Horton, Keller, and Chandler on Christianity and Culture

Chandler, Horton, and Keller on the Church in Culture from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

H. T. Justin Taylor

Comments

[dgh]

CVD, you completely misrepresent my position. I have never advocated withdrawal. I have not divided the world between the bystandar who only trusts God or the person who makes culture an idol.

I have long argued for the doctrine of vocation, and have long favored small acts as opposed to grand displays.

If you want to be in the 2k club, fine. I don't see what any of this has to do with taking non-Christians to court to protect the rights of Christians. If the language of strangers, aliens, and exile means anything, it may mean that Christians are called to suffer. Asserting one's rights doesn't seem like something that goes with suffering.

[Alberto]

Well, just so I can get a better grasp of what is being discussed:

1. Should Christians attempt to proceed with legal action if their children are mocked or harassed at a public school due to their religion, either by staff or due to the negligence of the staff? Is it optional to do anything about it?

2. Should Christian parents use legal means or some other lawful means to fight laws which allow children to get an abortion without the knowledge of the parents, including cases where it happens within the family?

3. Are individual Christians wrong to support "homosexual marriage" because they think it is sinful?

4. Should Christians support efforts to have the government take away any type of tax exemptions for religious institutions?

5. Should Christians participate or support the existence of military chaplains?

6. Should a seminary participate in any type of government funded assistance for their school and students? I know one seminary which tells it's students to complete a FAFSA form and says that it's students can get subsidized loans.

I'm just curious, and if you're willing I would appreciate a response. Some questions arise from some things I've heard and which I am thinking about.


One more question; I guess there is nothing wrong with a Christian interacting on a blog on the Lord's Day?

[CVanDyke]

dgh, your post is a case in point. Your first paragraph denies you affirm Christian withdrawal from active cultural engagement, but your last paragraph does just that.

You and Zrim have long advocated a kind of Christian pacifism, which you have never supported with any sound biblical exegesis. You assert that Christians must "suffer" persecution rather than avail themselves of their legal or constitutional rights. I maintain that confuses the two kingdom by denying in practice that Christians are citizens of this earlthly kingdom too, the USA. I simply don't accept that any biblical passage requires Christians to allow a tyranncial bureaucrat to abuse their constitutional liberty to worship and practice their faith when we live in a constitutional democracy.

Even Paul appealed to Caesar. He did not endure the persecution. This was an invocation of his rights as a Roman citizen. If you had no other text than this, it would refute your argument that Christians must not avail themselves of their legal rights when oppressed by the government. The general passages (e.g., endure persecution, turn the other cheek) are controlled by specific passages, and Paul's appeal to Ceasar is four-square on point. Christians are called to endure persecution if there is no way to alleviate it, but surely when we have legal rights we're not called to lay them down. Further, as I've pointed out, often no persecution is intended by a bureaucrat. He's just stupid and foolish. Your argument is patently without biblical support.

If you care to endure government oppression for your own sake, that's your right. But you are laying down a pricinple that you assert applies to all Christians, and you're confusiong many people with a teaching that is out of the mainstream (even Machen took up lobbying of Congress when he testified before a Committee) and, to my knowledge, has no support among any of the WSC faculty.

[dgh]

CVD, once again you are wrong. I do not say that no Christians should ever go to court. But your example of the Bible study is not something that sounds wise to me. I know plenty of Christians who think that any slight of their religious identity is a breach of their civil rights -- they have taken the example of gays, of all things. I can also imagine that neighbors might have all sorts of sensible reasons for not wanting a home owner to use his house a certain way.

Either way, you seem to have no ability to conceive of a scenario where the wise course of action is to not press the matter but let it go, thereby living for another day of incremental engagement. So your assumption about my passive position is just that -- an assumption. I'm engaged but not the way you are. But your position is that if you are not engaged the way you are, then the non-CVDer is a passivist. Talk about black and white.

And how did Paul's appeal to his citizenship work out for him?

But what you aren't considering is Paul's own counsel to Christians in Philippians 2: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others." I'd be very curious how you square a verse like this with rights-defense talk.

And to keep up the theme of suffering, I'm not sure you've paid much attention to Calvin:

"By suffering persecution for righteousness’ sake, I mean not only striving for the defence of the Gospel, but for the defence of righteousness in any way. Whether, therefore, in maintaining the truth of God against the lies of Satan, or defending the good and innocent against the injuries of the bad, we are obliged to incur the offence and hatred of the world, so as to endanger life, fortune, or honour, let us not grieve or decline so far to spend ourselves for God; let us not think ourselves wretched in those things in which he with his own lips has pronounced us blessed (Mt. 5:10). Poverty, indeed considered in itself, is misery; so are exile, contempt, imprisonment, ignominy: in fine, death itself is the last of all calamities. But when the favour of God breathes upon is, there is none of these things which may not turn out to our happiness. Let us then be contented with the testimony of Christ rather than with the false estimate of the flesh, and then, after the example of the Apostles, we will rejoice in being “counted worthy to suffer shame for his name,” (Acts 5:41). For why? If, while conscious of our innocence, we are deprived of our substance by the wickedness of man, we are, no doubt, humanly speaking, reduced to poverty; but in truth our riches in heaven are increased: if driven from our homes we have a more welcome reception into the family of God; if vexed and despised, we are more firmly rooted in Christ; if stigmatised by disgrace and ignominy, we have a higher place in the kingdom of God; and if we are slain, entrance is thereby given us to eternal life. The Lord having set such a price upon us, let us be ashamed to estimate ourselves at less than the shadowy and evanescent allurements of the present life." (Institutes 3.8.7)

I'm not sure which Reformed tradition you are seeking to pass on.

[Alberto]

Well, I guess everyone is enjoying their day off.

"And how did Paul's appeal to his citizenship work out for him? " Well, I guess some view Paul's decision to exercise his rights to be wrong, or at least unwise.

From Zrim:
It also means that when a man mows down my daughter's classroom I don't confuse law and gospel and ask the judge to suspend punishment as way to "turn the other cheek and love our enemies." I ask for the law to be pressed.

So just so I understand you better (be patient with me, I'm slow), should you seek for justice because their is a law? What if there is no law? I ask because Christians in other parts of the world do face these types of issues because they are viewed as subhuman at times and not worthy of special legal protections. Should we here in the U.S. seek to alleviate their persecution? Notice how I say should. Or is it optional, or may even not something we should do?

Or an even better question, what if someone's daughter is mowed down for being Christian, and the authorities are significantly indifferent towards the case; should a Christian not seek any justice?

[CVanDyke]

DGH, you're wildly off the mark and don't read or reason carefully.

First, of course Christians are called to suffer. But suffering will find us out without our having to go looking for it or bringing it on ourselves by allowing the church and our witness to be threatened by government acting unconstitutionally. Wisdom suggests if you can halt government interference with the church by a phone call, a letter, or a lawsuit that avails one's self of constitutional rights, you exercise those rights. The passages you cite are inapposite.

Second, you are inconsistent. You often cite the absence of any precedent for NT authors exercising their legal rights to avoid suffering or persecution as an argument for enjoining passivity upon all believers. When I cite you one, you maintain that the inspiried apostle was unwise and mistaken to appeal to Ceasar. You certainly don't suffer from a lack of confidence in your positions to think you are wiser than the apostle.

Second, I have said many times that the wiser course is often to refrain from litigation and pressing rights. A good lawyer will advise clients to let it go more often than to sue. And in inter-personal relations we are called to forgive and suffer the loss if wisdom dictates that a higher value is to be achieved. But where do you get the exegetical warrant to apply biblical principles designed for interpersonal relations to affairs of state or citizen-government relations. Your call for Christians to forgoe exercising their legal rights and accept government intimidation that threatens gospel proclamation, when a call from a lawyer could prevent it, suggests a deficit of wisdom that is breathtaking to witness. Only in graduate schools and among academics (and I am a law professor so I know from whence I speak) could such staggering foolishness be pedaled as "wisdom."

Third, your equating the exericse of constitutional rights to freedom of religion with "selfishness or vain conceit' demonstrates your naivete and ignorance. By holding government accountable through the courts, Christians serve their neighbor (Christian and non-Christian alike) to preserve liberty, especially for the gospel. That can be sacrificial, not selfish.

[dgh]

cvd, you can't count to four and you're calling me unwise? So why are you trying to make me look so bad?

If you read A Secular Faith you'd actually know that I cite Paul as a case where it is possible for Christians to appeal to their status as citizens. But you seem to think that I insist Christians may not appeal to such status. They may appeal to such. But the overwhelming message of Scripture is a call to suffering and to bear the reproach of Christ's opponents.

So I wonder what you do with Calvin, who after the passage you cite as evidence for Christian citizenship -- btw, Calvin makes no application in his commentary on the basis of Paul for how Christians should conduct themselves as citizens, nada -- does go on to say something very much in line with Paul's counsel in Phi. 2:

"But here riseth a question, whether we ought not to obey a ruler, though he exercise tyranny? For if that man be not to be deprived of honor which executeth his office amiss, Paul offended in robbing the high priest of his honor. Therefore I answer, that there is some difference between civil magistrates and the prelates of the Church. For though the exploiting [administration] of earthly or civil rule be confused or perverse, yet the Lord will have men to continue still in subjection. But when the spiritual government doth degenerate, the consciences of the godly are at liberty, and set free from obeying unjust authority; especially if the wicked and profane enemies of holiness do falsely pretend the title of priesthood to overthrow the doctrine of salvation, and challenge to themselves such authority, as that they will be thereby equal with God. So it is not only lawful for the faithful at this day to shake off from their shoulders the Pope’s yoke, but they must do it of necessity, seeing they cannot obey his laws unless they forsake God."

Calvin's quote suggests that your position of activism is confused or perverse. Or maybe there is another reason for trying to make me look extreme.

Say what law school do you teach at? Since you are commenting anonymously, it is hard to tell.

[Zrim]

Alberto, I don’t think that relieving the persecution of fellow believers is optional. But what I do think is questionable is how when “how” is understood in terms of legalities. I am not clear on how seeking to secure rights and legal protections of Christians isn’t a form of wielding a physical sword against a physical sword. Maybe we send comforts to the families of those being persecuted instead of hiring attorneys? But that said, and at the risk of sounding Pollyanna, what about the apostolic example of finding joy in persecution, of being counted worthy enough to suffer? Should we seek to eliminate that which God has deemed a form of spiritual affirmation? This isn’t to be blithe about persecution, but I do think these are worthwhile considerations.

[Chris Sherman]

Great arguments. I would love to see a formal debate on this. Z- good point on "how". Reminds me that "the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds."

Good point on persecution as well. By fighting against it, how do we know we are not fighting against the Lord's discipline? Hebrews 12...


I'll go with salt being both a preservative and a flavor enhancer.