Dr Greg Bahnsen - Political Ethics: The Prophetic Will of God (Part 7)

With our discussion of the major issues in present day Christian political theory, we've already studied the question of what is the proper function of the state. And we've seen three different proposals by Christian authors. The law, justice and welfare view of Merytain, the law and order view of Carl Henry, and the law and social justice view of Bruner and Dooyewaard. And secondly, we looked at the question of the place of the state in God's ordering. Whether we take a creational view along with traditional Roman Catholicism and Abraham Kuyper, whether we take the providential view sponsored by traditional Protestantism and today by Gordon Clark, or whether we take the Christological view, which is more in the Anabaptist tradition but favored by a great deal of modern theology. And then yesterday we began with the question, where is Christ politically working? Or how do we discern God's will for politics? And I discussed three views which tend to look not to the Scripture, to the written word of God for direction, but rather to the situation in which we live or the facts around us. The view that says God's will is his secret, decretive will for politics, and therefore we can't really judge where Christ is working. On the other extreme there is the very secular view that we can have an unqualified identification of the cause of Christ with specific movements in our society for women's liberation or racial justice, or what have you. And then thirdly, something of a modification of the second view, a view that says God's kingdom should not be identified with our conceptions. And therefore we need to have a very cautious perception of where Christ is working politically today. By looking at the secular movements around us. Now, this morning, we begin by looking at some views that emphasize what the revealed word of God has to say and views that use the word of God in different ways to identify God's will for the political scene in which we live. Now, the first of these views which pays attention to God is a view that says we should discern how God is politically working by looking at the prophetic will of God that's laid out in Scripture. So here the emphasis is going to be upon what the Bible says in terms of God's prophetic will. And if we understand the prophetic will of God, then on that basis we'll be able to understand the world in which we live and discern where God is working. Now, there are two subdivisions or two schools of thought within the prophetic will of God approach to discerning God's political will. The one I call the ideological conception of prophecy and the other the specific chronology conception of prophecy. And we need to look at each one of these in turn. The thematic and ideological conception is perhaps best illustrated in William Stringfellow's book, An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land. An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land. Of course, the title of that book already begins to tell you of Stringfellow's outlook. We as Christians are aliens. This is a strange land to us. We are passing through. We don't want to get too involved or too much identified with this present world order. According to Stringfellow, if you study the concept of Babylon, the concept of Babylon in the Book of Revelation, you will see that Babylon is archetypical of all nations. Babylon is not dealing with one particular historical entity, but Babylon is the model for all nations. It is the paradigm of fallen politics itself. And when we read the Book of Revelation, there are also to be found hints of Jerusalem, the holy nation, which is in the midst of the other nations, within the nations. So Revelation helps us see the pattern for ungodly politics and shows us Jerusalem hints at the holy nation being within the other nations. Now, if we understand what the Bible says about the Babylon pattern of politics, then we can look at the world around us and find that pattern of politics being recapitulated. Where we see people or see nations, governmental officials, fitting into that pattern, then Christians must denounce that. And he gives us an example of this, that in his opinion, the United States is the current successor to Nazi Germany as given over to the ways of death that are represented by Babylon in the Book of Revelation. The United States is corporately the successor to Nazi Germany in that both were given over to the ways of death and to the Babylonish, if you will, patterns of rule. What can we say about this attempt to guide Christian politics using the word of God? I suppose you've immediately recognized, and it should be recognized, that this is a terribly ambiguous way to discern God's will. Terribly ambiguous because different facts and different configurations of facts and different perspectives on the facts, we take it in a lot of different ways, a lot of different ways. And for that reason, this thematic and ideological approach to prophecy is subject to use, it turns out, by conflicting political ideologies which come to it. Conflicting political ideologies can both use the ambiguous pattern of, say, Babylon in the Book of Revelation and the ambiguous facts around us to come to different conclusions. If the United States is the current successor to Babylon, let's take that premise as the one we're going to use for illustrative purposes. If the United States is the current successor to Babylon, does this indicate that we should disarm? That we should, if you will, deemphasize our military stature? Because, after all, Babylon was a warlike power. And if we want to cease being like Babylon, we want to give up the arms race, or does this mean that we should be impelled in the direction of militarism because we know that ancient Babylon fell because of internal weakness and its inability in the long run to defend itself from external foes? What does it mean to us today that we are the Babylonish power of the world? If we are the Babylon of the world, does that mean that we should pay more attention to our military build up or less attention? Does that mean that we are guilty of militarism or guilty of vulnerability? I mean, how are we going to take this image? So you see the conflicting political ideologies, the idea of disarming or against the idea of building up our military arms. Conflicting political ideology can use the ideological conception of prophecy and the ambiguities inherent in interpretation to support conflicting conclusions. We need to ask, secondly, whether this ideological conception of prophecy is empirically correct. Is it really true that the United States is the successor to Nazi Germany in being dedicated to the ways of death? Is that perhaps a bit of rhetorical overkill? Without denying for a moment that there's much to be critical of in the United States and its governmental policies, to liken it or put it on a par even within the same ballpark with Nazi Germany, strikes me as calling for a real distortion of the empirical facts of history. Thirdly, we can ask ourselves whether this approach is theologically correct. I mean, is that the way Babylon is to be understood in the Book of Revelation, as, if you will, a model for all nations which are evil, all nations which are ungodly or secular or humanistic? Well, as the way I interpret the Book of Revelation, and although I don't want to get into a course of eschatology and prophetic interpretation this morning, it must at least be commented that this approach is up for grabs. It's debatable this is a negotiable premise that Babylon is but a model rather than a specific image for a concrete, definite historical referent. Now, on one final criticism on Stringfellow's approach, we should see not only the Babylonish pattern of government in our society round about us. We should also be able to see the hints of the New Jerusalem, the hints of God's working in the midst of this secular evil nation and governmental power. At least that's what he says he sees in Revelation. You see Babylon and then the hints of the New Jerusalem in its midst. But when he gets around to evaluating our own society, he sees only death, only destruction, only decay, and no hope for our government. But now, to be balanced, I mean, even to take his own approach to the prophecy there, should he not say that there are hints of New Jerusalem to be found even here? The hope of redemption should be even in our midst because God is doing a work here. Why do we not get some encouraging words, some. Some prophetic word that is going to bring encouragement, it's going to bring guidance for the way we should be living today? Why is it this total denunciation rather than the combination of denunciation of Babylon and encouragement to the New Jerusalem? So I'm not sure that Stringfellow really lives up to his own model of using prophetic ideology to judge our political situation and our social involvement as Christians. All right, so there is one approach to how to discern God's will in politics today, the approach that says God is working through his prophetic will. We see how God is working by judging on the basis of his prophetic will. And that prophetic will is to be taken in an ideological or thematic way. The patterns of Babylon as we see them in the world are to be condemned and the patterns of the New Jerusalem to be commended. Would you like to ask questions about this before I take up the next school of thought? The question is, does this not sound.

A whole lot like dispensationalism?

And interestingly enough, that's the next school of thought I'm taking up. So we'll come to that and try to draw some comparisons and contrast between, along the way, hopefully, other questions about Stringfellow's ideological view of prophecy. You understand what I mean by an ideological view? It may not be the best, most apt term. What I'm getting at is that he doesn't see the prophecy in the Book of Revelation as dealing with concrete, specific historical events, but giving rather an ideology or a pattern by which we judge things. So it's a story in terms of which or in the light of which we evaluate other things, other events. Let's turn to the second school of using God's prophetic will as the basis of our political ethic. And the second school will be characterized by a specific chronology of events, a specific chronology of events. Over against Stringfellow, who doesn't give us a chronology. He gives us only an idea, only a pattern, only an outlook, if you will, or a story in terms of which we can judge other things. The second school of thought, emphasizing the specific chronology of events that I'm thinking of in particular this morning, is the school of dispensationalism. And you won't have any difficulty finding the specific chronology of events as characteristic of dispensationalism, if you'll but check its charts and its times. Dispensationalists are very specific in telling us what they think the referent of prophecy is. They tell us that this is going to happen and that is going to happen. They can tell us what nations are involved, even some of the geographical movements of these nations. They have charted this, and many dispensationalists.

Throughout the last century and even in.

Our own day are willing to put all this down in a timetable. One of the largest fundamentalist dispensationalist gospel churches, independent churches in the Southern California area, has a pastor well known around the country who has told us that Christ will return in 1982 with specifically has it dated, because from certain prophetic indications that have been read in his own way, he can estimate for us or specifically tell us on the basis of these indicators when Christ will come back. So dispensationalism has its charts and it has its timetables, and it's very specific. It gives us a chronology of events. Now, it's often been said that dispensationalism tends toward retreat from the world and an apolitical outlook on our society. And just because of the schizophrenic nature of dispensational Christians and theologians, there's an element of truth in that, despite the fact that there's an element of falsity in it too. The element of falsity is seen in just that. The dispensationalist holds that God has two distinct redemptive plans for the world. God has two plans. One plan is for the church. That is a heavenly plan. Salvation for the church means being redeemed from sin and enjoying the benefits of a heavenly existence with Jesus Christ, the spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ for all eternity. But God also has an earthly plan. And that earthly plan of salvation is for his chosen people, the Jews, a very definite national entity, with now a specific country and location on the globe itself. And that Israel has a future for it, a very definite political future. There's going to be a tug of war with respect to Israel. There are going to be battles pertaining to Israel, Armageddon Gog and Magog and all the rest. And so the dispensationalist knows, or at least thinks that he knows specific things about the nation of Israel and the importance of that political entity for God's redemptive plans and for God's treatment of human history. The church's good may be a heavenly joy, but God has earthly plans for Israel and therefore the importance of the nation Israel. And therefore we see why America should support the cause of Israel. Christian America should be interested in Jewish Israel because Jewish Israel is part of God's prophetic plan. Israel fits into the chronology of events in a very significant way and in a political way. What happens to the political entity is really crucial to the dispensationalist. Now, I have a number of problems with this approach to making political decisions. Let's say that as a Christian, I would support United States intervention in the Middle east and be willing to go to war in defense of Israel on the ground that Israel is the chosen people of God. You see how you can make a political decision that way. And I would make sure that Israel is never cut off from oil supply lines for the simple reason that it's part of God's prophetic plan and they are his chosen people and worthy of our defense and protection. Therefore, I have trouble with this as a foundation for Christian politics. The first problem I have is that although there is this political push, this, if you will, Israel push to Christian politics and dispensationalism, nevertheless there's a retreatism that's characteristic of dispensationalism because of the doctrine of the Rapture and the view that the churches is a heavenly joy. God's end and aim for the Church is heavenly in character and we are going to be raptured from the tribulation of this world when it gets intense. And that fosters, I think, inevitably, even if not intentionally fosters, a retreatism with respect to the world. Secondly, I think this is a somewhat racist approach to Christian politics just because.

Of the Israel centrism.

Those who stand opposed to dispensationalism are often accused of being anti Semitic racist. The fact of the matter is that those who are dispensationalists are racist in their own way. And I'm not fostering, and nor am I accusing them of the kind of racism that sometimes comes to mind, violent expression in our own country interracially. But nevertheless there is this kind of exalting of one race over another and the indication that gentile nations like our own owe it to this Jewish nation just because of their racial stock, to defend them and to make political decisions on their behalf, even if these decisions should hurt us. So there is a retreatism and a racism. And I think thirdly there is the naturalistic fallacy to be identified in dispensationalism, the naturalistic fallacy. You'll recall reasons from what is the case to what ought to be the case. You notice that dispensationalists tend to reason because it is going to be the case that Israel is favored and Israel has a certain position in the world that therefore Israel ought to be favored and Israel ought to have that position. That doesn't follow. It may be true that Israel will and Israel ought, but those are separate questions. And logically you can't go from one to the other without some kind of bridging device. There's the naturalistic fallacy. Now, the comeback that a dispensationalist might want to offer at this point would probably be something along the lines, well, since it's part of God's prophetic will, obviously it's what God wants to see done and therefore it's the right thing to do. I mean, God is the one who's ordained this. It's not just, you know, just any mundane fact of history that we're talking about. We're saying that what is the case ought to be the case, but what God himself prophetically says he wants to do. And we know that's approved. That isn't the case though, when you stop and think about God's prophetic will in history that included the death of His Son. But that isn't to say that the death of His Son was what ought to have taken place. The Bible tells us that although it happened by the predestined counsel of God, it nevertheless took place with wicked hands. There were wicked hands. Guilty, the blood of that innocent man, Jesus of Nazareth. And yet it was all predestined and prophesied by God. So the naturalistic fallacy, it seems to me, continues to stick to dispensationalism. Thirdly, there is a passive futurism in dispensationalism. A passive futurism that's not consistent with the the dispensationalist reaction to apostasy in the church. A reaction of activism. When the dispensationalist says that the Bible predicts the apostasy of the church and recognizes the liberal or modern apostasy of the current day Church, the dispensationalist reaction is one of activistic opposition. The dispensationalists are avid opponents of the apostasy in the church. However, dispensationalists tend to say that if the Bible predicts breakdown in our society, that we should be passive with respect to that, because there's nothing we can do about it. You see, this doesn't fit together with respect to the church. They are activistic with respect to the church. They get involved. Even though the Bible predicted the downfall of the church, the apostasy of the church with respect to society, the dispensationalist does not get involved. He says, well, God has prophesied things are going to go from bad to.

Worse and so what can we do about it?

Moreover, this passive futurism is not only inconsistent with their own activism with respect to the church, but. But the passive futurism of dispensationalism doesn't fit in very well with the biblical prophets that they so often cite. You turn to the Old Testament prophets, for instance, to find the foundation for dispensational views of history and the future and the breakdown of our culture and churches. But you notice that those Old Testament prophets were not passive with respect to political and social evils. The Old Testament prophets were activistic. They were avid and aggressive, getting involved in the affairs of their society and trying to make changes in the world about them.

So I would criticize dispensationalism for its.

Retreatism, its racism, a naturalistic fallacy, and now its passive futurism. Let me add that I think just as a matter of fact, they have the wrong view of prophecy, the wrong view of prophecy. We finally have to get around to that element of the dispensationalist outlook. And what they say about prophecy is just mistaken. There's a kind of diplopia to be seen in dispensationalism, a double vision where events prophesied in the book of Revelation that have very definite historical reference in the day or age of John the Apostle, the writer of the book and the dispensationalist. Scholars can even recognize that many of the things John spoke of took place in his own day and spoke of.

Things in terms of the conditions of.

His own day, and yet maintained that those conditions must be reintroduced in into world history. There must be the restored Roman Empire.

You see, and the restoration of Israel.

To the land and the rebuilt temple, and all these redoing of things, the recapitulation of previous historical circumstances, just so prophecy can be fulfilled according to the preconceived conclusion of the dispensationalist, one would be tempted to say the prophecy. Prophecy has been fulfilled in the past, in John's day. The dispensationalists must now, with, through a double vision, say, well, if it happened in John's day, that is but a sign of it happening at the end of the age. And I had real problems with that approach to prophecy. I think it's mistaken. We can add here that there's just a great deal of mistaken date setting that's characteristic of dispensational authors. Over and over and over again, dates have been set and they haven't been met. And that should guide us, I think, should steer us clear of making decisions on the basis of a specific chronology and chart timetable that the dispensationalist might give us. Okay, I have two other criticisms I'd.

Like to add of the dispensational approach to Christian politics.

First of all, the view that the world nations are under Satanic control today, and therefore not much can be done for the sake of bringing about a Christian political option for the course of this world is in the hands of the prince of this world, Satan. If you'll read my article in the Journal of Christian Reconstruction on the status of Satan, you will see evidence to the contrary that Satan is not really in charge of the world nations today. He's simply in charge of the realm of rebellion and disbelief. That realm which is in conflict with the kingdom of God is under the sway of Satan, which is almost true by definition, just because they're in conflict with the king, the kingdom of God. However, Jesus Christ is the one who has all authority and power on heaven and on earth, and that Christ is the ultimate ruler. And Christ is in the process of subduing all enemies under his feet, discipling all nations, because Satan has in fact been bound. And so the understanding fostered by the dispensationalist in the consequences which are inferred or which follow rather naturally from that understanding of Satan and the nations is detrimental and biblically mistaken. Then the last criticism, the obvious one I trust, at least for this audience.

Is that dispensationalism fosters an antagonism between.

The Old Testament and the New Testament, which prevents the dispensationalist from having a common, concrete foundation and guidance for political decisions from a Christian standpoint. According to the dispensationalist Charles Ryrie, the author of the book Dispensationalism Today, in an article in Bibliotheca Sacra Entitled the End of the Law, Ryrie explains quite clearly that for the dispensationalists, whatever is not repeated in the New Testament, whatever of the Old Testament does not come over into the New. Being explicitly repeated is assumed to have dropped away. He says that Jesus is the end of the law.

That doesn't mean that elements here and.

There of the Old Testament can't come over into the New. But if it doesn't come over into the New, Jesus is the end of the law, and we follow simply the ethic of the New Testament. Now, if you take that as your operating principle, you have first of all, primarily an exegetical and theological problem of major dimensions on your hands.

Jesus specifically said in the Sermon on the Mount that if anybody broke or.

Taught the breaking of the least of.

God's commandments that he would be called.

Least in the kingdom of Jesus makes it very clear that not the slightest commandment can be dropped from the Old Testament, at least not without some New Testament authorization, without the lawgiver himself indicating so. And so there you have quite clearly an exegetical indication that this hermeneutical principle.

That says we drop anything from the.

Old Testament, it's not repeated. That's contrary to the procedure that follows from the words of Jesus that don't you dare drop even the least code.

Commandment unless you want to be demoted.

In the kingdom of heaven. So that's the first problem. The second problem is a practical problem, and that's if you restrict your attention to the New Testament. We have to ask just how much guidance and help the New Testament offers us with respect to concrete political problems. Let's just take one very obvious concrete problem, the problem of crime and punishment. There are many others that we could ask about, but let's just look at this one.

What does the New Testament tell us.

About punishment, and what kind of guidance.

Does the New Testament offer us with.

Respect to the government's punishment of those guilty of crime? Well, the New Testament does tell us the state bears the sword and doesn't bear it in vain. So it's appropriate for the government to punish, and one might say, even to.

The point of death, since the sword was the symbol of death.

However, when you get beyond that, what does the New Testament say about the extent of punishment, the kind of punishment, and the objects of punishment? Does the New Testament tell us which crimes are capital crimes? No. Does it tell us which crimes are crimes? That there must be some restitution or compensation? No. Does the New Testament tell us all of the sexual perversions for instance, all the crimes that we would naturally think would be deemed crimes. For instance, the crime of bestiality. No, that's not mentioned in the New Testament.

Then the last criticism, the obvious one I trust, at least for this audience, is that dispensationalism fosters an antagonism between the Old Testament and the New Testament which prevents the dispensationalist from having a concrete foundation and guidance for political decisions from a Christian standpoint, according to the dispensationalist Charles Ryrie, the author of the book Dispensationalism Today. In an article in Bibliotheca Sacra entitled the End of the Law, Ryrie explains quite clearly that for the dispensationalist, whatever is not repeated in the New Testament, whatever of the Old Testament does not.

Come over into the New, being accepted.

Explicitly repeated, is assumed to have dropped away. He says that Jesus is the end of the law. That doesn't mean that elements here and there of the Old Testament can't come over into the New. But if it doesn't come over into the New, Jesus is the end of the law. And we follow simply the ethic of the New Testament. Now, if you take that as your operating principle, you have first of all primarily an exegetical and theological problem of major dimensions on your hands. To specifically said in the Sermon on the Mount that if anybody broke or taught the breaking of the least of God's commandments that he would be called least in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus makes it very clear that not the slightest commandment can be dropped from the Old Testament Testament, at least not without some New Testament authorization, without the lawgiver himself indicating so and so.

There you have.

Quite clearly an exegetical indication that this hermeneutical principle that says we drop anything from the Old Testament is not repeated. That's contrary to the procedure that follows from the words of Jesus that don't you dare drop even the least commandment unless you want to be demoted in.

The case kingdom of heaven.

So that's the first problem. The second problem is a practical problem, and that's if you restrict your attention to the New Testament, we have to ask just how much guidance and help the New Testament offers us with respect.

To concrete political problems.

Let's just take one very obvious concrete.

Problem, the problem of.

There are many others that we could ask about, but let's just look at this one. What does the New Testament tell us about punishment? And what kind of guidance does the New Testament offer us with respect to the government's punishment of those guilty of crime? Well, the New Testament does tell us that the state bears the sword and doesn't bear it in vain. So it's appropriate for the government to punish, and one might say even to the point of death, since the sword was the symbol of death. However, when you get beyond that, what does the New Testament say about the extent of punishment, the kind of punishment and the objects of punishment? Does the New Testament tell us which.

Crimes are capital crimes?

No. Does it tell us which crimes are crimes? That there must be some restitution or compensation? No. Does the New Testament tell us all of the sexual perversions, for instance, all the crimes that we would naturally think would be deemed crimes, for instance, the crime of beating? No, it's not mentioned in the New Testament. The New Testament does not seem to be concerned with offering sociopolitical guidance. Now you can interpret that lack of concern to bring out a sociopolitical code in two ways. You can either interpret that to mean the New Testament doesn't feel that's a.

Proper item of Christian interest.

That Christians shouldn't care about socio political matters, or you can interpret that silence in the New Testament as an indication that the New Testament views that the Old Testament was already adequate in guiding on those matters and nothing further needed to be said. Now against the first interpretation of New Testament silence, that the New Testament is silent because the attitude of the New Covenant is we shouldn't be involved in the affairs of culture in this world.

Then you have to ask yourself, well.

Why then does the New Testament say that the state has the right to punish at all? I mean, why does the New Testament go a certain distance in talking about cultural matters? The New Testament does say things about slaves and masters, children and parents, says things about the state, says things about the church's function in society. It talks about Christians having having an effect on all areas of life and living as Christians in all areas of life. Why does the New Testament formally say, yes, be involved, be holy in all manner of life, pray for your rulers, they do have the power of the sword. If the New Testament doesn't consider those matters worthy of Christian concern. So there's a prima effacing implausibility with the view that the New Testament does not consider it of interest or proper interest to the Christian to be involved in politics? And so I am led to the conclusion that the New Testament doesn't say a lot about politics because the New Testament views the Old Testament and its revelation is already adequate on this matter. The dispensationalist has trouble in the antagonism that he fosters between Old Testament and New Testament because the dispensationalist is exegetically wrong. The attitude of the New Testament is not everything is dropped which is not repeated. It's just the opposite, everything is kept which is not repealed. And if you don't use the Old Testament to guide your political decisions, then you're left with the New Testament, which doesn't give very much concrete guidance on.

The matter at all.

And then we're left with the alternative. Well, that's because we shouldn't care about it. But that seems so implausible as to be worthy of our rejecting it.

Okay, let me give you opportunity now.

To ask questions about dispensationalism as a political ethic. A Christian political ethic. Yes.

You mentioned an objection based on their race tendency and dispensationalism. And then you also mentioned the naturalistic fallacy that they had a tendency to build their case on. My question is they often appeal to the Scripture in the Old Testament that whoever blesses Abraham and his descendants shall also be blessed, and whosoever shall curse shall also be cursed. How do we answer that as an appeal to supporting Israel?

Well, we have to remember that in.

Abraham's seed all the nations would be blessed. And so it's in the specific seed, the prophesied seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ, that all nations are blessed. And nations are blessed when they bless Abraham, that is to say, the people of Abraham, specifically the great son of Abraham, Jesus Christ. And then Galatians tells us that we are the son, seed of Christ, the church. Indeed, we are the seed of Abraham. In Christ, those who are of faith are the sons of Abraham and heirs according to promise we read elsewhere. And so in order to be blessed in the eyes of God, people must be reconciled with God's chosen people. And God's chosen people are not the Jews today. And that's why I consider it a racist approach to prophecy and politics when the Jews are upheld and their needs and wants and desires are upheld as being of more importance and to be satisfied even beyond those of the Gentiles, because God's people today are an international body, the church of Jesus Christ. And so I think the most important thing is to say the Jews have been set aside. And then secondly, I'd say of the Old Testament that it was a racist belief book. See, you don't have to use the word racist in a critical way. By racist I simply mean it does set one race apart as being more important and honored and blessed than others. God said in Amos to his people, the alone of all the nations of the earth have I known Israel, you're.

The only nation I've loved.

You're the only nation I've redeemed. You're the only nation I've chosen. That's true. And so the Old Testament was racist. The question is, should the New Testament outlook be construed as racist as well, in that narrow sense, that non critical sense of simply setting apart one people for special favor. And Jesus said that the kingdom of God was being taken away from the Jews, was being taken from their possession and given to a nation producing the fruits that thereof. And so today I don't believe we should favor Israel. And I don't think we should make any decision on the basis that they were once God's favored people or in the future they have some specific place in world history. They ought to be treated on a par with every other nation according to good standards of international justice based on God's law. Did you have a second question?

Sort of a thought had occurred to me and you might care to comment on it.

I don't know how to put this.

In a question, but so often we are accused of exercising dominion in the.

Power of the flesh.

And it seems to me the same accusations we made against the dispensationalists. They want to support Israel politically. But if God has prophesied Israel to have special favor from God and that any nation wants to attack them would be judged by God, why do we, by sending them support militarily and otherwise want to exercise the armor of the flesh? Why don't we stand back and let God supernaturally intervene on their behalf.

Seems to me that the question is whether the criticism of resting on the arm of the flesh doesn't apply to dispensationalists who say that although Israel is favored of God and to be protected by God, the dispensationalist calls upon the United States to protect Israel and to get involved even in warfare, to use military means to protect God's chosen people upon whom the promise of God's protection arrest. Well, there is, I think, an element of truth in the criticism that the dispensationalist tends to want the United States in particular to be a real catalyst in biblical prophecy by helping bring about the events which are predicted in the Bible or as the Bible is interpreted to predict. On the other hand, I suppose a dispensationalist would want to defend himself by saying that God has promised us our daily bread. We pray to him for our daily bread, but that doesn't keep us from.

Going out and working. I mean, we pray for our daily.

Bread and we trust God will provide it.

But then we go out and we.

Do responsibly what needs to be done.

To get to that end?

And God has promised to protect it, Israel, and we should pray for his protection. But then we ought to go about avidly pursuing that protection so that we're responsible agents and that that protection would include the United States intervention.

What do they believe about the United States far in the future? I recall one time they were saying it was going to just become an impotent nation.

The question is, what do the dispensationalists believe about the future of the United States, politically, socially? Will it become an impotent nation? And I believe that you'll find that there's probably a divergence of opinion depending on which dispensationalist you read or hear and at what point point you're listening to them. Whether it's dispensationalism in the 1940s or in the 1970s, for instance, I doubt there's any one uniform or general answer to that question. In the end, all nations are going to become impotent in the face of Israel. And so I suppose somewhere along the line we have to incorporate the downfall of the United States. Yeah, well, remember I mentioned the passive futurism of dispensationalism that tends to say, well, you know, this is a sinking ship, so why polish brass on it? There's nothing we can do about it. Other questions? If not, let's go on to the next option that we've outlined for how to discern God's will. Will in the political order. We've said there are those who try to who say God's will is secret because his will is just his decretive will regarding politics. Secondly, there are those who make an unqualified identification of specifics in secular movements. Thirdly, there are those who want to cautiously perceive God's will in secular movements, but be cautious because we can't identify the our conceptions with God's kingdom.

The fourth view we looked at was.

That our discernment of God's will should be guided by his prophetic will. And that either being the ideological conception, the generalized or thematic conception of Stringfellow and others like him, or the specific chronology conception of the dispensationalist. The last will of thought we look at is the school that says we discern God's will for politics by looking at his prescriptive will. We've looked at his prophetic will. Let's look at his prescriptive will. That is what he lays down by way of prescription, what ought to be done. And now a number of schools have.

Thought, after we've given this general umbrella.

That God has given prescriptions, directions, directives, imperatives, rules, guidance, that God has laid down precepts for political involvement in the Bible.

After we've given that general umbrella, we.

Need to recognize that there are a.

Number of schools of thought that can.

Be differentiated underneath that umbrella, underneath the umbrella of discerning God's cause and Christ's coming kingdom in terms of the revealed.

Will of God for what ought to.

Take place in the Bible. There are some people who understand that when we pray thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, that the will of God spoken of there is not the decretive will of God. God, accomplish what you have foreordained to take place, but rather your will in the sense of what should be taking place. Accomplish that will on earth. Now, where is that will of God to be found for what should take place on earth? The first school of thought to answer that question that we'll look at anyway is the school of radical Christianity. Radical Christianity, which is kind of a broad label to encompass such diverse.

Well.

Not so much diverse, but distinct anyway, bodies as the Anabaptist tradition, the Mennonites, John Yoder, the People's Christian Political Coalition, Sojourner's Magazine, and groups that would fit into this general outlook that I've ostensibly defined here. The main interest.

Among those who might.

Be described as involved in radical Christianity. The main interest of these people is prophetic opposite prophetic opposition to such social ills as war, hunger, oppression, discrimination, and all the rest. Prophetic opposition to such things as war, hunger, oppression, and all the rest. Those who are in the tradition of.

Radical Christianity do not believe that Christians.

Should oppose these things by gaining positions of power and using the means of government to alleviate them. Do not believe that Christians should endorse the state because the state, as a matter of fact, is under the power of demonic forces. The state is one of those demonic forces spoken of by Paul in the New Testament. As we discussed yesterday, the Christological view of the state is pervasively endorsed by those in the Anabaptist tradition, followers of John Yoder, Sojourner's magazine, and so forth. The state is one of those evil, fallen devices and structures in this world that tends to enslave people in and lead them away from true allegiance to Jesus Christ. And we shouldn't be willing to use the power of the state because Jesus specifically said that in this world his people would be different than the Gentiles. The Gentiles rule by force, by power. But in this world, Jesus people would not do that. Yoder says that what we have to do as Christians is accept powerlessness. He speaks of the revolutionary force of accepting powerlessness. If we accept our position in this world as powerless, then we will have the power of Jesus Christ. And what we want to do is not so much seize the reins of.

Government and force government into the mold.

Of what we want to accomplish, but rather we want to create an alternative community, a community that believes in the simple life. It's a sharing community, often communal in its economic outlook. A community that will demonstrate how war and hunger and oppression and discrimination and all these evils may be eliminated. A community that's a model, if you will, of the redeeming love of Jesus Christ. I want to make an initial criticism of this and then after we take our break, come back and discuss at some length the difference between the Anabaptist and Reformed outlook so that you'll understand. A major part of Christian political theorizing today has to do with whether you take a Reformed approach to politics or an Anabaptist approach to politics. But just by way of overall an introductory criticism of this approach of radical.

Christianity, we have to ask the question.

By what means should war, hunger and oppression be countered? By what means should these things be countered? Often enough, there's an impatience among Anabaptist followers with the study of political theorizing. They would be very impatient with what we're doing this week here, droning through these lectures and reading books and being very intellectual and headish about things, rather.

Than being out in the world activistically.

Trying to change things. And my fear is that this leads to two problems. One, the problem of mindless activism, the.

Problem of getting out there and doing.

Things without any good understanding of what you're doing or why you're doing it. And secondly, related to the first, mindless activism often easily falls prey into a Marxist type polemic against the world. What we see in the approach, the movements of the radical Christians, sounds so much like Marxism and so often buys right into a Marxist outlook and evaluation and Marxist answers to problems or alleged answers to problems, that it's quite. It's a matter to worry about. For it seems that some of our Christian brothers and sisters, properly concerned with many of the problems of this world want to answer these problems in a.

Way that the world has dictated, that.

Is there is something of a Babylonian captivity being observed here. These Christians are in fact enslaved to a Marxist outlook rather than to a biblical outlook. Obviously they wouldn't like that evaluation, and I don't mean to say they do so purposely, although some would endorse socialism and maybe even some Marxism as being indicators of the change God wants to bring in society to get to a stateless society and to take care of the economic problems around us. So I'm concerned that the means used by the Anabaptists are not biblical means, that their impatience with the study of political theorizing might lead to mindivism and.

So often readily falls prey to a.

Marxist type of polemic.

Now when we come back, I'd like.

To say some more about the background to radical Christianity as it's found in the debate between the Anabaptists and the Reformed regarding politics.