose success required omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence. ^[53] They were guilty, in Hayek’s terms, of “the fatal conceit.”^[54] The pursuit of “cosmic justice” by man, given his intrinsic constraints, will always require that he commit actual injustice.^[55] This was the era of immense promises and even bigger failures. Today we live in a context of a loss of trust in government that largely began in our American context in these years.

51. Friedrich Hayek, “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” American Economic Review (1945).

52. Thomas Sowell, Knowledge and Decisions (New York: Basic Books, 1980).

53. Shlaes, Great Society, 414–415.

54. F. A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).

55. Thomas Sowell, The Quest for Cosmic Justice, 2002. See also his essay, “The Quest for Cosmic Justice,” Hoover Digest, 2000/01/30.

3. Third, Americans failed to recognize the limits of human history.

Shlaes opened a recent lecture on her book with this line: “We all want to get to heaven. But there’s a second step; some of us want to make heaven here.”^[56] I’m not sure of Shlaes’s eschatology, but that’s some astute theology right there. Leading America to this new destination, to “turn the corner of history,” was irresistible to some politicians.^[57] Clandestine trips to failed foreign socialist states did not deter them but only proved the adage that where socialism failed, it did so because it had yet to be truly tried.^[58] This group of generous and energetic liberal leaders shared a faulty view of history—not only history in hindsight, but the arc of history itself. They wanted heaven now, and they thought they could bring it. Eric Voegelin’s classic phrase, popularized in the 1960s, captures it well: they wanted to “immanentize the eschaton.”^[59] They acted as gods. It felt good to them. It felt good to many Americans.

56. Amity Shlaes “Not So Great Society” Keynote Address, Sumners Distinguished Lecture Series, for the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), September 30, 2022.

57. Shlaes, Great Society, 212–113.

58. Shlaes, Great Society, 227.

59. Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics: An Introduction, 1987. Voegelin understood this as a misapplication of Christian theology when he wrote, “a theoretical problem arises . . . when Christian transcendental fulfillment becomes immanentized.”

Nowhere is this clearer than on the subject of race in America. In the Antebellum South, the government’s laws enslaved blacks. Then, after emancipation, laws and landowners drove blacks north. Then, as part of a broader project of fixing what it had broken, the government made lavish promises through law. Through law it bulldozed downtrodden (and much loved) black streets, churches, and whole communities to build them high-rise cement towers, all with the self-congratulatory thought that this would improve their lives.^[60]

Instead, they got riots in Los Angeles and Detroit—no small consequence of liberal ideological arrogance that displaced and disillusioned a generation. African American writer, James Baldwin, described the projects as follows: “a monument to the folly and the cowardice of good intentions.”^[61] In pursuit of their own name in the age of civil rights, these leaders set out not just to correct bad laws but to use the law to correct America’s shameful history, to redeem themselves at the expense of those whom they had oppressed.

60. Shlaes, Great Society, 426.

61. James Baldwin, “Fifth Avenue, Uptown,” Esquire Magazine (July, 1960).

But only God can justify a sinner and only God can set history aright. Structures and laws are a means he has ordained, but those laws must conform to the reality of the world as it is.

Why then did The Great Society fail? For the same reason all socialist experiments fail: they reject the limits placed on us by God. In this way, socialism is itself an expression of the human ambition in Adam to be like God, to make a great name for ourselves (Gen. 3:5; 11:4).

Why did we try it in the first place? The conditions were ripe: a combination of affluence, confidence, and ambition. America, as Stalin said, was the only country that could afford socialism.^[62]

62. Shlaes, Great Society, 1.

Thankfully, in America, our federalist system kept Reuther’s right-to-work vision from going nationwide. He never achieved the structured social-democracy—a step in the direction of socialism—he so sincerely believed in, even with the president’s ear each week. That is good for us. For, in the twentieth century alone, more than 100 million human casualties can be traced to the pursuit of economic equality between rich and the poor through the coercive means inherent in communist and socialist policies.^[63]

63. Thaddeus J. Williams, “We Just May Be on ‘the Wrong Side of History’ If …: The Demand for Justice in Our Society Leaves Out Many of the Oppressed,” WORLD Opinions (4 March, 2022).

Americans woke up from their socialist dreams. Nixon won the presidency. A decade later, Ronald Reagan won his election as president with the promise to return the responsibility to the people. As he put it, “I believe the government is supposed to promote the general welfare. I do not believe it is supposed to provide it.”^[64] Or, more provocatively still, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’” And again, as he was famous for having said as early as 1964: “No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!”

64. Shlaes, Great Society, 370.

Reagan resonated with Americans in a Post-Great Society America. Which says a lot about America, divided as we often are. Not everyone in those days was carried away by Johnson’s “Great Society” vision. As Shlaes puts it, this era was marked by an epic clash between the federal government and its allies (especially the auto industry) on one side, and the rest of the nation on the other side. Through the political process, the rest of the nation won out over those who sought to remake her.

Amity Shlaes has done Americans a great service by chronicling this great clash and this spectacular outcome. Since “nothing is new, just forgotten,” we love our neighbors and the next generation by ensuring that the lessons from this period are not lost.

These lessons are urgent for us today. By the close of the decade in the 1980s, the Berlin wall would come down and, so it seemed, socialist and communist systems were on the out. For a time, that is. Today, we are more removed from the sixties than the generation of the sixties was removed from the era of the Great Depression. We are also affluent, confident, and ambitious. We are also arrogant. Socialism has a certain enduring appeal, so long as time allows a people to forget the harm of its failures.

The Twisted Legacy of Slavery

Back to our own tumultuous times and the reason I picked up this book.

I was at a large evangelical conference recently in which there was a breakout on doing justice. Justice was defined as “making things right structurally and restoring social conditions that create flourishing, especially for the vulnerable.” According to the speaker, the list of injustices common in our day that should concern pastors in their pastoring included the following: “under-employment and unemployment, disparities in housing and health care.” Oddly, the list did not include abortion and the state-promotion of transgenderism. The presenter had a list of leftist talking points, a list that required not only equal treatment under the law but redistributive policies for equal outcomes.

It sounded generous and just. But only to ears untethered from the Bible’s vision of humanity, history, and justice.^[65]

65. For an excellent exposition of the Bible’s teaching on justice, see Andy Naselli’s sermon “Justice: Divine, Imputed, Imparted, Public, and Ultimate,” Heritage Bible Church (July 8, 2023).

So, why do we keep hearing about “the legacy of slavery” in connection with today’s inequities?

This is what I think is going on here. It appears that the recent fires in Maui are owing to a failure of human government at several levels and over a stretch of time. No surprise, the headlines have been dominated by government officials crying, “climate change.” It’s a retort that simultaneously distracts from their own failures, blames their political enemies, and makes the case for the accrual of more power to themselves. Unfortunately, the more honest final reports don’t make the headlines months later.

That’s what I think is going on here, too. So often when we hear “the legacy of slavery,” it’s a liberal distraction from their party’s contribution to a real problem that simultaneously blames their political opponents and advances a case to accrue still more power.

Yes, the racism of our past continues to shape our present, but not mostly in a straight line from slavery and Jim Crow to the inequities of today, but by way of a twisted line through the Great Society. This collective impulse led to an arsenal of policies—intended to help—that significantly harmed the objects of its short-sighted compassion. This impulse remains with us today. Many of these institutions remain as well, preying on the vulnerabilities of the downtrodden for good-sounding political gains.

You could even call it systemic injustice.

I cut my teeth as a percussionist in classical settings and on the field in a marching drumline. Whether at the timpani with music on a stand or standing next to five snare drummers with music from memory, we played the same notes the same way—every time.

Jazz drummers are a different breed. They play within a set of rules: rhythm, timing, technique, etc. But within that framework, they improvise. The same could be said of classical vs. jazz pianists, brass instrumentalists, etc. Of course, there is better and worse jazz music. But the quality of that music will be measured not so much by how well the ensemble kept to its specific notations but to how skillfully they played within a set of musical rules.

In Peter’s words to first-century churches, I hear more jazz than classical:

Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. (1 Peter 2:13–17)

Peter offers a framework for citizenship and statecraft rather than an exact prescription for a form of government.^[1]

1. The Reformed tradition recognizes monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy as three forms of government that Christians can in good conscience live under.

But Peter’s instructions are also blue like jazz. Much like the blue notes in jazz (dissonant tones played for expressive purposes), for those with ears to hear, Peter’s teaching introduces a sometimes conflicting, dissonant perspective that challenges conventional notions of governance.

In what follows, I will highlight the surface and the subversive message in Peter’s words: the regular notes and the blue notes. I’ll also make passing applications to our situation as citizens in the United States.

Jazz Lessons for Statecraft and Citizenship

What lessons may we glean from Peter for Christian citizenship and statecraft? Here are six points of instruction I recently drew out for my church.^[2]

2. This is an adaptation of a sermon, “Be Good Citizens,” delivered to Heritage Bible Church, Greer, SC, October 3, 2021.

First, Get Your Theology in Order

Peter did not say, “Be subject to every human institution.” Rather, he said, “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution.” (1 Pet. 2:13, emphasis mine). Why did these Christians need this particular exhortation?

Peter’s first readers knew who they were in Christ: “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Pet. 2:9–10). They knew Jesus’s teaching that God’s kingdom is not identified with a geopolitical nation. “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17). Caesar is not God. Jesus is Lord. Amen.

But it seems Peter’s audience misunderstood what their Lord would have them to do. Perhaps they asked, “Why must ‘sojourners and exiles’ regard human government? After all, Jesus is Lord!” Perhaps they had Peter’s own boldness to disobey governing authorities in mind (Acts 4:19–20). To this simplistic and dismissive attitude, the Apostle Peter says, “Yes, Jesus is Lord. And he would have you be subject to your governing authorities.” That we do so “for the Lord’s sake” and not for any reason we please is a natural governor on our obedience to governors. There are times for resistance (we’ll get to that). But the main point is this: mature Christians are good citizens. Jesus as Lord limits the role of government, yes, but he also legitimizes human government. We must give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. Yes, you are free, but your freedom as God’s servants is a freedom to obey government while fearing the Lord (1 Pet. 2:16). That’s the lesson these Christians needed at that time.

A first order of business for our work in statecraft and citizenship is to recognize a proper separation, legitimacy, and compatibility between Jesus’s Lordship and the place of earthly government and governing authorities.

Now that our theology of subjection to government is established, we have work to do.

Second, Know Your Governing Authorities

We do well to know the names of our authorities so we can pray for them by name. But before that, we must know their roles so we can subject ourselves to them in alignment with their God-appointed roles. Peter writes for us to be subject to governing authorities, “whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him” (1 Pet. 2:13–14, emphasis mine).

This was not a prescription for a form of government but a description of the political reality under which these Christians resided. The Spirit wrote for these Christians in their context. Thus, we have an invitation for us to imagine what subjection should look like in our situation.

As Christians in the United States, we do well to understand our form of government: a constitutional federal republic.^[3] We are not ruled by a king whose authority is derived from blood or force. In fact, we do not have a ruler, but we are instead ruled by law, the fundamental law of which is the Constitution. According to the Founders, the government exists to secure the rights of the people, rights which are universally held and preexist government. Those inalienable rights alluded to in the Declaration of Independence were made explicit in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, a series of amendments that outline our rights in relationship to the action of our government and make explicit what the government cannot do to us or take from us.

3. I expand on this responsibility and on the shape of our government in “Rule 1, Understand What You’re Doing as an American,” in a series of articles, Give to God What Is God’s: Three Rules for (Political) Engagement.

Further, we are united as a federation of states, not strictly as people. Hence, we are “The United States of America,” not “The United People of America.” Thus, as citizens, we have defined relationships to federal, state, and local governments, a scheme that addresses national interests without smothering out local realities and concerns. Finally, we are a republic. We elect our representatives according to a scheme that checks and balances power. Their authority is derived from the people they are elected to serve.

Does the Bible explicitly prescribe a specific form of government? No. We should subject ourselves to governing authorities of different kinds according to their legal authority. But does this mean that the roles and goals of government are infinitely elastic? Certainly not. Not only are the authorities in any system not unlimited on their own terms, but God also has a Word on the matter.^[4] We turn next to this question.

4. For example, in the United States our governing authorities are under the governing authority of the Constitution which itself invests citizens with authority to check abuses. Our role as citizens is a role of authority over our governing authors. We are governing authorities!

Third, Understand the Biblical Role and Goals of Government

What do Christians have to say about the nature of government and its activities?

Peter’s readers lived in a pre-Christendom era, before what Francis Schaeffer called the secondary effects of the gospel were felt. By contrast, we live in a post-Christendom era where these effects are not merely fading but even revolted against.

Broadly speaking, it seems that Christians in America are vulnerable to two fallacies. Some Christians commit the God-and-Country fallacy and over-identify God with our country in such a way that mangles the Scripture’s teaching on the church and its mission.^[5] Others, repelled by the worst expressions of this thinking, commit another error: the Anything-But-God-and-Country fallacy. This group cannot stomach any mention of God in the discussion of the state’s role and goals. This fallacy would lead to statism or totalitarianism as Christians neglect the public truth that the state is not ultimate.^[6]

5. Andy Naselli’s piece offers a technical survey of historic views and contemporary voices: “What Is the Spectrum of Major Views on Political Theology? A Proposed Taxonomy of Seven Views on Religion and Government.” My summary here is admittedly reductionist, even anecdotal.

6. See Francis A. Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto, 1st trade pbk. ed (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005).

Peter, however, straightforwardly outlines the basic responsibilities of government: to punish evil and to praise good. Apparently, even the Roman government did a fair amount of both. God’s divine nature and power are revealed in creation so that humans can get this right. Individuals and even governing authorities are responsible to do so.

Christians then and now, for this reason, should be the first to affirm the good in human government. We thank God for crimes never committed, planes that never went down, and for prison bars that hold every child molester from doing more harm. On the other hand, Christians should be the first to work for the proper alignment of government with the truth about good and evil according to nature and Scripture.

This leads us to our fourth directive.

Fourth, Promote the Public Truth Concerning Good and Evil

Governmental institutions “punish those who do evil and . . . praise those who do good.” Peter assumes that the knowledge of good and evil is available to all by virtue of being made in God’s image.

In the Noahic covenant, the Lord established human government as a means to punish the evil of murder. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image” (Gen. 9:5–6). This prohibition and punishment established a principle of proportional justice, and the need for punishment to meet the crime committed.^[7] God’s common-grace instruction in the Noahic covenant is not merely punitive. The Noahic covenant affirms the good of fruitful multiplicity through marriage as basic to human flourishing (Gen. 9:7).

7. Paul affirms this continues in his appeal to Caesar in Acts 25:11.

But we can say more.

The Decalogue, or what we often call the Ten Commandments, does not apply to modern governments in a direct fashion. But these commands do instruct us concerning behavior we owe fellow humans, and with a little reflection, they reveal to us God’s moral code instilled within each of us by virtue of his created order. For example, the commandment, “You shall not murder,” presupposes the God-given right of persons to live, a truth rooted in creation (Exod. 20:13). The commandment, “You shall not steal,” is grounded in the right of persons to own property (Exod. 20:15). The command, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,” presupposes the legal right of persons to due process (Exod. 20:16). One of the basic roles of government is to protect people and property and to punish those who violate either. Government does not have to punish everything that is sin, but a government that rewards or overlooks the violations of the commandments just cited violates its God-appointed function.

The government should also enact policies and promote a culture that normalizes good behavior. Again, here, the Decalogue points us to prior creational realities to which all humanity is accountable. The command, “You shall not commit adultery,” is grounded in the right of married partners to expect the sexual faithfulness of their spouse and teaches us about the natural and moral context for human sexuality (Exod. 20:14). Good government recognizes marriage for what it is and regulates marriage for the good of children and (by extension) of society at large. Moreover, a government that knows its limits and stays in its lane will promote healthy families since the best conduit for virtuous citizens is found in healthy homes and churches. The command, “Honor your father and mother,” presupposes the context of the natural family with a mother and a father who are owed obedience because they are responsible (Exod. 20:12). The government should promote the stability and health of the family, which involves protecting the rights of parents and holding parents accountable for their basic responsibility to care for their children. Any government that tries to become a “nanny state” undermines parents and the virtue and health of its own society.

Even the command, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house,” assumes that humans have a proclivity to envy which is destructive enough to make God’s top ten (Exod. 20:17). While opposing envy with laws penalizing covetousness would venture toward some kind of thoughtcrime, the government can promote economic policies that reward hard work, productivity, innovation, and responsibility. In this way, therefore, magistrates can implement laws that channel self-interest toward the common good.

And what about the freedom of religion? Several commands in the Decalogue point to the basic human responsibility to worship God, “You shall have no other gods before me,” “You shall not make for yourself a carved image,” “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” (Ex. 20:3, 4, 7). As Robert Louis Wilken outlines in his book, Liberty in the Things of God: The Christian Origins of Religious Freedom, Christians are committed to several things. Freedom of religion or conscience is a right that precedes government and belongs to all human beings; conscience is a form of spiritual knowledge that brings with it an obligation to act; and human society is governed by the powers of God and the state. Christians do right by the household of God and our neighbors of all religions to hold America to this promise even as we may advocate for the nation to acknowledge both its Christian roots and framework. The state should not compel religion, nor prohibit its free exercise. At the same time, in a nation like ours (see #2 again), Christians have a responsibility to influence culture such that celebrations, customs, and even institutions (government included) do not stand against Christianity.

In other words, as our first amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” That is a profoundly good commitment. Christians should labor for religious liberty and support such reasons with biblical reasoning. Indeed, such freedom does not arise in a vacuum. And America’s enjoyment of such liberty, we should remember, is downstream from Christian beliefs and practices. To that end, we should not tire of proclaiming the whole counsel of God and explaining in public why religious liberty is a uniquely Christian value.

Fifth, Remember, You’re Being Watched

Concerning good citizenship, Peter writes, “This is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people” (1 Pet. 2:15). In this, we can’t help but hear Peter’s concern for the church’s witness. Christians were insulted and accused of doing wrong just for being Christians. But some may have been asking for trouble. Apparently, there were Christians among Peter’s readers who were gathering negative attention for how they related to their governing authorities. Here’s Peter’s message: good citizenship is God’s will for a good witness.

But two more things must be said.

First, Peter would not have us under the illusion that we can measure the faithfulness of our witness by the quality of our reception. “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Pet. 2:12). Not all will see the Christians’ good citizenship as good right now in this life, at least. But “on the day of visitation,” when Christ appears, the final verdict will show our deeds for what they are.

Second, Peter’s readers knew what they had been freed from: guilt, sin, death, and this world’s authorities. But they did not fully understand what they had been freed to: freedom to obey the Lord—which means obeying earthly authorities. “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God” (1 Pet. 2:16). Peter’s readers needed to hear that their allegiance to Christ did not permit them to disregard their governing authorities. Yet, in our context, this truth cuts a second way: allegiance to Christ does not free us to turn our eyes from evil committed by the government in the name of obeying our governing authorities. Not only are we responsible as humans to distinguish good and evil, but as citizens of the United States we are also responsible for our government.

It won’t do us any good to meet the approval of those who watch us down here if Christ disapproves of us on the day of visitation.

We move now to a point of resistance.

Sixth, Submit Whenever Possible, Resist When Necessary

Peter begins with a command to be subject to governing authorities. He ends with a command to honor the emperor, all very positive. It’s almost as though Peter forgot Jesus’s hard teaching about persecution from town to town, about being dragged before governors and kings, about being delivered over to death (Matt. 10:28; cf. 10:16–39). But there’s a blue note here if we have ears for it. Four clear commands close Peter’s teaching: “Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor” (1 Pet. 2:17).

The first two commands are straightforward. Christians should honor everyone. We honor our neighbors who hold governing authority with good citizenship. We honor our neighbors who do good by praising their good behavior. We honor those who do evil by insisting on due process, a fair trial, and a just punishment.

“Loving the brotherhood” is not as easy as it sounds. As pressure on Christians and churches increases, so does vulnerability to distrust and division within these communities. Love is the word that Peter chose to characterize life within churches. But also between our churches. This word “brotherhood” is only used twice in the New Testament, both times in this letter by Peter. In the other instance he speaks of the “brotherhood throughout the world” (5:9). This must lead Christians to love and even support the brotherhood when it is being persecuted throughout the world, from closed countries to California to Canada.

Now for the last two commands: Fear God. Honor the emperor.

Rome imposed its religion by force, requiring the worship of Caesar as god. On the coin that Jesus asked to see, as reported in Matthew 22:19, was the image of Rome’s self-declared god, “Tiberius Caesar Augustus, Son of Divine Augustus.” But neither Tiberius nor Augustus were divine. The Roman state was peddling a lie and coercing its people into false worship. 

Fear is the proper response to God, worship with reverence and awe. Honor is what the emperor deserves, even if he pretends to be god, and that is all that he should receive.

Fear the Lord. Never fear the government.^[8] Straightforward obedience to this command means subtle and sometimes overt resistance to the state.^[9] What Peter has done here is not so much different from what Jesus did holding that coin with Caesar’s face. When Jesus said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” he subtly insisted that the worship we owe to God we must deny to Caesar (Mark 12:17). Even more, though Caesar’s image was on that coin, God’s image is on Caesar!^[10]

8. Romans 13:3 certainly implies that Christians have a type of “fear” for the one in governmental authority, and yet this fear is in an altogether different category than the all-encompassing fear of God in 1 Peter 2:17.

9. For more on a theory of resistance, see See Francis A. Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto, 1st trade pbk. ed (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005); Glenn S. Sunshine, Slaying Leviathan: Limited Government and Resistance in the Christian Tradition (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2020); Matthew J. Trewhella, The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates: A Proper Resistance to Tyranny and a Repudiation of Unlimited Obedience to Civil Government (CreateSpace, 2013).

10. Jonathan Leeman, How the Nations Rage: Rethinking Faith and Politics in a Divided Age (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2018), 12.

Just like Jesus, Peter instructs us shrewdly. He authorizes both submission and resistance and in such a way as to stay out of trouble himself! After all, Jesus did say, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.” Right? After all, Peter did say, “Honor the emperor.” Right?

With these instructions, Christians today as in in the first century have what we need to navigate our diverse situations as citizens of earth. Some of our improvisation will be better than others, as it is with jazz. Some of our political circumstances will be more desirable than others. We should all pray and thank God for our governing authorities that we might lead a peaceful and quiet life for the sake and spread of the gospel (1Tim. 2:1–2).

A Sampling of Jazz, Music to God’s Ears

As I have shown, Peter offers a framework for citizenship and statecraft that can be put to work in different settings with different political possibilities. He does so in a way that commends good citizenship, a way of relating with our governing authorities that is both compelled and constrained by Christ’s Lordship.

But if we’re not so sure Peter had such subtly in mind, we need only to look at his life. Few can put it better than Doug Wilson, whose church, from all accounts, resisted their authorities honorably and courageously when their authorities abused their authority:

… I would remind you that the apostle Peter, who wrote the exhortation in 1 Peter 2, was soon to be executed by the magistrate as someone who was a grave threat to their civil order (John 21:18–19). This was the same man who was broken out of jail by an angel, and who disappeared from the book of Acts as a wanted man (Acts 12:10, 17). The guards who lost him were executed because of his disappearance (Acts 12:19), meaning that the angel there was playing hard ball. This was the man who was in jail in the first place because he was a leader of the Christians (Acts 12:3), and who earlier had told the Sanhedrin that he wouldn’t quit preaching (Acts 5:29), no matter what they said. And he was the man who was writing this letter to prepare law-abiding Christians for the time of persecution that was coming, in which time they would be accused of being scofflaws (1 Pet. 4:7, 13–16). So whatever his words in chapter 2 mean, they have to be consistent with the life of the one who wrote them.

And what about Paul? The man who wrote Romans 13 did more prison time than most of us have done, and he escaped from King Aretas by being lowered in a basket from the city wall (2 Cor. 11:32–33). In modern parlance we would call that running a road block or evading arrest.^[11]

11. Doug Wilson’s remarks on the steps of the Capitol in Boise, Idaho on May 1, 2020. “Liberate Idaho.”

In all of this is a subtle message: reverence for God entails resistance to government when government goes beyond its divinely ordered role. Peter’s letter was subtle. His life was not.

Government is from God, and it is good. Government is not God, and it can go bad when it starts to think it is. Thankfully, our own nation’s founders understood this, and they built checks on government power into the system.

For citizens of heaven and of the United States, as it is in jazz music, good citizenship requires an energetic note of subjection and a blue note of strategic resistance.

That analysis began with Andy Naselli’s fine longform categorizing various views on religion and government. And it will continue throughout this month, as we look at key passages of Scripture, as well as concise essays that address the challenges directly in our day. In this piece, I want to help anyone who is just entering the debate to have a sense of where this conversation began and how it has developed. And so, I begin in 2021 and offer reflections from three key articles that are summarizing other articles—hence, the subtitle, “an article on articles on articles.”

As a pastor here is where I am coming from, and perhaps this piece can be most helpful for other pastors, lay elders, and thoughtful churchmen. In keeping up with the debate, I’ve read two kinds of pieces on Christian nationalism: articles engaging in the discussion and articles explaining the discussion. Both are needed. Here I point you to several pieces of that second kind that I found most helpful. Three to be precise, one for each year since the term dropped on the scene sometime shortly after January 6, 2021.

Each article is historically situated and, in that way, an orientation not only to the discussion but to how that debate has developed in our feeds. Though emerging from a specific moment in the timeline of this debate, each piece offers a timeless exhortation.

2021: An Insult Divides Christians

In 2021, Kevin DeYoung wrote a piece “What To Do With Christian Nationalism.” At that time, December 18, 2021 to be exact, he observes, a Google search yielded “one generic Wikipedia entry and nine articles denouncing Christian nationalism.”

I remember that time. Kevin, like many of us, heard “Christian nationalism” all over the news as a pejorative against Christians engaging in politics with Christian convictions. This smear emerged in force after the January 6 riots, a way of lumping together those in the crowd waving Christian banners with those who broke into the Capitol with everyday conservative Christians. Was someone against abortion? They must be a Christian nationalist! Were they concerned about the gender ideology in our schools? Again, Christian nationalist!

It was an insult.

We have been here before. In the 50’s it was “The Radical Right.” In the 80’s, “The New Christian Right.” Such labels are intended to divide an otherwise large coalition by making association with its central convictions a point of shame.

It worked. Quickly, Christians used this label to warn of Christians whose politics or political tone or strategies they found disagreeable. Used in this way, this term was a way of throwing shade on brothers and sisters rather than light on the issues at hand. Labels can offer a reasonable shortcut for summarizing a network of ideas. But something sinister was afoot, not only against us but among Christians.

In his article, DeYoung engaged two problems as he saw it at the time: “The first problem is that no one agrees on what Christian nationalism is. The second problem is that no one seems to argue for something they actually call Christian nationalism.” He did his research. In search of a definition, he quoted six of those writing on this subject. All, again, were writing against it, and with various definitions. By some definitions, most Christians would qualify. By others, it would be hard to find many Christians in most of our churches.

Christian nationalism (circa 2021) was an enemy with neither definition nor defenders. The discussion and the label have evolved quite a bit and Kevin has made his own mark. But Kevin’s conclusion stands:

Does this mean we are wrong to criticize Christian nationalism? Not necessarily. But it would be better to critique the beliefs and behaviors we find objectionable instead of employing an ill-defined ism and projecting its existence into every nook and cranny of the evangelical church.

For all that “Christian nationalism” might justly warn against, the label can also function as a convenient dismissal of conservative concern over an ascendant and aggressive liberalism. I’d rather not be in a culture war either, but sometimes the opposite of war is not peace and quiet; it is surrender and loss. Surely there must be some way to seek Christian influence in the political realm that falls short of heresy and idolatry. Surely it is not wrong to speak about the Christian underpinnings of our Founding and desire to see our country guided by Christian principles and undergirded by Christian truth. … There must be some middle ground between a theocratic Christian nationalism and a culturally-acceptable Christian nothingism. I think most Christians are seeking to avoid both nationalism and national destruction.

So ended 2021. The tide of Christian nationalism was beginning to rise, but full immersion would require a few more full moons.

2022: An Emerging Identifier Raises Old Questions and Historic Differences

Enter 2022. And in this new year, as the pejorative continued to come with opprobrium, many Christians rejected the label. Yet, others took a different strategy and began to take up the insult and wear it as a badge of honor, or at least a term that could be defined with a few sentences and a bit of slapdashery.

In 2022, therefore, assuming the title “Christian nationalist” became a rhetorical maneuver to neutralize the insult and provoke discussion. It worked. In Andrew Walker’s 2022 piece on the subject (“What Does ‘Christian Nationalism’ Even Mean?”), he observed the confusion and tension brought about by the incoming waves of Christian nationalism, and he offered counsel to three approaches to Christian nationalism.

First, to those claiming the mantle “Christian nationalism,” he wrote with this plea:

Convince me this isn’t just a theology used to sacralize the culture or impose exclusionary political power. Get specific on what particular arrangements and applications would be entailed. … How will your movement not excuse, or worse, justify, the misuse of Christianity when and if it is used to perpetrate social harms as in the past? What self-corrections are built into the system? How will the ideal Christian nationalist state not simply be yet another handmaiden to state power that ends up diluting vibrant religion? 

Next, to progressive non-Christians who criticize “Christian nationalism”:

Convince me that your skepticism about Christian nationalism isn’t just a cover for wanting Christians out of politics and out of power. Convince me that Christian nationalism is not just another progressive epithet hurled against conservative Christians. Convince me that your opposition to Christians having political power is not really just a blanketed opposition to what others might simply call the natural law. … Where, exactly, does the line differentiating opposition to “Christian nationalism” in particular, and opposition to biblical morality in general, begin and end?

Finally, to Christians skeptical of “Christian nationalism”:

Convince me you have a political theology that isn’t merely rehashed Anabaptism, a political theology that is high on pietism but averse to wielding political power for the common good. Show me that you have a political theology born not only of redemption, but also creation.

In these wise cautions, we must also beware the Troll Fallacy: if an internet troll is involved, then the discussion is fruitless. Maybe that’s the case with some debates. But sometimes an online debate reveals divisions even as it exacerbates them. That is the case here. Internet discussions can chase good people off from needed and even historic debates.

Many of Andrew’s questions were not new, but old questions. These questions pitched to new hearers revealed historical differences not only between Christians and those who oppose Christian truth but also between Christians of different traditions. Andy Naselli’s “Proposed Taxonomy of Seven Views on Religion and Government” goes a long way to showing where these differences fall. And honestly, these distinctions continue to charge debate today.

2023: Guarding and Guiding Our Churches

Most recently, in the fall of 2023, Josh Daws, host of the podcast The Great Awokening, published a clarifying explainer that sought to identify some of these emerging distinctions. In his American Reformer article, “Christian Nationalism: A Primer for the Layman,” he offered “A Guide and Some Advice for the Uninitiated.” More than an inquiry into the rising tide of Christian nationalism, Daws’s article is the best summary to date of where our differences fall, and why we are reading the waves so differently. Even more, after rising temperatures have plagued the CN debate, Daws’s approach is reasoned and charitable. He calls us to consider “various perspectives in the hope of avoiding unnecessary division as this conversation inevitably spills over into the local church.”

Daws is warm to the label “Christian nationalism,” but he writes to clarify arguments and sides, not to reinforce a cause. In that irenic spirit, he begins by categorizing the arguments being made against CN. Here’s an abbreviated version of his summary. He represents each argument being made and then shows at least one weakness of that argument, not so much to defend CN but to show why these arguments aren’t persuading opponents or advancing the discussion.

1. The God and Country Argument rejects any Christianity with star-spangled worship services and stump speeches. But these kinds of Christians aren’t involved in the CN discussion at all, and most CN proponents reject this expression of church.
2. The Theology Argument concerns itself with pre-existing debates over eschatology and theonomy. But hardly all CNs are postmillennialists, and hardly all postmillennialists are CNs.
3. The Adjective Argument objects to the label “Christian nationalism,” since only individuals can be properly described as “Christian.” It’s a legitimate point, yet most proponents aren’t consistent when it comes to describing “Christian Schools,” so why not speak this way about nations as well?
4. The Historical Argument cites historical examples of attempts at a Christian nation and the subsequent failures. But, says Daws, we could just as well cite Harvard’s abandonment of the Christian gospel as reason to give up on forming institutions of higher education to advance Christian higher education.
5. The Ethnic Nationalism Argument critiques CN as a cover for White nationalism and Kinism. These concerns are not unfounded, but it’s also true that views outside the Overton Window tend to attract people whose views really do belong outside the window of acceptable discourse.

From there, Daws goes on to classify CN’s into two categories. As we will see, this distinction is helpful in understanding the cause of friction in today’s intramural discussions.

First, Practical Christian nationalists are those focused on the present situation in the West and in America and on solutions to these problems. This group insists on a conservativism that actually conserves marriage and gender and the dignity of life in the womb. They are not aiming at an established church, but for American’s return to its founding Christian assumptions and culture. They “want a strong nation based on Christian principles, as they believe the founders intended. They want a Christian nation, and they’re opposed to Globalism, so sure, call them Christian nationalists. Simple as that. This view represents the vast majority of conservative Christians adopting the CN label and plenty of others who are reluctant to embrace the label.”

The second group, what Daws calls Theoretical Christian nationalists, is quite different though laying hold of the same label. This group may care about immediate problems, but their writing and debate is more concerned with larger questions “about the nature of power and the relationship between church and state, questions too long ignored by American Protestants.” They are pessimistic about what is possible given the current situation and so they are focused on a more philosophical exercise not unlike what Plato or Machiavelli were engaged in in their own day. This helps make sense of what seems an otherwise absurd proposal for a Christian Price. The whole enterprise is a thought experiment less than activism in our current environment. Fair enough.

Daws’ concluding exhortation is as gentle as the type of engagement he promotes:

That’s the Christian nationalism debate in very broad strokes. Most folks aren’t going to fit neatly into any one of the aforementioned categories, but it should serve as a helpful heuristic should you encounter any self-professed CNs or Anti-CNs in your church or choose to wade into the conversation yourself. Don’t feel like you have to choose a side right now. This movement is just beginning. Take some time to really listen to the arguments and think through your position. 

2024: Clarifying Positions and Catalyzing Partnerships

Approaching 2024, Christ Over All has accepted the fool’s errand of attempting to define Christian nationalism and to improve the dialogue. On the whole, we are not committed to the label for reasons we will spell out as the month goes on. But neither are we terribly bothered when others use it. In our thinking, we are grateful for the discussion that this label has provoked, and we are not looking to speak against those who take up the moniker or those who don’t.

While we do not share agreement on every point with brothers on either side, we believe that we need one another. For, whatever we call ourselves, the progressive Left in our day sees us the same: a threat by virtue of our Christian beliefs. Whatever we or other Christians may call themselves, we should be unashamed of the influence of the Scriptures and the worldview born of the Christian gospel on the minds and pens of those who shaped the West and America in particular.

Tragically, what started as a pejorative label thrown against Christians by those who hate Christ has become a cudgel that Christians have begun to use to fight against one another. While those most passionate in the intramural debates of CN share a passion to oppose secularism and its fruits (e.g., abortion, transgenderism, Marxism, globalism, etc.), all too many have taken the bait offered by the godless name-callers to fight against other Christians.

On this point, we find ourselves in hearty agreement with many brothers who affirm CN but who do so for reasons that we cannot affirm for various theological reasons. For example, we do not share the postmillennialism of Doug Wilson, but we appreciate his candor and we actually find ourselves agreeing with him on many points of practice.

We think the questions driving this discussion are of great importance: What is the foundation for human government and law? What’s at stake in the West and in America’s abandonment of its Christian heritage and framing assumptions concerning the dignity and sinfulness of humanity? What happens to a civilization when the state rejects any appeal to transcendent authority? Wilson has taken those questions seriously, and we have been helped by many, but not all, of the responses he has given.

Similarly, we can appreciate Stephen Wolfe’s philosophical and historical project, even if we have no intention of implementing his Thomist theology. We don’t believe he is the Kinist many have made him to be. But we do believe his (faulty) understanding of nations as rooted in creation rather than the fall (Genesis 11, in particular) opens a door for Kinists to camp out and find a home in his proposal.

Equally, we find ourselves in fundamental theological agreement with our Baptist brothers who diligently stand against establishing religion in the state. Yet, such a willingness to maintain a measure of separation between church and state does not necessitate that we deny the place of Christians to seek institutions, customs, or even laws that would improve the conditions of culture such that the primary work of the church (making disciples) would find better soil. In other words, while we agree with Baptists who stress religious liberty, we do not want to fall into the trap of separationism such that neutrality in the public square is the best situation for the church.

Thus, we find much agreement with many of the faithful brothers whom we interviewed. And we also find important differences. Still, in all that we have to offer this month, we are not seeking another form of third-wayism, or merely splitting the difference between two polarized views. There are important questions being raised that require time and expertise and careful handling. We are glad others have been engaging with energy and great heart.

As unashamed Baptists, we believe we have our work cut out for us. Our own movement was born and formed in a civilizational context already formed by Christian preaching and assumptions. Our best theologians after the Reformation were writing from within Christendom, and not seeking to create a place for Christians in a pagan culture. Speaking historically then, we know how to advocate for religious liberty in a world that holds Christian assumptions. But how do we make the case for religious liberty in an age that has rejected religion altogether and the Christian religion specifically?

That is the question that rests before us today, and it is one that will carry us through this month and into 2024.

Toward Biblical Nationhood and Beyond

The title of this post is a play on the title of the film Inception. This piece has sought to trace the recent origin of the CN terminology but also explore the nested nature of this discussion and the lessons we’re learning.

As with the movie Inception, we want to find our way out of confusion to the clarity of truth. We like our brothers who use the term, but we don’t think the label Christian nationalism is the way.

After a month considering the term and the terms of Christian nationalism, Christ Over All is moving ahead to consider “biblical nationhood.” Picking up this language from our podcast with Joe Boot and Andrew Sandlin, we believe “biblical nationhood” is a more helpful way to frame the conversation about Christ, his church, and the nations.

Not only does this label affirm the place of nations in our world and in God’s Word, but it also doesn’t carry all the baggage that comes when something holy (Christianity) is fused with something profane (state). Yes, even this statement about the holy and profane assumes something about the relationship between the church and the state, but that’s just the point—Christian nationalism as a term, in addition to being a slur used by Leftist media—is a label that comes charged and ready to spark.

By contrast, “biblical nationhood,” while more generic simply says: Jesus loves the nations, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. At the same time, the Bible also tells me how to love my nation and hate the wickedness carried out by my nation and the nations—even as the history of the church, over two millennia, has on offer countless expressions of the church and the state. Put all that together, and Christ Over All is attempting to rightly discern what Scripture says about nations, even as we gladly confess, we don’t have the final word on the matter.

Nonetheless, we do have an unchanging and sufficient Word which gives us wisdom to think about this word “Christian nationalism,” which has our attention for the time being.

Undeniably, the Lord is sovereign in hearts and over history, but for our money, we believe that amidst the clamor of pro-CN and anti-CN sentiments, biblical nationhood provides a more descriptive, albeit a more generic, label to a discussion that has produced more heat than light.

As we look back, we can see how Christian nationalism began as an insult, prompted inquiry, and led to heated interactions. Yet, if we can put the insults aside and realize that there is a common enemy who is calling any believer who dares to be “Christian” in public a dirty, rotten Christian nationalist, then perhaps we can both theorize and strategize ways to bring Christ’s light into the public spaces.

Indeed, that is our hope at Christ Over All. And all month we will be engaging this subject so that the church may remember that Christ is Lord and that all things are under his feet, including the titles we use, refuse, or abuse. Ultimately, the Lord will have his way among the nations. And in this day, may we continue to seek what it means to have a biblical view of nationhood and how to be faithful Christians in whatever nation the Lord draws our boundaries (Acts 17:26).