Dr Greg Bahnsen - Political Ethics: Neo-Conservative (Part 9)

New students in the class. Let me just say a short word of introduction. Summary of our background. We began this course with a discussion of the need for a Christian political stance in the face of the reserve among many evangelicals about politics, the hesitance that a lot of people have to be involved in discussions of Christian politics. I offered a number of reasons why there must be a Christian approach to politics, why we have to develop a Christian approach to politics. In the first place, out of the heart are the issues of life. And therefore even what we do in politics is going to be affected by our heart, whether it's regenerate or not. And secondly, all of life is religious, that every bit of life, all the world, belongs to God. Everything that happens in the world is part of his plan and his kingdom pertains to it all. And that leads to the third reason. The lordship of Jesus Christ is not partial or part time, that it's universal and applies to every aspect of life and every moment of life. So Christians must have a approach to politics that is true to the Bible. And that led us to our final introductory consideration of what is the relationship of Christ to culture? Is Christ against culture and against cultural development? Or does culture determine the type of Christ that we have? Or is Christ in the process of transforming culture? And of course we believe in the transformation of culture by Jesus Christ. That view is called Christ above culture. And along with those who are transformationalists that hold that Christ is above culture would be the people holding to a synthesis view of Christ and culture, the Roman Catholics and those holding to a dualistic approach to culture with Christ being the king over both types of kingdom. And that would be the Lutheran approach to politics. Okay, so our introduction then had to do with the need for a transformational Christian political stance. And then we have been studying the major issues in present day Christian political theory. This is again so that we'll understand what the field is and understand the literature that's being published and various respects as literature is published. I've asked what is the proper function of the state? We've seen Mara Taine's view here that the state should engage in law and justice and the provision of economic welfare. Secondly, Carl Henry's view that the state should be interested in law and order rather than economic welfare. And then Emil Bruner and Herman Doyubert holding that the state should be interested in law and order, but also social justice should be promoted by the state, even though not provided services directly provided by the state. The second question that we ask by way of introduction is what is the place of the state in the ordering of creation? The creational view of traditional Roman Catholicism and of Abraham Kuyper today was set over against the providential view of traditional Protestantism and Gordon Clark today. The view that the state comes in not as an order of creation, but as an order of the fallen world made possible by God's providential decree. The third view that fits in with the Anabaptist tradition and is fostered by a good deal of modernistic theology is called the christological view that the state has been conquered by Christ's work upon the cross. The state is really dominated by the cosmic powers, the angelic powers of this age. So we've asked, what is the proper function of the state? What is the place of the state in the ordering of creation? And then thirdly, we're working on the question, where is Christ politically working today? How do we discern God's will for the state today? What procedure do we take in deciding what movements or what positions to endorse with respect to the state? The one view is that this is a secret matter. It's just part of the decretive will of God, so nobody can know. Another view is we know that God is working wherever the action is, whatever secular movements are active. That's where we find the will of God. There's an unqualified identification with the specifics of secular movements. A third view tries to modify the second one with a more cautious perception of finding where God is working in the political realm, being humble enough to say that our conceptions cannot be identified with the kingdom of God itself. Now these three options all tend to look at the situational perspective in ethics, the here and now, the facts, what is actually happening in our empirical surroundings. The next two major positions look to the revealed word of God to find direction for a Christian political option, the first of which holds that we should discern God's will by looking at the prophecies of Scripture, that we study the prophetic will of God to get political direction. Now, that prophetic will might be understood in the thematic or ideological way of, say, Stringfellow's discussion of Babylon in the Book of Revelation. Wherever Babylonish patterns of domination are found, that's where the Christian. That's what the Christian should oppose and condemn prophetically. And then there's also the prophetic school that looks at more specific chronology in a timetable as being the key to discerning God's political will. The dispensationalist being our illustration there. Then we Turn to groups that discern God's political will in terms of the prescriptions of the Bible, what the Bible prescribes for the Christian lifestyle and for the ethic that should govern us, what God lays down as the pattern, perceptive pattern for our lives. And we've studied only one group, but an important one, the group that we have labeled broadly radical Christianity, the Anabaptist tradition, John Yoder, the People's Christian Political Coalition, Sojourner's magazine, and so forth. And in our last hour, we discussed at some lengthy Anabaptist Reformed dialogue and debate. It's one that has taken place throughout history, but is especially keen again today. Anabaptists dominating one realm of Christian political thinking and the Reformed being the general leaders on the other side of the Christian camp, if you will. What I want to look at now are other groups that might also fall under this label of using the prescriptive will of God for discerning political direction for Christians today. We've looked at radical Christianity and I'd like to go to the opposite end of the poll now, in a sense, and identify another group that we can call the neoconservative group. The neoconservative group you have. Radical Christianity tends toward a more socialist approach to politics and to social questions, economic questions. Some radical Christians even falling into a Marxist type of polemic against our society, on the one hand, then, the radical Christian group, and on the other hand, the neoconservative group being polar opposites. An illustration of the neoconservative group would be the Christian Freedom foundation and other American patriotic groups that might be mentioned, and groups that approximate this attitude might be mentioned as well. The aim of the neoconservative groups is to return to the political traditions of our Founding Fathers as such, our American Founding Fathers. We want to return to their traditions, to their aims, to their goals, to their outlook, to their philosophy, to their standards, to their practices. We want to get back to the good old days, if you will, a return to the political traditions of our Founding Fathers as such, men like Edmund Burke and John Locke and others, where the emphasis is definitely going to fall upon limited government, a real restraint upon government, encroachment in the lives and freedoms of individual citizens, an emphasis upon private property rather than a welfare state, but keeping the government limited and not taxing a great deal, respect for private property, and thirdly, an emphasis upon the superiority of the United States, especially its military superiority. So neoconservatism, returning to the political traditions of Burke and Locke, would emphasize Themes like limited government, private property, and the superiority, the military superiority of the United States. Now, I don't believe that we can any easier, in any easier fashion, endorse the neoconservative poll than we can the radical Christian poll. For as much as I have respect for the Founding Fathers of my country, and I do believe that God providentially blessed the days of the early days of our country and that the more conservative philosophy that we have spoken of here that respects private property and calls for limited government is closer to the biblical ideal than many of the other options available today. The fact of the matter is that the Founding Fathers can only be supported by the Christian, by the conscientious Christian, the reflective Christian who is reading his Bible, who is knowing the facts of the situation, the proper goals. God has laid down a person who is interested in personal holiness as well as obedience and his outward life to the law of God. I believe the Founding Fathers can be supported by the conscientious Christian only to the extent that our Founding Fathers were also subject to proper biblical norms. Now, if we hold that our Founding Fathers are supportable only if they hold to biblical norms and submit to biblical norms in the way that we should, then it turns out that our interest in the Founding Fathers is merely a historical interest and not an ethical interest. It's an ethical, excuse me, of historical interest that we study what the early days of our country were like, what the Puritans said, the conservative social philosophy of Burke and Locke and all the rest. That's of historical curiosity, but it has no ethical import. For if the Founding Fathers of our country said something and it was contrary to the Word of God, then our obligation is to follow the Word of God. Ethics is not predicated upon the Founding Fathers of our country. And we're under no obligation ethically to obey the traditions of men, our obligations to the Word of God. And so the Founding Fathers can only be supported to the extent that they too, are subject to proper biblical norms or they were subject to proper biblical norms. And for that reason, we do not have an ethical interest in the Founding Fathers. But the neoconservative groups tend to make our interest in the Founding Fathers an ethical one, as though there was something radically wrong with somebody who would depart from the early days of our country and the point of view that was set forth at that time. It seems to me that patriotism and dedication to the superiority of the United States can just as often blind one to political wrongs, concrete political sins, injustices, as can a blind endorsement of radical Christianity and the socialist options that we've already criticized. Our real aim as Christians is to advance the kingdom of Jesus Christ. And that kingdom is an international kingdom. The Kingdom of Jesus Christ is not identified with the United States of America. The Kingdom of Jesus Christ is not identified with Great Britain. It's not identified with Spain or with France, or with Africa, or with any other country or continent of this world. The Kingdom of our Savior Jesus Christ is international in scope and interest. And so our primary concern is with the advance of the kingdom and not with the advance of the United States. Our interest in the United States is, first of all, only an interest in the United States to the degree that it too is promoting causes that are in conformity with the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and its goals, and then secondly, directly an interest in the United States for the sake of the context in which we must live and raise our families and have our churches. I think it's of interest to note with respect to neoconservative Christian groups, that such groups are usually very strong on what I call political ethics and correspondingly weak on social ethics. That calls for a little bit of discussion of the distinction. Political ethics is ethics dealing with the government per se, especially with what the government ought to do with its power of coercion. Power of coercion. But social ethics is much broader than political ethics. A question of war or capital punishment, international treaties, things of that nature would pertain to political ethics. But social ethics would include questions of what should we do with respect to the poll in this world? What should be the attitude of a person toward his neighbor? These are social questions and social questions of great importance. However, they are not political questions because they don't deal with the power of the sword. I don't believe that it's the government's place to compel people to give charity to help the disabled in this world. World. However, I do believe it's a moral obligation to help the disabled in this world. The difference being that the government does not use the sword to back it up. And therefore, questions of charity are social questions, but they are not political questions. Now, what I'm saying, using that distinction between political and social, is that neoconservative groups tend to have a very strong political ethics. What the government should be doing, where it should be involved, what taxes are appropriate, what crime should be punished, what war should be fought. They have a strong political stance, but a correspondingly weak social stance that groups that tend to emphasize private property and military superiority embarrassingly do not have much sensitivity for the plight of the poor in this world. And that is hardly a Christian attitude. There's just far too much in the Bible that tells us of our concern for the poor and our obligation to the poor to be ignored. And so along with the political ethic that we develop, we need to develop as well a social ethic. Otherwise what we'll have is the sometimes accurate and always sad accusation made. Those who defend conservative political options do so because they are not really interested in the humane, inhumane concerns, the concerns of the poor and the needy and the disabled, the disadvantaged in this world. Do you want to ask any questions at this point about neoconservatism? Make any observations before we go on?

What's the relationship between these groups that.

Are.

Look to the United States as something of a Zion and they emphasize the United States superiority to us. They come on with a lot of Bible language, but it seems to just catch Naziistic principles in here.

Thank you. Well, that's not so much a question. It's an observation that I think is helpful and ties in with what I'm saying. Although the particular groups I'm thinking of don't always identify the United States with Zion, there's a real tendency in that direction. And there certainly are groups in this world, in this nation, that think of the United States. Position in the world is the position of Zion in the midst of the pagans. And the language of Old Testament psalms and holy war and all the rest is easily enlisted in the name of the United States of America, as though the United States had taken the place of the chosen people, Israel. You see, if the United States now is functionally in the same position as Old Testament Israel, then it stands to reason that the war songs, the psalms, and other features of Old Testament Israel's life and outlook and prestige can be applied to the United States. But I think that is a false identification. The United States isn't the Israel of God. The church is the Israel of God today. And I suppose, to be quite frank with you, we need to be as worried about groups such as you've mentioned as we are about the socialistic tendencies of the sojourners. Both of these tend to have a false identification of the kingdom of God and the model of the kingdom of God. And just because religious language can be used to back up their convictions, they can be all the more zealous and have kind of a blind enthusiasm, almost fanaticism, for what they want to accomplish. So we have to be hard against it and we have to warn people against it. So that where these people are right, we can endorse it for better reasons than they offer. And where they're wrong, our better reasoning will enable us to discern that, to do some weeding, if you will, between that which is right and wrong and the sojourners, that which is right and wrong, and the Christian Freedom foundation and all the rest. Go ahead.

What are the means that these neoconservatives use to. That they feel that they can use further their aims or purposes? Do they have any specific means?

Yeah, the neoconservatives, the question is what means do they use or can they use to further their purposes? And one of the, one of the most important to them is the means of education, getting the word out. So they're engaged in publication projects and putting on conferences and distributing literature and trying to raise a witness and get some visibility for the goals and the slogans and the interest concerns that they have. And they also tend to use the means of lobbying to try to help, if you will, whip senators, congressmen into line, try to remind them their constituents have these conservative tendencies and interests too. And then the neoconservatives have recently taken interest, and apparently successful interest in how to mobilize people at the time of elections to get rid of people that don't promote their interest and to get elected in their place, people who do. And so through elections, lobbying and education, they try to advance their cause. The natural direction question is do they ever resort to violence to try to advance their cause? And I just don't have any inside story on that. The question of interest to me from a philosophical and theological standpoint is do they have anything of principal interest in their outlook and their ideology that would prevent or condemn that abuse if it is resorted to by some of their followers? And to that, my opinion is no, they do not. See, if you just take a traditional approach to say, the War of Independence, what is called our American Revolution by some people, I think, not using the best terminology, if you take that approach and don't understand the Christian foundations and Christian restraint and Christian principles that informed it seems to me you've left the door open to people today assuming that we can also engage in violent revolution to accomplish our equally conservative interest. But now, as to the empirical historical fact, whether they have or do promote this, I cannot say there are neo Nazi groups among us. However, many neoconservative groups would condemn the neo Nazi type groups too. So it's not very easy to have a generalization that's fair and accurate to everybody involved. Did you have another question?

What's the relationship between Jonathan Edwards eschatological vision of the new Israel in America and their vision, the neoconservative vision that we have today?

Yes, that's a good question. It has to do with Jonathan Edwards, who viewed the new Israel as operative in America. What is the relationship of that mentality and the mentality that we are criticizing right now that I don't identifies America with Israel? I undoubtedly need to do more specific study of Edwards and the language that he uses in identifying America with Israel to come down specifically and say this is how he must be interpreted or how he must not be interpreted. But my tendency from what I have read, knowing that it's open to correction, but my tendency from what I've read, is to say that Edwards did not identify America with Israel, but he identified the Christian cause with Israel and saw in America the most contemporary hope for the Christian cause in the world, and therefore a new beacon for liberty and the preaching of the gospel and purity in the church and discipline in the church and all the rest had come to America. We were a bright shadow, shining light in the midst of the world. And great opportunity was laid upon American obvious analogies to Israel conquering a new land and establishing the church there and having the opportunity to do that. There's no question that there's some excessive language in Edwards about that that tends to move in the direction of identification, but rather, I think, in his heart of hearts. And when he saying, it's not so much that America is identical, you know, the little equal marks to Old Testament Israel, we have taken their place. Rather, America is, if you will, the cutting edge of the church's advance in the world. And the church is Israel. And therefore the hopes of all Christendom really are coming to a head in America. And God had given a unique opportunity to the Puritans for their having seen, suffered for the faith and holding to pure doctrine and in every of life and that sort of thing. So I see Edwards as saying, we have a grand opportunity here. This is really where the action is, if you will. But I don't see him as making the same mistake as the neoconservatives that America has been raised up as a special people in the same way that Israel was raised up as one people among others in the world. I hope I'm right. I would like that to be the way it is with Edwards rather than the same mistake the neoconservatives make. But you can read and decide with.

Respect to the poor in the World, the hungry.

In respect to pagan nations like India and others like that.

What's the Christian's responsibility to nations like that where seemingly God placed a curse upon us?

Right. The question is, what is the Christian's obligation to nations like India, where apparently seemingly God has placed a curse upon their land? What is our obligation toward the poor there? Well, the Christians obligation might be viewed as a series of concentric circles. Moving from a smaller circle to a larger, to a larger, to a larger, moving outward. And so if I say that it is our obligation to be concerned with the poor of India and try to alleviate their poverty, that isn't to say that that is, for instance, at the very center of the circle. It may very well be on one of the outer rings, if you will. In the broader perspective, our immediate concern, obviously, is with our own personal holiness. Our lives being converted, being built up in the faith, our families being built up in the faith, and our churches being built up in the faith, evangelism of others, the correction of social abuses about us. And the taking care of the poor in our family or our churches or in our own neighborhood, in our own country. We need to be dealing with that. But I do believe that in a broad sense we have an obligation to the poor of the entire world. To me, the relevant question is how does God expect that obligation to be placed out? What is our obligation to do? Is our obligation, for instance, as some people, I think mindlessly suggest, that we should just become as poor as other people in the world. So that we've leveled ourselves. Now, if I were to give away all the money that I have so that I can become as poor as people in the world, the relevant question in consequentialist ethics is what consequence would that have? Would the poor of the world be significantly influenced by my small investment in this world? No, they wouldn't. It wouldn't help them at all. Now, what if everybody did it? Well, then, you see, there's this practical question, but not everybody's going to do it. Should I be working toward everybody on a particular day giving away all their money? So you can get into a whole syndrome of questions of how should I help the poor out there? Another line to take on that is that I should help the poor out there by sending missionaries for to them to correct the social abuses that lead to their poverty. So that they don't worship the cows that they should be eating and that sort of thing. That would break down the caste system, that prevents upward mobility and free market economy and so forth. And along with that, send diaconal agencies to try to deal with those who become Christians and those who are on the fringes of the church there. Try to help them in that way and to teach them constructive jobs and to try to get their society in order so that as a whole the society can function in a way that will support its population better. I think I have an obligation to that, but I don't believe it's a central obligation or the primary obligation of my life. I do think we have to care for the poor. God cares for the poor. I don't go so far as to say, which I think is anti biblical, that God's on the side of the poor and against the rich. But God cares for the poor. Jesus cared for the poor, and we should imitate that attitude. After all, the Bible says that for our sake he gave up what he had and became poor in our behalf. And for that very reason we cannot be indifferent to the poor. But the real question, as I've said, is one of method. How should we help the poor? And what is my obligation to the poor? Let me move on to the third option. Under this general label of the prescriptive approach to God's will in politics, we've looked at radical Christianity, we've looked at neoconservative movements that enlist the Christian label. And then thirdly, I'd like to speak of the school of thought that can broadly be called trans transformationalism, that school of Christian political thinking that aims to reshape in some way concrete political entities. There is a large group of people, usually in the Reformed churches, that are aiming to reshape our political situation, bring about reformation, concrete reformation in our political world. Now, among the transformationalists, however, there are some big differences of opinion. And I'd like to mention two different axes for the differences of opinion to be pursued. The methodological axis and then the teleological axis. There are differences with respect to methodology that can be spoken of first of all in the transformation, and I would call the first group in the transformational camp, the group interested in thematic issues and the second group interested, as a group interested in textual issues. Textual issues. Those who are thematic transformationalists, to try to put this together in a mouthful, the thematic transformationalists are looking for a Christian mindset as they approach political questions, as they try to transform and reshape our concrete political world. They are interested in a Christian mindset. So when they go to the Bible, they interpret the Bible as teaching certain themes, themes like equality, justice, social concern, relieving Oppression, ending discrimination. They would take these broad themes as they presented in the Bible and make those themes the mindset of the Christian, so that although the Bible does not address the question of a guaranteed annual income, for instance, the theme of the Bible having to do with concern for the poor would lead those who have this Christian mindset to feel that the Christian answer to that is to support a guaranteed annual income. The reason they do so is because, in a general way, the Bible is interested in the poor. On the other hand, there's a school of thought among the transformationalists that holds that our guidance should come from revealed textual specifics, that the position I take on a guaranteed annual income should not be from the general theme of interest in the poor, but the specifics of what God says about the poor. Well, let me move on to the third option. Under this general label of the prescriptive approach to God's will in politics, we've looked at radical Christianity. We looked at neoconservative movements that enlist the Christian label. And then thirdly, I'd like to speak of the school of thought that can broadly be called transformationalism, that school of Christian political thinking that aims to reshape in some way concrete political entities. There is a large group of people, usually in the Reformed churches, that are aiming to reshape our political situation, trying to bring about reformation, concrete reformation in our political world. Now, among the transformationalists, however, there are some big differences of opinion. Two different axes for the differences of opinion to be pursued, the methodological axis and then the teleological axis. There are differences with respect to methodology that can be spoken of first. First of all, in the transformational camp, and I would call the first group in the transformational camp, the group interested in issues and the second group interested as a group interested in textual issues, textual issues. Those who are thematic trans. Transformationalists to try to put this together in a mouthful. The thematic transformationalists are looking for a Christian mindset as they approach political questions, as they try to transform and reshape our concrete political world. They are interested in a Christian mindset. So when they go to the Bible, they interpret the Bible as teaching certain themes, themes like equality, justice, social concern, relieving oppression, ending discrimination. They would take these broad themes as they presented in the Bible and make those themes the mindset of the Christian, so that although the Bible does not address the question of a guaranteed annual income, for instance, the theme of the Bible having to do with concern for the poor would lead those who have this Christian mindset To feel the Christian answer to that is to support a guaranteed annual income. And the reason they do so is because in a general way, the Bible is interested in the poor. On the other hand, there's a school of thought among the transformationalists that hold that our guidance should come from revealed textual specifics, that the position I take on a guaranteed annual income should not be from the general theme of interest in the poor, but the specifics of what God says about the poor. Now, does the Bible specifically say that the government has the right to tax people to guarantee an income? Absolutely not. And therefore I. I would oppose a guaranteed annual income not because I'm not interested in the poor, but because I don't believe specifically that's the way the Bible teaches the poor should be taken care of. Now, the differences in method here between a thematic approach to the Bible and a textual approach to the Bible, between the broad Christian mindset and the idea that revealed specifics should give us our guidance. This difference is obviously affected by one's view of the world. Word of God, if you come to the Bible holding as many hyperions today hold that it is really a book giving faith precepts and that it is not intended to give information in the other spheres of life like mathematics, science, history, geography, sociology, what have you. If the Bible is, narrowly speaking, a book of faith concepts and addresses specifically issues of theology, but not outside of that, then that's going to affect what you view as a Christian political approach. Given that view of the Bible, you will necessarily think that at best, the Christian can be gripped by the themes of the Bible, can be gripped by the basic message of the Bible, Bible and the overall thrust of the Bible, and that that overall thrust and those themes can lead you with this Christian mindset that's developed to answer specific questions. But if you take a more fundamentalist view of the Bible, and I say that in an honoring way, in a way that praises the fundamentalist mentality, that believes in the verbal revelation, the infallible revelation of the Bible, so that whatever God says on a particular question is true on that particular question and is authoritative and remains authoritative, that it's not culturally relative, and so forth. Therefore, the specifics of the Bible offer you a prescribed way of answering questions of ethical import, especially, not especially, but including questions of political ethics. The issue here might be called the issue of political hermeneutics. Political hermeneutics. And one of the most valuable things that could be done in the broader Christian community today would be for somebody to sponsor a conference or Even a series of conferences on that one question of hermeneutics. How do we use the Bible to draw political conclusions? How do we get from here's the Bible here to here's my position on this political question here. What principles do we use? How do we see the Bible? How do we use the Bible so that we can draw out political ramifications from it, so that we know where to stand on these issues? Obviously, there are those who say, well, let's look at the prophetic themes. Those who say, let's look at the prophetic table. People say, well, let's look at the mindset with, with respect to social ethics. Others say, well, what did the law of God specifically say on political matters? These things need to be worked out. The question of political hermeneutics. Well, not only is there a methodological difference among the transformationalists in the Christian camp, but there's also a difference. There are differences in aim, differences in aim. What I could call logical differences then, and I would myself find at least three different aims that have been enunciated in the history of the Christian church since the Reformation, or which are present in our own day. First might be called the consummation ethic, the second the common grace ethic, and thirdly the theocratic ethic. The consummation ethic would speak of the aim of bringing about the consummation, bringing about the final judgment of all things. There are some people who want to. Who have wanted to bring the kingdom of God instantaneously, overnight, if you will, to impose it on the world in the same way that God's consummation judgment will be imposed, imposed on the world. You see, when the day of judgment comes, God's not going to issue invitations. Anybody who wants to come to the day of judgment can come and be judged. And those who don't, well, then you go about your own business. No, God's going to enforce the day of Judgment. It's going to come down upon people. They will have to be present. They will have to undergo evaluation. They'll have to undergo the punishment due to their sins if they are not under the blood of Jesus Christ. Now, in that same way, people want to impose the kingdom of God on society in this consummation fashion, where we root up the tares from the wheat. Right now there's no room for pluralism in society, no room for a difference in perception of sin and crime, where all evil as it's perceived by the individual Christian can be punished by the state, where the matters of the heart are supposedly judged where religious fanatics can have their way, and there's no pluralism in society at all. Now, this consummation ethic is in some degree found in the early Puritans in our country. Not completely, but in some degree, for instance, where the Puritans laid down as a law, as a law that a person could not hold political office unless he was a member of a Christian church in good standing. Now, that is not a requirement. That's found in the word of God. That is a requirement of sane Christian political wisdom. And that should be preached from our pulpits, that we should be interested in Christian leaders. However, that's at least theoretically possible. That it'd be better to vote for a man who doesn't say that Jesus is his savior, but is going to endorse those things found in the law of God as a matter of accident or upbringing or tradition, then to vote for a man who says, I am a born again Christian who's going to violate all those principles of God's word for the state. So that possibility has to be entertained. And so when John Calvin and others, for instance, insisted that it's wrong for Christians not to want Christian leaders, I think we have to understand that even Calvin would say he means Christian leaders who are going to rule in a Christian way. And those who are indifferent to that, who say that doesn't make any difference, are really being traitorous to the kingdom. But the Puritans went beyond c. Calvin, as I understand him anyway, and went so far as to not say, this is a duty laid upon the Christian's heart to vote for a Christian magistrate. But it's in fact a legal obligation or requirement that a man be a member of the church before he can be a member, if you will, of the ruling class in the state. And that does tend to intrude the church institutionally into the state, and to that degree takes away pluralism. Many of the early Puritans also tended to judge matters of doctrine for the sake of social acceptance and unity. In a society where the word of God says there must be one religion among the people, that all people must worship, Jehovah, God, and those who bring in idolatrous substitutes are to be executed to be punished. Where the Puritans would have been right to enforce a Christian society, they tended to make it a Puritan Christian society, or a Presbyterian Christian society, or a congregationalist Christian society, which does overstep the boundaries, the limits put by the word of God. The Bible does not teach that the state has the right to Judge matters of doctrine, matters that divide, for instance, paedobaptist from Baptist. It is not in the state's prerogative and certainly not within the domain of its kind competence to try to make fine distinctions among Christians on these matters. And the Puritans ought to have been sensitive to that, to allow for doctrinal differences within the domain of the state, although that doesn't mean that their churches had to be polluted with doctrinal differences. That kind of tolerance, the differences that are politically punishable according to the law of God, are differences of major religious import, whether the living and true God is followed, and not matters of particular detail as to how the living and true God is followed on matters of, say, infant baptism. So there is some tendency toward a consummation ethic in the early Puritans. But my primary focus of criticism here is the early Anabaptists who said, we use the model of the Old Testament law for our society and any state that does not have that model and is not pursuing that end, we will not recognize its authority, we will not see it as a legal entity, and therefore we can violently rebel against it. So violent revolution in the name of the law of God is promoted by those like the Muenster Anabaptist who were pursuing what I call a consummation ethic of rooting up the tares from the wheat and and imposing the kingdom of God with force now over against this would be the opposite extreme, the other polarity of a common grace ethic, which is characterized by a very broad pluralism, a common grace emphasis that says that we don't apply extensive biblical specifics in society today. We rather create a place for Christianity, protect Christianity in and among other viewpoints in society. The general themes and norms of justice in the Bible are promoted by us as individuals, but we don't impose the specific ethic taught in the Word of God. Our point of view is only that which is described discernible through God's common grace. There are certain common themes that the Marxists have, the Christians have, the liberals have, the conservatives have, Christians can promote those a common grace ethic. But we cannot promote an ethic that favors one religious viewpoint over another. One specific outlook, say on abortion over another, one specific outlook on the moral perversion of homosexuality over another that protects Christianity, that bedudes, protect Buddhism or something like that. This would be a common grace emphasis where every religion has equal footing. We have a broad pluralistic mentality and the norms of justice are defined by, if you will, what everybody can see in General revelation. And you'll find this common grace emphasis and broad pluralistic emphasis in Herman Doyle and Meredith Klein. To use two rather divergent illustrations, but of the same ultimate school of thought. Doiliverd says that the standards that we use in political judgment are standards which should be discernible even by those who are outside the realm of the Word of God, because we don't biblicistically take our direction just from chapter and verse, from specific text in the Bible. But our direction comes because we as Christians have been enabled to discern things in the structures of creation which others should be able to discern if sin weren't in the way. Our advantage is that our vision is improved. But nevertheless the. The norms of justice we are promoting are norms which are available to everybody in creation. They are general norms, pluralistic norms. Meredith Klein says that in this day and age, God operates with his special favor in terms of the Church, but is not showing any special attention to any particular society, is not making promises to them, cultural promises of blessing in light of their obedience to Spirit, specifics of His Word, not threatening, specific judgments for disobedience to His Word. And therefore what God is doing is promoting the goodness, the common goodness for all nations, all societies. And there is no special favor, no special direction. The theocratic directions of the Old Testament, therefore, do not apply in a common grace situation as we have today. So you have Dooyevaird and Klein as examples of this. And I have problems with this point of view. First of all, I have problems with it theologically. I have problems with Doyervaire's theology of the Word of God. I don't believe that he teaches a fully biblical conception of the Word of God and how it speaks to all areas of life. And I have problems with the intrusion ethic of Meredith Klein saying the Old Testament theocracy was an exception, that a form of justice that really isn't just for all people, that it was just the consummation ethic broken into history. And today we live under a common grace ethic. But certainly the Old Testament Jews enjoyed common grace. And so it's really hard to pull off this categorization when we read the Bible. So there are theological problems with Doyevaerd and Klein. Secondly, I think that both of these views tend toward neutrality, tend toward political neutrality, the idea that we're on a common footing with unbelievers and that when we pursue answers to political problems, we must use neutral methods of reasoning, neutral sources of information, and that we have to reason together with the unbeliever with these common principles and sources to drive our answers. And then thirdly, I have difficulty with doibert and Klein in that I think they lead that what they are saying is inadequate for concrete testing and guiding in political matters, that even if there weren't these theological problems and the problems of tending toward neutrality in the end, how do you interpret these broad norms of common grace, justice and pluralistic justice when it comes to sticky questions about abortion, for instance, I don't believe that they've given us adequate ways to solve problems. They haven't given us an adequate method by which to get concrete answers to our problems. Going to be coming back to these things later on. So I'll just leave it with those three general criticisms, theological criticism, the neutrality criticism, and finally the inadequacy in terms of getting a concrete answer. The third aim that is available to those who hold a transformationalist approach to political ethics is the theocratic aim, where a theocracy in some form is being pursued as the ideal for one society. Where theocracy means simply the rule of God in society. Theocracy does not mean the rule of church in society, does not mean the rule of some holy man in society like the Ayatollah. A theocracy means the rule of God. Theos Theo Crassy God's rule. And how does God rule in society? He rules by his revealed word, by his revealed law. And so the theocratic ideal says our aim should be to apply God's specific norms of justice to the civil magistrate in society. We shouldn't attempt to impose by violence these norms, consummation ethics. And we shouldn't be interested just in some neutral general idea of justice in a pluralistic society, the common gray same. But we should specifically be interested in what God has said precisely for political matters. We should aim to promote these things in the work operations of the civil magistrate. So among the transformationalists, let me just recapitulate. There are methodological differences whether we pursue things thematically or textually in the Bible. And secondly, there are differences in aim, whether we pursue a consummation ethic, a common grace ethic, or a theocratic ethic in society. The very last school of thought. I want to mention this now again under the general umbrella of the prescriptive approach to Christian politics. The last school of thought that goes along with radicalism, neoconservatism and transformationalism would simply be eclecticism. This is really a mixed bag. The eclectic, ecumenically minded young evangelicals, if you will, who don't really have a discernible principle or policy in politics, but can be found simply to be taking bits and pieces from each of the various schools of thought that we've been talking about, whether it be the prophetic school or the prescribed school or the radical school or the neoconservative school, or what have you. The young evangelicals seem to be a combination of various elements. And the only criticism I'll make of them, it's a twofold criticism, is that there's a tendency in the young evangelicals to have a very loose and weak view of Scripture, for instance, denying the inerrancy of Scripture or the normativity of the Old Testament. So a weak view of Scripture. And then secondly, it's just their eclecticism that shows that they don't have any consistent principle by which they approach political questions and therefore do not offer us any reliable guidance on political matters. One more time, then, let's consider the answer to the question, where is Christ politically working today? How do you discern God's will for politics? Some say it's a secret buried in God's decretive will. Some say we can unqualifiedly identify his will with secular movements. Others say no, we can only consciously perceive his will in the midst of secular movements. Fourthly, there are those who say we know God's will when we study the prophecy, the prophetic teaching of the Bible be ideological or in terms of chronology. And then finally there are those who say our discernment should be guided by God's prescriptive will. And that would be the radical Christian option, the neoconservative option, the transformationalist option, whether it be consummation ethic, common grace ethic, or theocratic ethic. And then finally the eclectic option advanced by the young evangelicals.